blastula

Very helpful chart. I will have to steal that.

McD

Yeah, I see what you are doing and I know what you think I am doing, but you are barking up the wrong tree.

What I am saying isn't that I found them distasteful. I am saying that, in nearly every discussion we had, they revealed their true motivations. They wouldn't even allow "Well what if...". What I am saying is that the MJers I knew got agitated and even angry, at the merest suggestion that maybe they were wrong.

I also saw Garth Murray on television, and Frank Zindler on the radio, getting getting agitated in that same way.

When someone has that sort of reaction to the opposing viewpoint, you begin to think that the anger might be rooted in fear.

So, rlogan, what I was not doing was committing argumentum ad hominem, although it may have seemed that way on the surface of it.

Vorkosigan

Of course they got angry because they were afraid they might believe. Why, it couldn't possibly have been because their questioners didn't understand what was going on, they were tremendously egotistical, they didn't like the implied personal attacks, they couldn't stand anyone disagreeing with them, or any of a thousand normal reasons. Nope, it had to be because deep down they were afraid that they might believe.

Does that mean "Gee, I can't imagine what prompted me to write something so stupid, and I'm very sorry that I did." Because it doesn't translate like that at all.

Vorkosigan

McD

Yeah, I just jumped right to that conclusion without listening to what they had to say or asking them any penetrating questions at all

Yeah, I'm real uninformed

I just ooze ego. I leave slime trails of ego wherever I go.

This post by Clivedurdle is very similar to the attitude I witnessed:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=159355

No, but you need to calm the fuck down. I didn't say anything like 'all MJers are scared of Jesus' or 'all MJers are stupid' or 'all MJers anyfuckingthing'. You really need to calm your ass down.

In fact, if you had paid attention to what was actually said before you flew off the handle, you would have realized that I very intentionally stated that the MJers that I knew and associated with over a 10 year period acted in such a fearful way that it made me question their motivations for being an MJer. I didn't even come close to suggesting that MJers are all stupid. Moreover, I didn't even come close to suggesting that all MJers are incorrect.

You need to reread what I actually said and apologize to me. Either that, or you can not reread what I said and utulize the ignore feature of this forum.

Vorkosigan

That about sums it up.


Having re-read what you said, it is obvious that you clearly meant to imply both, for the use of the inclusive ALL carries the implication that your observations on personally known MJers may be expanded to all of them. If you meant to imply that because ALL the MJers you knew were X, at least some MJers were X, you certainly chose a bizarre way of expressing it. People who say "Every X I have known was Y" usually mean to imply that "All X are Y". Most people who want to say "Some X are Y" write "Some X are Y".

Don't worry about apologizing, I didn't really expect one.

Vorkosigan

Toto

Now you are sounding even more off the wall.

Clivedurdle said
That was an obviously ironic, sarcastic, rhetorical question, meant to provoke laughter. OF COURSE, those arguing for an HJ are not wanting to take the next step of engaging in a stereotypical activity of holy rollers, snake handlers, and those who speak in tongues. Chris Weimer will lambaste you for the very suggestion!

If you missed the irony there, I doubt that you had any insight into the motives of Frank Zindler or Garth Murray.

Or am I missing something?

McD

Vorkosigan:

Let's back up here. Since you didn't get what you reread, I'll just recap it, and for your edification, I'll add a little more information that you didn't have available before you flew off the handle the first time:

This thread asked what the breaking point was that lead to your conversion to whatever position it is you hold today, be it HJer or MJer.

Like any normal person, my reasons were manifold, and they all didn't occur to me at once. I posted one message on this thread, then another, then, I think, a third.

1) Among the reasons were the James the brother of Jesus thing

2) Another was my correspondence with GA Wells

3) A third reason was the fact that literally 100% of the MJers that I personally knew -- while I was an MJer -- would not even consider for the briefest second the merest possibilty that there could have been a historical Jesus. After talking, at great length, to many of them, over weeks, months and in one or two cases years, it occurred to me that their anger -- and it was anger -- at the suggestion that their conclusion might possibly be incorrect was based in fear. Indeed, several of them admitted -- and many more of them came close to admitting -- that it was because the next step from the historical Jesus the man is the Biblical Jesus the Lord. It was fear that was at the root of the their anger. Fear that was keeping them from considering other possibilities. I had no such fear, so I was open to exploring other avenues.

As I said on this thread repeatedly: I am not a very enthusiastic HJer, much to the chagrine of my wife (Christian) and best friend (Baptist preacher). Prove to me with 100% certainty that there was no Jesus and I will just acknowledge and move on.

There are probably several other reasons that I can think of, if I really set my mind to it.

