Trading In Science For History ... The Bible Still Fails

Every regular My Case Against God reader knows that my favorite weapon with which to attack Christianity is science. I’m an unabashed naturalist and physicalist; I believe the natural laws under which we live are absolute, with no room for the supernatural, miracles or other unscientific phenomena. As such, most of my Christianity criticisms relate back to claims that violate natural principles. For example, I often point out the physiological impossibility of Jesus’ resurrection (if for no other reason, the irreversibility of brain death), the factual incorrectness of creationism (in all its various disguises) and the unsupported assertion that material entities somehow can interact with “immaterial” entities, whatever those hypothetical things might be.

Tonight, I’ll take a break from science and, with the help of David Mills’ Atheist Universe, attack Christianity on historical grounds. I’ll start by focusing my attention on two important—and little known—points. I’ll be quoting from David Mills’ text.

1. Jesus probably never even existed as a human being.

Mills writes, “There is not a single reference to a ‘Jesus’ or to ‘Jesus Christ’ written by any secular source who lived during the years in which Christ supposedly walked the earth. To me, this fact is very revealing, since these years represent one of the most thoroughly documented periods of antiquity. Wouldn’t Jesus’ miracles have drawn the attention of hundreds of contemporary writers and record-keepers? Why is there no mention at all of Jesus’ existence?”

I would hazard a guess that not too many Christians know this little tidbit. It’s the most convincing evidence I have to support the theory that Jesus never even existed.

2. Noah’s Ark isn’t just logically absurd. It’s also bad history.

Mills writes, “By a literal interpretation of the Bible, the worldwide deluge occurred in the year 2348 BC. Supposedly, the only humans to survive the flood were members of Noah’s own family, who rode in the ark with Noah and the animals.

“Difficult for creationists to explain, however, is the fact that the Tigris-Euphrates Valley Civilization (in the Middle East), the Nile Valley Civilization (in Egypt), and the Aegean Civilization (in Greece) maintained uninterrupted written historical records extending before, throughout, and following the year 2348 BC. Their written chains of history were unbroken by the flood. Peoples of these vast civilizations failed to notice their own ‘destruction’.”

Could several civilizations really be oblivious to a worldwide deluge killing all of humanity?

Speaking of the Bible’s historicity, I went to see The Da Vinci Code on Saturday night (it was sold out until a 10:45 start time). I found it thoroughly entertaining and think it was unfairly maligned by critics. Of course, it’s a bunch of hooey, but it’s a fun two-and-a-half hours nonetheless. I was particularly pleased to see the film mention Malleus Maleficarum, which is all too real. This book, one of the most venerated in Christian history, is a perfect example of Christianity’s pernicious nature.

What you are about to read already has appeared on this blog, but I believe it bears repeating, if only to memorialize those who died in the name of Christianity. Mills writes, “For 1500 years, the Christian Church systematically operated torture chambers throughout Europe. Torture was the rule; not the exception. Next to the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), which was a step-by-step tutorial in how to torture ‘witches’ and ‘sorcerers.’ Each year, the Christian Church in Europe tortured to death tens of thousands of people, including children as young as two years of age. The only restriction was that the instruments of torment had to be blessed by a priest before their initial use.”

That isn’t part of Dan Brown’s fiction. That’s reality.

Here’s more on the Malleus Maleficarum:

“In all, the text was so popular that it sold more copies than any other work, apart from the Bible, until John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was published in 1678.

“The effects of the Malleus Maleficarum spread far beyond Germany, greatly impacting France and Italy and, to a lesser extent, England.

“Despite popular belief that the Malleus Maleficarum was the classic Roman Catholic text on witchcraft, it was never officially used by the Catholic Church and was, in fact, condemned by the Inquisition in 1490.”

So, it’s important to clarify that, while Malleus Maleficarum never was endorsed officially by the powers that be, it nevertheless was startlingly popular. Unquestionably, its effects were felt as the “witch” and “sorcerer” body count rose.

How many innocent people were slaughtered in the name of witchcraft, anyway? It seems things aren’t quite clear:

“Brian Levack, author of The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe, took the number of known European witch trials and multiplied it by the average rate of conviction and execution. This provided him with a figure of around 60,000 deaths.

“Anne Lewellyn Barstow, author of Witchcraze, arrived at a number of approximately 100,000 deaths by attempting to adjust Levack's estimate to account for what she believed were unaccounted lost records, although historians have pointed out that Levack's estimate had already been adjusted for these.

“Ronald Hutton, author of Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles and Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, in his unpublished essay ‘Counting the Witch Hunt,’ counted local estimates, and in areas where estimates were unavailable attempted to extrapolate from nearby regions with similar demographics and attitudes towards witch hunting. He reached an estimate of 40,000 total executions, which appears to be emerging as the most widely accepted figure among academics.”

It should be noted that those figures might be too low. Some historians present figures of up to 135,000 people killed under the infamous Torquemada. This number incorporates 125,000 asserted to have died in prison because of bad conditions.

For every Biblical historical inaccuracy, there seems to be a Church-sponsored historical atrocity.

It’s always tragic when people perish in the name of a lie.

And, unfortunately, that’s equally applicable to the Iraq debacle.