So that's it for the election.

[Hailto]

I actually agree with hbb, what is the world coming to?

[Reiker000]

Can't wait for Obama to win I'm gonna be all like [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Alawen]

I will no longer be quoting Dulldrama's long-winded fallacies.

Anyone who clicked through to the Bart Ehrman's post I linked from the Huffington Post would have noticed three things:

1) Ehrman gleefully threatens the careers of anyone who dares to raise the questions of mythicism,
2) Ehrman's writing, much like Daldolma's, is rife with logical fallacies and falsehoods, and
3) Ehrman is plugging his book confirming, yes, you guessed it, Jesus definitely for sure no doubt about it existed. This, despite the fact that Ehrman concedes that the Testimonium Flavianum is an insertion.

Here is Richard Carrier shredding Ehrman: Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism. Carrier's PhD in ancient history is from Columbia University. Ehrman responded to Carrier, then deleted his post.

Here is a link to one of Thomas L. Thompson's book on Amazon: The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David. His PhD in Old Testament Studies is from Temple University. He was blacklisted in the United States for daring to write his dissertation on
"The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham." He moved to Denmark and taught at the University of Copenhagen. Investigation of evidence for biblical figures is taboo within American academia.

Robert Price, first inadvertently cited by Daldolma without actually reading, you know, what he was copying and pasting from Wikipedia, and then casually discredited, holds two PhDs from Drew University: one in theology and one in new Testament Studies. His most relevant work is probably Deconstructing Jesus.

The two factions in the debate over the historical existence of Christ have names. Dulldrama's position is firmly within the historicists. My position is with mythicists. There are many academics with impressive credentials on both sides of the dispute. Evidence boils down to the Bible, especially the writings of the theorized Biblical scribe labeled Q, the Testimonium Flavianum, the passing reference in Tacitus, and the lack of mention and missing books of the otherwise extremely thorough Philo. Everyone depends on copied and translated versions of these works BECAUSE THE ORIGINALS DO NOT EXIST ANYMORE.

Disagreement over the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum has been going on since the sixteenth century. The only copies of Antiquities of the Jews derive from Christian sources and the oldest manuscript dates from the eleventh century, a millenium after Jospehus wrote.

Contemporary versions of the Annals of Tacitus are based on what are called the Medicean manuscripts and they also date to the eleventh century. The authenticity of the Annals has been questioned by many great minds including Voltaire.

The Bible's revisions, insertions and interpolations are well-known and, for the sake of brevity, I will not even summarize them here.

My interest in this topic is not casual. I've read Carrier, Thompson and Price as well as Ehrman. The volume of material on the issue, despite the very real penalties academics face for daring to address historicity of any biblical figures, is daunting. The dispute is not new; it dates back to the Renaissance. No archaeological evidence exists to confirm the historicity of anything in the Bible. Yes, nothing. No tablets, no temple of Solomon, not even a potsherd that says Abraham.

Daldolma apparently first explored this topic two days ago with a 30-second glance at Wikipedia. He has, perhaps inadvertently, taken the stance of a Christian apologist, specifically a presuppositional apologetic. This is to say that no one who doesn't agree with his axioms is qualified to discuss the topic at hand. Despite his calls for reason, this is just a word for him. He is openly disdainful of my references to symbolic logic in analyzing arguments.

No, bro, I was not mad. Just thoroughly bored with your repeats of one-sided, out-of-context pull quotes from the first page of Google. If you want to discuss this with any credibility, you're going to have to read more than the first paragraph of a Wikipedia entry. It's a very complex topic and you're stepping on your own dick when you infer that anyone can read original versions of writings that have not existed for centuries. You are a disaster of a thinker, apparently unable to analyze arguments, including your own. Your last post was over 500 words of ad hominem attack, which you conclude by begging me for more personal information to continue your nonsensical rant. For real?

tl;dr: Daldolma quotes from Wikipedia, gets mad, calls names.

[Daldolma]

"You are a disaster of a thinker... ad hominem attack". Sweet intellectual consistency. At least you cut and ran from the argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Anyway, like I said, I'm sick of the pseudo intellect. Your interest is irrelevant to me and your expertise in the subject is non-existent. You've painted the image of a two-sided and equally weighted debate even as you acknowledge that your viewpoint is taboo within American academia. Particularly interesting is the fact that three of the academics I cited as referencing an overwhelming consensus re: Jesus' existence hail from British academia. I guess it's an English language thing.

