Browsed by
Tag: Draper-White Thesis

Sebastian Major
Interview – Sebastian Major on Galileo and History Myths

Interview – Sebastian Major on Galileo and History Myths

Comments 6 comments

My guest today is Sebastian Major, writer and presenter of the excellent “Our Fake History” podcast. Sebastian recently presented a three part episode on the Galileo Affair, debunking the many historical myths surrounding Galileo. He did a fine job, but he also took on board some criticisms I had of what he said. And so he was also happy to come on “History for Atheists” to discuss Galileo, how hard it is to get complex history right and some thoughts…

Read More Read More

Dissection
The Church and Dissection

The Church and Dissection

Comments 44 comments

The claim that the Medieval Church “banned dissection” and so set back progress in the study of human anatomy is often made in popular sources. It is also regularly found in academic sources by medical experts commenting on the history of anatomy. So, unsurprisingly, it is often produced by anti-theists as evidence that Christianity retarded scientific knowledge for religious reasons. This is despite the fact there was no such “ban” and that the practice of anatomical dissection that founded the…

Read More Read More

Interview - The Conflict Thesis
Interview – David Hutchings & James C. Ungureanu on the Conflict Thesis

Interview – David Hutchings & James C. Ungureanu on the Conflict Thesis

Comments 44 comments

My guests today are David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu, co-authors of Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World. David is a physicist, science teacher and writer and James is a historian of science and religion. In this interview we discuss their book and the origin and impact of the Conflict Thesis – the pervasive but erroneous idea that religion and science have always been in conflict down the ages. To buy the book: Of…

Read More Read More

Answers
History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

Comments 28 comments

It is always nice to be invited to speak to other atheists and to highlight the work I do here on History for Atheists. This week I had the pleasure of talking to Davidian from Answers in Reason in a live discussion which was mainly about the historical Jesus but also on how history is analysed, the nature of ancient source material and the problem of atheist bad history and anti-theist tribalism. We did not get to cover many other…

Read More Read More

“Aron Ra” Gets Everything Wrong

“Aron Ra” Gets Everything Wrong

Comments 191 comments

Unfortunately the New Atheist activist who calls himself “Aron Ra” is all too typical of this kind of polemicist – he does not let his profound ignorance of history stop him from pontificating about it. In a recent debate he put this on full display, with a remarkable burst of pseudo historical gibberish proclaimed with supreme confidence and smug self-assurance. Yet virtually everything he said was wrong. L. Aron Nelson, the anti-theism activist who calls himself “Aron Ra”, has a…

Read More Read More

Review – Nathan Johnstone “The New Atheism: Myth and History”

Review – Nathan Johnstone “The New Atheism: Myth and History”

Comments 109 comments

Nathan Johnstone, The New Atheism, Myth, and History: The Black Legends of Contemporary Anti-Religion, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) 309 pp. Since 2015 I have been arguing on this blog that many anti-theistic and anti-religious activists often abuse and distort history while making their case against religion. Too many New Atheists use outdated, naive, over-simplified or simply plain wrong ideas about history in their arguments and claim to be “rational” while doing so. Now historian Nathan Johnstone has written an excellent monograph…

Read More Read More

Sam Harris’ Horrible Histories

Sam Harris’ Horrible Histories

Comments 104 comments

On July 8 2018 the neuroscientist and New Atheist luminary, Sam Harris, sat down for an interview with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. In the course of their conversation Shapiro argued that western values are derived from Judeo-Christian roots. Harris disputed this and, in doing so, presented a sustained six minutes of total pseudo historical gibberish. Shapiro’s grasp of history was little better and neither did a particularly good job of making their case, but Harris’ string of historical howlers is…

Read More Read More

The Great Myths 6: Copernicus’ Deathbed Publication

The Great Myths 6: Copernicus’ Deathbed Publication

Comments 116 comments

Copernicus first circulated his ideas in 1514, but the Catholic Church did not get around to condemning his heliocentric cosmology until the Inquisition’s injunction against Galileo in 1616. If the Church opposed science and condemned any idea that was contrary to the Bible, why the century long delay? And why did they never persecute Copernicus himself? Many new atheists explain this by claiming he kept his ideas secret and only published his book when he was on his deathbed to escape…

Read More Read More

An Islamic “Reformation”? – Pseudo History meets Politics

An Islamic “Reformation”? – Pseudo History meets Politics

Comments 92 comments

New Atheists generally acknowledge that it was the 9/11 attacks that gave their anti-theistic movement its initial impetus. Not surprisingly, several of their leading lights, led by Dawkins, Harris and comedian Bill Maher, have become trenchant critics of Islam as a key example of the toxicity of unfettered religion. These critics therefore lionise the ex-Muslim atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and support her calls for an Islamic equivalent to the Protestant Reformation. But is this based on good history? Ayaan Hirsi…

Read More Read More

The Archimedes Palimpsest

The Archimedes Palimpsest

Comments 39 comments

New Atheist discussions of the history of science are almost always based on some form of the Conflict Thesis. Despite the fact this conception of an eternal “warfare between science and religion” has long since been rejected by historians of science, anti-theists have an emotional commitment to this dusty nineteenth century idea, with most naively accepting it without question while a few struggle to prop it up in the face of the consensus of modern historians that it is simplistic,…

Read More Read More