The nones are growing, though!

Or people who love to think they’re in on the conspiracy.

Yeah, as a result of the direction of history, Islam has been less internally criticized than Christianity in its dominant home cultures. It has faced areas where it’s had to share power and respond to criticism, like India, Southeast Asia, etc., but the lack of something on the scope of a full Reformation let alone a native-born Enlightenment has kept Islam

And I definitely agree it’s important to note that many Islamic powers can be “peaceful” precisely because they are facing no major internal challenge to their religious hegemony. Like with all successful mass religions that have acquired an authoritarian bent over time, that will change when it’s challenged… just as Christianity in, say, the US has.

…and why your work is so valuable. Because it demonstrates that Paul never explicitly describes one supernatural event in his letters. For him the “miracle” was a changed life from sin to good works, wisdom, and prayer (meditation). The myth making of Jesus from Nazareth came later. Your work essentially exonerates Paul from promoting myths and superstitions as history. You think you have repudiated the Good News of Jesus Christ, but instead have made a significant contribution to its restoration. The Hebrew Savior Joshua of Paul was based on the type from scripture itself, namely, Joshua Son of Nun, who translates in practical terms to the divine mind, moral consciousness, potentially found in every human being. The Good News of the anointed one Joshua remains intact and true because moral mind still saves humans from ignorance and vice.

Indeed. Hence I have a bibliography on the science of glossolalia in OHJ.

Speaking in tongues as originally described by Paul lacks an explicit supernatural event. Yet another corruption, misinterpretation of his words by popular christianity.

The claim of christianity is an alleged supernatural event to “speak in tongues” which Paul vaguely describes in his letters and attributes to an angelic language. There is a simple, natural explanation for the phenomena described by Paul, not to be confounded with the fictional narrative of Acts.

1) Up to One-third population of Rome were slaves conquered from foreign lands all speaking foreign languages. Some adopted christianity and attended christian home fellowships. These foreign individuals could worship and speak as long as someone was present who could interpreted what they said, as Paul directed in his letters.

2) The conversion of humans to possess the divine Mind, or “Mind of Christ”, was characterized as a union with their angel in heaven. Therefore, it is the changed individual, who could be slaves from a foreign land, in a home fellowship setting worshipping in a foreign tongue, …as an angel, in a foreign tongue. Moreover, the book of Hebrews talks about angels visiting homes and the Dead Sea Scrolls write about the Angels of Presence, who are humans on earth carrying out the will of God.

Speaking in tongues was originally a natural phenomena perceived as miraculous by the religious conscience. It was never a supernatural event.

the “miracles and wonders” performed by Paul could just be a changed life.

I suspect they were more than that. More like tent shows, which are part bunk, part psychosomatics—like tent shows today. That’s why I linked to From Paralysis to Fatigue, as it’s a history of psychosomatics, which are culturally modulated delusions and not demons.

I discuss this (and go over the list of powers Paul alluded to having) in Scientist in the Early Roman Empire, 504–06 (comparing pagan epistemic values with Christian).

A classic example of your point is the difference between what Paul reports about glossolalia (which exactly matches modern scientific study of the phenomenon, and thus is thus clearly talking about real but just natural phenomena) and what Acts 2 gins that up to in mythology (whereby people actually magically learn foreign languages that witnesses then conveniently confirm—a stock urban legend that makes a normal thing into a supernatural thing and thus “miraculous”). Mythmaking is thus the only place you find miracles. In real evidence they devolve into just ordinary phenomena (up to and including lies). And that’s why Christianity is built on methodological gullibility: not being willing to see or admit that this is always the case.

Dr. carrier,

You deftly point out in your books that Paul never says clearly what later popular christianity claims is dogma. You demonstrate time after time that he could be meaning something else entirely. The same goes for supernatural events. Paul never explicitly describes a supernatural event in enough detail to be certain that he means a real supernatural event. To a religious conscience like Paul and his followers, the “miracles and wonders” performed by Paul could just be a changed life. Someone biologically born ignorant of the divine and enslaved to vice from childhood could subsequently be made spiritually alive, enlightened, resurrected from the dead, freed from bondage, etc., by “the renewal of their mind”, by adopting “the Mind of Christ” just as Paul explicitly writes. Paul is arguably describing the “miracle” of conversion from ignorance and sin to experience of the divine through mind, merit, and wisdom…similar to Buddhism. And his followers allegorized Paul’s life and teachings in the Gospel myths. Hence, the supernatural events depicted in the myths symbolize the natural events perceived by the religious conscience. The stories were for the spiritually minded, not the earthly minded looking for, hoping for supernatural events.

Again, it is time to accept your conclusions that the Gospel stories are not history but written for some other purpose. Presumably, to canonize the life and teachings of Paul (see Dykstra).

Best regards,
Thomas

Right there are many “Islams” now, just as there are many “Christianities”.

And most of them are (relatively) peaceful, either because they are the dominant ideology already (with nothing else to pose any serious challenge), or because the cultural conditions favour (or “select”), for a more peaceful, liberal and egalitarian “interpretation” (rather than a violent, authoritarian and war hungry interpretation).

(Through I will say Islam – generally speaking – has way more cultural influence than what Christianity – generally speaking – has in Western Europe (where many – if not most -do not Identity as Christian in any sense, and even the big majority of people who do identity as Christian mean it to be vague “cultural Christians”, – and those people are usually atheist, and certainly never attend church, never pray, never perform any Christian rituals or anything else.

While that is not the picture at all in the Islamic world.)

Thank you for the detailed explanation, and providing links for further reading on the subject.