Still no credentials, still no reason to acknowledge your research as anything other than neckbeardery. And you still don't understand that EVEN ONE OF YOUR SOURCES -- Price -- has acknowledged that he is in the extreme minority and that the general consensus is that Jesus did live.

[Alawen]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

(Repeats himself some more and doesn't respond to anything I wrote, but manages to deny the antecedent just to highlight his inability to form coherent arguments.)

Yes, yes, we all get it. Only the academics you agree with count. You read a couple paragraphs on Wikipedia and now you're an expert. No further effort is required on your part because you're a genius. You're the only one who gets to make conclusions about someone's intellect because yours is so astoundingly lofty.

I didn't "cut and run" from your accusation of argument from ignorance. I never claimed that Christ didn't exist. I claimed that there's no evidence for his existence. The fallacy doesn't apply. I suspect that distinction is lost on you.

What's YOUR PhD in, big boy? It had better be philosophy, or else your own standards exclude everything you've posted here.

[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

"You are a disaster of a thinker... ad hominem attack". Sweet intellectual consistency. At least you cut and ran from the argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Anyway, like I said, I'm sick of the pseudo intellect. Your interest is irrelevant to me and your expertise in the subject is non-existent. You've painted the image of a two-sided and equally weighted debate even as you acknowledge that your viewpoint is taboo within American academia. Particularly interesting is the fact that three of the academics I cited as referencing an overwhelming consensus re: Jesus' existence hail from British academia. I guess it's an English language thing.

Still no credentials, still no reason to acknowledge your research as anything other than neckbeardery. And you still don't understand that EVEN ONE OF YOUR SOURCES -- Price -- has acknowledged that he is in the extreme minority and that the general consensus is that Jesus did live.

You say all this yet you compare Stephen Hawking to "jesus scholars."

My hair is a bird, your argument is invalid.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You say all this yet you compare Stephen Hawking to "jesus scholars."

My hair is a bird, your argument is invalid.

Why do you put quotations around "Jesus scholars"? You're the only one who's used the term -- are you quoting yourself?

They're not Jesus scholars. They're historians and biblical scholars. You scoff at them as though they confirm the biblical accounts. On the contrary, many of the scholars that have confirmed the existence of historical Jesus have engaged in significant textual criticism and noted occasions of contradiction and downright historical inaccuracies within the New Testament.

I don't understand the crux of your issue with biblical scholars. Do you reject history as a suitable field for expertise? Do you deny the necessity for historians to investigate arguably the most influential literature in the history of our species? You don't have to believe a single word of the New Testament in order to still appreciate the efforts to contextualize the work and determine what, if anything, is supported by other, non-religious accounts of the period.

Regardless, if you can agree that history is a suitable field for expertise and the Bible is worthy of historical inspection, you shouldn't have any aversion to biblical scholarship.

[Hasbinlulz]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Blah blah blah.

I find it actually offensive that you would compare some historians studying the arab version of an ancient cult of Horus to one of the world's leading scientists studying and breaking down the nature of the universe.

Don't get me wrong, I think history (including that of Mr. Christ) is important, but Hawking embodies the collected body of knowledge of humanity in a way that relatively few people do. Your comparison is false equivalency at best, but I would label it blatantly and egregiously hyperbolic trash.

[fishingme]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I find it actually offensive that you would compare some historians studying the arab version of an ancient cult of Horus to one of the world's leading scientists studying and breaking down the nature of the universe.

Don't get me wrong, I think history (including that of Mr. Christ) is important, but Hawking embodies the collected body of knowledge of humanity in a way that relatively few people do. Your comparison is false equivalency at best, but I would label it blatantly and egregiously hyperbolic trash.

Unsure how you think it's such a stretch that there's leaders in other fields. It's not hard to make a comparison between hawking being a leader in astrophysics to some historian being a leader in his.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Hasbinlulz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I find it actually offensive that you would compare some historians studying the arab version of an ancient cult of Horus to one of the world's leading scientists studying and breaking down the nature of the universe.

Don't get me wrong, I think history (including that of Mr. Christ) is important, but Hawking embodies the collected body of knowledge of humanity in a way that relatively few people do. Your comparison is false equivalency at best, but I would label it blatantly and egregiously hyperbolic trash.

Easy bro, you're getting a little too heated about this. It was an obvious, caricatured example of neckbeardery, not a legitimate parallel. Lighten up. We agree: mere PhDs, published authors, and tenured professors at reputable universities are not comparable to arguably the greatest scientific mind alive at present.

If you agree that the history of Jesus (agree to disagree re: Christ) is worthy of scholarship and expertise, then we don't disagree.