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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2020
- Tom Holland a historian and author of 'Dominion', a book explaining how Christianity formed western civilization. Holland speaks to The Sun's Steven Edginton about the rise of Christianity, the new woke religion and whether statues should be removed.
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I really appreciate the integrity and honesty of both the interviewer and Tom Holland. Very good interview.
this deserves so many more views, basically explains where we are, fantastic
Too many are afraid to see it.
Great interview...Tom tightly supports his thesis with an amazing breadth of knowledge.
A cultural Athenian atheist defends Christian civilization .
Christianity was the big bang of a new creation within an old order. Therefore let us not confuse the natural ripples with the supernatural cause.
The description of the parallel of Richard Dawkins evangelicalism was powerful and apt. If one reads the Christian church fathers he realizes that Christianity was the voice of reason combating the darkness of antiquity. Read the apologies of Athenagoras and others
Be not afraid, my Soul, for there is a Tom Holland.
Always very stimulating to listen to Tom Holland. Thanks.
Dear Robert. I've posted a challenge for Tamara Spink who, just like you, seems to be a fan of Tom's. Her entry is just above yours. Would you be kind enough and tell me what your take on my challenge is, please? Kind regards.
Great interviewer. And Tom is amazing, as ever.
Dear Tamara. I have a couple of questions please. How can Tom or anybody say that Christianity is special? Doesn't Tom know the history of christianity? (Karlheinz Deschner's 10 volume book- "The Criminal History of Christianity.") What is so special about the Christ's teaching in the NT that Christians can possess other Christians as property/slaves: 1 Timothy 6:1-4? Kind regards.
I love your novel Persian Fire, fantastic read on the Persian Wars. A must read.
Not a novel.
'law written on human hearts' isn't St Paul repudiating Mosaic Law, rather saying the Holy Spirit will change our hearts so that we are inclined to keep God's law.
Loved this and appreciate The Sun engaging in this conversation. Not sure I agree that atheism (getting rid of God) is the logical endpoint of the “Christian process”. Owen Barfield suggested that “original participation” where the pantheistic world of spirits gave rise to ourselves from outside of us gave way to life emanating from within us in the axial age and a sense of alienation. He also spoke of a final participation when we become individual within an integrated cosmos.
Really enjoyed this! 🧡🗻🌋🏔🏝🤙
If your depressed by social media...turn it of..sell it .but a guitar or fishing rod.seriously,helped me hugely..
If a statue has artistic value, if it's really well done, then what do you do? Do you destroy it just because you don't like the content? That is rather simple minded - it's tribal. The problem is not the statues, but our incapacity to transcend basic impulses so we see things for what they are, not for what they rigidly mean to us. (58:55)
Where are the thinkers who could debate this man and could bring these ideas down? Do they exist? I think that they would be sorely challenged.
Very hard to bring them down.
I thought about different Tom Holland
Spike out Hi-de-Hi?
We love the other because the 'self' lives in it (from the Upanishads)
The 'self' our true face before we were born (from a Zen koan)
Our immortal soul in the likeness of God.
What I say, before questioning treat your rhinitis!
Corina Ijac
Look at your flag, or the first word of your national anthem… first word on the royal seal and therefore on your money - look at the very year of your Calendar….! What date are we living in?
Not only in such physical things is Christ EVERYWHERE you look - the symbol on the top of the crown and on the front of the coronation cloak - same symbol perched purposefully on top of those Wren church spires - up in the sky all over Britain.
Well, this Tom Holland says it all.
Christianity is counter-cultural, but id be cautious about the term "revolutionary". maybe for specific indviduals, but not groups.
07:14
No time to watch this now .. i'm expecting him to talk sense. Hope I'm not disapointed (summaries welcome)
Tries to use the fact that people are quite rightly sick to the back teeth with woke to crowbar in Christianity as a response.
@@simonking2869 Ahh! interesting, thanks.
