THE UNSHAKABLE FAITH OF ATHEISM

Atheist Tim O’Neill, former state president of the Australian Skeptics and medievalist, complains that:

·       Many New Atheists don’t seem capable of putting their emotions aside and looking at the evidence…

·       like perpetuating the myth that the medieval Church taught that the earth was flat, to full blown conglomerations of elaborate fringe theory, like the cluster of fervid and contrived pseudo history that is the Jesus Myth hypothesis.  But the list of historical ideas the New Atheists and their online acolytes get wildly wrong is long.  Amongst other things, many of them believe:

·        That Christianity caused the “Dark Ages” by systematically destroying almost all ancient Greco-Roman learning,

·        That Christians burned down the Great Library of Alexandria and that Hypatia of Alexandria was murdered because of a Christian hatred of science

·        That Constantine was a crypto-pagan who adopted Christianity as a cynical political ploy (and personally created the Bible [see also here – VJT])

·        That scientists were oppressed during the Middle Ages and science stagnated completely until “the Renaissance”

·        That “the Inquisition” was a kind of Europe-wide medieval Gestapo and that the medieval Church was an all-powerful totalitarian theocracy

·        That Giordano Bruno was a wise and brave astronomer and cosmologist who was burned at the stake because the Church hated science

·        That the Galileo Affair was a straightforward case of religion ignoring evidence and trying to suppress scientific advancement

·        That Pope Pius XII was a friend and ally of the Nazis [article upvoted by O’Neill – VJT] who turned a blind eye to the Holocaust and helped Nazis escape justice

It would be nice if I didn’t have to continually prove to the atheist hoards that Hitler wasn’t a Christian. However, this belief works for them, and that seems to be what matters.