Dishonest Danny

James White followed up on a reference Dan Barker made in their debate. Essentially, Dan asserted that Justin Martyr encouraged pagans to become Christians since "we all believe the same things"...Dr. White was a bit incredulous about this, but Barker insisted that was the substance of Justin's argument...sadly (for Dan), he ought to realize Justin Martyr's Apologia is not a little known work...in fact, it's easy to find:

Justin's Apology XI

Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught.

So Justin differentiated between Christianity and pagan beliefs...now look at chapter XX

And the Sibyl and Hystaspes said that there should be a dissolution by God of things corruptible. And the philosophers called Stoics teach that even God Himself shall be resolved into fire, and they say that the world is to be formed anew by this revolution; but we understand that God, the Creator of all things, is superior to the things that are to be changed. If, therefore, on some points we teach the same things as the poets and philosophers whom you honour, and on other points are fuller and more divine in our teaching, and if we alone afford proof of what we assert, why are we unjustly hated more than all others? For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics: and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, we say the very things which have been said by the comic poet Menander, and other similar writers, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work.

I encourage you to go on to chapter XXI and watch the sarcasm dripping from Justin's pen...and also where he says the pagan gods are none else than demons!

So Dan...either you're a moron (which I'm quite open to), or you're a liar (open to this, too), or both (to be honest, that's where I'm leaning). Justin is calling Rome hypocritical for killing Christians given the mythology Rome embraced. One wonders why he would become a martyr when dim-witted atheists make him out to be uber ecumenical.

Listen to Dr. White go into greater detail if you like