Youtube

Watching youtube of late has become even more painful than usual. Maybe I’ve just been watching it more. The perennial videos of Atheists proclaiming what Christians believe and why things can’t be so, and the inevitable responses from Christians only further muddling the issue hurt me. Perfectly intelligent people are swindled by the bullshit from both directions, and perhaps as many as are swindled, also have their minds contorted into hate and disdain for all that those silly Christians believe. Anyone who could believe such utter nonsense must, of course, be contemptible.

The problems are legion. Most of the atheists who open their mouths online are abominably ignorant. The amazing atheist and theoreticalbullshit are two of the most annoying examples, from two different directions. The idiocy of the amazing atheist is stunning, while the neatly packaged righteous, self-assured style of theoreticalbullshit is, well, much more than theoretically bullshit.

In this environment, an educated Christian (or an educated Atheist with more taste for truth than for nonsense), has to come to terms with a few things. The mass of people who have access to youtube and feel like running their mouths on it have not had access to the kind of education that would allow them to speak intelligently about any Christian topic. They did not have anywhere from 4-8 years of college educated men and women teaching them even basic principles of Biblical exegesis (or How to read the Bible and not be a Fundamentalist), they were never taught to try and think with the Church, not raised in tradition or having any understanding of what tradition and its correlates (Church History, Ecclesiology, Patristics, etc.) mean. In other words, they are singularly inadequate to the task of saying anything intelligent about Christianity generally and Catholicism (which encompasses largest group of Christians on the planet) in particular.

The Christianity they do know is that of radical cranks who suffer from a similar dearth of relevant knowledge on the subjects that the like to speak about most. What each side shares is a common need to actually know what the text says. And so, to help remedy this, rather than merely complain about it, over the next several weeks, I will be putting on this blog short translations of the Greek New Testament (the language in which, most scholars agree, the New Testament was first composed). Along with these translations will come an analysis of the specific grammatical meaning of the verse in question. Where appropriate, where necessary, and where I have time will also be included for comparison problematic translations — and why the translation should not be read as is there presented. Finally, where relevant, or simply interesting Tradition and Magisterial teaching will be brought to bear. So — come read! All are welcome.

Credo Ut Intellegam
JS