Back to A Different Lens

Most connections in this atlas assert something. A small set of fifty one exist to refuse one instead, and each was written because a reader had probably already heard the claim it turns down.

Equations the Record Refuses

The busiest rows patrol the claims that travel fastest: Jesus is set against Horus, against Dionysus and against Mithras, one link for each version of the argument that Christianity copied an older god, and each is marked debunked rather than merely doubted. Easter is set against Inanna the same way, against the popular claim that the holiday descends from Ishtar.

A quieter group patrols nothing but a word. Saint is set apart from four titles it keeps getting mistaken for: the Sanskrit sant, the Islamic wali, the living tzadik of Hasidism and the elder called starets, each with its own path to recognition and none of them the same institution as sainthood. The resemblance, the record says of one pair, is a coincidence of sound.

Both Cannot Be It

The sharpest row in the register holds two relics rather than two ideas. Trier keeps a robe it calls the seamless garment worn at the crucifixion. Argenteuil keeps a different one and makes the identical claim. The atlas will not choose a winner, so it records instead the fact that decides the question anyway: both cannot be it.

Deleting a false connection is tidier than keeping it, and it costs something: a reader who already believes the claim never finds out it was checked. Marking it costs nothing and tells the truth twice, once about the claim and once about the checking.

Where To Read More

• JesusFoundersOne side of the busiest equation the register refuses
• HorusEgyptian DeitiesThe other side, marked debunked rather than doubted
• SaintChristianity RolesThe word four separate rows keep distinct from four other titles
• The Holy Robe of TrierGarments & TextilesOne of two relics making the identical claim
• Holy Tunic of ArgenteuilGarments & TextilesThe other relic. Both cannot be it