Tom Holland s approach is absolutely brilliant. Firstly he brings back the utter importance of the Christian thinking to the table which has been belittled by the intellectuals for decades if not centuries. Secondly his line of argumentation is stunning and kind of lucid and leaves the Anti-Christian intellectuals a bit like clowns not really knowing anymore what to say.
Nothing to say? All the stories from Holland about Christianity are no proof at all that this religion is the only truth and that the god who is pictured in the Bible is really existing. He only describes what Christianity has done: producing a human view about humanity. Christianity brought us humanity, because Jesus was a humanist, that is also a conclusion you can make. But the history of Christianity is also full of violence, nobody can deny this.
As someone in their late fifties, those moments of revelation one gets in life get fewer and fewer. New ideas that alter the way you see the world are hard to come by because you've experienced so many. Tom's explanation of how... "unnatural" is the best word I can think of, Western thought is to other cultures and indeed all of human history. What seems self evident was evident to no one for tens of thousands of years. It finally allows a westerner to wrap their head around conflicts in the world that seemingly don't make sense. "They don't think like we do." is often said but rarely comprehended. We need to integrate this fact of life into our thoughts and plans. Even if we will deal with these other cultures as Christians we cannot expect or plan on them doing the same. To do so can be suicidal.
I'm glad Eric Metaxas asked Tom Holland about the different UK and US editions of the book. I've always wanted to know the story behind that. I'm aware that it's not uncommon for US and UK books to have different covers but in Tom's book, any allusion to Christianity was completely obscured in the UK subtitle.
“Archaeologists can generally tell a pre- and post-Christian society’s drainage system, because the pre-Christian sewers are littered with little baby bones.” daaaang. wow.
"God laid himself down in a manger and cried out for milk." That should be enough to bring the whole world to its knees. Tom, I think you were sent too. God bless you and keep you.❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🇨🇦
Why? With all due respect and seriousness, it sounds a bit insulting to actual humans who do suffer. Not to confuse Gd with Superman, but it's kind of like an issue of Superman comics in which the titular hero pretends to be Clark Kent and let's the bullies seemingly beat him up. Ditto for crucifixion.
@marchess286 The message is if you want to find God, look down, not up. Your "gotcha" argument is typical, like "Look! This painting depicts Eve as the first woman, but she has a navel."
@@Frederer59 - how am I offering a "gotcha argument"? It seems to me there is a real difference between suffering of an actual human during torture (such as crucifixion) and of God, who is of course omnipotent. Also, what do you mean by "look down" rather than "up"? It sounds to me like you are anthropomorphizing God. I'm sincerely interested and would appreciate your response and discussion.
@@marchess286 the scriptures tell us that when the incarnation occurred, god left his privileges, so to speak, his omnipotence, omniscience, behind, and actually became one of us for a season, 33 years. That explains the "panic attack" he experienced in the garden of gethsemane Matthew 26:36-56. He knew it was going to be horrific, and the very human part of him prayed for another way to accomplish his mission. Horrific physically, because his very human body had all the nerves that we have, and psychologically, and spiritually, because he knew he would be bearing our sin; all the destruction, cruelty, perversion, selfishness, lies, etc of everyone who ever lived ,and that that would separate him from his father for an agonizing "moment" in time. He did all of this out of love, and that idea plus the his spiritual help, is what fueled the revolution that began to change this world from dog eat dog, every man for himself, to love they neighbor as yourself.
Thank you for struggling with these issues, particularly on “secularism” and also the final (unresolved) issue which alluded to varieties and ‘conflicts’ of supported views within western Christianity. On secularism, I personally don’t really see or treat the world as essentially other than purposefully within the reign of Christ; ie, I don’t feel the boundaries of churches or of “the church” except to feel a kind of guilt for not “joining up” with one or other of them. I feel only intellectual cultural differences between the churches and everyone else. I know of God as Father not in a church but of all.
The most thought provoking and profuond answer I've heard for the "why?" question in our moral choices, was given by the Jewish scholar, Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz in the second half of the last century, which said that one's moral choices are expression of one's free will to accept and reject certain values and follow them during one's life. Dr. Leibowitz, did not deny the influence of one's socialization process by his family and greater community, but he staunchly denied that the influences of these circumstances fully determine one's free will. BTW, Dr. Leibowitz defined 'free will' by the ability of one to choose difrently than one's actual previous choices. His primary example for one's free will to overcome one's socialization process is the not uncommon phenomena of accepting Jewish Orthodox religious values and way of life by many people who were raised and lived in secular communities and vice versa. Because the principal motivator of one's moral choices is one's free will, Dr. Leibiwitz argued that all our moral choices are equally irrational, despite our endless effort to rationize them in our own minds.
Out moral choices may at times appear irrational, however, they may motivated by ideas other than rationality. Some choices have a subconscious psychological underpinning and others have a spiritual reason, connected to karma and the life lessons we need to learn.
@@sabinemeyer3899 , Yes, there are endless way we can rationalize or moral decisions. However, we can't make them objective in the way we think about physical objects or events, becuse ultimately, they depend on our subjective experiances, upbringing, psychology, values and objectives.
The true Biblical answer to the last question is that we are made for each other to lift up the least is the true essence of Christ's life and teaching .He said "if you have done least of these you have done it for me".
I’m not so sure that they’re wearing at the cross is a sign that people have forgotten what it stands for I believe it can be said that the war of the cross is just the opposite where one who wears it is doing so out of the humble appreciation for what Jesus Suffered for
An interesting discussion to see, but sometimes the host did pay too much attention to the discussion at the expense of the audiences, not necessarily a good conversation to follow online.
Very stimulating and insightful. Thank you. Great that Holland starts his book at the cross. There is talk and there is walk. There is talk of understanding that the cross became an emblem of the triumph of the weak over the strong, and then there is the embodiment of this, or at least the visible identification with the experience of the weak, being crucified on a cross. A gentle observation: Both interviewer and interviewee seem to lean in the direction of having feeling for those who are weak, but the fact that this conversation took place between two well-dressed, polished, privileged (by their education and by their subsequent incomes) middle-class gentleman, sitting in the Randolph Hotel in a well-to-do city, Oxford, does communicate that both interviewer and interviewee do seem to have (still) more identification with the earthly power of Pilate than with persons who are actively experiencing crucifixion on a cross.
But you don't know their private lives. Just because they're sitting in a hotel doesn't mean they never bear a cross. If you met me you would think my life is golden. Cheap nyc apartment educated used to be good looking and intelligent. But you can't see lyme that wrecked my health. And I worked until June and didn't tell my coworkers except 1 nor students about living 6 years with cancer.
I would think several parts of Hollands brilliant book would make Eric in particular rather uncomfortable! The humility and compassion of early Christians and the church’s stepping into complex complicated issues which has divided us horribly, slavery, feminism, homosexuality. Is it about holding the line or expansion? Makes for uncomfortable questions. To. Is tight when he asserts that we are living through a Reformation of Christian thought and its role.
