What is Reddit's opinion of The Nativity: A Critical Examination?

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The God those arguments prove isn't a Christian God, and Christianity itself can be proven false independently tho' (see The Nativity and The Resurrection by Jonathan M.S. Pearce).

Let's just say that the discovery of the Elephantine papyri proves what we knew from higher criticism, that Yahweh was just one of many gods in polytheist Canaanite system, and there was no Exodus, no Moses, and no patriarchs. It's all just mythology, and one that developed relatively late at that.

The New Testament itself fares no better, with fundamental stories of Nativity and Ressurection, being false, and Gospels themselves telling us next to nothing about historical Jesus, since they're basically just pious fan-fiction.

You're welcome! Theism is just a word that denotes the belief in personal God.

It depends if you want to deconvert from Christianity, or find a livable Christianity. You could attempt to find a sane (and kind) Orthodox priest to guide you, one who is life-affirming rather than one who's into death cult stuff.

if you want to deconvert, I recommend books The Nativity and The Resurrection, by Jonathan M. S. Pearce. If you're interesting in learning history of the Early Church, see the following lectures by Dr. Steve Mason: John the Baptist, First Generation Christians, and Second Generaton Christians. It will help demystify and debunk the Church's claim of "the faith once delivered to the apostles." Evangelist "Luke" wasn't a witness, but leaned on Josephus to get his information, and The Book of Acts is a reworking of (Euripides' Bacchai)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2fTHvhHrm0] & (Second Macabees)[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAH71gf4P3M].

As I said above, I started on search for life-affirming faith, but eventually ended up in deconversion route. This meant some significant realignment of life goals.

After I screwed myself up I realized only two things are truly important in life. Health and money. You need health for obvious reasons. This means eating healthy and living healthy. But also getting into and staying in top physical condition (this ought to give you something to do, and strive towards in your life). Physical exercise is also great for mental health, so it's a neat little package. Second thing, money. It's not as important as health, but is still of utmost importance. And by money I don't mean living luxuriously, or buying useless crap. I mean saving, living frugally, but having the so-called "fuck you" money at your disposal at all times. This is important, because when you have the FU money, you are never going to be the slave of circumstance. And hey, the good thing about money, is that if you don't need it, you can always give it to those who do!

All meaning and value is subjective. See the diamond-water paradox. Things have meaning and value, not because they are worth something in some grand metaphysical system, but because they matter to you yourself for whatever reason (so, when apologists say that without Christianity, human life is worth less than life of a worm, that's not true, humans are worth more than worm because they're more valuable than worms to you -- in fact, human value is negative in Christianity, for most are going to Hell and it would've been better had they never been conceived in the first place). Ironically, that's even how metaphysical systems work. You create subjective value for yourself, something to strive towards. The fact that somebody tells you it's objective doesn't change the fact it's all in your head.