Great but I'm still not buying that dishonest newspaper.
Hollywood Tell a Vision Netflix desensitised us from evil.
God bless him on his journey but it is more than historical contextualsim and synthesis. Now consider the prophetic oracles. He is speaking of the outward sort of Hegelian dichotomy. It's not a Jewish notion it's a divine notion. It's not a fusion made by Jewish peasants. It is completely other wordly and has no natural correlation or causation. Coincidence yes but that is confusing the vehicles with the substance.
christianity came about because of violence and blood .thats how it got power to be at the top..
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Don’t listen to this guy listen to Jesus. Read The Bible it’s great.
@Gas Mask If there is no God, then it really doesn't matter what you believe, and that's why we're in this mess.
The Greeks gave us democracy centuries before Christianity ever existed. Christianity became an imperialist religion for an imperialist age. It was responsible for the Dark Ages, the Crusades, centuries of European bloodshed, papal authority, coercion, not to mention the slaughter of indigenous peoples in the Americas. It was the Greeks who gave us the idea of the logos, which was not merely an article of speech, but the whole act of speech. The Gospel of John "goes on to to name that logos as a man who makes known his Father God." This is essentially a Greek idea dressed out as the Jewish messiah, a carpenter from Nazareth. The only way the Greek logos can be dressed out as a divine human being is because it is, and remains, a human construct, not an actual metaphysical being that comes to earth. It is an act of the religious imagination. The Jews had every right to reject this idea, including the wholesale rape of the Hebrew Scriptures by Christians trying to jam this Greek idea into them. The ancient pre-Christian Greeks would have found this religious manipulation of their philosophical guess work laughable, and it's absolutism, appalling.The Christian religion is imperialist, imperialist in its plunder of the Hebrew Scriptures, it's authoritarian certainty, doctrines, creeds, hymns and outlook. Christianity failed Europe during WWII, hasn't recovered, and is basically heading into twilight here in America. It has not evangelized the world in 2,000 years. The Southern Baptist denomination was built to give southern slave holders spiritual cover, and believed in the biblical moral rightness of slavery. This guys writings are a rehash of old hits. Western religion is fading and there is no "give me that old-time imperialist religion." This guy needs a heavy dose of reality, followed by a tall margarita!
When he visited the Areopagus in Athens on one of his journeys, the apostle Paul found an interesting altar that revealed a shortcoming in Greek knowledge -"As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship - and this is what I am going to proclaim to you." (Acts 17.16-34)
The Gospel of John makes it clear that the Logos (Word) is not merely the one who made God known but is the very Logos himself. In John 1. "in the beginning was the one who is called the Word' and " Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." (Jno1.3 NIV ) This predates the Greek civilisation by quite a margin. The record in the Old Testament predates the Greek world also.
It is wrong to argue that the Word of the NT was fabricated from a Greek concept and that he was no other than a human given divine status. The Messiah of the NT is a fulfilment of the prophecies in the OT.. The Christian faith originated from the recognition by eye-witnesses ,disciples et al that the Messiah (Jesus of Nazareth) was indeed who he claimed to be.
The Christian message has evangelised the world. That is not to say everyone has responded to it. That message has had profound impact on Western culture, politics and, most importantly, individual morality and behaviour.
The early Christians did not set out to change the world. The world was affected as a by-product of believers’ transformed lives. They rejected the pagan gods and refused the immoral lifestyle of the Greco-Romans.
By opposing Greco-Roman sexual decadence, (read E. Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire") whether it was adultery, fornication, child molestation, or bestiality, and by introducing God-pleasing standards, Christianity greatly elevated the world’s sexual morality. It was one of its many major contributions to civilization, a contribution that too many today no longer seem to appreciate.
That it does continue to affect (change) the lives, behaviour and attitudes of the man in the street and the many leaders in our society is a testimony to its continuing influence for good in the world.
