No Robots

For those who see mythicism as dangerous and irresponsible, the current state of this forum is a vast improvement. Doherty, Vorkosigan and others have by-and-large fled the field, their pseudo-scholarly pretensions unmasked, leaving only their rather ridiculous fellow-travellers to carry the banner. Spin is left to carp on and on about evidence, the importance of which apparently only he really understands. The moderators here are relaxed, informed and tolerant. Whether this forum will ever become a genuine home for informed free thinking is, of course, quite another question.

Ben C Smith

This sounds like a compliment to spin, even if it was intended as something else. If I ever stand trial on an accusation of carping on and on about evidence, I kind of hope I am convicted.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Your second statement (with which I mostly disagree) does not follow from your first (with which I mostly agree).

Ben.

DCHindley

Even though I have my own peculiar but obviously wrong and completely misguided crack theory, I am amazed at how casually statements are made, speculations get treated as confirmed fact, wildly illogical conclusions get drawn from incomplete syllogisms, and crank ideas serve as unstated premises of enthymemes (for those who don't know what this is, look it up - not you, Roger, of course).

Believe me, I am taking a closer look at how I use terms like "interpolation" and such, or portray my speculations regarding the historical conditions that brought about various books of the NT, seeing how these terms and issues are bandied about here. I do not want my theory tainted by the wildness of speculation and looseness of terminology employed here. It's scary, to be frank!

I do not even look at most threads, especially if started by a few individuals. What's the point? Everything is either fabrication, myth or fiction, and I mean everything. If it was not written as part of some grand plot to pull the wool over the eyes of gullible and sheep-like Roman subjects for the benefit of vainglorious emperors and their cronies, it was a creative manifestation drawn from the deep, wonderful, well of universal myths that effused the age (i.e., the premise of the book _Jesus Mysteries_).

Personally, I do not know what drives Ben and others to engage it as much as they do.

DCH

Johnny Skeptic

Regarding "Doherty, Vorkosigan and others have by-and-large fled the field, their pseudo-scholarly pretensions unmasked, leaving only their rather ridiculous fellow-travellers to carry the banner," I am willing to carry a banner that says "It is doubtful that a God would use copies of copies of ancient texts as a primary means of communicating with humans when he could easily telephathically communicate the same messages to everyone in the world, thereby discouraging dissent instead of encouraging dissent. Did God use writings to communicate with Adam, Eve, Noah, and Abraham?"

And by the way, that includes everything that Spinoza and Brunner wrote about God. If a God exists, he most certainly does not need human intermediaries to do his talking for him. If God needed human intermediaries to do his talking for him, how are people supposed to decide which intermediaries are talking for God?

Jeffrey Gibson

But that isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not the forum is dominated by trolls and cranks and whether it should be allowed to be so, if it is, if the moderators take seriously the stated purpose of the forum.

Jeffrey

Ben C Smith

I have it on good authority that Ben often asks himself that same question.

Ben.

Gawen

I think this entire thing can be solved rather easily...without saying or hinting at calling out perceived trolls, cranks, clueless individuals. It's rather simple, really.

Just don't respond to them. No one has to respond to them. No one twists the arm any person on these boards to make them reply to someone else...barring OMW PM's and OAN PM's.

The same applies to trolling, cranked or clueless OP's or posts. If it's not worth it to "you" to respond to them, then don't.

On the other hand, if a post or poster comes off as suspect to you, use the "Request Mod Action" button on the lower left of ever post and let the Moderators here handle it, while keeping in mind that the Moderators of every forum are volunteers who try their best and fitting in their time here while dealing with real life.

If anything, a round of applause should be heard for the BC&H Mods for their experience and knowledge of their forum's field of interest.

On top of this, I should recommend that any other Moderation questions should be directed to the QPC&S forum.

Jeffrey Gibson

But -- as you yourself have seen in Pete's responses to your evidenced and well argued analyses of his claims about Jesus and asceticism -- such things don't stop the cranks and the trolls from dominating discussions and continuing to post nonsense, let alone continuing to ride ad nauseam their favourite hobby horses, and thus giving the forum the reputation that it has as the abode of cranks.

Jeffrey

Gamera

While some of the posts here may, as Roger indicates, border on crankish, or at least repetitively narrow, generally I find the challenges to historicity here thoughtful and a useful way to sharpen my thinking about the status of these perplexing texts.

With a few posters, the less said may the better. But in my experience the vast majority of those challenging the historical basis of these texts make for good conversation and surprising discoveries.

(Besides I suspect many here find my postmodern approach a bit quirky, so I live in a glass house.)