History for Atheists

The Great Myths 7: “Hitler’s Pope”? https://historyforatheists.com/2019/05/the-great-myths-7-hitlers-pope/

> I don't think that's correct. I have no sources on me. But I think historians generally agree - son of god or not - he did exist. PSA: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus With regards to the idea of "no contemporary sources": * https://historyforatheists.com/2018/05/jesus-mythicism-3-no-contempora… * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_silence It should be noted that while Jesus was still alive he was a nobody: just another itinerant teacher in some backwater Roman province. It was only after he was executed (and supposedly resurrected) that that he perhaps became more noteworthy. And the 'cult' around that grew only later was when people started to notice. We only care about [Hh]im now because of what that 'personality cult' became, but then (between 1AD and 32AD) why would anyone care to write things down about him?

I would recommend: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World As well as Dominion by Tom Holland: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holland_(author) * https://historyforatheists.com/2020/01/tom-holland-dominion/

Somewhat unrelated but his Library of Alexandria episode is not very accurate: https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-li… https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1nqrl0/carl_sagan_the_lib…

> How about the Christians that spent many centuries actually destroying and forgetting the works and achievements of the ancient world [3]? This is apparently a myth. See: https://historyforatheists.com/2020/03/the-great-myths-8-the-loss-of-a…

https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-li… History for atheists by an atheist historian. Lots of references in this article.

The date of Easter was decided in AD 325 by the council of Nicea (following earlier traditions and precedents), on grounds having nothing to do with German paganism. https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/

Hypatia’s murder had very little to do with religious conflict against a free thinker and everything to do with class alexandrian class politics. https://historyforatheists.com/2020/07/the-great-myths-9-hypatia-of-al… Bruno’s execution was of course evil and wrong but it’s also wrong to depict him as some kind of martyr for science and that the Catholics were setting back intellectual progress. Bruno was not a scientist, he was a mystic. He did not carry out experiments to try to prove his beliefs nor even believe in the ability of math to explain nature. The conflict that lead to his death was between two different religious/mystical traditions and not between “intellectualism” and religion. If he were alive today he would be more comparable with Deepak Chopra than a real scientist Christians simply did not “extirpate” knowledge of the hieroglyphs or “scatter Egyptian priests.” Hieroglyphs were already falling into disuse since they were the writing system of a tiny elite of priests. There was no abolition or persecution of the hieroglyphic using class. The fading of hieroglyphs has its roots in the Hellenization of Egypt centuries before Christianity began. As Egyptians became Christian, the Coptic script came to be dominant for writing the Egyptian language. In the same way very few people bother to learn how to write JCL anymore, very few people were interested in retaining knowledge of hieroglyphs. There’s an implicit idea here too that Christians were some…

Quite possibly; however, it's very difficult to say due to lack of data and no way to prove it one way or the other. I do know that within Christian theological circles, this would have been considered an abhorrent crime of bearing false witness, just as it has always been. The other reason it's difficult is the sheer prevalence, even in our modern culture, of the Black Legend which injected all sorts of myths regarding the Inquisition and Medieval culture. For example, the Inquisition rarely used torture, Torquemada only had 1% of his heretics executed, and there is only one documented instance of a woman ever being racked (and it wasn't even part of the Inquisition). The effects of the Black Legend were so extreme, that to quote the modern European historian Elvira Roca Barea: "If we deprive Europe of its hispanophobia and anti-Catholicism, its modern history becomes incomprehensible." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend Or, if that sounds too boring, broad, or controversial, here's History for Atheists admitting the Inquisition and witch hunts is one of the dumbest arguments for atheism, due to heavy involvement of commonly accepted myths: https://historyforatheists.com/2024/02/the-great-myths-14-the-inquisit…

This is such a great thread, I'm excited to begin reading quite a few of the linked blogs (such as this one: https://acoup.blog/). These ones are some of my favorites: - www.wall.org/~aron/blog/ (physics, theology, history, philosophy) - http://xahlee.info/ (math, emacs, keyboards, etc.) - https://matt.might.net/articles/ (academy, compsci, etc.) - https://www.joelonsoftware.com/ (programming, companies, etc.) - https://danluu.com/ (technical topics) - Mailing list in https://practicaltypography.com/ - http://paulgraham.com/ - https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/ (math, physics) - https://www.gwern.net/index (interesting articles) - https://slatestarcodex.com/ and https://astralcodexten.substack.com/ (science, psychiatry, philosophy, rationality, etc.) - http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/ (programming) - https://creativegood.com/blog/ (UX, and more) - https://daringfireball.net/ (Apple) - https://backreaction.blogspot.com/ (physics) - https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ - https://historyforatheists.com/ (historical myths) - http://funcall.blogspot.com/ (programming, compsci) - https://blog.fawny.org/ (accessibility, design) - https://blog.jessfraz.com/ (technology) - https://use-the-index-luke.com/blog (databases) - https://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/ (God, love) I can list some of my favorite articles from one of these blogs if anyone is interested.

Also Tim O'Neill of the History for Atheists weblog/channel: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq1ksVVeRWI * https://historyforatheists.com/2025/04/interview-dr-ada-palmer-on-myth… Other interesting interviews: the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth with Bart Ehrman and also Thomas Schmidt (using Josephus' Testimonium), the date of Christmas with Philipp Nothaft, 'pagan origins' of Easter with Andrew Henry (Religion for Breakfast channel), Tom Holland. Good weblog posts too. Also on the Toldinstone channel: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ws87TCojyc

Eh not really - https://historyforatheists.com/2024/12/pagan-christmas-again/ Easter also not pagan. But pophistory thinks that as well. Scholarship doesn’t line up.

> Called The Precession of the Equinoxes or Axial Precesion, the ancient societies including Egypt were also aware of this The earliest ancients that seem to have figured it out were the Greeks around 200 BC. It is questionable/controversial whether the Ancient Egyptians knew about it: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession#Ancient_Egyptians > iirc Christmas and other mythological holidays are related to the "birth" and "death" of the north star movements, along with the sun and venus. Christmas is more likely linked to the day of Easter via the 'calculation hypothesis' than any astronomical event (or pagan celebration): * https://historyforatheists.com/2024/12/pagan-christmas-again/#Jesus * https://historyforatheists.com/2023/12/interview-dr-philipp-nothaft-on…

No and no. https://historyforatheists.com/2020/12/pagan-christmas/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJq70tf0AsY

Epistemology in ancient history is hard, but we know enough to make good estimates of the survival rate of ancient Greek and Latin literary texts http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2009/10/26/reference-for-the-claim-… Roger S. Bagnall, "Alexandria: Library of Dreams" https://archive.nyu.edu/handle/2451/28263 https://historyforatheists.com/2017/10/lost-books-photios-bibliotheca/