J-D

You're asking me to take a statement which does not have a clear meaning and tell you what its clear meaning is. How can I do that? Try again to tell me what you mean by it. Begin by explaining in more detail what, in this context and in that particular statement, you think you mean by the word 'Jesus'. If you think the word 'Jesus' is only ever used to mean just one thing, you're wrong about that.

mountainman

The problem is that the examination is being suspended by posters who insist that every statement I write, or that others write, for example - about the historicity of Jesus - has to be challenged over clarity of expression. I do not mean here and there, I mean every time I make a statement. I am sure that you or anyone else under such conditions would also not be able to examine them. You have split off J-D's dogma from threads in the past, but I am not asking that you do this. Every so often he makes a reasonable point, and I am prepared to wade though posts of trivial banalities to find posts of substance.

Example from the above post:

You and I and Carrier and Dohery and Detering and all the Apologists are all wrong according to J-D.





I am being prevented from making arguments based on all earlier statements because of continuous noise concerning the clarity of expression of the earlier statement. You and everyone else seem to understand what Herman Detering, Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier are saying about the historicity of Jesus, and do not ask me which "Jesus" am I discussing or question the logic in selecting "the historical existence of Jesus" in the historical sense as a critical hypothesis OR conclusion.

I reject as unreasonable your earlier assertion that the hypothesis that "Paul was an historical figure" is INAPPROPRIATE (or something similar) on the basis that the hypotheses that "Jesus was not a historical figure" is presently under examination, and what applies to Jesus may also be applied to Paul or anyone else.

J-D

I don’t challenge literally every single statement you make. I do challenge a lot of your statements for their lack of clarity. That is because you make a lot of statements that are not sufficiently clear for the purposes of the discussion. That is not my fault.

I am not the only person who finds that you lack clarity: other people challenge you for that reason sometimes (not as frequently, I admit).

You never respond to challenges to your clarity, whether from me or from other posters, with direct attempts to make your ideas clearer. Yet you frequently find plenty of time to go over again and again material you have already covered, and which has already been objected to. (On the other hand, whenever you ask me questions I give you direct responses. You may not get the answers you’d like to get, but you do get answers.)

This pattern suggests to me that you are not able to make your ideas clear. If so, that too is not my fault.I don’t know about that. I don’t know that Toto or Carrier or Doherty or Detering or any apologists have said (or thought) that the word ‘Jesus’ is only ever used to mean just one thing. (Toto, at least, we can ask.) But any of them who have said so are making the same error as you. An error doesn’t stop being an error just because of the people who make it.You are not being prevented. You don’t have to respond to anything I post if you don’t want to. Presumably you have your reasons for choosing to respond to my posts, but that’s what it is, a choice. If you wanted to, you could choose not to respond to my posts and only respond to Toto’s posts.

I notice from Toto’s own posts that Toto finds that discussion with you goes nowhere, so it’s not just me.

Toto

Pete - you started this thread with some unintelligible stuff about postulates. Now at least you're writing about hypotheses.

No one is preventing you from making a clear statement about the history of early Christianity; but I have no idea what you want to say.

Doug Shaver

I'm going to hypothesize, or postulate, or theorize (whichever makes Pete happy) that he has no clear statement to make.

aa5874

Well this is NOT an hypothesis or a postulate, this is a FACT, J-D has ADMITTED that he does NOT have a perfect record of success in achieving clarity of expression.

I will OPENLY CONFESS that J-D has serious problems with clarity of expression as he has publicly ADMITTED and demonstrated in his posts.

Chili

Well that is much ado about nothing! and my first question would be why they called him Jesus if Christ was born and so who is the 'him' called Jesus while we insist that Christ was born? . . . or is that maybe just a name for some fantasy they had and that we still have today and will fight for to defend while here we deny it day after day now for 2000 years, and it does not seem to want to go away!

And did he not say that he is 'the way' and should that not tell us that he is real but only as "the way" between a beginning and an end? and could have been anybody and so 'it' was some-body that somebody else wrote about that speaks to the blood in our veins because we are alive and may just be him?

J-D

It's completely fuckwitted to be unable to distinguish between 'not perfect' and 'having serious problems'. The way I express myself is not perfect; the way you express yourself has serious problems.

aa5874

You do indeed have serious problems with clarity of expression since you should have known that "not perfect" refers to "all manner of imperfection".

It is a fact, not a postulate that 'Not perfect' means 'imperfection'.

Your public self-confession that you do NOT have a perfect record of success in achieving clarity of expression now seems to be used to POSTULATE that others have your own admitted problem.

How witty of you?

J-D

It is a fact that 'not perfect' is synonymous with 'imperfect' and it is also a fact that neither of them is synonymous with 'having serious problems', and they are still facts, and very simple ones, even if some people should happen to lack the really very basic ability required to grasp them.

In fairness, although the way you express yourself has serious problems (that's another, separate and independent fact), they are nowhere near as serious as the problems with Chili's mode of expression.