The early church was extremely "feminist" for its time. In fact women were so prominent that Paul attempts to slap them down in 1st Corinthians. The Church was always in favor of slavery until the 19th Century, so it's not an issue which historically divided the Church. Openly gay people have historically been excluded from all walks of life, so the Church is just mirroring a societal change. However without closeted gay men, the Church would lose the most amazing parts of its Italian Renaissance religious art.
@@ji8044 Paul's letters preceded the gospels and were the great impetus behind the raising of women, children, the poor and slaves. To say he slapped down women is to radically misunderstand both history and the Bible. The real problem lies in the fact that you don't believe that the Holy Spirit is the inspiration behind all Scripture. If you can dismiss Him, you can dismiss Paul along with all the bits you don't like.
@sarawoods1450 - there is no category of "gay" or "straight" until modern, decadent identity politics. Sex of whatever variety outside of marriage is sinful under Christianity. There is no valid scientific test for homosexuality or heterosexuality. Human sexuality is polymorphous and, depending on inputs, can be attracted to a variety of people and even animals or objects.
LOL', the elephant in the room is the fact that Mars has 1/3 the gravity of Earth. We have evolved over millions of years for Earth''s gravity. God gave us this amazing planet lets just be grateful and amazed by that.
Wrong. We did not evolve, we were created, just like all things, and every living thing. We know now that everything operates by information. The old idea that more complex organisms came from simple organisms, has proven to be impossible. Information does not self originate or self assemble. There has to be source of information,. All information has to be spoken into existence by an intelligent mind. What exists but doesn't fit with the "Theory of evolution" Fossil record: Headline: David Gelernter, a Yale a professor of computer science, Takes On Darwinism: [In the famous “Cambrian explosion” of around half a billion years ago, a striking variety of new organisms-including the first-ever animals-pop up suddenly in the fossil record over a mere 70-odd million years. Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching, spreading tree of life. Those brave new Cambrian creatures must therefore have had Precambrian predecessors, similar but not quite as fancy and sophisticated. But those predecessors of the Cambrian creatures are missing. Darwin himself was disturbed by their absence from the fossil record. He believed they would turn up eventually. Some of his contemporaries (such as the eminent Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz) held that the fossil record was clear enough already, and showed that Darwin’s theory was wrong. Perhaps only a few sites had been searched for fossils, but they had been searched straight down.] Natural selection does not lead to speciation. When we talk about evolutionary inheritance, what we are actually referring to: is the transfer of genetic sequences from one generation to the next. Article "The secret on how life on Earth began" BBC, dated 31 Oct 2016. [ .. The key point is that the double helix can be "unzipped". This exposes the genetic code - made up of sequences of the genetic bases A, T, C and G - that is normally locked away inside the DNA ladder’s "rungs". It turned out that DNA only has one job. Your DNA tells your cells how to make proteins: molecules that perform a host of essential tasks. Each protein is essentially a long chain of ( left handed) amino acids, strung together in a specific order. The sequence of the amino acids determines the three-dimensional shape of the protein, and thus what it does. That information is encoded in the sequence of the DNA's bases. ...] The Homochirality Paradox Headline: Must the Molecules of Life Always be Left-Handed or Right-Handed? Smithsonian, 28 July 2016 [On Earth, the amino acids characteristic of life are all “left-handed” in shape, ( by chance?) and cannot be exchanged for their right-handed doppelgänger. Meanwhile, all sugars ( DNA) characteristic of life on Earth are “right-handed.” The opposite hands for both amino acids and sugars exist in the universe, but they just aren’t utilized by any known biological life form. In other words, both sugars and amino acids on Earth are homochiral: one-handed. ..] Book: The Cell The Shape and Structure of Proteins {Since each of the 20 amino acids is chemically distinct and each can, in principle, occur at any position in a protein chain, there are 20 × 20 × 20 × 20 = 160,000 different possible polypeptide chains four amino acids long, or 20n different possible polypeptide chains n amino acids long... ] A body Plan, is required. Homeotic genes, Khan Academy [Genetic patterns laid out in the egg-before the embryo is even an embryo-lay the groundwork for the body plan. During development, the body is first roughed out very generally, then, the structure is gradually refined, first into broad sections, then smaller sections, then finally into actual body segments. This process involves different classes of genes with increasingly narrow and specific patterns of expression. ] Book: The Structure of Consciousness, Michael Polanyi [Whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if its order is not due to the forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words is on a printed page The higher level cannot be derived automatically from the lower level-higher principles are always additional, not intrinsic, to lower principles. There may be several lower principles harnessed by a higher principle-and there may be more than one higher principle as we go from level to level in the hierarchy of life (e.g., reason and free choice in the boundary condition of mind). Smash up a machine, utter words at random, or make chess moves without a purpose and the corresponding higher principle--that which constitutes the machine, that which makes words into sentences, and that which makes moves of chess into a game--will all vanish and the comprehensive entity which they controlled will cease to exist. ] How to cause people to break with Christianity. In his Book: Twilight of the Idols- Nietzche explains. [... When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what's evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God.]
@paulshewan6058 it's the same relationship you have with your body, which 'evolves' but only after its creation, which happened because a mind deemed it so
Life long monogamy wasn’t created by the Christian church. Indians and Chinese had practiced this long before any European civilisations. Including any Abrahamic religions.
@ Maybe he Eurocentric like most historians. It’s easily debunked just look at Praveen Mohen’s vids India’s wedding ceremony is far older than the European counterparts.
He was being tongue in cheek. What made it sound odd was the deadpan way in which he said it. And that's how Tom Holland took it because he said they could discuss the demonology of the Nazis later.
There really is no "pre-Christian" -- The Old Testament is essentially Old Testament Christianity and the New is New Testament Christianity. Christ existed in the Trinity from the beginning and outside time. The "angel of the Lord" that people saw in the Old Testament was the Risen Lord. The story is bigger than we want to see.
@@ji8044 How weak is your Christology? Lord, have mercy. You must not be a Christian, to not understand this. Did Moses write the Law or did God? What do you imagine is the meaning of the term Logos?
@@HiJackShepherd Logos is a term of Greek philosophy which would have been completely unknown to the authors of the Torah. That's why it doesn't appear in the Bible until 1,000 years later with John's Gospel.
"Two and a half years ago, Episcopal Bishop of New York Andrew M.L. Dietsche reminded a group of clergy of the ugly history of their diocese. Not only was slavery deeply embedded in the life and economy of colonial New York, but Episcopal churches across the state often participated in it. Church founders, churchgoers and even churches themselves had enslaved people. The abolitionist Sojourner Truth had once been enslaved by a church in the diocese. “The Diocese of New York played a significant, and genuinely evil, part in American slavery,” Dietsche said during his November 2019 address. “We must make, where we can, repair.”
