Voksenopplæring for ateister

Så ble den endelig lansert, den lenge varslede bloggen der historikeren Tim O'Neill går gjennom alle disse historiske mytene som er så vanlig blant kritisk tenkende nye ateister.

Som ateist har Tim lenge latt seg irritere over inkompetansen og den fordummende mytespredningen når nye ateister uttaler seg om historie, fra Harris til Hitchens, Dennett til Dawkins, for ikke å si Coyne, Myers og resten av feltet, noen ganger også Richard Carrier.

Enten temaet er middelalderen eller Galilei, den historiske Jesus eller den ikke-historiske vitenskapsfienden Kirken.

Han legger lite i mellom når han skal presentere bakgrunnen og temaer i History for Atheists.

But in the last decade or so I've became increasingly aware of and bothered by a particular brand of biased pseudo history: what I call New Atheist Bad History.

This varies from lazy repetitions of popular misconceptions, like perpetuating the myth that the medieval Church taught that the earth was flat, to full blown conglomerations of elaborate fringe theory, like the cluster of fervid and contrived pseudo history that is the Jesus Myth hypothesis.  But the list of historical ideas the New Atheists and their online acolytes get wildly wrong is long.  Amongst other things, many of them believe:

• That Christianity caused the "Dark Ages" by systematically destroying almost all ancient Greco-Roman learning, 

• That Christians burned down the Great Library of Alexandria and that Hypatia of Alexandria was murdered because of a Christian hatred of science

• That Constantine was a crypto-pagan who adopted Christianity as a cynical political ploy (and personally created the Bible)

• That scientists were oppressed during the Middle Ages and science stagnated completely until "the Renaissance"

• That "the Inquisition" was a kind of Europe-wide medieval Gestapo and that the medieval Church was an all-powerful totalitarian theocracy

•  That Giordano Bruno was a wise and brave astronomer and cosmologist who was burned at the stake because the Church hated science

• That the Galileo Affair was a straightforward case of religion ignoring evidence and trying to suppress scientific advancement

• That Pope Pius XII was a friend and ally of the Nazis who turned a blind eye to the Holocaust and helped Nazis escape justice

Altså ikke veldig ukjent stoff for lesere av enkelte bøker, eller av inneværende blogg som også har tatt opp svært mange andre slike myter.

Det er ingen grunn til å skjule at jeg for en god del stoff står i gjeld til Tim. Få historikere har gått grundigere gjennom mytene, få har våget seg mer uredd ut i debatter i ateistfora.

Det er svært forståelig at han er oppgitt og flau over kunnskapsløs retorikk hos mange medateister, og forsøker å tenne noen lys for dem.

Selv om han til tider kunne valgt andre opptenningsmidler enn flammekaster.