Author’s Note
I am a pathological editor. Left to my own devices, I have to force myself to stop continually tweaking a new article to finally publish it. I am incapable of reading one of my old articles without “adjusting” at least one sentence. What you are reading here is literally my 10th version of this paragraph. To paraphrase a saying attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, “There is no such thing as a finished article, only abandoned.”
This series was originally published as my single inaugural article for Miscellaneous Ramblings back in October 2010. I later completely rewrote it in February 2020 so I could add new information I had learned on the subject from reading Dr. Rodney Stark‘s magnum opus, The Triumph of Christianity. Unfortunately, the resulting article became so turgid and lengthy it was almost unreadable.
I had simply abandoned it in disgust until I finally decided to take yet another crack at a complete rewrite in July 2026. My goal was to shorten it and improve readability along with correcting several historical and factual inaccuracies. But because of my aforementioned pathology, I could not restrain myself from adding even more information. Oops!
So despite my best intentions to shorten it, the resulting article became so long and unwieldy that I felt it best to split it into more bite-sized pieces. This series is the result.
I pray you are blessed by my efforts!
Steve
