Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ApostateAbe · 06-24-2011, 07:47 PM

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Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

... if there was any evidence to be found, then you can be sure that it would have been found by Acharya S or any one of her resourceful allies in the mythicist business, and yet she keeps on citing 19th century Christian universalist authors and mythicist authors as her primary evidence....

I doubt that this is the case. Acharya S has read the old 19th century authors, but she and her followers have not brought modern scholarly methods to the area to bring it up to current standards.

Richard Carrier wrote on Kersey Graves in 2003

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There is great need of new work in this area. There really is a huge gap in modern scholarship here--this is one of the few subjects untouched by the post-WWII historiographical revolution. Most scholars today consider the subject dead, largely for all the wrong reasons. And there is little hope. The subject is stuck in the no-man's-land between history and religious studies, whose methods and academic cultures are so radically different they can barely communicate with each other, much less cooperate on a common project like this.

The 19th century authors in question could have cited their sources, which would quickly lead Acharya S, her fans and her allies to the relevant evidence. There are only a handful of ancient sources on Mithras, and the Acharya S club has the resources to examine them. It doesn't require the development of a revolutionary new set of scholarly methods, despite whatever the hell Richard Carrier thinks. It takes only the same old traditional methods of analysis--find the evidence, interpret the evidence, compare the evidence to the other evidence, fit the evidence into a model, and make the argument based on it.

Yellum Notnef · 06-24-2011, 07:52 PM

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

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Originally Posted by Yellum Notnef

Changed your mind about a historical Jesus or just Christians copying Mithra?

I think those are both questions we can't answer one way or another due to lack of evidence and dubious sources for evidence we do have.

I changed my mind about Christians copying Mithra, after looking for the evidence and finding only modern myth. Concluding that there was a historical Jesus was later and of a different argument.

There are a handful of things that we do know about the ancient mythical deities, which makes the proposition that Christians significantly copied from them to be prima facie implausible. We can leave it open as a possibility, but it is no more probable than any other bizarre proposition of history out there. The substance of it is wishful thinking, not evidence or probability.

My problem with the whole mess is simpler than that due to the very nature of the subject. I see it as layers upon layers of baloney surrounding what's probably a baloney core. You can spend your life eating towards the center, but when you get there you're still eating just baloney. Meh.

I have about the same interest in this and take it all as seriously as I do the Loch Ness Monster. It's entertainment.

ApostateAbe · 06-24-2011, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yellum Notnef

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

I changed my mind about Christians copying Mithra, after looking for the evidence and finding only modern myth. Concluding that there was a historical Jesus was later and of a different argument.

There are a handful of things that we do know about the ancient mythical deities, which makes the proposition that Christians significantly copied from them to be prima facie implausible. We can leave it open as a possibility, but it is no more probable than any other bizarre proposition of history out there. The substance of it is wishful thinking, not evidence or probability.

My problem with the whole mess is simpler than that due to the very nature of the subject. I see it as layers upon layers of baloney surrounding what's probably a baloney core. You can spend your life eating towards the center, but when you get there you're still eating just baloney. Meh.

I hear you, and I don't think you are alone. I seem to have a lot of difficulty getting so many others with a skeptical bent to perceive the unified explanatory elegance of my own model of the origin and development of the Christian religion, though a few other thinkers do share it, and, encouragingly, so do the most intelligent thinkers in academia. I figure that the whole field may seem fundamentally corrupt and tainted when the hypotheses that one would prefer scores no better in probability than the hypotheses that one dislikes. When we have a prejudice against the most probable conclusion, then of course it is easier to shift the problem away from our own selves. You see it most starkly, of course, with Dave31. He is an intelligent person, and he believes himself to be a freethinker. But, I honestly don't think that he will change his mind for the rest of his life.

Roger Pearse · 06-25-2011, 02:43 AM

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

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Originally Posted by Yellum Notnef

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Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

If everything Roger Pearse said is correct, and well-reasoned to boot, then why try to explain it with anything but a capably-thinking mind?

There's a lot here that we just have to take Rogers word on and I'm not so sure that someone with a bias that Christianity is true can be trusted to look at all the material without a little tint in his glasses. He did , after all, take up the mantle of Mithra detective as a bit of a crusade against it before he had even seen much of the alleged evidence. In other words, he found and didn't find what he expected/wanted/needed to and the baby Jesus still sleeps snug in his bed.

