fatpie42

Okay, I started a thread earlier called "Lies For Jesus" where I came up with two claims which I had been told about Christianity when I was younger by my Religious Education teacher at school. The were a number of replies, so I made a bigger list and posted it in the LJ Atheism Blog.

Now the list has 10 different examples on it. What is important about this list is that it isn't the ordinary religious claims like "Jesus was the son of God and died to save your sins" or "Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt by parting the red sea". What I am interested in is actual factual claims which one might be tempted to believe even if one did not follow the religion, but which the actual facts lead us to reject.

For example, in the case of Moses hearing God's commandments on Mt. Sinai, a claim which is completely unimportant for this list is "God spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai". If we don't believe in God then naturally we consider it false. A better claim to dismiss on this list might be "Moses chisled the ten commandments in Hebrew and put them in a golden ark" (this one isn't actually on the list yet because I haven't checked it out properly). In Michel Onfray's book he claims that at the time Moses is believed to have lived, Hebrew writing had not yet developed. If Moses was writing, he'd be more likely to be writing in hieroglyphics. Also, (and this just occurred to me now), if the Israelites have just had to run for their lives from the Egyptians, where did all this bloody gold come from? Seriously! No discussion of supernatural claims here, just plain facts.

Okay, without further ado, here's the list:

1. "Men have one less rib than women"
Related to the Adam and Eve story. Oh dear.

2. "The reference to someone stuggling out of their clothes and running away in the 'gospel according to Mark' was actually describing the author himself."

The gospels were not written by direct eyewitnesses. Every single one of the gospels was written anonymously and their authorship was guessed about a century later at the earliest. Even if the author of "Mark" was including an account from one of the actual disciples (as seems more likely) the chances that it was the disciple Mark whom it refers to (seeing as the gospel of Mark does not specify which disciple it was) are pretty low.

3. (a) " There was a gate in Jerusalem known as the "needle's eye gate", named so because when it shut at night there was still a small gap underneath. People would have to get their camel to go through the gate on its knees in order to get through at night."

or alternatively some say:

(b) "Needle's eye refers to a small gap in a mountain pass which travellers would go through rather than taking the longer route around the mountain." (Same principle of leading camels through as before.)

Another variation is:
(c) "Ropes were made of camel hair, so the image Jesus is putting forward is of putting the rope through the needle as opposed to the other way around." One person even claimed to have been told that the words for 'camel' and 'rope' are the same in hebrew.

Needless to say, there is no evidence for any of these.

4. [Referring to Christians in 1 AD] "When two strangers met and thought maybe they were fellow believers, one of them would draw, on the ground, the upper half of the fish symbol. Recognizing the symbol, the stranger would add a second curved line and complete the drawing of a fish."

Maybe someone can correct me on this, but as far as I know there is no evidence to back up this claim. We don't really know very much about the practices of Christians during this period, so the likelihood is that this is an urban legend.

5. "There is historical proof of Jesus' existence."

Ah, now here's a classic. References I've heard mentioned are Josephus (whose documents are clearly altered in the relevant sections concerning Jesus), the Talmud (which mentions Jesus - which was a fairly common name - being stoned to death), Tacitus (who makes the claim as late as 116AD that 'Christus', not Jesus, was crucified and this information may well have originated from Christians). In the end, the best evidence for Jesus' existence is the gospels and Paul's letters and neither are terribly satisfactory.

6. "The money-lending in the temples was a sign of corruption there."

Money lending took place there because it was a convenient service for people. They were going to need to change money somewhere if they were to buy the relevant items for the rituals they partook in, so it was best for everyone if they could do it at the actual temple. Jesus, being far from a major economic planner, gives no explanation of what he thought should replace this system.

7. "Peter was made bishop of Rome and died in Rome, most likely during the persecutions by Nero."

Actually Peter may well have never even been to Rome, never mind been given the title 'bishop of Rome'. The following quotations come from this article:
"Evidence for the Martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome" F. J. Foakes Jackson, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 46, No. 1/2. (1927), pp. 74-78.

