Why It Ain't Only Religious Conservatives Who See the World in Black and White

I just got another scathing review of my book, the Real Messiah at Amazon. This time the reviewer was an atheist 'believer' in Richard Dawkins who felt 'disappointed' that my book wasn't another atheist manifesto. Apparently he felt almost the same disappointment with Christopher Hitchens book (which got a two star). The only good book on the 'false' origins of the Bible is one which 'proves' that Christianity, Judaism and religion in general is 'a great big lie.'

Well, I am never going to publish a book like that so I shouldn't expect a positive review for any of my books from atheists.

To be honest, I don't understand how we can even have an opinion on whether or not 'there is a God.' Any book which is going to try and make sense of early Christianity is going to have to do so by actually establishing what the first Christians actually believed. I don't even think this has been established in two hundred years of scholarship so how is it that we can run into the ground what we don't even understand?

There is a difference in my mind between taking apart the existing monolithic 'faith' which has guided the European churches for almost two thousand years and attacking the truthfulness of 'Christianity' per se. I can't even comprehend how someone can argue against something they don't understand.

My issue with the Christian tradition is that it has more or less marched in lockstep with the rulers of Europe ever since the middle of third century (I'd say 'end of the second century' but I won't quibble over dates). I think that when we speak of 'Christianity' too many people (including this reviewer) get distracted by the Christianity which emerged under the banner of 'Victor' (or later Nike or Nikaea, Νίκαια).

If you want to attack THIS FORM OF CHRISTIANITY I say, by all means. However don't be misled into thinking that you are getting at 'the real Christianity' which existed in Alexandria since the first century, the highly structured religion witnessed by Hadrian purportedly in 135 CE).

I have always found it difficult to hate things I don't fully understand. I am not a bigot in any way shape or form. I am always interested in 'how things work' especially when it comes to things which spring forth from the minds of other people. When I was young I asked 'what makes him/her tick?' in the same way as I now pursue the question 'from whence came Christianity?'

I can almost understand why the religious conservatives hate my line of inquiries. I can even respect them for protecting what they deem as being sacred earth. I am frankly quite puzzled with the insecurities of atheists.

Why does it seem sometimes like they ape the certainty of the very people they despise? As Nietzsche once quipped 'be careful when you fight a monster that you don't become one in the process.'

For me, Christianity is not something to be hated. In almost every way I find myself an outsider looking in to the religion. I have a preconditioned mistrust of 'altruism.' I don't think that a universal love of humanity is possible or even desirable (as it is utterly meaningless; you can only truly love those who are close to you).

Christianity is in many ways the ULTIMATE riddle because it is an ancient tradition adorned in irrational robes. For almost two thousand years a priesthood has deprived people like us from getting into its holy of holies and making sense of what lies within. How can we who live in this 'information age' not take advantage of this unique opportunity to put all the pieces together?

This is why I like to think that I am guided by my (Jewish) ancestors in my research. Because I have a sense of history, I can't help but take advantage of this historical age. I am able to write and say things that my ancestors would have been killed for even considering by their Gentile lords.

It all comes down to one question for me - how can any of us think that what we know about the past HASN'T BEEN AFFECTED by the influence of a culture of political violence and the threat of bloodshed?

To this end, I have always suspected that atheism is little more than a misguided impulse for egoism which is certainly present in religion but is now left to run recklessly through the humanities.

Whether or not I believe that there is a God I cannot allow myself to hate the thing that I claim to study. Objectivity is critical in the sciences. I can't see how anyone would take Richard Dawkins opinion on Christianity any more seriously than someone like Joel Olstein. In order to arrive at reasonable conclusions it is critical that the assumptions which guided the research were not driven by an agenda.

So it is that while my conclusions about how Christianity developed are unorthodox, they certainly don't fit into any one of the two principle camps which produce 'theories' about the religion - i.e. 'the pious' and 'the unbelievers.'

When I looked at Christianity I couldn't help but think that the basic paradigm we use to define the tradition is fundamentally flawed. At its bottom, Jesus could never have been held to be the messiah by any people with any reasonable information about the Jews and Judaism. As most of Jesus' disciples are universally acknowledged to have been Jewish, it is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty for 'atheists' to attack what now pretends to be the original religion of Jesus as a proof and draw an inference that this 'disproves' Christianity as such.

As I said by all means join the assault against the Roman religion which Constantine and his successors moulded to consolidate their hold on the Empire. But once you start attacking Jesus and his original Alexandrian Church on the basis of rational shortcomings of the Roman faith you can count me out of your little war.

There are sometimes were we must attack our best friends in order to get them to change their ways. This is our duty as good, honest people. We can't allow people to persist in harmful irrationality.

Yet once this war takes the shape of proving that the group of people who are not like us are stupid and all their beliefs are wrong while at the same upholding that we as non-believers have to be believed and all our ways pure, noble and right, I immediately feel compelled to abandon ship. Research should never develop out of an 'us versus them' agenda. There are no good guys or bad guys in history, nor in historical research save those who view history as an unfolding of a war between light and darkness, good and evil.

These 'academic Manichaeans' typically come into forms - the pious and the unbelievers. The latter might not identify its opponents as 'devils' or 'demons' but they still nevertheless are trapped by their tendency to see things in black and white rather than the whole spectrum of colours in which 'real history' and 'real truth' unfolds.