Well, I think you can trust him on this point, because, if there was any evidence to be found, then you can be sure that it would have been found by Acharya S or any one of her resourceful allies in the mythicist business, and yet she keeps on citing 19th century Christian universalist authors and mythicist authors as her primary evidence. I went on the hunt for the evidence, myself, repeatedly, and I found nothing, except, of course, modern myths. That is how I first changed my mind about it.

That was my experience too. It's the only possible thing to do.

I don't claim any form of authority. I just asked those making the claims for the ancient evidence. They got all angry, I found, because they don't know any evidence for the claims they make so freely. But I didn't leave it there. I did, what they don't do, which is researched all the data myself.

I do make what data I have freely available to all, but of course anyone who doesn't trust me -- and why should you? -- is at liberty to do the legwork themselves. I always do that, anyway, on such subjects. It's fun, it's interesting, and it contributes to the public welfare.

I never form an opinion on whether these stories are factually true before I research them.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Vorkosigan · 06-25-2011, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I do make what data I have freely available to all, but of course anyone who doesn't trust me -- and why should you? -- is at liberty to do the legwork themselves. I always do that, anyway, on such subjects. It's fun, it's interesting, and it contributes to the public welfare.

I never form an opinion on whether these stories are factually true before I research them.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I have always found your research reliable and useful, which are the two highest encomiums I know.

Vorkosigan

Dave31 · 06-25-2011, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

... if there was any evidence to be found, then you can be sure that it would have been found by Acharya S or any one of her resourceful allies in the mythicist business, and yet she keeps on citing 19th century Christian universalist authors and mythicist authors as her primary evidence....

I doubt that this is the case. Acharya S has read the old 19th century authors, but she and her followers have not brought modern scholarly methods to the area to bring it up to current standards.

Richard Carrier wrote on Kersey Graves in 2003

Quote:

There is great need of new work in this area. There really is a huge gap in modern scholarship here--this is one of the few subjects untouched by the post-WWII historiographical revolution. Most scholars today consider the subject dead, largely for all the wrong reasons. And there is little hope. The subject is stuck in the no-man's-land between history and religious studies, whose methods and academic cultures are so radically different they can barely communicate with each other, much less cooperate on a common project like this.

Accusing Acharya of being limited to 19th century scholars and outdated scholarship is a complete falsehood that still lingers from people who've never actually read Acharya's books (except maybe her 1st book Christ Conspiracy) as explained in the FAQ section at her forum:

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Some get confused by this page by Richard Carrier and try to use it to blast Acharya for mentioning Kersey Graves. BTW, Richard Carrier has never actually read any of Acharya S/Murdock's works. I see no reason to believe Carrier has actually read Graves work either because of this comment at the top of the article:

"[Editor's note: This is a conflation of three responses which were made by Richard Carrier to feedback and e-mail involving questions about the scholarhip of Kersey Graves, in particular, and about scholarship, in general, in the subject area about which Graves concerned himself in The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors.]"

FAQ

Quote:

"... Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection comprises some 600 pages with almost 2,400 footnotes and citations from more than 900 books, journals and assorted other sources from experts in germane fields of study from different time periods beginning in antiquity up to the most modern Egyptologists, in order to create a consensus of opinion since the topic is so contentious. In this regard, brief biographical material is also included for many of these authorities, so that readers may be assured of the individual's credentials. The broad scope of these sources dating from thousands of years ago to the most modern research means there can be no dismissive argument based on either a lack of primary sources or because the authorities cited are "outdated."

- Acharya S, preface from Christ in Egypt:

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"...This effort includes much new source material drawn from primary sources as well the works from credentialed authorities in a variety of relevant subjects. Indeed, I have strived to include the best and most thorough, scholarly and modern sources wherever possible, with the result that many authorities cited here possess credentials from respected institutes of higher learning, and their publishers are some of the most scholarly in English (and other languages), such as:

E.J. Brill
Peeters
Kegan Paul
Oxford University/Clarendon Press
Princeton University Press
Cambridge University Press
Cornell University Press
Yale University Press
University of Chicago Press
University of Pennsylvania Press
University of Wisconsin Press
Johns Hopkins Press
Harcourt, Brace & Co.
MacMillan & Co., etc.