8. "The fire God uses is a purifying agent. Remember he appeared to Moses in a burning bush. He also sent the tongues of fire down at Pentecost to the apostles. The Apostles weren't screaming in pain. They were overjoyed that the "fire of God" was consuming them. At the end times, the wicked will be purified using fire and be reconciled unto God. There are plenty of times God uses fire throughout the Bible and it's all for purification, not for burning."

The quotation above comes from an actual online discussion. I'm not sure how common this view is, but the claim that the Bible doesn't really refer to hell is common enough. Oddly enough though, the idea of hell as a place of eternal torment is pretty much an invention of Christianity. Neither the Jewish belief in Sheol nor the Hellenistic belief in Hades envisage something so horrific as the hell found in Christian mythology.

There are plenty of references to hell in the gospels, but I think for our purposes here this quote will suffice:

"The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

"This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matt. 13:41-42, 49-50

9. "While the fruit in the garden of Eden is not actually described, it was probably a pomegranate."

No, not at all. It's a variation on a Babylonian myth and the fruit is 'the fruit of knowledge of good and evil'. So not only is it not an apple, but it's not any kind of fruit. It's a non-existent metaphorical/mythical fruit, end of story.

10. "A woman called Lady Hope was with Darwin as he recanted evolution and converted to Christianity on his deathbed."

I thought it was a good idea for me to have at least one example which wasn't about Bible history. Lade Hope was an evangelist, otherwise known as Elizabeth Cotton, but Darwin's daughter Henrietta doubts that he even saw her. Naturally Henrietta was with him when he died and she along with the other members of family insist that he remained convinced of his scientific views and that his religious position did not appear to have changed either.

Can anyone help me add to this list?

purple_kathryn

The flood must have happened because lots of cultures have flood stories.

Really?

Even though they were all drowned?

I don't know how it fits but I've heard both christians and atheists make that comment

fatpie42

Well on the one hand it is true that flood myths are almost inevitably based on real floods (and there are no shortage of those all around the world). Nevertheless, what certainly did not happen was a global flood.

It occurs to me that perhaps we should exclude claims which are already found on talkorigins, otherwise my list is going to suddenly get ridiculously long:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

The rebuttal of your particular urban legend of choice is found here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG201.html

fatpie42

Damn, that means I'm going to have to scrap point 10.

"Darwin renounced evolution on his deathbed."
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG001.html

HaRaAYaH

I know you like to be accurate so I would like to point out two inaccuracies in your post.
Israelites got their booty from the Egyptians (Exodus 12:35-37)


Most Talmudic scholars feel the reference you are speaking about where they speak of the hanging of a person is Jesus. Adin Steinsaltz in his monumental translation and commentary on the Talmud disputes your assertion. I can't put my hands on the citation right now. The trouble you run into is this: never use the Talmud as a history book.

You are correct about Josephus, it appears to have had information added at a later date.

fatpie42

And they carried away enough gold to make a large statue of a calf, melt it down, and still have enough left for a golden ark? Seriously?!!

All I can say is the Egyptians were seriously generous to let them have that much gold... and the Israelites are pretty frivolous with it too....

HaRaAYaH

That is an entirely different discussion. I just want you to be accurate.

Matt Stone

When I'm running for my life, I always go out of my way to carry large quantities of obscenely heavy valuable materials... I know that if/when the CIA comes to get me for my crimes against humanity, I'll be sure to grab my grand piano. Can't leave home without it.

NZSkep

re: the rope/camel one, I think it is supposed to greek, not hebrew, but I have a link that claims the words are this:

rope (ka' mi los) and camel (ka' me los)
(clearly very similar)

Anyone here know ancient greek and so confirm that these translations are accurate?

Joe Bloe

It's been a while since I've done anything with Greek, but that matches my memory. A quick check of the Perseus Digital Library and its lexical tools confirms it: one Greek word for rope is quite similar to the Greek word for camel.

Years ago when I first heard this explanation, it made a whole lot more sense of the passage: trying to thread a rope through the eye of a needle is an effective way to illustrate the idea of something being exceedingly difficult; putting a camel through the eye of a needle is just bizarre.