@@katemercer1671 There was no known altar "To an Unknown God." This is pure Christian Scripture invention. Greek philosophy and the "logos" existed long before Jesus. The "logos" is not a mere article of speech, it remains a Greek "philosophical concept" invented by Plato. It was not Divine. And the only way a Greek philosophical concept can be claimed to be the Son of God, is through pure "literary invention." There are three things that pre-dated the Christian religion by centuries, and were key to its beginnings: "immigration, ""assimilation" and "syncretism." Following Alexander the Great's invasion of the East, many eastern peoples emigrated to the Greek cities in the Mediterranean, including Jews. The assimilation of Greek culture followed, and with the rise of Rome, came more "immigration" to the cities, and the "assimilation of the Greco-Roman culture.This blending of cultures and peoples also led to "syncretism," the "blending" of religions and the blending of religions with Greek philosophical ideas and concepts. At the birth of Christianity, in the First Century CE, there were approximately 5-6 million Jews living in the Mediterranean basin, with another 1-2 million living in Judea. In the First Century, 1 in every 7 were Jewish. Many Jews, but never the majority, had renounced their Jewish culture and religion. They were referred to as Hellenized Jews, and it it out from among these, that Christianity was born. They had already given up on kosher food laws, and circumcision. Some males had attempted to reverse their circumcision through a procedure called "epispasm." Its popularity reached its peak in the First Century CE. "God fearers" were Gentiles, who expressed great interest in Judaism, they attended synagogues regularly, even making pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem. They did not convert, as many did not desire to submit to kosher food laws, while many males reused to fully convert and be circumcised. Historically, the two groups that comprised early Christianity were thoroughly Hellenized Jews and God fearers. It is from among these that the new religion was born, and had already had an early following of both Jews and Gentiles. These were Thoroughly Hellenized Jews came to reject their native culture and religion, and Gentiles, who were interested in Judaism, but like there Hellenized Jewish counterparts, had no interest in circumcision. Did Christianity plagiarize pagan beliefs? No. What early Christianity did, was similar to what the Musical "West Side Story" did with Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." it didn't plagiarize, but certainly borrowed "ideas" and tropes and "updated" them for a new religious audience. All of which was not only allowed in the ancient world, but encouraged. Two triggering events prompted the new religion, the rise of troubling messiahs movements in Judea, which numbered in the dozens, and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The majority of Jews living in the Diaspora abroad did not approve and did not participate in the First Jewish Revolt, and around the time the Gospels began to appear. The history is actually more interesting than the the myths around which many still understand Christian beginnings. In actuality, when the Roman Empire fell, Christianity helped plunge the known world into the Dark Ages. I has not "evangelized" the world. Joseph Smith created the Mormon religion out of thin air. Thoroughly Hellenized Jews and Gentiles, and in their own religious and cultural interests, created Christianity.
Athenian democracy isn't the same as modern democracy that exists in liberal democracies. .Christianity by it own roots had a concept of separation of church and state. The fact that you are able to call them by different words goes all the way back to the conception of the the church itself. That is where in fact secularism originates from. It is important to note that Latin Christendom focuses a lot of on the suffering Jesus and explored the connotations of it. Western morality is indeed Christian morality. Basically all of it. When it comes to homosexuality, the Christian intuition in the West views it in terms of compassion and pity. These elements are imbibed into the culture. The ancients, their rulers, and their gods were powerful because they were strong, or very masculine. They were powerful because they inflicted punishment. Jesus, as the son of God, received punishment.
If I had to choose one word to describe the religion of the slaves -- regarded as such by the Roman Empire in its inception and fans of the classical world like Nietzsche and the Third Reich in its maturity -- I suppose "imperialist" would have to be it. I can't seem to find any historical, sociological, psychological, ethical, or political contradictions whatsoever in that obviously objective analysis.
@@samuelmorales2344 he received punishment, but - far more important - he conquered death through his resurrection. He was the manliest man who ever lived. And he will come back - for JUDGMENT.
