Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths About Church History

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Many commonly held views about the church’s role in history are based on myths, exaggerations, or falsehoods. Topics such as the church teaching a flat earth, Galileo’s dispute with the church, Hypatia’s murder, the ‘Dark Ages’, and the church’s stance on anesthesia have been misrepresented over time. For example, most scholars throughout church history knew the earth was round, Galileo’s conflict was as much about politics as science, Hypatia had Christian students and admirers, no historian uses the term ‘Dark Ages’ because the Middle Ages were a period of great innovation, and no Christian of note opposed anesthesia.

Later in the conversation, Dr Jonathan Sarfati explores deeper issues. For example, is religion is the cause of wars, the Crusades, and Inquisition. In reality, atheistic regimes of the 20th century caused far more deaths than religious conflicts, e.g. Stalin’s Holodomor, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and Pol Pot’s killing fields. He highlights that Christianity has been responsible for significant moral progress, such as the abolition of slavery, driven by the belief that all people are made in God’s Image.

⏳ CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:29 Did the Church teach that Earth is flat?
04:50 The Galileo caricature
07:45 Did Christians oppose anesthesia?
10:20 Hasn’t Christianity caused many wars?
12:04 Isn’t the Church responsible for the Crusades?
13:40 Is the Church responsible for the Dark Ages?
16:55 Was Hypatia murdered by Christians?
20:41 Was the Inquisition the Church’s darkest hour?
23:23 Christian regimes versus atheistic ones
25:15 Did the Church spread slavery?
28:15 → The end of Islamic slavery
29:09 → The end of American slavery
30:44 → Doesn’t the Old Testament condone slavery?
33:04 Was Adolf Hitler a Christian?
35:23 Are you saying Christians haven’t done _any_ bad things?
37:50 What _good_ things has Christianity done for the world?
40:28 → Education and classical education
41:51 → Inventions Christianity was responsible for
44:04 Why does Christianity even exist?
45:51 Book recommendation: _Christianity for Skeptics_

✍️ LINKS AND SHOW NOTES

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💙 SOCIAL MEDIA

📅 EVENTS
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Thanks for watching!

[fioschannel]

Dr. Sarfati is a very intelligent person and a very interesting speaker! Thank you CMI for this so instructive talk.

[JonPaulTovio]

Wow, that was so much information in under 50 mins. That was cool. 😄 - Matthew 25:21 - “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

[coolyfulgore]

Blaming religion for war is like blaming guns for violence. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Religion doesn't cause war, people cause war.

[stuartofblyth]

If the Earth was flat, the cats would have pushed everything off by now.

[martinhaldimann]

What a wealth of knowledge. Bless CMI and all its members. This is what truth sounds like. Hallelujah.

[justinjozokos]

Even back when I was an atheist, I understood that historical religion vs. science debates are typically only science vs. science debates. I was and still am interested in the philosophy of science, and I remember this being one of the many interesting theses of Paul Feyerabend's 1975 book titled Against Method. It's just that the scientific "facts" of one century come to be replaced by the ones in the next century, but the latter are called science and the former called religion or superstition. Feyerabend's book was also a response to the views of contemporary philosophers of science, like Popper, Polanyi, Kuhn, Quine, and Lakatos, and he pointed to Galileo as a counter example to all their ideas about how science works. I think at times Feyerabend says some crazy things in that book, but it's great for anyone who wants to learn about Galileo while also getting an incredibly interesting perspective in the philosophy of science. I highly recommended the book. One of my favorites.

[newcreationinchrist]

I think it's funny when some people want to blame religion for wars and yet we look at the recent past along with the current wars going on, most of them have nothing to do with religion at all.
Russia/Ukraine ie about power and geopolitics
China/Taiwan is about power and territory
Israel/Gaza could be blamed on religion
Invasion of Iraq was about power and geopolitics
Gulf war was about protecting money interests in the region
The invasion of Panama was about the USA asserting its influence over the country
The Vietnam war was about geopolitics
Korean war was about geopolitics

And these same people say that we need to get away from religion because it is keeping us in the stone

[Heisrisin]

According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1, 763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 121, or 6.87%, had religion as their primary cause. The single religion that has caused the most wars is Islam.

[Somebodyswatching-JC]

This is good, it is about time biblical ideas are presented as the highest values that govern the universe. History explained in proper order. Thank you!

[hwd]

Information packed episode answering so many old chestnuts of the misotheists, to borrow a phrase from Dr Sarfati.

God bless everyone at CMI

[АлександрГодзиковский-ьр]

And what number of Christians were killed and suffered just for being christians? 😢

[lynandrews]

Reassuring discussion. Thank you gentleman.
Lyn

[Joanne-tj]

Loads of information here. One thing I had never considered: property rights 🤔

[edbrackeen]

Do you hold the inspired, preserved, perfect, complete and infallible words of God in the book written in our language, that God promised us in your hands?

[skouzini]

Another Christian contribution to science is Dr. Russell M Nelson and his development of open heart surgery. He cited his belief that God has created a universe of order, founded on certain laws that could be revealed to man through Him.

[willoughby]

Some people don't want there to be a "God" because it makes them feel very guilty, because they would have to live correctly, and because if there's no God then they can act as rotten as they want, be bad on purpose even, and even pick on Christians and other 'good' things like that. Plus, they get to feel they can pridefully boast they are the ones with proper thinking and all else are either lost or are complete fools. "Not me me me though! I'm so cool and knowledgeable that I pity all the rest!""

[kdkinen]

"Earth takes shape like clay under a seal". Job.

[edbrackeen]

When anyone says, The Church, they must clarify. Are they referring to the pagan Church buildings and their pagan membership
or
are they speaking of the NT church of The living God, Jesus the Christ which only includes those of us that are born again of the Holy Ghost of Jesus the Christ.

[curtis]

The greater question is “what do you mean by church history?”
What is never established is what Jesus refers to as His church and what religions refer to as the church.
Who calls that shot?

[eensio]

I think the heart of religion is the loyality of an individual to the group. Those groups with high authority got best lands to hunt and cultivate.
Actual war is against ”satanic west”.