The transformation of the world was not done by the Pope and the Protestants it was done by those who you ignore the Orthodox who have not changed the faith from the apostles to this day. You should reconsider your priorities of study. To understand humanity you have to have an anthropology based on christology which is solid and clear only in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Where in history did the terminology born again begin to be used? Why was it not used in the centuries before? There is a mind shift in orientation that is humanistic and novel and novelties that which we should be avoiding it's not more enlightened It's more diluted concepts.
ALL THE WORLD, not just the West. The West already had traditions going all the way back to the steppes of Eurasia that tended toward justice and freedom. Zoroastrianism grew out of the same foundations. On the other hand, many parts of the world didn't have that until the ethos of Christianity arrived.
For a Historian he is a bit shortsighted in terms of...in my humble view.. of underestimating certain major nuances in Chrsitisnity. There are several statements in New Testament by Jesus that seen to be in conflict and many verses the modern left either misquotes/ fails to interpret correctly or misunderstands who the passage is written for ...and other nuances that affect meaning. 1. BORDERS Helping the Poor /THE GOOD SAMARITAN / Jesus said in John 10:40 ? Whoever does not go through the Door rather climbs over the fence that person is a "THIEF & A ROBBER" . He was saying this in relation that belief in Him was only way to Heaven. However there are orher general applications that can ve made. If Heaven has immigration rules is it wrong for Earthly governments to want people to come into tgere country the "prooper way" If you come to my house to my front door and knock and I know who you are why you are there and if you seem respectful and willing to keep my "house rules" you will be welcomed in. However if you show up in the middle of the night and try to crawl in through the bedroom window while my wife and children are asleep.. there will be a problem. You will get the treatment due to a thief and robber and not be welcomed into my home. This is not personal or "racist" . This is REALITY. The GOOD SAMARITAN: REGARDING "HELPING THE POOR" This was never something the New Testament gave as a role for any GOVERNMENT to perform...to tax its citizens to help the poor. This is something the GOOD SAMARITAN ...DID ON HIS OWN. He did not go to Roman government to raise money for the injured man. Any government official who uses the poor as excise to raise taxes is employing the oldest shell game alive playing on people's sympathies knowing full well very little will actually make it to the poor. Most of it will end up in pockets of bureaucrats eventually. The word liberal used to mean "generous". ...WITH YOUR OWN MONEY. The modern LIBERAL is "generous" with the TAX PAYERS money. I think we can all agree It's always much easier to be "generous" with OTHER PEOPLES MONEY! The the modern day "liberal" politician. The Christian Church has responsibility to help the poor not the government and the churches FIRST responsibility is to the poor in their congregations as Paul collected help for Church in Jerusalem that was under persecution and endiring poverty for their belief in Christ. . The Christian INDIVIDUAL is also encouraged to reach out to the poor. Poor people who are able bodied and making efforts to help and work. The Christian poor who do not make effort are to be encouraged to do so or be rebuked and not eat . Other Christian poor who are not able bodied are to be in care of Church. Individual Christians are to work for the purpose of giving funds to church as a sacrifice and they are also to work and sacrifice to provide for the needs of their own family and those in need who they individually are LED BY SPIRIT to minister to without compulsion from anyone . This giving and helping poor can go beyond fellow Christians to people Christians and non Christians who find themselves in bad situations through circumstances beyond their control. This will also apply to those who have made poor choices within their control and are paying consequences for those bad decisions... we are to show mercy and help these as well...those who have been imprisoned rightfully or wrongfully we are to show mercy to them both. This is to be done as unto the Lord. It is an opportunity for modern day individual Christians to minister to the Lord Himself in showing mercy to poor and needy. There are some people in situations either of their own making A Christian is to have a heart for those in need. We do not have to agree with their lifestyle but we can minister heart of gospel while assisting them. The idea that Richard Dawkins has any legitimacy in spreading Christian culture is ludicrous to any degree. Maybe on this one I didn't get the nuance I did like the part where he talked about Christianity in Great Britain (specifically Protestant Christianity eventually against all odds and against formiddable opposition of Catholic church governments if Europe-) a Christianity arising out of Great Britain that essentially si gle handedly abolished slavery. .
Tom I like you but please don't get carried away, God has always a two party covenant with mankind, faith to faith as Romans 1:17 as all not of faith is sin, grace through faith.
11:09 interesting. I will certainly be highlighting this point next time someone drags out the old "what about the horrible crusades and the awful inquisition?"
It's an idiotic assertion, as if no other culture in the world had morality. Remember, the first thing the Crusaders did upon taking Jerusalem was kill all the Jews.
No Tom Christianity should be New Judaism, the Jews were only asked to repent for the reduction of sins, no more sin sacrifices just one atonement into the church.
@MarkJohnson-dr4ws That is a ridiculous statement. Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Austria did not break away from the Roman and Romanised world in the way you would like to imagine. Yes, so much was changed by Christianity. But it's asinine to suggest that there are sharp ruptures in the history of civilisations. That's a misreading of the past. Real historians don't talk like that. Tom Holland does so because he wants to make a star of himself with his amazing books. (His books are amazing by the way.) I'm not knocking him down. But he is not the most serious historian. Sorry, but the West comes from all that it inherited. Same goes for China/East Asia. Same goes for India. Europe is no different.
@@paulthomas281 try reading Saint Augustines City of God before shaking your limp liberal fist again. It's one of the major templates of the project of Christendom which draws very clear distinction between the Church and what preceded it.
The west is here defined as those countries interested in the pre Christian Roman empire. I agree but note that the Muslim world was profoundly interested in this world maybe more so than the Christian world at the time and hence the immense resources that were put into not only translating but comprehending and codifying that earlier culture’s thought and politics. The requirement of the earlier western universities including Oxford and Cambridge was to have mastered Arabic. In this regard then most of the Muslim world is by this definition “western “ which I agree with
So, you're giving major credit to Mohammed@ns for basically stealing a massive portion of the literature of the West and THEN translating a portion of that. A bold strategy!
Holland's view of Paul is totally distorted. Paul was an apocalypticist, who believed in the imminent end of the world (as Jesus himself did). So he was totally against sex generally, because it leads to sin and the most important thing was to arrive at Judgment Day in a sin-free state "Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. 9But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion." 1Corinthians 7:8-9 He makes this distinction even more crystal clear later in Corinthians, the end of the world is coming, eliminate all occasions of possible sin from your life" "What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not;" 1 Corinthians 7:29
Noted Bible scholar and apparently 16-year-old atheist rando on internet: "The most important thing was to arrive at Judgment Day in a sin-free state" HAHAHAHAHAHA
Origen was correct. It's unbelievable that Jesus lay in a manger. That's why it's not included in any of the earliest documents of the New Testament (a fact he did not know) Neither Paul, nor any other epistle, nor in Mark the earliest gospel, nor from the mouth of Jesus himself in any gospel, do the ideas of the infancy narrative come, for two reasons. First, because the infancy narrative hadn't been invented yet, (scholars differ on whether Luke took the concept from Matthew or vice versa) and second because it's exclusively Gentile and Greek in nature. So the infancy narrative post dates the destruction of the Second Temple and the split between Jews and Christians. An interesting post script which Holland doesn't mention and may not even know. Origen and all his followers were declared heretics by church council in 400 AD The fact that this happened roughly 150 years after his death, was not an issue for the church which regularly found the teachings of some early fathers to be heretical much later, as happened with Marcion too. No idea why Holland made the connection between Origen and Christmas though. Origen was bitterly opposed to the celebration of Christmas or any birthday. He wrote: "And that you may know that there is something great in this and such that it has not come from the thought to any of the saints; not one from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the day of the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of birthday. For indeed we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating the day of his birth with a festival,[17] and in the New Testament, Herod.[18] However, both of them stained the festival of his birth by shedding human blood. For the Pharaoh killed "the chief baker,”[19] Herod, the holy prophet John "in prison.”[20] But the saints not only do not celebrate a festival on their birth days, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they curse that day." That is from his Homily #8 on Leviticus.
