Dave31

Leave to GakuseiDon to forget to provide links to Acharya's responses to those who maliciously smear her with various falsehoods. It's blatantly obvious that Carrier is biased against her as he has yet to actually read a single book of hers. His criticisms of her work have had more to do with jealousy, knee-jerk reaction, intellectual dishonesty and misogyny than anything else.

Carrier wishes he could get rid of her and that's one reason why Carrier is pissed at Bart Errorman for his sloppy handling of Acharya's work in his book against mythicism. Acharya's response to Ehrman regarding the statue made Ehrman look like an incompetent fool. She did the same with Carrier on the Luxor issue. Carrier simply doesn't have the integrity, character or maturity to admit he made sloppy and egregious errors in his criticisms against her. Carrier simply refuses to acknowledge that she may be right about anything. So, neither Ehrman nor Carrier nor anybody else have been capable of proving her work so wrong that she is finally dismissed once and for all. Everytime they've tried it has been an embarrassing epic failure.

I have Ehrman's book and he falsely accuses mythicists of assorted things such as making stuff up but, he also misrepresents their arguments repeatedly and then claims that they are the incompetent ones. Ehrman's book has ruined his own reliability and credibility. He will never be trusted again like he was before.

Parallelophobia, personal attacks and professional jealousy: A response to Richard Carrier's 'That Luxor Thing'

Is Jesus's nativity an Egyptian myth?http://www.freethoughtnation.com/con...tian-myth.html

Regarding Ehrman's book 'DJE?' she has responded:

The phallic 'Savior of the World' hidden in the Vatican

Does early Church father Justin Martyr quote the gospels?

GakuseiDon

I was less interested in Carrier's comments about Acharya S in this particular case, and more interested in his comments about "mythers’ unfriendly paranoia" and "tinfoil hat" brigade. Carrier is concerned that such mythicists (he includes Freke & Gandy along with Acharya S here) provide fodder for scholars to dismiss all mythicist theories altogether, which would of course be wrong. I think it is fairly clear that Ehrman has received emails from the "tinfoil hat" mythicists, and thus his comments. If Carrier was not a mythicist as well, I guess his comments about his experiences with the "tinfoil hat" mythicists and "mythers’ unfriendly paranoia" would be regarded as generally insulting by other mythicists as well.

That's true, strangely enough. Carrier has said (link given earlier):

it is precisely because of these threads of research and analysis, which tediously take up my time for no purpose, only to reveal how unreliable Murdock is, in reporting, sourcing, and discussing facts, and in drawing inferences from what she quotes, that I don’t want to engage in these debates. If I were to repeat this for every claim she makes, and every claim every myther made, I would be occupied with this for hundreds of years.

I guess that's why he wanted Ehrman to do this job. Carrier just doesn't have the time. But if Acharya S is more damaging to the mythicist case because she is unreliable, why should the onus be on a scholar like Ehrman rather than a mythicist like Carrier? I think if mythicists like Carrier had already countered the weirder side of mythicism, Ehrman would have had more time to spare to concentrate on the less weird side.

Anyway, I have some time to spare, Dave31. Do you want to go over an Acharya S claim or two on a separate thread? I can give you a number and you can choose which one you want to deep-dive into. Or I will choose one. As long as you stick around and keep to the topic, it would be a good exercise.

Actually, aren't you wrong there? Did you read Carrier's blog post "That Luxor thing again"? Carrier writes:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/580

One of the reasons Murdock’s methodology goes off the rails is that she assumes everyone is out to get her and that there is always some sort of evil conspiracy against her work. Which insulates her from listening to criticism and correcting the way she does things. That is one of the surest ways to fail as a scholar...

Even so, Murdock corrects me on one error of fact, and that I gladly concede and I apologize for getting it wrong: the actual inscription in the Luxor temple was probably produced almost a century after Hatshepsut, and thus not commissioned by the same queen as I had mistakenly reported. I have revised my original post to reflect this. It does not change my conclusion (as I now explain there), but it does soften it a little...

Carrier has done the good (and scholarly) thing there, Dave31. Do you want to admit that you are wrong also by claiming "Carrier simply refuses to acknowledge that she may be right about anything"?