This Sourcebook thus provides relevant primary-source material and citations from respectable and credentialed authorities, along with germane images to support the first part of ZG’s contentions. There are over 150 sources cited in this Sourcebook, in nearly 350 footnotes...."

- Acharya S, Preface for The New ZEITGEIST Part 1 Sourcebook (2010)

Dave31 · 06-25-2011, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave31

...

That's the point that seems to go over peoples heads. The CONCEPTS existed long before Christianity. Christianity BORROWED them and made them their own. What's so difficult to understand? Ever hear of syncretism?

...

But you can only claim this if you make the CONCEPTS so general that you can't really show anything in particular. Are you really claiming that some early Christian engaged in copyright infringement? Or just that Christians picked up on some universal cultural themes that they found around them - a not very radical idea?

For example, the virgin Mary in the gospels is just a young girl who gives birth to a baby, somewhat miraculously, although there are exegetes who claim that the birth in the gospels is not necessarily parthogenesis. It is only later in Christian history that she becomes something like a goddess, immaculately conceived. Anahita and the other "virgins" that Acharya S brings up as comparable are much more than young women who give birth. They are goddesses who are somehow perpetually virginal even after multiple births. The only common theme here is giving birth - but that is a universal part of human experience. So what does this show?

The human brain is wired to look for patterns and enjoy finding them. Sometimes those patterns are meaningful, sometimes not.

You would have all those questions answered quite thoroughly if you ever actually read a book by Acharya S, especially Christ in Egypt.

ApostateAbe · 06-25-2011, 12:26 PM

So, Acharya S is NOT limited to 19th century scholars, and we know that because one of her books "comprises some 600 pages with almost 2,400 footnotes and citations from more than 900 books, journals and assorted other sources..." If I ever need a fast hard-working typist, I will give Acharya S a call.

Dave31 · 06-25-2011, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yellum Notnef

My problem with the whole mess is simpler than that due to the very nature of the subject. I see it as layers upon layers of baloney surrounding what's probably a baloney core. You can spend your life eating towards the center, but when you get there you're still eating just baloney. Meh.

I hear you, and I don't think you are alone. I seem to have a lot of difficulty getting so many others with a skeptical bent to perceive the unified explanatory elegance of my own model of the origin and development of the Christian religion, though a few other thinkers do share it, and, encouragingly, so do the most intelligent thinkers in academia. I figure that the whole field may seem fundamentally corrupt and tainted when the hypotheses that one would prefer scores no better in probability than the hypotheses that one dislikes. When we have a prejudice against the most probable conclusion, then of course it is easier to shift the problem away from our own selves. You see it most starkly, of course, with Dave31. He is an intelligent person, and he believes himself to be a freethinker. But, I honestly don't think that he will change his mind for the rest of his life.

I have already changed my mind. I was a saved and baptized Christian evangelical for 20 years. Acharya's work is actually some of the best out there when you actually read it. I know many here have not read any actual books by her cover to cover and even then mostly just Christ Conspiracy, which she is apparently in the process of revising for an updated 2nd edition. If readers of this thread relied on comments from ApostateAbe, Toto and Roger Pearse about Acharya's work they would certainly be completely misled. Your opinions of her work are often flat wrong. Scholars who've actually read her work think highly of it.

Roger Pearse · 06-25-2011, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I do make what data I have freely available to all, but of course anyone who doesn't trust me -- and why should you? -- is at liberty to do the legwork themselves. I always do that, anyway, on such subjects. It's fun, it's interesting, and it contributes to the public welfare.

I never form an opinion on whether these stories are factually true before I research them.

I have always found your research reliable and useful, which are the two highest encomiums I know.

You are very kind: thank you! It means a lot.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

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06-25-2011, 12:26 PM	#48
ApostateAbe Contributor Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MT Posts: 10,656	So, Acharya S is NOT limited to 19th century scholars, and we know that because one of her books "comprises some 600 pages with almost 2,400 footnotes and citations from more than 900 books, journals and assorted other sources..." If I ever need a fast hard-working typist, I will give Acharya S a call.

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