Ojuice5001

The first thing to remember is that Christianity tends to promote closed-mindedness. Of course not all Christians are closed-minded, but the main thrust of Christian tradition has been to discourage asking any questions that, if asked, might lead to the abandonment of Christianity. So, since most Christian leaders at most times have been against exploring other belief systems, it would be surprising if they had practiced a convention that anyone can see increases the chance of this.

My next point is that that is however precisely what happened once. I refer to an important convention in early Christian apologists, going from the first apologists all the way to Thomas Aquinas. Namely, a book like City of God or Against Celsus quotes or summarizes their polytheistic opponents' positions quite extensively. Few books in other time periods spend so much time giving the defenses of their opponents' positions. And yet it would not seem that someone like St. Augustine wanted people to seriously consider the view that the Roman gods were the protectors of the Roman Empire. (Which they were! <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> )

In fact, this convention reached its heyday with the ancient Christians. Socrates-style dialogues were the closest pre-Christian equivalent, and this style of debate seldom catches on in modern theological and political polemics. And yet this goes against the general tendency of Christian views on other belief systems. Is there a naturalistic explanation?

Obviously this had a tendency to immortalize books like A True Discourse by Celsus or Against the Galileans by Emperor Julian--the unabridged versions were censored, and yet significant amounts of fragments survived in Christian libraries. This went against the ancient Church's programs of censorship, and yet it happened. It's like an early Trebaxian Vir thread. If Trebaxian Vir posts an explanation of Trebaxia, and someone else does a point-by-point refutation of him, it is no longer possible for Trebaxian to get rid of it just by deleting his own posts. Similarly, Against Celsus ensures that two books have to be censored to silence A True Discourse, not just one.

Now, is there a naturalistic explanation for the fact that the great champions of an anti-questioning religion used a convention that promotes questioning? Maybe, but I don't know what it is. Certainly the apologists and the Church could see that they were taking the risk of perpetuating heretical arguments. It makes equally little sense that, if Yahweh exists and Jupiter doesn't, Yahweh would allow this immortalization of the followers of the old religions. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense that Jupiter exists and could and would cause this style to preserve the truth for the ages.

Eudaimonist

You are surprised that Christians published books?

Early Christians wanted to gain legitimacy in Roman society. Why wouldn't they publish apologetics to defend themselves from their critics? That was the easiest way to reach the intellectuals of their day.

If that method left scraps of pagan writings around, it was probably just expediency and shortsightedness on their part, but consider that Christianity won out over paganism.

[ October 25, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonist ]</p>