Since about 1995 or thereabouts I have become an atheist after having grown up in a family of Christians. As a child, the two major books that I had access to were, the bible and a dictionary. From the time that I could read, I remember asking my mother questions about parts of the bible which I felt were contradictory to things that happened in the real world. For a long time I have thought that Christianity would have much more appeal if it forsook the idea that Jesus was the son of a God who in fact doesn't exist.

Recently I came across a long article by Valerie Tarico, https://valerietarico.com/2009/01/09/ancient-mythic-origins-of-the-christmas-story/
which should be required reading by anyone who has any doubts about Christianity and its origins.

It makes the New Testament in particular, read a bit like the Aboriginal stories of the dream time.

David

Speaking of heretical Christian-ism or Christian-ism as a power-and-control-seeking cult why not check out this reference

http://www.alternet.org/trump-bible-inauguration-edition

Some related books on the applied politics that created Trumpty Dumpty or the Tangerine Tyrant

Stench by David Brock
Opus by Gareth Gore
Fools On the Hill, and The Deconstructionists by Dana Millbank
When the Clock Broke - Con Men Conspiracies & How America Cracked

Wetiko psychotics all-the-way-down
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/undreaming-wetiko-introduction

Speaking of the benighted J D Vance why not check out these two references which describe the benighted company that he keeps.

Vance is of course closely associated with the deeply psychotic opus dei cult, the dark machinations of which are described in two of the books I referred to in my previous posting - Stench and Opus
Trumpty Dumpty gave an introductory rant at this gab-fest.

http://www.thenerdreich.com/unhumans-jd-vance-and-the-language-of-genocide
http://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2024/03/08/cpac-attendees-america-under-attack

Thanks Graham Young for the article. There's a lot to thin about. Maybe both Wokism and the Enlightenment and the Renaissance all came from Heretical Christianity, and both have/ are converged into Marxism

Hi David

Thanks for the link – an interesting perspective. I’m a practicing Anglican but have no significant disagreement with anything Tarico says. I don’t think the birth stories narratives are factual accounts of historical events. They are stories crafted to convey deeper messages about Jesus’ identity and place in the story of God’s relationship with humanity. I suspect that many of the public intellectuals that Graham cites who have adopted Christianity would share that view.

Within the churches there is a wide spectrum of views on how much of the bible is historically factual, and how much that matters. Fundamentalist literalists think the whole thing is historical fact: the world really was created in 7 days, and everything that biology, geology and astrophysics say about the origin of the universe and life on earth is wrong. Extreme liberals think that we cannot rely on the bible to provide any historically accurate information and that in any event the historicity of its stories is unimportant. I lean towards the liberal end of the spectrum, but not completely.

I think that people who think that authentic Christians must accept the bible as an accurate historical record mostly fall into two groups. Fundamentalist Christians insist that acceptance of the scientifically implausible bible stories is at the heart of faith – the “fact” that Jesus walked on water and raised the dead is proof of his supernatural credentials. Fundamentalist atheists gleefully seize on this as evidence of the credulity of believers and the absurdity of religion.

Both fundamentalisms are fairly recent ideologies that have their roots in post-enlightenment though that equates truth with fact and sees empiricism as the only legitimate path to reliable knowledge. Peter Sellick has written some interesting stuff on this for OLO, eg:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20167

I completely agree with the comment by the interviewer in your linked article:

“We need to be able to appreciate these stories as myths, rather than literal histories. When you understand where they come from, then you can understand their spiritual significance for the writers and for us.”