Did you like the part about your fellow devout Evangelical preacher Richard Dawkins? It seems in his old age it is coming to him why he hates slavery. I cut you a break being 16.
Great Britain did not even directly free slaves. In 1833 it banned the ownership of humans as a class of property but compensated British owners for the loss of their property and mandated a period of five years for the completion of those transactions. So British citizens could still legally own humans for up to five years until being paid for their "property" "On 28 August 1833 Parliament passed legislation that abolished slavery within the British Empire, emancipating more than 800,000 enslaved Africans. As part of the compromise that helped to secure abolition, the British government agreed a generous compensation package of £20 million to slave-owners for the loss of their ‘property’. The Bank of England administered the payment of slavery compensation on behalf of the British government. Using records held in the Bank’s Archive, a data set of 13,500 unique transactions has been produced which details the collection of £3.4 million of compensation awarded in the form of government stock (3.5% Reduced Annuities)."
From Oxford Bibliographies: "For most of the past two millennia, Christian churches have not only accepted slavery, but have also participated in the slave trade and owned human property. The ethics of Christian slaveholding, however, have changed significantly. While Christians owned other Christians without controversy during the late ancient period, Christian churches began to forbid that practice over time. By the early modern period, it was considered taboo for Christians to own other Christians, although the practice sometimes continued illegally. While some individual Christians, including ministers and members of the clergy, questioned the legitimacy of slavery during the early modern period, it was not until the 18th century that a small minority of Christian churches began to assert an abolitionist stance. Even then, it was deeply contested. For the majority of the early modern period, most Christian churches-both Catholic and Protestant-supported slavery and benefited from the institution. Even the Quakers (Society of Friends), who were leaders in the abolitionist movement, took a century to disown enslavers from their congregations" - Katharine Gerbner.
Jesus was a full-blown Jew. He did not invent kindness, compassion, humility, or caring for the poor, but he did make Judaism accessible to gentiles. Or more accurately, it was Saul/Paul.
300 years ago, people were more inclined to be righteous about the Bible. They knew well in good that slavery was not condoned within biblical terms it’s their agenda in their positions in life that included wealth, and therefore slavery was justified
This is entirely false. Slavery was always and everywhere condoned throughout the Bible. Quite literally the only form of slavery NOT allowed was one Israelite male owning another.
i guess this is what is left of the "christian intellect". I wonder if TH even understands the word "critical thinking" or maybe not rrally thinking about stuff and blind faith is in reality the essential component to unlocking the bliss of following a cult.
I guess Danny is what is representative of the "atheist intellectual". I wonder if Danny even understands the phrase "critical thinking"? Or maybe not really thinking much and having blind faith is in reality the essential component to unlocking the bliss of following a cult.
@@naysayer1238 "Involuntry impostion of will on any consious being is IMMORAL". I understqnd big words and big sentences could be your weakness but try thinking a little and come up with a reasonable response (I understand that you may not have even a few brain cells left after following the cult that you have been following your entire life blindly or maybe you do not have the free will to say otherwise (you could be a reformed Xtian who knows).
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Tom Holland s approach is absolutely brilliant. Firstly he brings back the utter importance of the Christian thinking to the table which has been belittled by the intellectuals for decades if not centuries. Secondly his line of argumentation is stunning and kind of lucid and leaves the Anti-Christian intellectuals a bit like clowns not really knowing anymore what to say.
Well put
Nothing to say? All the stories from Holland about Christianity are no proof at all that this religion is the only truth and that the god who is pictured in the Bible is really existing. He only describes what Christianity has done: producing a human view about humanity. Christianity brought us humanity, because Jesus was a humanist, that is also a conclusion you can make. But the history of Christianity is also full of violence, nobody can deny this.
Excellent and thought provoking conversation. Many thanks.
Love listening to Tom on Christianity.
Great conversation, thank you. 🙏
Apart from his erudition, this man is charm personified. Also, a most lucid speaker.
Like most people I catalogue important moments. Without doubt listening to this man is one of them
People take some of the ideas and virtues of Christianity and apply them, but ignore others. The result is an often destructive distortion.
Yes, but I wouldn't say they take them. Well, I guess they take them like they take in air or food.
And who says which?
Tom Holland is absolutely brilliant.
More importantly he’s sincere in his appraisal.
Couldn’t agree more!
“The Law of God is written on the heart.”
I could listen to Tom Holland speak all day, every day. Brilliant.
agree!
You can…
@@Elementarywatson648 I can...
Eric keep up the content, love your stuff
As someone in their late fifties, those moments of revelation one gets in life get fewer and fewer. New ideas that alter the way you see the world are hard to come by because you've experienced so many. Tom's explanation of how... "unnatural" is the best word I can think of, Western thought is to other cultures and indeed all of human history. What seems self evident was evident to no one for tens of thousands of years. It finally allows a westerner to wrap their head around conflicts in the world that seemingly don't make sense. "They don't think like we do." is often said but rarely comprehended. We need to integrate this fact of life into our thoughts and plans. Even if we will deal with these other cultures as Christians we cannot expect or plan on them doing the same. To do so can be suicidal.
Very well said
I'm glad Eric Metaxas asked Tom Holland about the different UK and US editions of the book. I've always wanted to know the story behind that. I'm aware that it's not uncommon for US and UK books to have different covers but in Tom's book, any allusion to Christianity was completely obscured in the UK subtitle.
“Archaeologists can generally tell a pre- and post-Christian society’s drainage system, because the pre-Christian sewers are littered with little baby bones.” daaaang. wow.
Wonderful thank you 🕊
Brilliant!
That was awesome
"God laid himself down in a manger and cried out for milk." That should be enough to bring the whole world to its knees. Tom, I think you were sent too. God bless you and keep you.❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🇨🇦
The infancy narratives were created for Gentiles. That's why they appear nowhere else in the NT but a few lines in Luke and Matthew.
Why? With all due respect and seriousness, it sounds a bit insulting to actual humans who do suffer. Not to confuse Gd with Superman, but it's kind of like an issue of Superman comics in which the titular hero pretends to be Clark Kent and let's the bullies seemingly beat him up. Ditto for crucifixion.
