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Christianity

• Christianity
  • opposing views (also here and here)

• Books critical of Christianity

• The Bible

• The Bible in its Own Words
  • The New Testament

• Killings for Christianity

Science and Religion (separate page)

The Bible (separate page)

The Bible in its Own Words (separate page)

Killings for Christianity (separate page)

Freedom of thought

• The banning of scientific works and atheist works.

• Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic Index of banned books, maintained from 1559 to 1966.
  • Timeline
  • Books protesting the torture used in the witch-craze were placed on the Index of banned books.
  • Books against slavery were placed on the Index even in the 19th century.
  • The works of the two greatest thinkers of all time, Copernicus and Darwin, were placed on the Index of banned books, as were the works of all the pioneers of democracy and human rights.
  • But the most evil book in history, Mein Kampf, was not banned. See Christianity and the Holocaust.

• Censorship in 20th century Ireland - mainly about sexuality, but also modern philosophy, sociology, medicine and science.
• Alfred O'Rahilly

Some writers placed on the Index of banned books

• Science, philosophy:
  • Copernicus
  • Galileo
  • Francis Bacon
  • Descartes
  • Pascal
  • Kant
  • Erasmus Darwin
  • Darwin

• Religion, freethought, atheism, philosophy:
  • Abelard
  • Erasmus
  • Calvin
  • Luther's Bible
  • King James Bible
  • Spinoza
  • Bishop Berkeley

  • Montaigne
  • Voltaire
  • David Hume
  • Edward Gibbon
  • Madame de Staël
  • Darwin

• Politics, democracy, human rights:
  • Thomas Hobbes
  • Machiavelli
  • John Locke
  • Thomas Paine
  • Bentham
  • John Stuart Mill
  • Rousseau
  • Sartre

• Other non-fiction:
  • Diderot
  • Pierre Larousse

• Fiction, etc.
  • Dante
  • Rabelais
  • Cervantes
  • Daniel Defoe
  • Samuel Richardson
  • Oliver Goldsmith
  • John Milton
  • Jonathan Swift
  • Laurence Sterne
  • Casanova
  • Sade
  • Stendhal
  • Honoré de Balzac
  • Alexandre Dumas
  • Victor Hugo
  • Emile Zola
  • Flaubert
  • Andre Gide

The Catholic Church changes its beliefs over time

• Christianity's persecution of those that translated and spread its teachings:
  • The church executed William Tyndale in 1536 for publishing the Bible in English, and they did their best to stop any translation of the book. Unfortunately for them, it is now freely available here.
  • Previously, in the 14th cent, Pope Gregory XI had tried to persuade England to imprison Wycliffe for translating the Bible into English, but was unsuccessful (though the church successfully exterminated his followers).
  • Apparently the church now believes it was wrong and the Bible should be made available in English after all, and it no longer (apparently) believes that translators should be put to death.

• Limbo is another great example of how the Catholic Church changes its beliefs over time, and will change again in the future. The Church used to insist that infants who died unbaptised would go to limbo, or even hell. In any case, their parents would never see them again. After torturing millions of bereaved mothers with these claims for centuries, the church has finally decided that no, actually, it just made the whole thing up.

• The Catholic Church has in fact changed a vast number of beliefs over the years:
  1. It used to believe those who translated the Bible into English should be killed, but doesn't think this any more.
  2. It used to believe unbaptised babies go to hell, or limbo, but doesn't think this any more.
  3. It used to believe atheists and heretics should be executed, but doesn't think this any more.
  4. It used to support slavery, but doesn't any more.
  5. It used to believe priests could marry, but doesn't think this any more.
  6. It used to believe the sun goes round the earth, but doesn't think this any more.
  7. It used to believe the world is a few thousand years old, but doesn't think this any more.
  8. It used to believe humans have no animal ancestry, but doesn't think this any more.
  9. It used to believe in the blood libel against the Jews, and it even canonised "saints" who were supposed victims of "ritual murder" by the Jews, but apparently it doesn't believe this any more.

• Decanonized saints - If the church can actually name a saint, and get it wrong, how can it possibly claim to be guided by God?

What else will the Catholic Church change in the future? It is obvious that in the future, the church will change its position on contraception, women priests, and homosexuality. It will forget that it ever opposed them, and the fact that it ever did will just become the humorous answer to a trivia question: "The church once opposed contraception - oddly enough!"

Miscellaneous

• History of snuff. Pope Urban VIII threatened to excommunicate snufftakers. Later, Pope Benedict XIII was a big fan of snuff. Shouldn't excommunication be reserved for things the church is certain about? Rather than passing fads of the day that may change tomorrow.

• Catholic and Protestant superstition about comets
  • There is a story that Pope Callixtus III issued a decree against Halley's comet in 1456. However there is no direct quote from him referencing the comet.

• Humour
  • The discovery that "the relics of St. Rosalia at Palermo, which had for ages cured diseases and warded off epidemics, were the bones of a goat"
  • Protestant superstition about the healing powers of the Royal touch
  • The excommunication of insects. Remember the casting of devils into swine by Jesus.

The Shroud of Turin

• The Shroud of Turin (and here)
  • scepticism
  • infidels.org
  • religioustolerance.org

• Damon, P.E. et al. (1989), Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin, Nature 337:611-615. - This paper dates the Shroud to a period centering on 1325. That is, it is a medieval forgery (note that it first appears in history in 1357). I grew up quite convinced by the evidence I heard of its authenticity. Now I realise I was just listening to pseudoscience.

• The Skeptical Shroud of Turin Website (or via here)
• McCrone Research Institute
  • Shroud of Turin (and here and here)
  • Judgment Day for the Turin Shroud - book by Walter C. McCrone.

• CSICOP
  • New "Shroud" Claims Challenged as Spurious, 1996 (or via here)
  • Shroud of Turin Exhibition Renews False Claims of Authenticity, 1998 (or via here)
  • Recent Shroud Claims Based on Earlier, Scientifically Discredited Data, 1999
  • Skeptical Inquirer
    • Scandals and Follies of the "Holy Shroud", Joe Nickell, 2001

• The Skeptic's Dictionary
  • Shroud of Turin
• New England Skeptical Society
  • Shroud of Turin
• Cincinnati Skeptics
  • Shroud of Turin
• The Shroud of Lirey-Chambery-Turin
• Annapolis Valley Skeptic
  • Shroud of Turin