What Alex O'Connor got right about Christian faith.

[First Draft]  ​
 Under this video (titled "Alex O'Connor Gets This Wrong About Christian Faith"), ... 

Someone asked that religious guy 

"So...what's your defense of your faith?." In reply, the religious guy said "my entire YouTube channel".

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My thoughts about his "entire YouTube channel", as represented in his introductory video:


@EnyartTheology Even your primary vid (on your "home" tab) is just all kinds of nonsense.

--- "The Man Who PROVED Christianity: Watch to Strengthen Your Faith"

You finally get to the point about time index 3:48. Some of the nonsense: 1. Arbitrarily deciding that Saul was the most sin-iest sinner who ever sinned. 2. Arbitrarily deciding that maximal Pridefullness was the reason he was the king of all sinners. 3. Basing you concept of "sin" on what Paul came up with. As scholars would tell you, the Hebrew-religious concepts of "sin" were very different than the various later concepts that Christians came up with (and still manage to disagree with each other about). 4. Asserting that Saul/Paul must have 'really' encountered the risen Jesus, because only that could account for Saul/Paul's conversion into Christianity. By that logic, Muhammed really must have encountered the angel Gabriel; and Joseph Smith too. To support that claim, you cite "pride" as the reason Saul had been rejecting Jesus-cult before he later "converted". But you're just guessing about that. You also claim maximally-prideful people never change their minds unless they experience a true miracle. But to even SAY such a thing ... makes me wonder if you've ever even visited Planet Earth. Every day, every actively-recruiting religion successfully recruits a convert who was previously CERTAIN that some other religion was true. For every religion, some of their converts were deeply "prideful" about their prior religion. Other ideology-driven groups are the same. Think about groups like "The Proud Boys". They're so prideful they put it right in the name of their group. Many members of white-supremacist groups have done some very violent things (sometimes even murder) for their klan. And yet, some have eventually switched-teams, once the shame caught up with them. They didn't need to have a literal encounter with Ghost-Jesus first. As for "pride" as a motive, it can be. Christianity today offers a lot of opportunity for pride; making it very appealing for people who are addicted to pride and wanting to increase their daily dosage. For others, they might feel that addiction could be best-served as the leader of a cult. And let's be clear on this point. It was a cult. Also, how are you going to rule out hallucinations brought about by Temporal Lobe seizures? Link:
Robert Sapolsky Explains the Biological Basis of Religiosity, and What It Shares in Common with OCD, Schizophrenia & Epilepsy
Surely you realize that profound "experiences" can be transformative ... even when those are caused by drugs, seizures, mental illness, psych manipulation, or trauma. It's also possible that the reason Saul hunted early Jesus-cultists was because he pre-planned to take over that cult and then change its theological structure to suit his own ambitions. It might have been that Saul never really appreciated mainstream-Judaism for its theology. He might have only appreciated it for its usefulness for high-ranking members to gain special access to regional social privileges, ego-feeding, hate-indulging, and political influence. - The very same reasons that many fundamentalists today love Christianity. He might have seen that local Jesus-cult and thought "hmm. Which serves my ambitions better? To be stuck mid-tier in a mainstream Jewish faction? Or to crown myself "humble king" of a smaller faction that is still new and malleable?". The Jesus-cult just needed a few 'tweaks', to make it more compatible as a tool to justify, glorify, and spread ... politically weaponized, colonizing, Mafia-tastic, PSYOP, clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder "as a religion". - The prefect religion for Saul; one re-made in his own image. Killing off the most outspoken cultists = killing off the member who are easiest to track down; which = killing off the men most likely to challenge Saul's planned-ambition to take over that movement. 1. Kill off the leaders. 2. Create a power vacuum at the top. 3. Step into that space. 4. Declare self "appointed" by a Ghost-Jesus. 5. Re-negotiate that cult's beliefs; making it into a non-threat to Roman Interests, and giving it relevance to that region's broader population. 6. Cash in; but not just with money. Also with all the other perks that come with that much power over a growing network of gullible and moldable sheep.

When the time came to 'take over', nobody else heard Ghost-Jesus choose Saul as their new leader. They just took Saul/Paul's word for it. Because they were simple-minded peasants, with a common taste for boot-licking, in an era of uncritical magical-thinking. Meanwhile, isn't it interesting how Saul/Paul, after inventing Pauline "Christianity", never endorses or shares ANY quotes or stories from the Earthly ministry of Jesus, apart from either repeating a rumor or starting a rumor that 500 people saw Jesus rise from being dead? It's a very curious rumor, since the gospels claim ZERO people saw him get up from being dead. In those stories, only a few people saw Jesus sometime AFTER the non-witnessed resurrection. And then that very small groups of people decided not to make a big deal of the fact that: the guy those few people talked with ... had a difference face. Why would he have the same TORSO but a different face? It makes me wonder what else didn't match.

This issue may seem trivial to most readers. But as Dr James Tabor explains, even the early Christian writers (same as today's Christians) disagreed about what type of "body" people (starting with Jesus) are supposed to resurrect into.

Internally, those "gospel" stories are mutually-contradicting on many points. But since Paul claims to have never HEARD any of those stories, it's no wonder he never really talks about any of them. And yet, isn't it interesting how the only conceptualization of Christianity that Saul/Paul promotes is a vague spiritual and metaphorical narrative? Isn't it interesting, also, that Saul/Paul had a rivalry with the "apostles" he met, where Paul basically told his followers "don't listen to them. Just listen to me"?

In fact, it's plausible that Paul might have murdered James.; to "resolve" their dispute. Christians like to imagine that Paul was vouching for the common-threads of gospel-Christianity's narrative-driven/narrative-defined theology. But he never did. Paul was trying to start his own theological tradition; borrowing only bare-minimum sound-bites from the earlier Jesus-cult lore which he always did (and continued to) reject. Later "gospel" writers were trying to piece-together and improve rumors they heard; mostly from non-Paul rumor-chains. -selecting for versions of "Jesus" that "came only for the Jews". Paul's Jesus was different than the Pseudo-Paul Jesus, which were different from each of the "gospel" Jesuses, which were each different from each other's Jesus. Every Christian writer was proposing a different (and each still changing) theological narrative.

They were each later conflated (by later Christians) into one larger (internally conflicting) narrative. So you can SAY "Paul vouched for my beliefs about Jesus". But no. He didn't. Nor should we really care. Because modern "Christian" beliefs are based on bad understandings of ancient God-Awful cults.