@marchess286 The message is if you want to find God, look down, not up. Your "gotcha" argument is typical, like "Look! This painting depicts Eve as the first woman, but she has a navel."
@@Frederer59 - how am I offering a "gotcha argument"? It seems to me there is a real difference between suffering of an actual human during torture (such as crucifixion) and of God, who is of course omnipotent. Also, what do you mean by "look down" rather than "up"? It sounds to me like you are anthropomorphizing God. I'm sincerely interested and would appreciate your response and discussion.
@@marchess286 the scriptures tell us that when the incarnation occurred, god left his privileges, so to speak, his omnipotence, omniscience, behind, and actually became one of us for a season, 33 years. That explains the "panic attack" he experienced in the garden of gethsemane Matthew 26:36-56. He knew it was going to be horrific, and the very human part of him prayed for another way to accomplish his mission. Horrific physically, because his very human body had all the nerves that we have, and psychologically, and spiritually, because he knew he would be bearing our sin; all the destruction, cruelty, perversion, selfishness, lies, etc of everyone who ever lived ,and that that would separate him from his father for an agonizing "moment" in time.
He did all of this out of love, and that idea plus the his spiritual help, is what fueled the revolution that began to change this world from dog eat dog, every man for himself, to love they neighbor as yourself.
Very interesting and thought provoking, Thanks!
Thank you for struggling with these issues, particularly on “secularism” and also the final (unresolved) issue which alluded to varieties and ‘conflicts’ of supported views within western Christianity. On secularism, I personally don’t really see or treat the world as essentially other than purposefully within the reign of Christ; ie, I don’t feel the boundaries of churches or of “the church” except to feel a kind of guilt for not “joining up” with one or other of them. I feel only intellectual cultural differences between the churches and everyone else. I know of God as Father not in a church but of all.
Great episode, can't wait to read the book!
Just finished Dominion last week, brilliant and well worth the read. Many thanks
The most thought provoking and profuond answer I've heard for the "why?" question in our moral choices, was given by the Jewish scholar, Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz in the second half of the last century, which said that one's moral choices are expression of one's free will to accept and reject certain values and follow them during one's life. Dr. Leibowitz, did not deny the influence of one's socialization process by his family and greater community, but he staunchly denied that the influences of these circumstances fully determine one's free will.
BTW, Dr. Leibowitz defined 'free will' by the ability of one to choose difrently than one's actual previous choices.
His primary example for one's free will to overcome one's socialization process is the not uncommon phenomena of accepting Jewish Orthodox religious values and way of life by many people who were raised and lived in secular communities and vice versa.
Because the principal motivator of one's moral choices is one's free will, Dr. Leibiwitz argued that all our moral choices are equally irrational, despite our endless effort to rationize them in our own minds.
Of course. 🤔
Out moral choices may at times appear irrational, however, they may motivated by ideas other than rationality. Some choices have a subconscious psychological underpinning and others have a spiritual reason, connected to karma and the life lessons we need to learn.
@@sabinemeyer3899 , Yes, there are endless way we can rationalize or moral decisions. However, we can't make them objective in the way we think about physical objects or events, becuse ultimately, they depend on our subjective experiances, upbringing, psychology, values and objectives.
Love is the central piece of Christianity. Love will demolish power and pride which are the problems of the modern world.
Excellent.
Thanks for this.
So much respect for TH. 🇿🇦♥️
The true Biblical answer to the last question is that we are made for each other to lift up the least is the true essence of Christ's life and teaching .He said "if you have done least of these you have done it for me".
Brilliant.
I’m not so sure that they’re wearing at the cross is a sign that people have forgotten what it stands for I believe it can be said that the war of the cross is just the opposite where one who wears it is doing so out of the humble appreciation for what Jesus Suffered for
For ye can't bare yet! Beyond can contain! Disciples said, LORD here's a little Lad with a basket of bread and a fish!
Even all dragons in front of the 12-29-1976 Signature! Scales from their eyes removed! Dragons seeing WHO IS IN FRONT?
Shared "i" Am come forth!
An interesting discussion to see, but sometimes the host did pay too much attention to the discussion at the expense of the audiences, not necessarily a good conversation to follow online.
Hearing among!
Tom Holland such a nice guy.
7:40 how Hollander defines the “west” as the pre Christian Roman Empire
Very stimulating and insightful. Thank you. Great that Holland starts his book at the cross.
There is talk and there is walk. There is talk of understanding that the cross became an emblem of the triumph of the weak over the strong, and then there is the embodiment of this, or at least the visible identification with the experience of the weak, being crucified on a cross. A gentle observation: Both interviewer and interviewee seem to lean in the direction of having feeling for those who are weak, but the fact that this conversation took place between two well-dressed, polished, privileged (by their education and by their subsequent incomes) middle-class gentleman, sitting in the Randolph Hotel in a well-to-do city, Oxford, does communicate that both interviewer and interviewee do seem to have (still) more identification with the earthly power of Pilate than with persons who are actively experiencing crucifixion on a cross.
That's a very interesting take.
@@ji8044 Wow, maybe you are 14 years old.
But you don't know their private lives. Just because they're sitting in a hotel doesn't mean they never bear a cross.
If you met me you would think my life is golden. Cheap nyc apartment educated used to be good looking and intelligent. But you can't see lyme that wrecked my health. And I worked until June and didn't tell my coworkers except 1 nor students about living 6 years with cancer.
Yeshua Jesus Christ came to dwell and took the basket and lifted up and blessed! As HE IS LIFTED UP! WILL DRAWS ALL MEN UNTO HIM!
Offsprings preserve will say, our LORD sitteth
The wise and Scribes of this world will say, who's child is HE?
I would think several parts of Hollands brilliant book would make Eric in particular rather uncomfortable! The humility and compassion of early Christians and the church’s stepping into complex complicated issues which has divided us horribly, slavery, feminism, homosexuality. Is it about holding the line or expansion? Makes for uncomfortable questions. To. Is tight when he asserts that we are living through a Reformation of Christian thought and its role.
The early church was extremely "feminist" for its time. In fact women were so prominent that Paul attempts to slap them down in 1st Corinthians. The Church was always in favor of slavery until the 19th Century, so it's not an issue which historically divided the Church. Openly gay people have historically been excluded from all walks of life, so the Church is just mirroring a societal change. However without closeted gay men, the Church would lose the most amazing parts of its Italian Renaissance religious art.
@@ji8044 Paul's letters preceded the gospels and were the great impetus behind the raising of women, children, the poor and slaves. To say he slapped down women is to radically misunderstand both history and the Bible.
The real problem lies in the fact that you don't believe that the Holy Spirit is the inspiration behind all Scripture. If you can dismiss Him, you can dismiss Paul along with all the bits you don't like.
