GMS Took on Atheist Caricatures of Christianity

... where GMS takes on Christian Evolution believers and I take on him ... · GMS Took on Atheist Caricatures of Christianity · Responding (I hope politely enough) to GMS' response to Kent Hovind

And while doing so, as an Atheist, missed some of them. Here under his video, some comments mainly to correct him:

What Atheists ACTUALLY Get Wrong About Christianity
Genetically Modified Skeptic | 1.XII.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bleXUvc4Gdo

I

2:24 different genealogies and different accounts of origin

Different, not contradicting.

A genealogy is a more branchy thing than any Biblical genealogy, which usually explores one branch or root at a time.

You have two parents, four grandparents, eight greatgrandparents (minimum two different persons in each, a father's father's father can coincide with a mother's mother's father, but not with a mother's mother's mother).

Biblical geneaologies of so and so only give one in each generation.

This means that Luke and Matthew may differ in one giving a biological father and another a stepfather of either Joseph or his father (not sure which) ... It also happens one man has more than one name. This is the traditional explanation of those two genealogies, which are different.

For town of origin, see St James' Protogospel.

II

2:58

• St. Matthew = a Levite. He had been a tax collector, but if he hadn't, he'd have been sth like Jewish marriage registrar by his previous training.
• St. Marc = secretary of St Peter who was the first Pope. Now, St Peter was unlearned, witness his called Kephas in Aramaic rather than Kaiaphas in Hebrew, I presume would have been an obvious point in case, but his secretary was secretary for a reason.
• St. Luke = only gentile and a medical doctor. When Christian doctors in Renaissance times said they could swear the whole Hippocratic oath, one of their arguments was, St Luke had done so (well, he had arguably done so before becoming a Christian).
• St. John = the beloved disciple. Not necessarily St John the fisherman one of the twelve, though St Irenaeus makes the connection. A Catholic priest in 1968 made a case he was "St John the Presbyter" - a man who never was bishop, only presbyter in the Christian Church, but who had been a Cohen. This would explain he had a house in Jerusalem where Mary could live, and also why he was known by the priests.

None of the four was actually unlearned, even if they were less important than other disciples who were so (St Peter notably).

3:08 Years after Jesus legends had already spread and mutated by word of mouth, anonymously ...

No.

Sts Matthew and John were disciples (whether St John was the son of Zebedee or the Presbyter, he was the beloved disciple).

St Marc had access to one (to St Peter).

St Luke had access to several, taking care to get to original witnesses, including the Blessed Virgin. This would also explain why St John omitted childhood narratives, he knew these were already in Matthew and Luke.

III

4:29 "This is how most religious people determine what Christianity is"

As in Catholics and Orthodox aren't religious?

Or as in .... you are limited to US statistics, where Evangelicals untypically outnumber us?

What we consider as "true message of Scripture" has to pass tests like:

• being proclaimed with some consistency by a set of Christian approved writers, namely Church Fathers (differring somewhat but overlapping between Catholics and Orthodox, a Catholic wouldn't consider Photius a Church Father and an Orthodox wouldn't consider Hrabanus Maurus one)
• being proclaimed by at least one bishop today (or at least found acceptable by one)
• not being actively condemned by the Church community (defined as bishops or popes) you consider the true one.

8:53 There is a fourth option : the Bible is God's word and He left us a visible Church to help us determine what it means, whereever we might get it wrong.

It's not the Church that interpreted a certain words as involving recommendations of actual castration, it is a sect called the Skoptsy.

It's not the Church which said anyone who claims personal property is in mortal sin or a heretic and has forfeited all his rights (to property or power position or whatever else including even perhaps life) .... it was the Anabaptist sect of Munzer.

9:57 terra or eretz = land, not earth as a whole globe = actually has corners. If you walk outside them, you get your feet wet and salty. If you walk outside one where the cliff is steep, you better know how to swim, have a floating belt and a boat to pick you up.

Either Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn could count as SW one of these corners.

"England" or Great Britain has more like three corners, Cornwall, Kent, and Easter Head, Dunnet Head, Caithness.

Earth mainland(s) as a whole has to have four, which is better served on a globe than the Flat Earth map with N Pole as centre.

So, Job actually argues against Flat Earth.

IV

7:47 I see a problem in your methodology.

You consider "folklore" as a genre description, like "parable".

It's actually a method of transmission of - anything, including literal history.

I'm not sure whether you know German.

You may not believe that a Basilisk haunted a house and killed like Gorgo Medusa in Vienna, though I think one did and was killed by a mirror in 1212. However that could have happened (one option being, it was a demonic apparition like the Gratusse, but it had to follow the rules of what it pretended to be).

But when same type of folklore history involves Emperoro Maximilian riding or climbing to a narrow ledge on a mountain and making a promise prior to getting safe down, and fulfilling it, or a noble who had accompanied Count Leopold on the III Crusade capturing Richard Coer de Lion out of revenge as well as political loyalty to the emperor ... you may see that folklore can transmit, precisely, history as much as anything else.

V

11:30 Fair enough, hope your researches lead to Catholic conversion ...