EarlDoherty

Well, GDon is up to his old tricks. He has finally published a review of my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man on Amazon, under the moniker of "Don Gakusei". Instead of presenting his own analysis, he gleefully channels Richard Carrier's recent dubious opinion that JNGNM is "90% speculation." It would appear that historicism's defenders--along with my own self-styled nemeses (like the late Roo Bookeroo)--are become more and more desperate and even more despicable.

Neil Godfrey was kind enough to post a comment to this review:

Thanks, Neil.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

GakuseiDon has made points against the value of your book. You have made points against the personality of GakuseiDon. :thumbdown:

ApostateAbe

The full thread at Amazon.com is here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R9TD9BI...#R9TD9BIBKYR4K

I suggest you heed GakuseiDon's word of advice to "not take attacks on theories as attacks on persons."

Toto

Abe - Why is a reference to "recognized questionable tactics and dubious argumentation" on GDon's part taken as a personal attack?

GDon's Amazon "review" quote mines some of the less complimentary things that Carrier said in an offhanded blog comment without actually touching the substance of the book.

He has a longer review, that Doherty has responded to.

Your comments here come across as patronizing. I'm not sure if you meant that.

EarlDoherty

I thank Toto for trying to deflect your criticism, Abe, but in fact my “recognized questionable tactics and dubious argumentation” could quite legitimately be styled an attack directed against Don himself. Anyone on FRDB (and before it, IIDB) who has followed years of exchanges between Don and myself, will know that I have long complained that Don engages in far more than just honest attacks on my theories, and that moderators have had their own complaints about Don’s style of debate and personal tactics. You obviously know nothing about that—or maybe you do. But like Don, you prefer to put your own veneer of biased attack on me and mythicism and whitewash him of any dishonourable tactics. (Recently, Roo Bookaroo on another blog lamented my treatment of poor “honest” Don, who withdrew from the fray, wounded to his sensitive quick by my evil words. Two kindred spirits there.)

Well, Don has just given supreme evidence of his shoddy behavior, which led Neil Godfrey to call him on it. He posted a “review” of my Jesus: Neither God Nor Man on Amazon which was devoted entirely to quoting and playing up disparaging remarks made by another, namely Richard Carrier’s absurd comment that the book was made up of “90% speculation and digression.” I’m surprised Amazon let him get away with it. Since when does a reviewer of a Hollywood film, for example, write a review in which he quotes only other reviewers’ opinions of it, particularly negative opinions—and especially off-the-cuff remarks? What newspaper hosting such a reviewer would ever let such a travesty be published, and how long would the latter remain in his job? There is only one word for such tactics, and I’ve used it above. Actually, there are other applicable words as well.

Neil styled Don’s blatant championing of others’ derogatory opinions as yet another example of a personal vendetta against me, and I agree fully. Despite my and others’ regular reactions and complaints, none of it has ever deterred Don one whit. He periodically withdraws from the debate to regroup, accompanied by self-effacing remarks about his lack of competence. I only wish he really believed it.

Don’s weasel responses to Neil on his Amazon review are not only transparent, they epitomize the whole problem with Don in evidence over the years.

Earl Doherty

Bernard Muller

Gakuseidon has posted, relative to this topic, on that blog.

ApostateAbe

Because the statement is useful only as a personal attack against GakuseiDon, which makes sense as part of Earl Doherty's continuing pattern of personal attacks against GakuseiDon. That has been Earl Doherty's central point of this thread, and the thread contributes nothing else.

ApostateAbe

GakuseiDon quoted Earl Doherty from Neil Godfrey's blog:

If, as suggested by Neil, Richard Carrier has indeed drawn without acknowledgement on certain points from Jesus: Neither God Nor Man in presenting his own case (do we really know without having public access to his material?) can we assume that he took them only from that 10% of the book that was not its “90% speculation and digression”?

Of course, as I’ve said before, Carrier’s comment is ridiculous. In-depth argument and a wealth of literary evidence backing up that argument is hardly pointless speculation and digression. Making demands on a reader’s attention span may be something entirely different, but if Carrier prefers the more succinct and less demanding “The Jesus Puzzle” why dump on a fuller edition which simply seeks to cover all bases and make the most thorough case possible (something appreciated by many readers)?

Sometimes I think non-historicists can be their own worst enemies. I can’t for the life of me understand Carrier’s motivation in this. Does he want to cut a fellow writer off at the knees in preparation for the publication of his own book? Incomprehensible behavior like that naturally raises less than flattering speculation. It also gives ammunition to unscrupulous apologists like GDon who will gleefully promote Carrier’s comment in his devious and despicable “review” of the book on Amazon (see Neil’s much appreciated comment added to that review).

As a corollary it also enables apologists to portray the mythicist camp as squabbling and at odds with themselves. The same kind of overwrought condemnation of Acharya even by some who sympathize with mythicism is self-defeating. And it’s fodder as well for those declared atheists and agnostics found all over the internet who for unfathomable reasons treat the mythicist case as scholarly charlatanism and virtually tantamount to raping their grandmothers. I regularly get sick of the whole thing.

Earl Doherty, I think you should treat this as an embarrassing post, and damage control should be in order. You are essentially saying that the accuracy of an author's claims is not as important as the respective ideological camp. Richard Carrier has a little more of my respect because he has publicly judged Acharya S's literature for what it very clearly is to any reasonable informed observer. You have not. You have instead included Acharya S in your wagon circle. I continue my suggestion that you change tactics. Acharya S will not help you.

EarlDoherty

If you are capable of reading English, you will see that this thread is meant as a personal attack against GDon, for his disreputable tactic in posting as his Amazon review of my book the opinion of someone else, which is hardly a legitimate way to review a book. Are you incapable of understanding that? (So far you haven't even addressed it.)

The fact that that opinion was negative is an even blacker mark against him, because it shows that his purpose was simply to exercise his longstanding vendetta against me. If Don had referred to that comment by Carrier in a DB thread about the book, it might have been another matter. But for him to think that he can pass off doing that on an Amazon review which is supposed to present his own opinion based on a reading of my book himself, is moral turpitude and reveals his true character. And I will continue to level personal criticism of him on that basis, here and elsewhere, as has Neil Godfrey.

I am in no way embarrassed by any of my posts. It is Don who should be embarrassed, but we long know that he is incapable of that. As, apparently, are you. And what do you mean by this:

Which "author" are you referring to? Whether it's me or Don, your observation is nonsensical, and I don't know where you derive it. Don in his review did not address the claims of either me or himself. He quoted someone else's opinion, which not even he put forward in his own website review of the book. He simply seized on Carrier's comment and decided to run with it because it was detrimental to me, regardless of whether he might have agreed with it. (He also conveyed the impression that his "this is not scholarship" comment was or would have been the opinion of Carrier as well, which is not the case.) That's despicable, and once again reveals his true colors.

And what does Acharya have to do with it? Now it is you--alluding to Don's own obsession with pygmies--who is seizing on an irrelevant even if undoubtedly unfounded viewpoint in Acharya's first edition of her first book and used it (as Don has fixatedly tried to use it over the years) to discredit everything else she wrote then and since. That's also an invalid process and also despicable. And because I refused to address that secondary aspect of her first book as irrelevant to the central case being made in it, you think to taint me by association. The two of you (along with a few others) are neither legitimate scholars or honest reviewers, and only the rules of this board prevent me from directing more colorful language in your direction.

Earl Doherty

ApostateAbe

Given Earl Doherty's agreement with my judgment of this thread, I expect that this thread will be locked and moved to Elsewhere, and I will delay further contributions until later or never.