INTRODUCTION
Academic works by even Muslim theology departments explicitly and unequivocally admit that it was muslims who spreaded the myth on gospels (or the entire bible) being canonized in the Nicean Creed, as we will see in the next sections but a neotheist, who asserts to be an atheist himself, spreads this myth as if it belongs to [New] Atheists. In this article, we will see how clueless, ignorant and charlatan fraud neotheists are in general and Tim O’Neill in particular (though this is the only neotheist entity I know that spreaded this hoax, his audience is a good example of how ignorant neotheists are and how you can throw any lies at New Atheists without even being asked for a back up). In this article, you will be presented the following assessments from the contemporary scholarship and academy:
- A book being canonized in Nicene Creed dates back to 4th century Christian theologian, historian and Saint, Saine Jerome.
- The origin of the assertion of Nicene Creed canonizing books is the Eastern Christian church.
- The assertion that Nicene Creed chose canonical books is popularized by Muslims.
- Neotheist Tim O’Neill is a pseudo-atheist that slanders the New Atheist movement which seeks to cure people from religions and theism.
neotheist Hoax: “New Atheists Assert that Bible was Canonized in 4th Century”
A neotheist posted ‘an article’ titled “The Great Myths 4: Constantine, Nicea and the Bible”. According to this neotheist’s writing, a facebook group named “PHILOSOPHICAL ATHEISM” posted a meme in which it is stated that Constantine and his bishops voted for some books which currently constitutes the bible. Here is the meme this neotheist attributes to New Atheism:
Then, this neotheist labels this PHILOSOPHICAL Atheism group’s post as “New Atheist bad history”. The first make-fool-of is the idiosyncratic strawman of this neotheist: a factually wrong assertion of someone else is taken, patched into New Atheists and then claimed New Atheists are wrong.
The second make-fool-of is that when something wrong is detected, that wrong is attributed to New Atheists and then refuted: the idea is clear, to play to the crowds consisted of the religious. If this neotheist attributed it to Muslims (as it really is), or, if those so many Muslims are rebutted for spreading this myth, then he will lose his muslim audience, why jeopardize it? Instead, just attack those already marginalized New Atheists, please your audience and sell more. Why not? After all, neotheism works.
The third make-fool-of is that this neotheist implies those atheists advised to “look it up” without they themselves looking it up:
The irony of this meme urging readers “Don’t just believe me. Go look it up.” is particularly amusing. But okay, let’s “look it up”.
Ok, let us look it up and see who the actual ignorant clueless bad historian is.
Then, the next blatantly false part is that this neotheist first states that the origin of this myth can be traced to Voltaire. But later on this neotheist gives the actual possible origin, an Eastern Orthodox document named Vetus Synodikon. Presenting Voltaire as the origin of this source is a strategic move, Voltaire is known to have fought cruelties named religions, thus, he was a New Atheist: Instead of naming the actual origin this myth, which was an Eastern Christian document, just smirch New Atheists: if the actual sinner, a theist, was acknowledged to have created this myth, this neotheist would not be selling to other theists, he would not be pleasing his audience but if a New Atheist is shown as guilty, then his audience would buy it, would applaud him.
Let us now look it up who spreaded this myth.
CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARSHIP: MUSLIMS SPREADED THE MYTH ON BIBLE BOOKS BEING SELECTED IN NICENE CREED
Contrary to neotheists, there are some non-neotheist theists who explicitly ADMITS that this myth is not only spreaded by Muslims but actually was asserted by Christians.The very first example I am going to show is the Islamic Encyclopedia by the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey, they have an article on the Nicene Creed [1] and it has a section titled Nicene Creed in Islamic Sources. The most important part of this article is that it explicitly states the following (personal translation from Turkish below):
İslâm kaynaklarında Ahd-i Cedîd’i oluşturan kitapların, özellikle İnciller’in sayısının İznik Konsili’nde belirlendiği şeklinde ifadeler bulunmasına rağmen gerek ilk dönem konsil kararlarının kaydedildiği kilise tarihi kitaplarında gerekse diğer hıristiyan kaynaklarında böyle bir bilgiye rastlanamamıştır.
In English: Despite the statements about books that constitute the New Testament (Ahd-Cedid), especially the number of gospels have been decided in Nicene Creed occurs in Islamic sources, such information is found in neither the books on Church books containing the earliest council decisions nor the other christian sources.
Here, The Islamic Encyclopedia of the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey explicitly admits that the assertion which this neotheist Tim O’Neill presents as New Atheist bad history is popularized by Islamic sources. Then, the same article presents Rahmatullah Al Hindi as the spark of this myth’s spread, states that Al Hindi wrote that Christians religious scholars gathered in Nicea to discuss if the deuterocanonical books are to be reckoned among sacred texts and explicitly states that “despite such information not being present on christian sources”. Then, the encyclopedia shows Abdul Ahad Davud as the one who spreaded the idea that 27 books of the New Testament was chosen in Nicene Creed. But that is not all, according to the same article, Abdul Ahad Davud went so far as to assert that Arius, who defended unitarianizm, was pressured; 700 (seven hundred) scholars were kicked out in accordance with the command of Constantine and the remaining 318 scholars were forced to sign the Nicene Creed which states that the father and the son was from the same substance.