@sarawoods1450 - there is no category of "gay" or "straight" until modern, decadent identity politics. Sex of whatever variety outside of marriage is sinful under Christianity. There is no valid scientific test for homosexuality or heterosexuality. Human sexuality is polymorphous and, depending on inputs, can be attracted to a variety of people and even animals or objects.
@@HiHoSilvey That's utter nonsense of course. Christian churches actually owned slaves right up to their emancipation in the 19th Century.
@@ji8044The passive voice is a bit disingenuous here.
Students shared "i" Am will say, who are the authors writing about nor....?
Students shared "i" Am will say, does creation has an AUTHOR?
LOL', the elephant in the room is the fact that Mars has 1/3 the gravity of Earth. We have evolved over millions of years for Earth''s gravity. God gave us this amazing planet lets just be grateful and amazed by that.
Wrong. We did not evolve, we were created, just like all things, and every living thing.
We know now that everything operates by information. The old idea that more complex organisms came from simple organisms, has proven to be impossible. Information does not self originate or self assemble. There has to be source of information,. All information has to be spoken into existence by an intelligent mind.
What exists but doesn't fit with the "Theory of evolution"
Fossil record:
Headline: David Gelernter, a Yale a professor of computer science, Takes On Darwinism:
[In the famous “Cambrian explosion” of around half a billion years ago, a striking variety of new organisms-including the first-ever animals-pop up suddenly in the fossil record over a mere 70-odd million years. Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching, spreading tree of life. Those brave new Cambrian creatures must therefore have had Precambrian predecessors, similar but not quite as fancy and sophisticated.
But those predecessors of the Cambrian creatures are missing. Darwin himself was disturbed by their absence from the fossil record. He believed they would turn up eventually. Some of his contemporaries (such as the eminent Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz) held that the fossil record was clear enough already, and showed that Darwin’s theory was wrong. Perhaps only a few sites had been searched for fossils, but they had been searched straight down.]
Natural selection does not lead to speciation.
When we talk about evolutionary inheritance, what we are actually referring to: is the transfer of genetic sequences from one generation to the next.
Article "The secret on how life on Earth began" BBC, dated 31 Oct 2016.
[ .. The key point is that the double helix can be "unzipped". This exposes the genetic code - made up of sequences of the genetic bases A, T, C and G - that is normally locked away inside the DNA ladder’s "rungs".
It turned out that DNA only has one job. Your DNA tells your cells how to make proteins: molecules that perform a host of essential tasks. Each protein is essentially a long chain of ( left handed) amino acids, strung together in a specific order. The sequence of the amino acids determines the three-dimensional shape of the protein, and thus what it does. That information is encoded in the sequence of the DNA's bases. ...]
The Homochirality Paradox
Headline: Must the Molecules of Life Always be Left-Handed or Right-Handed? Smithsonian, 28 July 2016
[On Earth, the amino acids characteristic of life are all “left-handed” in shape, ( by chance?) and cannot be exchanged for their right-handed doppelgänger. Meanwhile, all sugars ( DNA) characteristic of life on Earth are “right-handed.” The opposite hands for both amino acids and sugars exist in the universe, but they just aren’t utilized by any known biological life form. In other words, both sugars and amino acids on Earth are homochiral: one-handed. ..]
Book: The Cell
The Shape and Structure of Proteins
{Since each of the 20 amino acids is chemically distinct and each can, in principle, occur at any position in a protein chain, there are 20 × 20 × 20 × 20 = 160,000 different possible polypeptide chains four amino acids long, or 20n different possible polypeptide chains n amino acids long... ]
A body Plan, is required.
Homeotic genes, Khan Academy
[Genetic patterns laid out in the egg-before the embryo is even an embryo-lay the groundwork for the body plan. During development, the body is first roughed out very generally, then, the structure is gradually refined, first into broad sections, then smaller sections, then finally into actual body segments. This process involves different classes of genes with increasingly narrow and specific patterns of expression. ]
Book: The Structure of Consciousness, Michael Polanyi
[Whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if its order is not due to the forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words is on a printed page
The higher level cannot be derived automatically from the lower level-higher principles are always additional, not intrinsic, to lower principles. There may be several lower principles harnessed by a higher principle-and there may be more than one higher principle as we go from level to level in the hierarchy of life (e.g., reason and free choice in the boundary condition of mind).
Smash up a machine, utter words at random, or make chess moves without a purpose and the corresponding higher principle--that which constitutes the machine, that which makes words into sentences, and that which makes moves of chess into a game--will all vanish and the comprehensive entity which they controlled will cease to exist. ]
How to cause people to break with Christianity.
In his Book: Twilight of the Idols- Nietzche explains.
[... When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what's evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God.]
God gave us... & We have evolved... in the same comment?!? The cognitive dissonance is vibrating!!! 😱
@paulshewan6058 it's the same relationship you have with your body, which 'evolves' but only after its creation, which happened because a mind deemed it so
FED
@@virtualpilgrim8645 lol
Life long monogamy wasn’t created by the Christian church.
Indians and Chinese had practiced this long before any European civilisations.
Including any Abrahamic religions.
I'm curious about your source. Tom is a respected historian, I'd be surprised if he just made up this point. I could be wrong, legitimately curious
@
Maybe he Eurocentric like most historians. It’s easily debunked just look at Praveen Mohen’s vids India’s wedding ceremony is far older than the European counterparts.
Who thought and teach the little Lad?
The so-called enlightenment was not Christian but anti-Christian, very humanistic.
And where did humanism come from?
Cmon men. What is THE answer?
Around the 13 minute mark, “not that there’s anything wrong with that” as a response to the mention of Nazis? What? Mister please 😮
He was being tongue in cheek. What made it sound odd was the deadpan way in which he said it. And that's how Tom Holland took it because he said they could discuss the demonology of the Nazis later.
Metaxas is a notorious cutup. He is being unusually serious here.
There really is no "pre-Christian" -- The Old Testament is essentially Old Testament Christianity and the New is New Testament Christianity. Christ existed in the Trinity from the beginning and outside time. The "angel of the Lord" that people saw in the Old Testament was the Risen Lord. The story is bigger than we want to see.
And yet Jesus was a Jew who firmly believed in Mosaic Law, go figure.
@@ji8044 Moses did not write the Law. Jesus did. The second person of the Trinity gave the Law to Moses. Go figure.
@@HiJackShepherd That's not even slightly true of course and moreover has no Biblical basis whatsoever.
@@ji8044 How weak is your Christology? Lord, have mercy. You must not be a Christian, to not understand this. Did Moses write the Law or did God? What do you imagine is the meaning of the term Logos?
@@HiJackShepherd Logos is a term of Greek philosophy which would have been completely unknown to the authors of the Torah. That's why it doesn't appear in the Bible until 1,000 years later with John's Gospel.
1:08:24 Jesus our Lord and Saviour had something to say about that….. Luke 21:1-4
Hosts Meeks will say unto all who comes near will be AWAKEN!
What is a book? Students will say, I'm sure there's an author nor authors inspired.
