Malachi151

I will be giving a presentation on the rise of Christianity, the details are below.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/fll/

Sunday July 23 - 1:30 pm

Lecture: The Origins of Christianity and the Jesus Myth

North Regional Library Room 226
Broward Community College North Campus
(just west of Exit 67 on Turnpike on Coconut Creek Parkway)

This presentation will explore the evolution of Christianity from its early origins to an institution that dominated the failing Roman Empire. Who were the early Christians? What influences did the so-called "pagan" cultures have on Christianity? What do we really know about Jesus? How did Christianity become the exclusive religion of the Roman world? These issues and more will be addressed in this multi-media speaking presentation.

Mods: can you please make this a sticky until the day after the event? If so, thank you.

ChandraRama

Congrats.. wish something happens like this in NJ

Clivedurdle

As I won't be able to attend, will you be posting it somewhere?

Malachi151

1) I will post a personally written summary of this on my blog afterward, but I don't plan to tape it or anything.
2) I'll take pictures at the event.
3) I already gave a smaller version of this presentation to a group of about 30 pagans and the Unitarian Universalist Church and they really liked it, big surprize.
4) I doubt I will cover any info in this presentation that hasn't already been discussed here.
5) After the presentation I plan to make my "slideshow" available on the internet as open source material and hope that others will use it for presentations in their own local areas and add to it. My presentation was done using OpenOffice Impress, which is a free open source version of PowerPoint. I'll provide notes to go along with it as well. Perhaps the infidels here can improve on it and make use of it.

RUmike

Hey Malachi. PLEASE do not take the following question as an attempt to degrade or lessen you or your speech... but what sort of credentials do you have in this area, if any? e.g. degrees, college-level courses, etc. This question is out of pure curiosity and if you say "none, I'm just an interested layman" then that's plenty good enough for me, too. In fact to me that's even more interesting that one who many would consider "un-qualified" could get up and give an excellent and thought-provoking speech, even if one doesn't necessarily agree with many of the points.

Malachi151

None, my degree is in biology, though I hope to go back to school very soon for a dual degree MBA/Master in Anthropology

I have given several talks for the local CFI chapter here, and this is just another of them. So far I have given the following talks:

> The History of Modern Religious Criticism in Western Civilization (Basically starting with the Protestant Reformation)
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/bl...try_id=1386192
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/bl...try_id=1395214
> Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought (A Darwin Day event)
I was on a panel with three other people for this, all of which had PhDs and were much older
> Fossils, Mythology, and Science in the Ancient World
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/bl...try_id=1455700
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/bl...try_id=1473393

All of my talks have been based on articles that I have written for my website. This one will be loosely based on the article I did about Debunking the DaVinci Code Debunkers:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...jesus_myth.htm

I tend to tone things down quite a bit when I give presentations compared to my discussions here. I stick to the most well established facts and don't make any unsupportable claims. I am much more reserved in my positions for speaking events, this is just where I come to push the boundaries on subjects.

Also, for this event we may be getting coverage from the Free Press here. I submitted this lecture to several media outlets and posted it to several community calenders, such as our local public radio/tv organization, the news paper calender of events, the free press calender of events, etc.

The Free Press wants to learn more about it, do an interview, and possibly a write-up on it. I'll know more on this on Monday.

I also, like I said, did a pre-screening of this lecture for the UU pagan group, and will be going back to the Unitarian Universalist Church to post flyers for this.

Someone has to get the ball rolling. You guys need to get these types of events moving in your local areas

Malachi151

We've got minor press coverage for the event in the local Free Press. This came out in print today, and the issue just happened to be about God as well, so the cover issue is about religious issues, plus we have this article publicizing the event. Pretty good.

If Penn and Teller had a Temple It might be in the library

Malachi151

You can see a copy of my slide show, without commentary of course.

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/temp/christianity.htm

I may try to put together a narrated and automated version of this for the web.

Feedback appreciated (I still have time to make changes before my presentation), but keep in mind that commentary goes along with this.

Also, thank you to those who have provided information that has helped me put this together.

Ruhan

Interesting slide show. I would love to see a narrated version.

How did it go?

Malachi151

I updated the slideshow after you viewed it BTW.

I am currently planning to make a narrated version for the web, but I'm also in the process of moving so it could be a while.

About 30 people came to the event, which was a little fewer than I was hoping for, but not bad, and about half were people that I had never seen before.

My presentation lasted about 2 hours and 15 minutes, so it was a looong presentatoin and I talked very fast and hit points only once. Its simply a hell of a lot of material to cover, you know, disproving 2,000 years of generally accepted pseudo-history

Unfortunately I don't think that any Christians came, I was actually hoping for some.

I'm excited about getting the narrated version up on the web, I'll have it done within a month I think.