I really enjoyed watching the video below of a British atheist named Pat Condell. Supposedly addressed to "angry Christians," the video is actually more illuminating about atheists. Condell is ostensibly chastizing Christians for burning with inward rage and for secretly wanting people to burn in hell. Actually, I don't know a single Christian who fits this description, although perhaps there are some.
What is obvious for all to see is what a smug, self-satisfied character Condell is. On his website he boasts, "Hi, I'm Pat Condell. I don't respect your beliefs and I don't care if you're offended." Religion has its uses, he concedes. "I turn to it whenever I want my intelligence insulted." Ordinarily I wouldn't pay much attention to this guy, but in a strange way I think his attitude mirrors that of the big-name atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. If the televangelists are guilty of producing some simple-minded, self-righteous Christians, then the atheist authors are guilty of producing self-congratulatory buffoons like Condell.
Only Condell doesn't know he is a buffoon. He regards himself as super-sophisticated, a man of knowledge. Yet consider his argument in the video that Christ probably didn't exist. Condell says Christ's historicity is based on "hearsay." But all historical evidence is "hearsay," including the evidence for the existence of Voltaire and George Washington. In reality there is more evidence for Christ's existence than there is for the existence of most of the figures of the ancient world. Do you believe that Socrates existed? Alexander the Great? Julius Caesar? Think about this: we only know about Socrates because of Plato and Xenophon, and there are only a couple of sources for Alexander and Caesar. The documentary evidence for these men is limited to very few manuscripts which are sometimes dated centuries later. Yet no historian doubts that these men existed.
By contrast, Christ's existence is attested not only by the writers of the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, who wrote in the first hundred years after Christ's death, but also because of Jewish, Greek and Roman sources, such as Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny, and Tacitus. There are innumerable early manuscripts of the gospels and they have been assiduously compared to establish their authenticity. The early church and its martyrs who risked death rather than renounce Christ all suggest that there was a man behind it all, a man who was crucified and who was believed by his disciples to have risen. Whatever you think of the miracles, no serious historian questions the historicity of Christ.
Next month my book What's So Great About Christianity hits the shelves, and atheists are going to find that they no longer have the public field to themselves. In fact, I'm scheduled to debate Christopher Hitchens in New York city October 22. So far Hitchens has been foraging around around the country beating up pastors who are unaccustomed to dealing with spear-chuckers like him. Mine is a book that will empower believers and challenge unbelievers. It meets skepticism and atheism on its own intellectual ground, which is the ground of reason and evidence. Michael Shermer, editor of "Skeptic" magazine, says of my book, "It takes the debate to a new level. Read it." And here is my old debating rival Stanley Fish, a noted scholar who hardly shares either my theology or my politics: "The great merit of this book is that it concedes nothing. Rather than engaging in the usual defensive ploys, D'Souza meets every anti-God argument head on and defeats it on its own terms. Infinitely more sophisticated than the rants produced by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, What's So Great About Christianity leaves those atheist books in the dust." If you are ready for the challenge, preorder the book here.
Reader Comments ( Page 62 of 62)
916. To add to the belief that there was a real Christ, this scholar tells us that the disciples were willing to lose their lives for their cause—“the early church and its martyrs risked death rather than renounce Christ”—so Christ must have existed, and so “no serious historian questions the historicity of Christ”. It seems the only serious historians are Christians, and the Christians perpetuate the myths about the martyrdom of the disciples, none of which any historian, understood to be a serious professional and not a Christian amateur who prefers to believe unfounded tales, could or does accept.
Moreover, people willing to lose their lives for their cause, once, based on Christian mythology, were considered noble, but now we can see there is nothing noble in it. Islamic suicide bombers no doubt seem noble to Moslem terrorists, but not to anyone else. The Romans viewed Christians in the same way as Bush views members of Al Queda, and Christ as Americans regard Osama bin Laden. They were terrorists, and Christ was their leader. Yes, we know the Christian plea that it was all a mistake, but Romans did not think so, and they had to deal with it at the time. How ironic it would be if in 300 years time the USA turned to worshipping Osama bin Laden, the Moslem Christ. The trouble is that Bush and his fundamentalist supporters know no history, and haven’t the imagination to see what they might be doing.
AskWhy Books at 2:46PM on Nov 27th 2007
917. AskWhy at 916 said, "Moreover, people willing to lose their lives for their cause, once, based on Christian mythology, were considered noble, but now we can see there is nothing noble in it. Islamic suicide bombers no doubt seem noble to Moslem terrorists, but not to anyone else."
First in passing, does it not seem incongruous to you to assume that belief in Christ was "mythology" during those years of Roman oppression, so close in time to the life of Christ? Would large numbers today be fooled, at the cost of their own lives into believing a fictitious and grandiose tale that someone led a prominent existence merely a few decades ago?
Then you continue on to assert: "The Romans viewed Christians in the same way as Bush views members of Al Queda, and Christ as Americans regard Osama bin Laden." Interesting. I thought that Al Queda and Bin Laden were viewed by the Bush and the Americans as hateful, murderous entities with the blood of innocent thousands on their hands. AskWhy, what murderous acts of terrorism and atrocities do you think the Romans held in their memories when they crufified Christians and used them as living cat-food? Remembering that it was not the Romans who were the driving force behind Jesus' crucifixion (Pilate washed his hands of the affair remember), do you think they were that worried that a few misfits posed a serious threat to national security? Nope. It was more that the emperors' ego couldn't tolerate those who wouldn't recognise the emperor as God.
"They were terrorists," you said, "and Christ was their leader." Mm, the same Christ who taught that if a Roman soldier made you carry his load for a mile you should carry it two?" Wow, that's terrorism for you.
"Yes, we know the Christian plea that it was all a mistake," Oh, where did you hear that one WhyAsk?
What I really want to know is how you, personally, can so confuse the acts of suicide bombers, bent on mass murder and mysery with the deaths of christian martyrs (those who "risked death" - note the word "risked") who sought neither their own death nor that of their audience or opponents? They counted the cost and refused to recant or compromise their faith in the face of death, continuing to preach the message they believed brought the benefit of eternal life to their hearers. Where, AskWhy, did the quality of nobility slip away from these martyrs, concerned more with the eternal well-being of their hearers than their own lives?
Please stay with me a little longer: I want to repeat an example I posted yesterday in another blog where it was claimed that peace and religious doctrine cannot co-exist, the premise being that Christians don't care about non-christians because they are without a future (yep - a cuppla very big steps there!). The example:
QUOTING myself: "For example, did you ever hear of Jim Elliot? Back in the 1950’s, Jim and a few christian friends mounted a protracted mission to the Auca indians of Equador, befriending them. As a result of the lies, fear and violence that threatened to drive that tribe to extinction, they were brutally murdered by the Aucas. They knew the dangers from the start, but counted the possible cost and decided the Aucas were worth risking their lives for. Within a few weeks of their slaughter, the wives returned and continued the mission. Today, the Aucas, a totally changed people released from the fear and violence that both governed and threatened their very existence THEMSELVES TESTIFY that the forgiveness shown by those missionary wives and the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they brought has saved the tribe from extinction. In this life."
UNQUOTE
I could add numerous accounts of martyrdom virtually up-to-the-minute. Accounts where the only crime is preaching Christ. Accounts of where the martyrs have had no say over their own demise and still others where denying their testimony could have saved them. The secular press very rarely reports these events.
These, AskWhy, are the martyrs, and potential martyrs you are comparing to the suicide bombers of Al Queda. Are you still happy with the comparison? Do you still maintain "but now we can see there is nothing noble in it"?
Notborn Yesterday at 9:18PM on Dec 6th 2007