And you also have to understand how these conversations went. It was MJer to MJer, with me saying something like "Well, let's say Jesus did exist--" that's about all I could get out. Around some of these guys, I couldn't even suggest that Eusebius didn't pen the Testimonium Flavianum (from scratch) the reference to James found in the Jewish War, the reference to Chrestus in the Twelve Caesars and the reference to Chrestus or Christus in the Annals. Even if I mentioned an author that wasn't "approved" like Hans Conzelmann or Fr. Raymond Brown, I would get the business.

Actually, that reminds me, one of the serious breaking points between me and one MJer in particular was in the mid or late eighties when Isaac Asimov published his Guide to the Bible and came down on the HJ side. My MJ friend said "Well, I used to respect Asimov, but he is spending the last years of his life kissing Christian ass trying to get into Heaven".

Is this a reason to go from being an MJer to an HJer? No, of course not. Did I ever suggest it was? No, of course not. I just said that it was among the catalysts that inspired that change. If you guys want to busy yourselves quoting me out of context to make me look like someone who says MJers are stupid, go ahead. That's your problem.

You two (Vorkosigan and rlogan) tried to pretend as if the only reason, or at least, the primary reason I turned from MJism to HJism was reason number 3 above. It wasn't. If you guys want to be so transparently disingenuous, do it on your own time. This was a polite discussion until you two made it otherwise. It isn't me making a big deal out of this. It's you two.

Do you have any idea how absurd this is? You know virtually nothing about me, and yet suddenly you are qualified to suggest that I am uniformed?

I don't apologize to thin-skinned people. It isn't my fault that thin-skinned people are thin-skinned. If it angers you that a decade or more ago, I met some MJers who admitted they were terrified that allowing for an historical Jesus may lead to allowing that this same Jesus is the Savior of the World, that is hardly my problem.

And if this is all you have to worry yourself with, you must have a nice life. I wish that I had the luxury of not having anything else to worry about but that some guy online once knew some Jesus Mythicists who feared that Jesus Historists represented a covert front for evangelical Christianity.




McD

McD

I haven't sounded off the wall yet, so I can't sound "more" off the wall.

I have been quoted, out of context, by thin-skinned people who are looking for an excuse to be angry. It doesn't matter that they don't have a reason to be angry, just so long as they have that excuse.





McD

Vorkosigan

I really don't give a flying fuck why you turned from one or the other. That was never an issue for me (frankly I thought it was cool that you got a handwritten letter from GA Wells). I don't care who is an MJer and who is an HJer; I get along with both sides and can see the sense in both. But I decided several iterations of the "MJers are nuts" ago that I wouldn't permit anyone to utter that crap again without a response. It's a common claim and I am sick to death of hearing it, and want it stopped. MJers can't get a hearing as long as people are spreading nonsense ideas about mythicism. It might have to be endured on a Christian forum, but there's no way I'm going to put up with it here.

Here's what you originally said:

The real reason I turned from being a JMer to an HJer is that I realized that all of the JMers I knew were terrified that if they admitted Jesus existed, they might then be forced to admit him into their hearts.

This is not open to misinterpretation, unless you are using a form of discourse hitherto unknown in English. Unless the context is decisively otherwise -- and it is certainly not --, when someone writes: "All the X I know are Y," they generally mean to imply that "All X are Y." That is why several people jumped on you -- the "they might have to admit him into their hearts" was especially silly. I know many, many mythicists, both from here and from JM, and have/had extensive private correspondence with many mythicists, and have never heard any express such a fear -- in fact the only people I've heard make that claim about mythicists are fundy nutjobs.

If you had some more restricted meaning, you sure picked a piss-poor way of expressing it.

BTW, Asimov's Guide to the Bible came out in the late 1960s. You're referring to a reprint edition.

Vorkosigan

McD

Ok, this is from my post above.

I mispoke. What I was thinking was not what I typed. If I had to write that all over again, I would have written it thus:

It's like this: there are many reasons I started working out again five years ago, for the first time in 20 years:

The initial reason was my cholesteral got checked and it was over 220.

That was the first clue that I had that I wasn't my old self.

Later that year, I stepped on the scale and for the first time, I was over 200 lbs. I then realized that the young guys at work were no longer a little stronger than me, they were a lot stronger than me. Then I started getting winded just playing with my dog. Finally, I got my bodyfat tested and I was clinically obese.

So I started working out and watching my diet.

Now which one of these reasons was the "real" reason?

I would say that the "real" reason was all of them. The initial nudge was the cholesterol test and the last straw was finding out that I was clinically obese.

Likewise, the "initial nudge" was that I felt there was something wrong with the MJers I knew.

I am loathe to say this, but there is an excuse. Normally I hate excuses. If I make a mistake, I make a mistake, but I am currently on anti-seizure medicine and it has made me a little loopy. It is really, really fucking annoying.

However, I absolutely stand by the amended version as detailed in post #77. If that's not good enough for you, I really can't bring myself to care.

With that, I am going to bed, to listen to my heart try to leap out of my chest, because that is another side effect of this medicine I am on.