Logical

One thing that strikes me as odd about atheists is that anyone, without knowing or understanding anything about the issues, can see that atheists mostly accept the expert consensus on things. They accept the biologists' conclusions about Evolution, climatologists' conclusions about global warming, psychologists' conclusions about homosexuality, etc.

That, I think, looks very good and reasonable to the casual observer because it makes them look fact-driven and objective, rather than ideologically self-serving, simply accepting what helps their presupposed worldview and rejecting what doesn't, which is something I know many religious people unashamedly do.

One strange exception to that is the historical Jesus issue. Here many atheists (including prominent ones like Dan Barker) oppose the academic consensus. It's easy for the casual observer to see the ideologically self-serving reasons for that position, more than any other position taken by them.

Here's why: Accepting a historical Jesus first would satisfy the "experts' consensus" expectation of atheists, AND it has the added benefit of satisfying what might be referred to as a "dissimilarity" factor, i.e. accepting a historical Jesus does not serve the atheists' purpose and worldview. (Another example of dissimilarity is accepting the Big Bang rather than a static universe). On the other hand, rejecting a historical Jesus first contradicts the academic consensus and second is an "Oh big shocker, I wonder why!" predictably biased position.

At the cost of committing the "argument from authority" fallacy, I have to say that I side with the "experts" on every issue I can think of, outside of subjective topics such as political ideology. I defer to consensus because I myself am not an expert and trust that those who spent the effort and have the talent to research a topic, most likely can provide the best conclusion, especially when they agree with one another, and it's a bonus when they deliver results (especially in the fields of medicine and technology).

Furthermore, when there is a legitimate controversy (unlike an alleged "controversy" such as the non-existing one over evolution), I tend to either reserve judgment or pick a tentative position while remaining very uncommitted until the experts work things out amongst themselves.

I just recognize I'm not the next Galileo or Darwin who is going to turn the intellectual world upside down and therefore doesn't care what the experts say about anything. There are way too many people walking around who think they know better than the experts (mostly because the Bible tells them so).

AthenaAwakened

To what academic consensus are you referring?

Guest46854

I'd guess he's refering to Bible scholars.

You know, like Santa scholars, Goldilocks scholars, Little Green Men scholars.
Like that :huh:

Brian63

Those who advocate for Jesus mythicism, from what I have seen, acknowledge that they are arguing against the mainstream, against the expert consensus, etc. They think that the consensus is wrong, biased, etc. however (which is certainly very plausible). I tend to believe that a historical Jesus existed, but only for that appeal to consensus reason mentioned by Logical. I certainly am not familiar enough with the field to make an adequate case based on my own investigation.



It is the partly the same reason why, when most of us who are not familiar with automotive mechanics experience car problems, we take it to a mechanic instead of researching ourselves from the ground-up how cars work, and then try to fix it ourselves. It is a matter of practicality that we rely on the prior work of others and their beliefs to form our own beliefs. You can try to not ever depend on opinions of others for any of your own, but it will make for a life much harder to live.

Brian

dystopian

I don't particularly claim to know whether there was or was not a historical Jesus. I do however, tend to think the mainstream concensus is driven by little more than tradition borne out of a society that for the past 1700 or so years has been overwhelmingly Christian, which has not been overly concerned with uncovering the truth.

It's really hard to argue against a claim which has been accepted as 'obvious fact' by the majority of society for so long a period of time, and the denial of which could've earned you a death sentence until relatively recently. So I'd much prefer to just wipe the slate completely clean, assume there is no consensus whatsoever, and let the evidence speak for itself now that at least some of us live in a post-religious society.

Of course, I don't have high hopes that there'll be any conclusive arguments or evidence either way. Not that I think it's particularly important, given that regardless of whether or not a historical Jesus existed, he was most certainly not the wizard that is described in the bible.

steve_bnk

You are comparing apples and rocks.

There is nothing on which to base a belief in an HJ other than subjective opinion.

Evolution has a scientifc empirical base.

Logical

The same difficulty may exist in any well-established field. Imagine a scientist (not a creationist, just a regular objective scientist) comes up with the idea that natural selection is wrong. He is likely to be quickly dismissed because of the established data and well-researched conclusions in the field, which he will claim are antiquated and based on premises that haven't been scrutinized for far too long, etc.

Any way, I am not convinced that Biblical scholarship is weakened by antiquated beliefs or Christian influence. The scholars we're talking about are freaking self-proclaimed secularists, many of them lacking belief in anything divine about the Bible, without restriction dissecting its texts and exposing the embarrassing problems with them, etc. To say that they would for whatever reason hesitate to deny Jesus' historicity for any reason other than believing he is in fact historical, is a baseless claim IMO.

So to say that the scholarly consensus is based on fear or religiosity lack of objectivity is something I find unconvincing.

Logical

I have to point this out again: the same accusation about lack of objectivity or presupposed worldview is levelled by Christians against scientists and other "experts" whose consensus opinions contradict their faith. And in that case too, this accusation is unfair and baseless. It basically says the experts in that certain field all around the planet are conspiring to hide the truth.

Ridiculous and absurd? Well, those who deny the historicity of Jesus are doing the same thing.

AthenaAwakened

Who are these scholars?

Names please.

Toto

An argument from personal incredulity?

You seem to have stepped into this controversy without knowing its background.

First of all, there is no robust consensus of historians who have looked at the evidence and tested it through the usual scholarly means of examining and testing each others' views. Instead, there is just the conventional wisdom that Jesus must have existed for reasons that are never clearly stated.

It isn't a matter of religious bias, although that may be part of it. Lots of people want Jesus to exist, for their own social or political reasons, and lots of scholars don't see any reason to challenge his existence in a Jesus saturated society. But that doesn't translate into real evidence that Jesus existed.

I challenge you to find a current scholar who has laid out a scholarly case for the existence of Jesus. It's not there. There is one scholar, Bart Ehrman, who has just written what he calls a popular book, Did Jesus Exist? which is thoroughly unconvincing. If you ask scholars, beg them, for a reference to a scholarly source that shows that Jesus existed, you are pointed to a very old book by a theologian, Shirley Case, who used some very outdated assumptions.

There is also a professional historian, Richard Carrier, who has looked into the question and will be publishing a peer reviewed book next year saying that it is more likely than not that Jesus didn't exist.

So there you have it. A scholarly consensus that is in the process of changing, as the scholarly consensus does on occasion.