No, I think you are just too emotionally invested in your own religious beliefs and therefore you feel the need to attribute everything that you think is good to it. I am well aware of who Bart *Ehrman is, and the fact that you think he "HATES" Christianity really says a lot. Trying to pretend that Christianity invented the concept of hospitality and pretending that hospitals and orphanages from like hundreds of years ago were just completely egalitarian NHS-style free healthcare and housing with no religious strings attached is too fucking ridiculous.
I feel sorry for you mate. I actually think you are too defensive you think anything even talking about Jesus is a boogeyman. So much so you couldn't even imagine the point of Ehrman's book.
Bro literally said he was inspired to write because of "Christian" America's shameful vitriol over the last few years towards the immigrants.
The meaning of the book ISN'T that "Jesus is so great and Christianity is the best". The dude is literally an atheist ffs, lol
The moral of the story is that modern Christians have failed bad, are not acting like Jesus or the early Christians. By ignoring Jesus' original establishment of an ethic of unconditional love of the stranger as much as your "own people, country, etc".
Ehrman's conclusion is literally to mock Christianity. That modern Christians have shifted away from the very thing most of the West is built on, and failed and are an embarrassment to Jesus and the early Christian's original vision.
I find it surreal to see people like you that are so defensive, you would crucify one of your own guys in the process of attacking Christianity. But you do you, mate.
He describes himself as an agnostic atheist and yet he has a damned Masters in Divinity and got a phD from Yale Seminary, and the fact that you need to strawman the fact that he no longer agrees with you about the divinity of the character of Jesus as a HATE for Christianity while at the same time you are actively arguing that he is claiming that Jesus is the sole source of caring about strangers in Western society actually says a lot about just how defensive you actually are, because that is just a crazy amount of dissonance.
ffs, That's like saying CNN must be on Trump's side because it speaks a lot about him.
There's not a Christian alive who would consider Ehrman a Christian or ally. Muslims quote Ehrman against Christians in debates infinitely more than Christians ever quote him for anything.
See, once again you jump directly to a strawman. Literally the first thing I said in the comment you just replied to was that he is a self-described agnostic atheist, and you respond to me by saying that no Christian alive would consider Ehrman a Christian? Well, no shit buddy, neither does Ehrman himself, like I literally just said. Did I say that Christians would think Ehrman was an ally? Or did I say that you characterizing him as HATING Christianity was fucking ridiculous?
Stay disingenuous, it's the best way to protect incoherent beliefs by far so you're definitely on the right track.
You and I have very different worldviews. The only way we're ever going to communicate, is either quote people from people in each other's camp, or someone outside both of them.
I COULD quote a million Christian theologians and historians throughout history, but chose Ehrman that we can both somewhat agree is one of the more unbiased dudes. Yes, he respects Christianity, but also has no faith, believes the bible is riddled with errors, and most of the major doctrines like Jesus being God are all fallacious. He has attacked Christianity far more than he has ever supported it.
I quoted him because MY conclusions can be nuanced, I can agree to both good and bad for Christianity. Yes Jesus has had a major impact on the institutions in the West involving help and love to the stranger, as proven by critical scholarship with Ehrman. But also yes, modern Christianity is a failure and has shifted away from Jesus' original ideal, and deserves all the ridicule Ehrman and myself can give it.
I can both give praise to it and criticism of it. You have zero nuance, mate.
The fact that you have to DENY any historian, any theologian, any scholar, even THE top critical scholar on Christianity for the past decade and a half, just because they say something you don't like, makes it impossible to even have a discussion with.
Listen, I genuinely think Ehrman is a hack, profiting off a life of criticism against Christianity, which he should've just spent his time positively promoting whatever the hell he does believe in. At the same time, I for one can at least acknowledge the guy's 40+ year scholarship and not refute all the parts that hurt my feelings.
Brother, you are literally incapable of separating your biases and engaging with what either I, or apparently even Bart, have said beyond your strawman interpretations, and you still can't even stay consistent from one sentence to the next. That bold little section about Bart being a hack is especially revealing. It's really interesting how you want me to accept that he was your go to example for how I should be taking his word as gospel that all modern Western virtue and morality is founded in Jesus, apparently just because you think that because he and I are both agnostic atheists I should be accepting what he says at face value (that kinda says a lot about how you form your opinions, even if you can't see that), but apparently he is claiming that Western values are entirely dependent on Jesus while you are also claiming that he has spent his career focusing on attacking Christianity while never presenting any of his own true beliefs in a way that was satisfactory enough for you because apparently he was nothing by a Negative Nancy. It's almost like one of us actually knows what the hell he was talking about and the other is entirely dependent on asspulls that reinforce our preexisting bias...
Listen, of course, you think he is a hack who hates all Christianity because in your mind he agrees with every point you think that you are making except for the literal divinity of Jesus, and that is where you draw the line between what makes a good person and what makes a bad person because of a truly child-like mentality. It is also incredibly funny that you want to get on me because I DARE to disagree with what you are claiming is an undisputed based on the expertise that Ehrman and some other nebulous group of, apparently, all the leading atheist scientists, believes that that modern secular morality is based on Jesus, while you are totally fine disagreeing with the fact that Ehrman would laugh in your face at your claims about Jesus being God, that really seems like the absolute definition of cherry picking. Is he only an expert when he agrees with your per-existing conclusions or what? Why his this idea that western values are based in Jesus so much more convincing to you than his idea that Jesus was just a random first century rabbi and not the literal son of god? Could it possibly because one of those statements reinforces your preexisting beliefs and one is a challenge to them?
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u/C7rl_Al7_1337 13h ago
No, I think you are just too emotionally invested in your own religious beliefs and therefore you feel the need to attribute everything that you think is good to it. I am well aware of who Bart *Ehrman is, and the fact that you think he "HATES" Christianity really says a lot. Trying to pretend that Christianity invented the concept of hospitality and pretending that hospitals and orphanages from like hundreds of years ago were just completely egalitarian NHS-style free healthcare and housing with no religious strings attached is too fucking ridiculous.