"Two and a half years ago, Episcopal Bishop of New York Andrew M.L. Dietsche reminded a group of clergy of the ugly history of their diocese. Not only was slavery deeply embedded in the life and economy of colonial New York, but Episcopal churches across the state often participated in it. Church founders, churchgoers and even churches themselves had enslaved people. The abolitionist Sojourner Truth had once been enslaved by a church in the diocese.
“The Diocese of New York played a significant, and genuinely evil, part in American slavery,” Dietsche said during his November 2019 address. “We must make, where we can, repair.”
Do try listening to the video and addressing anything in it instead of trying to distract.
For many hungers! The disciples said, sent them away so may find something to eat! Yeshua Jesus Christ said, "DO NOT SEND THEM AWAY"!
The transformation of the world was not done by the Pope and the Protestants it was done by those who you ignore the Orthodox who have not changed the faith from the apostles to this day. You should reconsider your priorities of study. To understand humanity you have to have an anthropology based on christology which is solid and clear only in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Who is Genghis Khan?
Where in history did the terminology born again begin to be used? Why was it not used in the centuries before? There is a mind shift in orientation that is humanistic and novel and novelties that which we should be avoiding it's not more enlightened It's more diluted concepts.
Great conversation but the clapping tracks in the beginning and end didn't add value.
West would be a savage land, be it not for the healing and creative effect of Christian truths
Christians have murdered and destroyed on every continent except Antarctica.
ALL THE WORLD, not just the West. The West already had traditions going all the way back to the steppes of Eurasia that tended toward justice and freedom. Zoroastrianism grew out of the same foundations. On the other hand, many parts of the world didn't have that until the ethos of Christianity arrived.
For a Historian he is a bit shortsighted in terms of...in my humble view.. of underestimating certain major nuances in Chrsitisnity. There are several statements in New Testament by Jesus that seen to be in conflict and many verses the modern left either misquotes/ fails to interpret correctly or misunderstands who the passage is written for ...and other nuances that affect meaning.
1. BORDERS
Helping the Poor /THE GOOD SAMARITAN /
Jesus said in John 10:40 ? Whoever does not go through the Door rather climbs over the fence that person is a "THIEF & A ROBBER" . He was saying this in relation that belief in Him was only way to Heaven. However there are orher general applications that can ve made. If Heaven has immigration rules is it wrong for Earthly governments to want people to come into tgere country the "prooper way" If you come to my house to my front door and knock and I know who you are why you are there and if you seem respectful and willing to keep my "house rules" you will be welcomed in. However if you show up in the middle of the night and try to crawl in through the bedroom window while my wife and children are asleep.. there will be a problem. You will get the treatment due to a thief and robber and not be welcomed into my home. This is not personal or "racist" . This is REALITY.
The GOOD SAMARITAN: REGARDING "HELPING THE POOR" This was never something the New Testament gave as a role for any GOVERNMENT to perform...to tax its citizens to help the poor. This is something the GOOD SAMARITAN ...DID ON HIS OWN. He did not go to Roman government to raise money for the injured man. Any government official who uses the poor as excise to raise taxes is employing the oldest shell game alive playing on people's sympathies knowing full well very little will actually make it to the poor. Most of it will end up in pockets of bureaucrats eventually. The word liberal used to mean "generous". ...WITH YOUR OWN MONEY. The modern LIBERAL is "generous" with the TAX PAYERS money. I think we can all agree It's always much easier to be "generous" with OTHER PEOPLES MONEY! The the modern day "liberal" politician.
The Christian Church has responsibility to help the poor not the government and the churches FIRST responsibility is to the poor in their congregations as Paul collected help for Church in Jerusalem that was under persecution and endiring poverty for their belief in Christ. .
The Christian INDIVIDUAL is also encouraged to reach out to the poor.
Poor people who are able bodied and making efforts to help and work. The Christian poor who do not make effort are to be encouraged to do so or be rebuked and not eat . Other Christian poor who are not able bodied are to be in care of Church.
Individual Christians are to work for the purpose of giving funds to church as a sacrifice and they are also to work and sacrifice to provide for the needs of their own family and those in need who they individually are LED BY SPIRIT to minister to without compulsion from anyone . This giving and helping poor can go beyond fellow Christians to people Christians and non Christians who find themselves in bad situations through circumstances beyond their control. This will also apply to those who have made poor choices within their control and are paying consequences for those bad decisions... we are to show mercy and help these as well...those who have been imprisoned rightfully or wrongfully we are to show mercy to them both.
This is to be done as unto the Lord. It is an opportunity for modern day individual Christians to minister to the Lord Himself in showing mercy to poor and needy. There are some people in situations either of their own making
A Christian is to have a heart for those in need. We do not have to agree with their lifestyle but we can minister heart of gospel while assisting them.
The idea that Richard Dawkins has any legitimacy in spreading Christian culture is ludicrous to any degree. Maybe on this one I didn't get the nuance
I did like the part where he talked about Christianity in Great Britain (specifically
Protestant Christianity eventually against all odds and against formiddable opposition of Catholic church governments if Europe-) a Christianity arising out of Great Britain that essentially si gle handedly abolished slavery.
.
...carved out trenches...can't skid when you're in a rut.
Tom I like you but please don't get carried away, God has always a two party covenant with mankind, faith to faith as Romans 1:17 as all not of faith is sin, grace through faith.
google AI doesn't like LGBT ?
11:09 interesting. I will certainly be highlighting this point next time someone drags out the old "what about the horrible crusades and the awful inquisition?"
They never talk about why the crusades happened, like what was the reason it just didn't happen out of thin air
It's an idiotic assertion, as if no other culture in the world had morality. Remember, the first thing the Crusaders did upon taking Jerusalem was kill all the Jews.
@@08zilla Islam radicalized Medieval Christianity in numerous ways. 'Holy war' and slavery are just two examples.
Christian apologists in 2080: "LGBT rights were invented by Christianity, ackchyually" 🤓
No Tom Christianity should be New Judaism, the Jews were only asked to repent for the reduction of sins, no more sin sacrifices just one atonement into the church.
Closing the curtains may have been an idea.
The West came from Christendom, which did not look back at the Roman Empire. Christendom was its own endeavour.
@MarkJohnson-dr4ws
That is a ridiculous statement. Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Austria did not break away from the Roman and Romanised world in the way you would like to imagine. Yes, so much was changed by Christianity. But it's asinine to suggest that there are sharp ruptures in the history of civilisations. That's a misreading of the past. Real historians don't talk like that. Tom Holland does so because he wants to make a star of himself with his amazing books. (His books are amazing by the way.) I'm not knocking him down. But he is not the most serious historian. Sorry, but the West comes from all that it inherited. Same goes for China/East Asia. Same goes for India. Europe is no different.
@paulthomas281 you don't understand Christendom.
@paulthomas281, when did I say rupture ?
@@paulthomas281 try reading Saint Augustines City of God before shaking your limp liberal fist again. It's one of the major templates of the project of Christendom which draws very clear distinction between the Church and what preceded it.