Then, in the journal of the Faculty of Theology of the Marmara University, we see another non-fraud academic that acknowledges that this myth is spread by Muslims. In his article titled I. Nicene Creed (325) and Its Place in Islamic Sources [2], Associate Professor Dr. Ismail Taşpınar states that reports about gospels being selected in I. Niece Creed (325) is seen especially in the recent Islamic sources (page 39, 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence). Like the Islamic Encyclopedia of the Directorate of the Religious Affairs, Taşpınar too shows Rahmatullah Al Hindi as the one that sparked this myth and adds that neither the medieval Islamic sources nor the Christian sources featured such account (the following sentence of the just mentioned reference). But Dr. Taşpınar narrates that Al Hindi backs up his claim relying on the prologue by Jerome on the book of Judith which states that “found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures”. As we can see, we have a 4th century Christian Saint who talks of at least one book being chosen as canonical in Nicene Creed.
Then, we have an Islamic Research Journal admitting that this myth is popularized by Muslims and Abdul Ahad Davud spreaded this myth. In his article titled “A Controversial Religious Council in Christian and Islamic Sources: Nicene Creed” in the Islamic Research Journal[3], Dr. Mustafa Sinanoğlu, who is an author at the Islamic Encyclopedia of the Directorate of the Religious Affairs of Turkey, narrates that Abdul Ahad Davoud wrote that 27 books of the New Testament have been selected from a tremendous numbers of books that would not fıt into a single library (page 14, 3rd paragraph). Also, Dr. Sinanoğlu accuses both Al Hindi and Abdul Ahad Davoud of not providing source for their claims on New Testament books being selected at this Creed (page 16, 2nd paragraph) and ends up stating that if it is not an assertion by them, then, it must be relying on another narratives.
Finally, neotheist Tim O’Neill himself talks about how Christian Theologian got the Vetus Synodikon published but he presents it as “medieval Byzantine work” only whereas it might well be an Eastern Orthodox point of view.
CONTEMPORARY MUSLIMS ASSERTING THAT THE BIBLE BOOKS WERE CHOSEN IN NICENE CREED
Just like in the past, there are still lots of popular Muslims that spread this myth. Yasir Qadhi is an example,here is a facebook writing[4] about it. Here is what he states:
Eventually, based on this Nicene Creed, four Gospels that now form the essence of the New Testament were selected to be part of the Bible, and all other gospels and manuscripts that didn’t support the Nicene creed were subsequently destroyed and their knowledge forever lost in history.
And here is his youtube narration about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu707oWxGqM He has 556K subscribers, his video has been watched 110K times and if you read the comments, you will see muslims praising that Shayk.
I can cite many examples but no need to prolong the text. Let us move into conclusions.
CONCLUSIONS AND MORE
As we have seen, here is how clueless ignorant this neotheist Tim O’Neill is summarized:
- Patching a Christian-Muslim myth into Atheists.
- Patching a PHILOSOPHICAL Atheists’ myth into New Atheists.
- Being unaware of history.
- Being unaware of religious discussions.
- Being unaware of, ignorant of and clueless about the Book of Judith, Saint Jerome and Vetus Synodikon
But the main problem is that, it is almost impossible to be unaware of the fact that Muslims are still spreading this myth yet this neotheist is silent at all those Muslims yelling this myth and when an atheist, probably non-famous, non-influential, yells this myth – this neotheist immediately exclaims at NEW Atheists. It is not hard to understand the purposes of his moves: If he shouts at theists or PHILOSOPHICAL atheists, he will no longer be touted as “intellectual, unbiased, knowledgeable” person. If you want to be seen as an intellectual person without being so, just exclaim at New Atheists, then you will be seen as such.
As is clear from the previous 2 hoaxes by neotheists (1 and 2), neotheists deploy a propaganda strategy attributed to Nazis: “Just repeat your life thousand time and your lie will be seen as a fact.”
Neotheists attained an intellectual immunity in a way that they can throw any blatantly false slanders at New Atheists and can get away with it without being disputed, questioned, asked for a reference or any kind of scrutiny or back up. A neotheist website historyforatheists.com is the perfect illustration of neotheism.
Anyone who opposes New Atheism in anyway is a fraud, a charlatan, a liar, deceptive gold-digger that is seeking ways to sell more easily. Never trust any person who exclaims New Atheism because New Atheism is a movement that fights cruelties, a movement that stand for reason, science, thought, education, art and philosophy. If any of them prevails, cruelties legitimized as religions will be shaken; philosophy exploitation forced upon people due to theism will collapse: that is why even all those ostensibly atheist philosophers oppose New Atheism.
Outspoken Atheism – Thinking People of the World, Unite.
REFERENCES:
Reference informations all are given with-in the text, here, I am going to leave the links only through which you can access those citations
[1] https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/iznik-konsili
[2] https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/162656
[3] http://isad.isam.org.tr/vdata/sayi06/isad006_sinanoglu.pdf
New Atheism 
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