Christianity!!! God given Vs Atheism Which has No Moral Limits And Anything goes. Pestilence Locusts God sends These Judgements in the book of Kings!!! happening This Year.
@Gas Mask Which Come from The Ten Commandments!!!
@OG Sky Watch atheism is simply no belief in God or Gods. Tom Holland is correct that Western aheist tend to have Christian moral compass. Christianity changed the way people think. That is why it was revolutionary because there is a distinct dividing line between Christian culture and that of the ancient Romans and Greeks. Take, for example, "religion." Religion comes from the latin word "religio." Being anachronistic , "religion" had a different meaning for the Romans. For the Romans, religion was something that bind you to the Gods. Roman lands had many Gods. Romans were highly superstitious. They believed like many religions, that good and bad fortunes came from the deeds of appeasing the Gods. The Romans figured they had too many Gods to run sacrifices for every God so they came out with a policy of monotheism. Before Jesus being the official God, the Romans auditioned other Gods to be the only God. The Roman way was that the emperor was an important mediator between the Gods and the state. Religion was state issue. The view of the Christian nuns, monks, and hermits was different from the Roman point of view. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, thus Jesus, as their God, that meant that religion was not an activity of the state; Roman Emperors were no longer mediators between the earthly and divine. The Christian Roman Empire looked to the nuns, monks, and hermits on the new evolution of what religion took. Gone were the sacrifices, the mediators of state actors, and other acts of worship, instead to a consecrated lifestyle. When a Westerner thinks of religion, he/she is most certainly using religion in a very Christian context. Like so, there are many other views that Westerners have that are very Christian. It is correct to say that Christianity is more than just a religion but it is indeed a culture; a Christian culture. The concept of "religion" being separate from everything else is merely abstract concept. As if religion is somehow separate from culture which it is not. Religion and the secular is Christian as well. Secular coming from Latin
word "saeculum". Latin Christendom evolved the concept to secularism. The reason we have "rights" comes from the moral absolutes of Christianity. Sin is sin, no matter the situation, or circumstance. Thus virtue and sin have a non-mixing divider. Sin can't be corrected or washed away by another sin. Sin does not fix sin. Christianity applies concepts such as equality under God by the rational by God. Otherwise, it is just a "just because" concept which has no rationality. The reality is, few religions or philosophies, thus few cultures understand or take value in "equality". When you hear "human rights" violations on a far-off land on TV , that... comes from Christianity.
The only reason religion has lasted so long is because fear is a hell of a thing.
Nope
Salvation is gaurenteed to the faithful.
I don't get your argument. To fear hell you would need to believe in it and as a Christian you wouldn't believe you are going there and therefore have any fear of it. If you don't believe in hell then something you don't believe in shouldn't fear you. The fear of hell dosn't keep people Christian it helps skeptics to think more about eternity.
He's trying to say we are Christian even when we don't declare ourselves to be? Jesus what a thing to say
Most atheists accept Christian ethical presuppositions, without recognising or acknowledging it.
@ateb3 Protestants also began the historically unheard of idea: 'seperation of church and state'. Not that I agree with it, but it's true.
@@AlanWattResistance not protestants... Tom Holland also speaks about it in one of his talks... it was st Augustine who wrote about it. It is a much earlier idea.. started earlier.
@@AlanWattResistance St. Augustine actually came up with the secular in terms of history. Faith in God and the flowing of history are separate. Before that, it was saeculum which is Latin but with a different connotation. Jesus never handed out laws for the Church or said anything about how the Church should be run. Christianity did not spread by laws but rather stories. Secularism is ingrained.
Take a Christian quiz; how Christian are you? Do you believe in a monogamous marriage? Do you believe infidelity is wrong? Do you believe exploitation is wrong? Do you believe that people are equal? Do you believe that thoughts can be evil? Do you believe that the poor and sick should be cared for? Do you believe that sin is your own? Do you judge others?