Monotheist in the service of Atheism (I)
Atheists can be idiots too
jesusneverexisted.com is one of whose things that brings bad name to the atheists. An argument, that „atheism is also a religion”, despite being stupid in general, is valid on the cases like Kenneth Humphreys, author of jesusneverexisted.com.
Mister Humphreys is a typical fanatic, same as Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson. Difference is that Humphreys do not give that much free will for his fantasies. He rather employs rule, that it is not the facts what matters, but how they are presented and which of them are presented.
For example:
Imagine women confined to domestic slavery, imagine unbelievers tortured to death[...]Stop imagining. You are thinking of Christian Europe. It’s not a dream. It’s history.
While statement has some truth in itself and in context of European history, context of this article however is comparison of Medieval Europe with Roman Empire, strongly implying that the fallowing was a paragon of gender equality and human rights, while later period consisted of nothing more that heretic burning and domestic abuse.
Just one scroll down, false implications turns in to plain nonsenses, were he step-by-step compares Roman and Medieval period. While, again, it is some factual truth in here, but not a causation, as Kenneth Humphreys implies: Christianity did not caused disintegration of Empire and collapse of urban societies. Romans did that quite good themselves. There is a numerous complex of interlinked reasons, but general outline could be described like that: first of all principate was not a real empire. While Rome grow from city-state to superpower, governing apparatus haven’t change much from Punic wars. Roman conquest had very little impact on the daily life of the citizen of Athens or Thebes or on how this cities were run day-to-day basis. Each province had its own constitution (using modern term) drafted specifically to that province. History of Herod’s dynasty show quite well how flexible Romans were. While such flexibility gives a certain plus but in the end Empire remained a city-state with number of dependencies. And- in addition – were was no rules of the succession to the crown- every general was a suitable candidate, provided that he will gain support of his troops. Troops- that is legions- was only thing that held this patchwork of territories in one piece and as long as legions provided stability and safety, economy boomed. As long as economy boomed, were was money to pay soldiers and they were more or less content. But in the second century inflation began to roll in and all hell broke loose.
That is very short and incomprehensible description of what happen to Roman Empire, but point is- Christianity have not created economical (and also social, political etc.) crisis- that all began before Christians come to prominence, with roots of the Third Century Crisis going as far back as the Late Republic.
All this site full of that, but this post is not about Kenneth Humphreys and his understanding of atheism as hatemongering against one specific religion.
Site contains one masterpiece that come to my attention. This masterpiece.
Must admit, I didn’t see that coming. Article itself not surprising- it is what one expects in places likes this. Surprising thing here is the author.
Granted, Humphreys likely know nothing about Aurimas Guoga and is unaware his worldviews- some sort of Orthodox Judaism (or at least pastiche of it, he uses for his New Age-like spirituality dealing business). While not hesitating to quote Thomas of Aquin while proving existence of God in his radio program (well, torturing listeners in attempt to prove would be more precise wording), Guoga is seemingly not very fond of Christianity. That is also something I can understand. Surprising is the fact, that such ardent monotheist found his way in to such zealously atheistic site as this one.
Guoga simply hates Christians more than he loves God, I guess.
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