I've got some time and proof that she is wrong, at least in one thing. Shall we take that to another thread?

"When you have the facts, argue the facts. When you don't have the facts, argue the man."

hjalti

Yup, good points.

I wish that we could see some serious debate between only the serious mythicists and the serious historicists.

And regarding the second part. Do people here like GDon not admit that people like Carrier and Price should be taken more seriously like N.T. "It's-so-strange-that-it-might-just-have-happened" Wright.

GakuseiDon

I wish we could see ANY serious debate between serious mythicists and other serious mythicists.

Let's say that Wells' mythicism became the mainstream consensus view. Wouldn't you get scholarly articles written about that, delving into areas of disagreement, trying to tease information about various interpretations of the text? I mean, scholarship just wouldn't rest, saying "Job done!" So what is stopping it from happening **now**? Has the best possible mythicist case been created? Is there any further work that needs to be done? So why does it have to be between mythicists and historicists, at this time?

And what happens to the Doherty mythicists? Surely they would want their theory given due consideration. What would the mainstream scholars say then? Wouldn't it be something like "Get it peer-reviewed and we will talk"?

That's the exciting thing about Carrier's books, which are actually going to be written for a scholarly audience. The nonsense theories of Acharya S, Freke & Gandy and Doherty will be put in the shade. Scholars will be able to look at Carrier's work as the best possible mythicist case. It will transform the debate on boards such as these! You'll still get your Dave31s harping on about the lack of respect for the Acharya Ses of this world, but from a theory perspective, the line in the sand will have been drawn. Historicists will have no excuse to ignore mythicism, and mythicists will have no excuse to ignore the Acharya Ses of this world. It is win-win!

Most definitely. They are all credentialled scholars.

hjalti

Sorry, I meant to write:

And regarding the second part. Do people here like GDon not admit that people like Carrier and Price should be taken more seriously than N.T. "It's-so-strange-that-it-might-just-have-happened" Wright.

Toto

Wells no longer considers himself a mythicist, although his version of the historical Jesus has nothing in common with any other historical Jesus.

Of course, if mythicists disagree, then people like Ehrman will use that against mythicism.

But of course historicists disagree on every single aspect of the historical Jesus except the crucifixion (but won't allow their disagreement to be used against historicism.)

GakuseiDon

Oh, I see. It would depend on the topic being addressed. As a rule-of-thumb, I would take Carrier and Price over Wright if Carrier and Price have the better qualifications on a particular topic.

Dave31

GakuseiDon, Richard Carrier has yet to actually read a single book by Acharya S. His opinion of her work is no better than Bart Ehrman's who also obviously didn't actually read her work. Carrier is simply not a reliable source of criticism of her work as he has proven a few times now. He's jealous of her and the attention she gets. He is incapable of acknowledging that she may be right about anything so, Carrier cannot be trusted to be unbiased or objective regarding Acharya S. Most who've actually studied her work already know that.

Any biased person can make comments like that without ever reading her work. Acharya already demonstrated Carrier's sloppy and egregious errors on the Luxor issue. When it comes to criticism of Acharya S he merely embarrasses himself. Keep in mind that it's ALWAYS Carrier going after Acharya S; she has NEVER done a damn thing to him beyond correct his malicious trash criticisms.

Carrier's comments about "unfriendly paranoia" and "tinfoil hat" brigade" are just more unscholarly and unprofessional derogatory and jealous remarks. Carrier has inspired utter intellectual dishonesty amongst his fan-boys who consider Carrier their hero i.e. Rook Hawkins who wrote that dishonest blog about Acharya's book 'Suns of God' while never even having seen the book let alone read it. Is that something for Carrier to be proud of? Absolutely not yet, Carrier has said nothing about Rooks total intellectual dishonesty. So, Carrier is not interested in accuracy, objectivity or honesty when it comes to the work by Acharya S as long as she is maliciously smeared he's fine with that. That is the influence of Richard Carrier and any honest and respectable scholar would condemn such a thing. I'm surprised Carrier has defended her against Ehrman at all.

