Miracles.  Who woulda thought….

In previous posts I’ve given some of the common explanations people given to explain how Christianity ended up taking over the Roman world, all of which seem plausible (Christians attracted people because of their community life, better health care, etc) but, in my view, not sufficiently supported by the existing evidence.  I’ve also I’ve indicated that I have a decided view of the matter: that it was because of Christian “miracles.”  That seems a bit odd for an atheist to argue, but, well, hear me out.

Here I begin to explain it (this will take a couple of posts).  All this is taken, with minor edits, from my book Triumph of Christianity (Simon and Schuster, 2018), which makes the full case.  I begin with the paragraph that ended my previous post.

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The best place to look for actual evidence of why Christianity succeeded are the actual accounts of conversions from the early church.  These are relatively abundant and scattered throughout the decades and centuries with which we are concerned.  Moreover, these narratives are unambiguous about what attracted outsiders to the faith.  The Christians did amazing miracles.

I am not saying

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