lpetrich

That's an apologist argument made by our good friend "933326087" in that closed George Washington thread, that if the early Christians had been in error, then skeptics would have pointed out those errors and stopped the early Christians in their tracks.

However, there are many sects and cults that have aroused no shortage of skepticism about their fundamental doctrines in their early years, without that skepticism stopping them or even slowing them down.

• Mormonism
• Christian Science
• Moonism
• Scientology

To which "933326087" responded with some skeptical comments about Mormonism. Yet such skepticism has never stopped the Mormons, which is my point.

Or look at what the Church of Scientology says about founder L. Ron Hubbard and look what skeptics say about him: Operation Clambake

Or look at similar skepticism about Christian Science or Moonism.

Vorkosigan

Or look at similar skepticism about Christian Science or Moonism.[/QUOTE]

Actually, the early years of Christianity produced innumerable skeptics, such as the immortal Celsus. However, these pagan skeptics had all their writings burnt and are preserved only in the writings of the Christians who opposed them. Later the Christians suppressed skeptics by violence.

That is probably why the 933 feels that skeptics had no effective answers for the ridiculous story of Jesus. The critics were murdered or silenced.

Echo

Another good example of irrational beliefs that persist in the face of skeptical attacks is the crop circles phenomenon. Even after people began to come forward and claim responsibility for creating crop circles as a hoax, "true believers" just shrugged their shoulders and claimed that while phony crop circles were the products of human creation, there were still plenty of "real" crop circles that couldn't be explained as a hoax and were obviously the result of alien intervention. The same thing has occured in cases of poltergeist activity. Skeptics have witnessed members of the household deliberately producing rapping sounds or moving furniture. What do the believers have to say? Well, sure, they may have faked some of the phenomena for attention, but surely they couldn't have faked such and such and so and so....

As for the claim that there were no skeptics who came forward to dismiss the claims of early Christians, this is rubbish. By and large, the Jews rejected Christian claims as nonsense. They were obviously quite skeptical!