Not really, he did the bare minimum there and it's not impressive at all. It was another sloppy error of Carrier's to begin with not hers. He still rigidly adheres to his hyperbolic errors with the Egyptian sexual scenes as well as the influence of Egypt upon Christianity among other points such as looking at the wrong text. It's embarrassing. I feel sorry for him. Columbia should be demanding a return of his Ph.D.

Ehrman has been caught lying about the phallic 'Savior of the World' statue as demonstrated in Carrier's blog: Ehrman’s Dubious Replies (Round One)

As a person commented the other day:

Carrier still doesn't understand that Acharya S never claimed the statue symbolized Peter, she was saying that the cock/rooster symbolizes Peter. Funny how those who've actually read the book didn't suffer from this confusion.

In her blog, The phallic 'Savior of the World' hidden in the Vatican she states:

The Catholic church has already demonstrated the symbolic connect between St. Peter and the cock/rooster.

I have absolutely no interest in wasting my time with you on the topic of Acharya S as you've been maliciously smearing her for 8 years now as well while never having actually studied her work either. Oh sure, you finally got Christ Conspiracy from the library after smearing her for what 6 years? But then, you only skimmed it to find whatever you could find to misrepresent and bash her with. You just repeat the same falsehoods no matter how many times you've been shown to be either completely wrong or at least in accurate. Like Bart Ehrman and Carrier, you are also not a reliable source to be trusted when it comes to the work by Acharya S. How long ya gonna keep riding that little scooter?

Good day

GakuseiDon

That little scooter can go a long, long way, if the crappy arguments in the "The Christ Conspiracy" is the bio-fuel. But it would be going off-topic. I have created a thread showing how Acharya S states in "The Christ Conspiracy" that the Pope "is the Grand Master-Mason of the Masonic branches of the world" (page 348) and how "It is possible that any number of scholars who know "about the mythological nature of the Bible, yet they have gone to immense lengths to hide it" are "also Masons or members of some such secret brotherhood who are under the blood oath" (page 376). You can join in over there if you like. I got lots of others like that, if you want to discuss something else that Acharya S discusses. But that's not the point here.

Guys, imagine if your exposure to mythicism was mainly via someone like Dave31 and the movie "Zeitgeist". While I agree that comparing mythicism to conspiracy theories like "Holocaust denail" (which is more than just denying that the Holocaust happened but that scholars knowingly conspire to keep that fact from people) is unnecessarily provocative, (not all mythicists, or even the majority of mythicists, are like that) there is a conspiracy element within mythicism. And that is the element that Ehrman addresses here:

Still, as is clear from the avalanche of sometimes outraged postings on all the relevant Internet sites, there is simply no way to convince conspiracy theorists that the evidence for their position is too thin to be convincing and that the evidence for a traditional view is thoroughly persuasive. Anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincing—whether it involves the fact of the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, the assassination of presidents, or even a presidential place of birth—will not be convinced. Simply will not be convinced.

Anyway, let's get back to the thread topic. What bad things does Ehrman say about individual mythicists like Carrier, Dr Price, Doherty, Wells and others in his book "Did Jesus Exist?" Have we covered all of them?

Toto

"But that would be wrong" to quote Dick Nixon.

And don't think about a pink elephant while you're about it. I wouldn't want to compare GDon to a pink elephant, but pink elephants keep popping up. This is not to say that GDon is a pink elephant, and let me state once again that GDon is not a pink elephant. Now just get that image of the pink elephant out of your mind. Stop thinking about that pink elephant.

No, mythicism does not necessarily include a conspiracy element. And Holocaust Denial does not necessarily include the idea that scholars conspire to keep that fact from people.

There is a conspiracy element in historicist Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, but not all historicists are conspiracy theorists. Or are they?

And neither Dan Brown, GDon, nor Bart Ehrman are pink elephants. Just stop thinking about that pink elephant.


It has already been explained to you that Ehrman says bad things when he misrepresents their arguments, not that he engages in character assassination.

If you think that is the thread topic, it might be time to close this thread.

And get that pink elephant out of your mind.