Later Chrisitan writers felt it important to answer Julian the Apostate's criticisms of Chritianity in his book Against the Galileans. They quoted liberally from the book, and, partly because of their interest, we have substantial portions of a book that might otherwise have been lost.Read through "Against the Galileans," and cite here a line or two you find particularly interesting.
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Now that the human race possesses its knowledge of God by nature and not from teaching is proved to us first of all by the universal yearning for the divine that is in all men whether private persons or communities, whether considered as individuals or as races.
I find this is very interesting, because It is very true that most people have a need to believe in the divine
"However, for your indolence in this matter there remains for you one single excuse, namely, that you are not permitted to sacrifice if you are outside Jerusalem, though for that matter Elijah sacrificed on Mount Carmel, and not in the holy city.157"
I find this column interesting because of the places where sacrifice is allowed. People are only allowed to sacrifice if they are within the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem as most of you know is a very holy city for Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims. My question is, in this doctrine, if someone does not follow the rule of sacrifice only in Jerusalem, what happens to them? Are they considered as people who are not in good terms with God and are banished from heaven? Alex Mason
But as for the commandment "Thou shalt not worship other gods," to this surely he adds a terrible libel upon God. "For I am a jealous God," he says, and in another place again, "Our God is a consuming fire." 40 Then if a man is jealous and envious you think him blameworthy, whereas if God |363 is called jealous you think it a divine quality?
These lines seem to be interesting mainly because of how they have the line "I am a jealous God." This is one of those lines that people who don't belive in a higher being might see this as something to prove that there is not a God. Being jealous is something that isn't a terrible trait, but it is one that can be and since God in a way is suppose to be perfect; how can he be jealous? He should have no flaws, but this line points out one. For how crul humans are it's tough to blame a God for only being jealous, but some people would use this line to show how this belief might not be true.
Eric Bengs
Julian the Apostate remarked in one of his lines that if god created man in his image then why was it that the Celts and Germans were these "barbarian" people when the Romans and "Hellenes" or Greeks loved politics and were civilized. He also speaks of how different the Egyptians and Syrians were. He challenges then any man to come forward and explain to him that if God created man in his image why is it that everyone is different. I found this interesting because it was a valid argument and I can only imagine what the lines would have been like if Julian the Apostate had been around to know what people around the world had been like.
I chose lines 19 thru 26 which talk about certain hypocracies in Christanity that pertain to the separtion of Christiasnity from Judaism. They speak of how Moses said God was only the God of the Jews, and that over time it was thought that God was the God of the Jews and the Gentiles, and then he was the God of the Christians. I think it talks of the hypocracies in religion and the Bible or the Torah as bad thing. That if they are devine scriptures that they should be infalible and have no hypocracies in them. But I think that is wrong. The hypocracies mean one of two things: either they describe one moral and how there may be multipul meanings in one thing, or of the evolution of religion over time. I believe it is relitivly hard to convert to Judahism, which is the stepping stone for Christanity. And over time religion has changed to fit certain social aspects. I think that the evolution of Christanity from Judahism is a concept a non believer would have because of traditions.
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