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When one comes from the mindset of the copycat thesis they tend to read nonsense into history. They start with that bias and see things that are not really there.
That alone makes his worthless to others. Church History: An Introduction to Research Methods and Resources, Second ...By James E. Bradley , Richard A. Muller on page 40 criticizes him for using mainly secondary sources.
Below are mostly quotes from Will Durant --- not my beliefs.
"In addition, some works are so indirect in their relation to materials and so reliant on secondary works themselves that they ought to be designated as tertiary sources.
This category of source includes historical surveys so broad that the author cannot be well-acquainted either with the documents underlying his or her inquiry or even with the development of scholarly literature in a field.
Will Durant's Story of Civilization and Walker's History of the Christian Church fall into this category.
So also do standard encyclopedias with unsigned articles, like the Britannica, Americana, or Collier's Tertiary works, while often valuable sources of information at the introductory level, cannot typically be used to good effect in scholarly research."
(Church History: An Introduction to Research Methods and Resources, Second ...
By James E. Bradley , Richard A. Muller on page 40)
From an LDS site,
"
In this passage Will Durant is questioning the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, including those of Mormonism. He is undermining the following fundamental doctrines of Christianity—including LDS doctrine—attributing them all paganism:
1. The Trinity or Godhead (including how it is understood by Latter-day Saints).
2. The last judgement.
3. The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4. The resurrection of all mankind, followed by a judgement.
5. The Atonement and Redemption of Jesus Christ.
6. The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
7. Millenarianism (i.e. the millennial ages of the world, as in Rev. 20:2–7; D&C 77:6–12; 88:101–110).
8. The duality of Satan and God.
9. The separation of light and darkness as taught in the Gospel of John (John 1:5; 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46; 1 John 1:5; 2:8–9).
10. Of Jesus being the “light that shins in darkness, . . .” (John 1:5; also Matt. 4:16; Luke 1:79; John 8:12).
When Durant condemns Christianity for adopting paganism, he is referring to all of the above."Mormon FAQ: About Will Durant!
"I find in the Universe so many forms of order, organization, system, law and adjustment of means to ends, that I believe in a cosmic intelligence and I conceive God as the life, mind, order and law of the world.
I do not understand my God, and I find in nature and history many instances of apparent evil, disorder, cruelty and aimlessness. But I realize that I see these with a very limited vision and that they might appear quite otherwise from a cosmic point of view. How can an infinitesimal part of the universe understand the whole? We are drops of water trying to understand the sea.
I believe that I am the product of a natural evolution. The logic of evolution seems to compel determinism, but I cannot overcome my direct consciousness of a limited freedom of will. I believe that if I could see any form of matter from within as I can see myself through introspection, I should find in all forms of matter something akin to what in ourselves is mind and freedom. I define "virtue" as any quality that makes for survival, but as the survival of the group is more important than the survival of the average individual, the highest virtues are those that make for group survival: love, sympathy, kindliness, cooperation. If my life lived up to my ideals I would combine the ethics of Confucius and Christ; the virtues of a developing individual with those of a member of a group.
I was a Socialist in my youth and sympathized with the Soviet regime until I visited Russia in 1932. What I saw there led me to deprecate the extension of that system to any other land. Experience and history have taught me the instinctive basis and economic necessity of competition and private property. I’m not so fanatical a worshipper of liberty as some of my radical or conservative friends; when liberty exceeds intelligence it begets chaos; which begets dictatorship. We had too much economic liberty in the later nineteenth century due to our free land and our relative exemption from external danger. We have too much moral liberty today, due to increasing wealth and diminishing religious belief. The age of liberty is ending under the pressure of external dangers; the freedom of the part varies with the security of the whole.
I do not resent the conflicts and difficulties of life. In my case, they have been far outweighed by good fortune, reasonable health, loyal friends and a happy family life. I have met so many good people that I have almost lost my faith in the wickedness of mankind.
I suspect that when I die I shall be dead. I would look upon endless existence as a curse as did the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew. Death is life’s greatest invention; perpetually replacing the worn with the new. And after twenty volumes, it will be sweet to sleep.
(Source: From the record, This I Believe, edited by William Morrow)Will Durant: What I Believe"
"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures con- tributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last Judgment, and a personal immortality of reward and pun- ishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Chris- tian creed; there, too, Christian monasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps, the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the “ages of the world,” the “final conflagration,” the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and Light; already in the Fourth Gospel Christ is the “Light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out .” 84 The Mithraic ritual so closely resembled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds . 85 Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world." https://archive.org/stream/TheStoryO...ion_3_djvu.txt
Another quote from his works gives insight into his mindset, "Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a "conflict between science and religion." Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and—after some hesitation—the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile among the oppressed another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization." (The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1, p. 71) from what I have read of him decades ago he is a lapsed catholic. There is no value in his so-called history.
Deuteronomy 6:4. Hear, O Israel: The LORD [Jehovah] your God [Elohim] is one LORD [Jehovah].