@@paulthomas281 You are correct.
i can't take the bloody accent reminds me of english bob
This bloke has no understanding of Christianity at all. It’s depressing listening to him dribble on. I made it half way but I’m not carrying on.
The west is here defined as those countries interested in the pre Christian Roman empire. I agree but note that the Muslim world was profoundly interested in this world maybe more so than the Christian world at the time and hence the immense resources that were put into not only translating but comprehending and codifying that earlier culture’s thought and politics. The requirement of the earlier western universities including Oxford and Cambridge was to have mastered Arabic. In this regard then most of the Muslim world is by this definition “western “ which I agree with
Beautiful way of missing the whole point of the Discussion..
@@ABHISHEK3960 a beautiful way of not making any contribution to a conversation
So, you're giving major credit to Mohammed@ns for basically stealing a massive portion of the literature of the West and THEN translating a portion of that. A bold strategy!
Holland's view of Paul is totally distorted. Paul was an apocalypticist, who believed in the imminent end of the world (as Jesus himself did). So he was totally against sex generally, because it leads to sin and the most important thing was to arrive at Judgment Day in a sin-free state
"Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. 9But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion." 1Corinthians 7:8-9
He makes this distinction even more crystal clear later in Corinthians, the end of the world is coming, eliminate all occasions of possible sin from your life"
"What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not;" 1 Corinthians 7:29
LOL He was not against sex.
Your silly prooftexts and how they make you strut are so hilarious. Thanks for all the laughs
Why do you, unlike the Romans, believe that slavery is wrong?
Noted Bible scholar and apparently 16-year-old atheist rando on internet: "The most important thing was to arrive at Judgment Day in a sin-free state" HAHAHAHAHAHA
Please get some help. You’re spending an awful lot of time spewing nonsense online. Maybe go get some fresh air and a walk perhaps?
@@obsoletecd-rom He can't help it, the Spirit is talking through him! Lordy!!
Origen was correct. It's unbelievable that Jesus lay in a manger. That's why it's not included in any of the earliest documents of the New Testament (a fact he did not know) Neither Paul, nor any other epistle, nor in Mark the earliest gospel, nor from the mouth of Jesus himself in any gospel, do the ideas of the infancy narrative come, for two reasons. First, because the infancy narrative hadn't been invented yet, (scholars differ on whether Luke took the concept from Matthew or vice versa) and second because it's exclusively Gentile and Greek in nature. So the infancy narrative post dates the destruction of the Second Temple and the split between Jews and Christians.
An interesting post script which Holland doesn't mention and may not even know. Origen and all his followers were declared heretics by church council in 400 AD The fact that this happened roughly 150 years after his death, was not an issue for the church which regularly found the teachings of some early fathers to be heretical much later, as happened with Marcion too.
No idea why Holland made the connection between Origen and Christmas though. Origen was bitterly opposed to the celebration of Christmas or any birthday. He wrote:
"And that you may know that there is something great in this and such that it has not come from the thought to any of the saints; not one from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the day of the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of birthday. For indeed we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating the day of his birth with a festival,[17] and in the New Testament, Herod.[18] However, both of them stained the festival of his birth by shedding human blood. For the Pharaoh killed "the chief baker,”[19] Herod, the holy prophet John "in prison.”[20] But the saints not only do not celebrate a festival on their birth days, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they curse that day."
That is from his Homily #8 on Leviticus.
Did you like the part about your fellow devout Evangelical preacher Richard Dawkins? It seems in his old age it is coming to him why he hates slavery. I cut you a break being 16.
All shared Feet come in front! Remind if ye exists in front?
Great Britain did not even directly free slaves. In 1833 it banned the ownership of humans as a class of property but compensated British owners for the loss of their property and mandated a period of five years for the completion of those transactions. So British citizens could still legally own humans for up to five years until being paid for their "property"
"On 28 August 1833 Parliament passed legislation that abolished slavery within the British Empire, emancipating more than 800,000 enslaved Africans. As part of the compromise that helped to secure abolition, the British government agreed a generous compensation package of £20 million to slave-owners for the loss of their ‘property’. The Bank of England administered the payment of slavery compensation on behalf of the British government. Using records held in the Bank’s Archive, a data set of 13,500 unique transactions has been produced which details the collection of £3.4 million of compensation awarded in the form of government stock (3.5% Reduced Annuities)."
Why are you so much better and purer than those terrible Brits?
Hello, Glass Half Empty!
From Oxford Bibliographies:
"For most of the past two millennia, Christian churches have not only accepted slavery, but have also participated in the slave trade and owned human property. The ethics of Christian slaveholding, however, have changed significantly. While Christians owned other Christians without controversy during the late ancient period, Christian churches began to forbid that practice over time. By the early modern period, it was considered taboo for Christians to own other Christians, although the practice sometimes continued illegally. While some individual Christians, including ministers and members of the clergy, questioned the legitimacy of slavery during the early modern period, it was not until the 18th century that a small minority of Christian churches began to assert an abolitionist stance. Even then, it was deeply contested. For the majority of the early modern period, most Christian churches-both Catholic and Protestant-supported slavery and benefited from the institution. Even the Quakers (Society of Friends), who were leaders in the abolitionist movement, took a century to disown enslavers from their congregations" - Katharine Gerbner.
Why do you (unlike say many Muslims and the CCP) think slavery is wrong?
Jesus was a full-blown Jew. He did not invent kindness, compassion, humility, or caring for the poor, but he did make Judaism accessible to gentiles. Or more accurately, it was Saul/Paul.
300 years ago, people were more inclined to be righteous about the Bible. They knew well in good that slavery was not condoned within biblical terms it’s their agenda in their positions in life that included wealth, and therefore slavery was justified
This is entirely false. Slavery was always and everywhere condoned throughout the Bible. Quite literally the only form of slavery NOT allowed was one Israelite male owning another.
What?
Are you hard of hearing?
i guess this is what is left of the "christian intellect".
I wonder if TH even understands the word "critical thinking" or maybe not rrally thinking about stuff and blind faith is in reality the essential component to unlocking the bliss of following a cult.
Oh good, another preacher of true genius is here. Would you tell us please, pastor, why is slavery a bad thing?
I guess Danny is what is representative of the "atheist intellectual". I wonder if Danny even understands the phrase "critical thinking"? Or maybe not really thinking much and having blind faith is in reality the essential component to unlocking the bliss of following a cult.
@@naysayer1238 What do we do now?
I guess we are at an Impass.
@@Dannydreadlord Answer the question. Why is slavery a bad thing?
@@naysayer1238 "Involuntry impostion of will on any consious being is IMMORAL".
I understqnd big words and big sentences could be your weakness but try thinking a little and come up with a reasonable response (I understand that you may not have even a few brain cells left after following the cult that you have been following your entire life blindly or maybe you do not have the free will to say otherwise (you could be a reformed Xtian who knows).
Very Boring