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The Great Myths 16: The Conflict Between Science and Religion

The Great Myths 16: The Conflict Between Science and Religion

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The “Conflict Thesis” forms a kind of underlying historical metamyth that informs and undergirds a substantial number of assumptions about history by anti-theist polemicists. This is the assumed and unquestioned idea that Science and Religion have been perpetually at war down the ages. Also known as the Draper-White Thesis or Warfare Model, it is a conception of the history of science that presents religion as the perpetual and consistent enemy of science, technology and progress. It is a pervasive idea…

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Hypatia - Myths and History
Hypatia – Myths and History

Hypatia – Myths and History

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The story often told about Hypatia of Alexandria was that she was a great scientist, rationalist and scholar who was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians who hated her knowledge and learning, with her death ushering in the Dark Ages. But this story is mostly nonsense and the real history is far more complex and much more interesting. Contrary to the myths, she was not a modern-style scientist, she was far from an atheist or what we would regard…

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Dissection
The Church and Dissection

The Church and Dissection

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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…

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Library of Antioch
Burning the Library of Antioch?

Burning the Library of Antioch?

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While the myth of Christians “burning the Great Library of Alexandria” is far more widespread, it is often claimed they also destroyed the Library of Antioch. This claim is usually made in passing and with little detail, other than that it was the short-lived Christian emperor Jovian who was the culprit and the fact the library contained “many pagan works” was the alleged motive. So this crime is often mentioned in catalogues of Christian crimes against ancient learning. But what…

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

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

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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…

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Answers
History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

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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…

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Transmission
The Great Myths 8: The Loss of Ancient Learning

The Great Myths 8: The Loss of Ancient Learning

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The idea that we only have a fraction of Greek and Roman learning and literature because most of it was destroyed by Christians is a common assumed truism in much New Atheist discourse. But this is substantially a simplistic myth based on a number of misconceptions and errors of fact. If anything, we have a succession of Christian scholars to thank for all of the ancient learning that survives. The wicked destruction of the wondrous learning of the ancients by…

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Review – Tom Holland “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind”

Review – Tom Holland “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind”

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Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Little, Brown, 2019) 624 pp. Tom Holland is the best kind of popular history writer. He is a good researcher who knows what can be stated with emphasis and what needs to be judiciously hedged. He is a fine story-teller, who can weave bare facts into a smooth and engaging narrative. He is provocative and startling enough to keep the reader on their toes and turning pages. And he is…

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Year in Review
2018 – The Year in Review

2018 – The Year in Review

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Since we are now a few days into the new year, I have been looking at the statistics for this blog over the last twelve months and thought I would post a short summary, with a few comments. History for Atheists has been running since October 2015, and so is now into its fourth year of operation. In that time, I am happy to say, it has built up a solid following and has gone some way toward its objective…

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History for Atheists on the Non Sequitur Show 2 – The Great Library and Hypatia

History for Atheists on the Non Sequitur Show 2 – The Great Library and Hypatia

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Steve McRae and Kyle Curtis of the Non Sequitur Show were kind enough to have me back, this time to talk about the myths surrounding the Great Library of Alexandria and those associated with Hypatia. In the process we discussed the nature of ancient libraries, Greek proto-science and technology and the influence of neo-Platonism on Christian theology. Most of the audience seemed to enjoy it and felt they had learned something, which is always good to see. It seems they…

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