That alone makes his worthless to others. Church History: An Introduction to Research Methods and Resources, Second ...By James E. Bradley , Richard A. Muller on page 40 criticizes him for using mainly secondary sources.
Below are mostly quotes from Will Durant --- not my beliefs.
"In addition, some works are so indirect in their relation to materials and so reliant on secondary works themselves that they ought to be designated as tertiary sources.
This category of source includes historical surveys so broad that the author cannot be well-acquainted either with the documents underlying his or her inquiry or even with the development of scholarly literature in a field.
Will Durant's Story of Civilization and Walker's History of the Christian Church fall into this category.
So also do standard encyclopedias with unsigned articles, like the Britannica, Americana, or Collier's Tertiary works, while often valuable sources of information at the introductory level, cannot typically be used to good effect in scholarly research."
(Church History: An Introduction to Research Methods and Resources, Second ...
By James E. Bradley , Richard A. Muller on page 40)
From an LDS site,
"
In this passage Will Durant is questioning the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, including those of Mormonism. He is undermining the following fundamental doctrines of Christianity—including LDS doctrine—attributing them all paganism:
1. The Trinity or Godhead (including how it is understood by Latter-day Saints).
2. The last judgement.
3. The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4. The resurrection of all mankind, followed by a judgement.
5. The Atonement and Redemption of Jesus Christ.
6. The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
7. Millenarianism (i.e. the millennial ages of the world, as in Rev. 20:2–7; D&C 77:6–12; 88:101–110).
8. The duality of Satan and God.
9. The separation of light and darkness as taught in the Gospel of John (John 1:5; 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46; 1 John 1:5; 2:8–9).
10. Of Jesus being the “light that shins in darkness, . . .” (John 1:5; also Matt. 4:16; Luke 1:79; John 8:12).
When Durant condemns Christianity for adopting paganism, he is referring to all of the above."Mormon FAQ: About Will Durant!
"I find in the Universe so many forms of order, organization, system, law and adjustment of means to ends, that I believe in a cosmic intelligence and I conceive God as the life, mind, order and law of the world.
I do not understand my God, and I find in nature and history many instances of apparent evil, disorder, cruelty and aimlessness. But I realize that I see these with a very limited vision and that they might appear quite otherwise from a cosmic point of view. How can an infinitesimal part of the universe understand the whole? We are drops of water trying to understand the sea.
I believe that I am the product of a natural evolution. The logic of evolution seems to compel determinism, but I cannot overcome my direct consciousness of a limited freedom of will. I believe that if I could see any form of matter from within as I can see myself through introspection, I should find in all forms of matter something akin to what in ourselves is mind and freedom. I define "virtue" as any quality that makes for survival, but as the survival of the group is more important than the survival of the average individual, the highest virtues are those that make for group survival: love, sympathy, kindliness, cooperation. If my life lived up to my ideals I would combine the ethics of Confucius and Christ; the virtues of a developing individual with those of a member of a group.
I was a Socialist in my youth and sympathized with the Soviet regime until I visited Russia in 1932. What I saw there led me to deprecate the extension of that system to any other land. Experience and history have taught me the instinctive basis and economic necessity of competition and private property. I’m not so fanatical a worshipper of liberty as some of my radical or conservative friends; when liberty exceeds intelligence it begets chaos; which begets dictatorship. We had too much economic liberty in the later nineteenth century due to our free land and our relative exemption from external danger. We have too much moral liberty today, due to increasing wealth and diminishing religious belief. The age of liberty is ending under the pressure of external dangers; the freedom of the part varies with the security of the whole.
I do not resent the conflicts and difficulties of life. In my case, they have been far outweighed by good fortune, reasonable health, loyal friends and a happy family life. I have met so many good people that I have almost lost my faith in the wickedness of mankind.
I suspect that when I die I shall be dead. I would look upon endless existence as a curse as did the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew. Death is life’s greatest invention; perpetually replacing the worn with the new. And after twenty volumes, it will be sweet to sleep.
(Source: From the record, This I Believe, edited by William Morrow)Will Durant: What I Believe"
"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures con- tributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last Judgment, and a personal immortality of reward and pun- ishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Chris- tian creed; there, too, Christian monasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps, the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the “ages of the world,” the “final conflagration,” the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and Light; already in the Fourth Gospel Christ is the “Light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out .” 84 The Mithraic ritual so closely resembled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds . 85 Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world." https://archive.org/stream/TheStoryO...ion_3_djvu.txt
Another quote from his works gives insight into his mindset, "Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a "conflict between science and religion." Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and—after some hesitation—the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death. Meanwhile among the oppressed another myth arises, gives new form to human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos builds another civilization." (The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1, p. 71) from what I have read of him decades ago he is a lapsed catholic. There is no value in his so-called history.
Deuteronomy 6:4. Hear, O Israel: The LORD [Jehovah] your God [Elohim] is one LORD [Jehovah].
