The Christian Delusion ed. by John W. Loftus

The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John W. Loftus. Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, 2010. eBook, 453 pps.


     The Christian Delusion is a collection of essays spanning neuroscience, culture, astronomy, morality, historical research, history of the Holocaust, scientific philosophies, and more. Of the listed authors, I've read stuff by Dan Barker, Valerie Tarico, John W. Loftus, Edward T. Babinski, Paul Tobin, and Hector Avalos. I didn't recognize the other authors but it seems like they are well-established in their fields. The authors are all scholars and experts thus The Christian Delusion is not an easy read. Of all of the essays, the one that I got the most value out of was Chapter 15: Christianity Was Not Responsible for Modern Science by Richard Carrier. Richard Carrier made some excellent points in respect to the history of the persecution of scientists throughout the ages and how scientific progress was often held back by Christian leadership.

     Chapter 4: The Outsider Test for Faith Revisited by John W. Loftus peaked my interest enough to read the book by Loftus. A review of that book is in the offing. Some of the other ideas were familiar to me. I've heard before the expression "Yahweh is a moral monster." I also know that Adolph Hitler was a faithful Roman Catholic and that the "solution to the Jewish problem" that he established and carried out was previously expressed in the writing of none other than Martin Luther. Luther learned this prejudice at the knees of Mother Church which did not treat Jews kindly throughout the ages. [excerpts from his writing may be found at: 
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html ]. That belief in the tenets of any religion is not required to live a moral life seems to me to be a given. I understand morality and societal laws both as being generated from groups of humans bound together by their culture rather than from divine edict. I am also familiar with the problems involved in a literal interpretation of the Bible and some of the doctrines therein. Even so, The Christian Delusion got me thinking and that in itself is good.

sapphoq reviews says: Although the blurbs about The Christian Delusion indicate that this book may find its way into the hands of Christians who wish to study the arguments of atheists in order to understand us better, I cannot imagine that too many Christians will choose to read this book. The title itself is probably off-putting to the majority of people of faith. As an atheist, I liked this book although I found that parts of it required re-reading and further study. For atheists, highly recommended.

Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them), Bart D. Ehrman. New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2009. ebook, 211 pps.

http://ehrmanblog.org/  [n.b.: 24.95 a year to read and comment].


     It was with some eagerness that I finished Misquoting Jesus and began Jesus, Interrupted. This book, published in 2009, describes specific doctrinal disagreements and viewpoints of Jesus in the New Testament present in the Gospels. Jesus, Interrupted also speaks to the issue of forgeries present in the present-day Canon. I understand that this is a dicey subject for those who sincerely believe that their god directly inspired the authors of the New Testament books but I don't know how to lessen the potential impact of the material. Ehrman gives us what acclaimed biblical scholars have found out.

     The four gospels were not actually written by eyewitnesses/ the first four apostles. They were written after the death of Jesus Christ, years afterwards. Early Christians were common folk who did not speak Greek, the language of the learned and of scholars. [The New Testament books as they have come down to us are all written in Greek]. The story of Nicodemus and being born again is actually a Greek double entendre which does not work in Aramaic [or in English]. What Jesus was reportedly saying to Nicodemus [and the story itself is in doubt because of the Greek literary structure] was that one has to be physically born the first time plus born FROM ABOVE [and not "born again"].

     The development of what books to include in the Canon took many years and did not happen overnight as I'd been led to believe. There is a Third Corinthians [not written by Paul, as it turns out] and an Apocalypse of Peter [which almost made it in instead of Revelations]. And it turns out that the authorship of II Peter is in doubt. Back in the days of antiquity, it happened that folks authored stuff under the name of the more prominent so that their ideas would receive some exposure which would otherwise had been denied them.

     Bart D. Ehrman devotes the last bit of Jesus, Interrupted to explaining how it is that a Christian can know these things and still believe. Although Ehrman is an agnostic, he does not argue that Christians should de-convert.

sapphoq reviews says: I believe that Jesus, Interrupted should be read after Misquoting Jesus. The latter book delves into considerable detail regarding the controversies that early Christians had with each other. It is also helpful to have a New Testament handy when reading this book. Highly recommended to all thinking adults with an interest in the New Testament and Jesus Christ.