unregistered_user_1

I've found Turkel's review of Tom Harpur's book.


I tried to contact the guy to see if he had anything to say about Turkel's review, since I don't know bugger-all about this, but his "Contact" section is down for the month of August.

Anyone here know enough about the topic to say which guy (Turkel or Harpur) is more likely to be correct?

Toto

Thread on Tom Harpur Christian Mythicist (you can find a number of other threads by searching for "Harpur" in this forum.)

I think that it is the consensus that Harpur relies on some bad scholarship in his case. But is it worse scholarship that JP Holding's? If Harpur is wrong, is Holding right?

GakuseiDon

That's a strange question to ask. If Holding is right, then Harpur is wrong, of course. Not sure how a book review can make someone "right", though, except for the review itself. In which case, if Harpur is wrong, Holding is right if he is saying that Harpur is wrong.

A shame that it is left to apologists mostly to review these things. It would be nice if we had more non-apologists doing the reviewing. Does anyone know if there have been any such reviews?

grendel prime

i find its usually the case that whenever Holding is right, he's still wrong.
or maybe he would be right, but he just ran out of paper

it is logically possible to come to a true conclusion from false premises...

svallison

Harpur vs Turkel

Actually - it's not rocket science.

Both Harpur and Turkel are both, basically, zealots; and for two zealous people to take diametrically opposed views ( without either of them being 'right') is commonplace. Anyway, in the realms of religious belief, who can claim to have the truth ?

The interesting thing to me about Harpur's book is that, for all the wrong reasons, he seems to have reached conclusions that have a substantial degree of plausibility.

This is not an unusual occurrence either. People quite frequently reach their conclusions first, either by insight or by hearing them from someone else, and then write a report or a book that (by poor scholarship or faulty logic) fails to support the intended conclusion. This does not prove at all that the original thesis was wrong; only that the writer has failed in his effort to assemble and present credible evidence and arguments ?

Vorkosigan

Is Harpur a "zealot?"

Holding's review is certainly very convincing. But perhaps a review from a more professional writer with a less gigantic axe to grind would be in order.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Another one with pretty much the same complaints. Sympathetic, in the end. Aargh! When are these New Age idiots going to learn that good intentions are meaningless without solid critical scholarship to back them up!

Ted Hoffman

No. It will only show that Harpur is wrong in the instances where Holding actually demonstrates that Hapur is wrong. And the fact that a few factoids about a theory are wrong doesn't necessarily mean the whole theory (in principle), is dead in the water - it may just need revision, or corrections in areas where it is incorrect. Showing a theory is wrong needs a proper synthesis and analytical thinking to deduce the planks that hoist the theory. Then taking out that plank. Its not about mindless poking of superficial holes in a theory for thrills, which is an intellectually bankrupt excercise though perhaps cathartically satisfying for those with colossal axes to grind like Holding.

Remember: a hole in a bucket can be sealed. And a bucket can still be effective with a small leak.

When you read Holding's criticisms, its important to ask yourself whether the theory in question can survive his knee-jerk attacks, and whether his attacks themselves are correct. Like a bad doctor, he 'mispronounces' most of the time and enthusiastically orchestrates a funeral even when the person in the casket is still alive. He has a habit of taking one superficial fault, magnifying it X 10000, getting fifty experts to state that that is a fault, dancing on that fault, stomping on it, hammering it to pulp and beating it to death, then moving onto another fault and treating readers to another absurd theatre. Some of the faults are specious - like the one I have shown below.

Holding actually is mostly grandstanding and engaging in theatrics rather than giving a sober assesment of the material in question. He doesn't explain how those faults falsify Hapur's theory - or show how they are significant faults. His modus operandi is just grabbing the bathwater, unleashing a window-shattering war-cry, pounding his hairy chest with his paws, and flinging the bathwater outside, with a torrent of abuse hurled after it - it doesn't matter whether there is any baby in it.

This is plain madness. And in this insanity and constant hyperbolic satirization and overplayed insinuationism, he[Holding] even loses track of his arguments sometimes. Consider this:

In Eusebius Church History, under Chapter XVII.—Philo’s Account of the Ascetics of Egypt, what does "our" mean when EUsebius writes "our ascetics"? [TH:"Our" means belonging to the Christian group. Obviously. If the Therapeutæ are part of Christians, then they are Christians. Plain and simple]

Eusebius speculates a few passages later that Philo may have called them Therapeutæ "since the name of Christians was not yet everywhere known".

Holding: "Harpur quotes Eusebius as saying, 'These ancient Theraputae were Christians'...Note carefully how Harpur (or his source) has misused Eusebius. Eusebius is taking Philo's account of a Jewish group, described by Philo himself, and decides that Philo has in error incorrectly designated and inadequately described a Christian group. This is just as clear as Eusebius goes on"

Holding: (later)" he [Eusebius] assumes that they were[Christians]"

Holding is confused [or Eusebius is, since at one point Eusebius is assuming the Theraputae were Christians and at another point is stating that Philo is wrong to classify them as Christians]. The life-lessons he may have learnt as a prison librarian evidently did not include "consistent argumentation".

Look, the foul-mouthed ex-prison-librarian may have points sometimes, but wading through the sewage that accompanies his nasty blather can leave you feel like a witness to some disgusting spectacle.

Magdlyn

:Cheeky: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

All of your metaphors in this piece were amusing, but this one really got to me!!!

socratoad

"Holding actually is mostly grandstanding and engaging in theatrics rather than giving a sober assesment of the material in question. He doesn't explain how those faults falsify Hapur's theory. His modus operandi is just taking the bathwater, unleashing a window-shattering war-cry, pounding his hairy chest with his paws, and flinging the bathwater outside, with a torrent of abuse hurled after it - it doesn't matter whether there is any baby in it. "

I too find the above quotation absolutely hilarious and right on the mark.
:thumbs: :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

Holding is a disingenuous charlatan whereas Harpur is just the same well-meaning but bumbling innocent he has been all his adult life.

I have followed the scribblings and half-baked reasonings of Harpers for years. His sudden awakening from his "Christian" zeal came upon his visit to Mother Teresa's missions in India. He, poor Innocent lamb as he was, stumbled upon a young couple working their hearts out helping the poor and the dying, only when having a conversation with this young couple did Harpur get poll-axed upon discovering that the couple were both atheists.

This was quite a traumatic experience for Harpur. Why would people put themselves through such pain to help others when they expected no reward in the fictitious afterlife. Harpur painfully ruminated over this for several years and then morphed into the present Harpur, off on another tangent. Not much wiser, but a better man none the less.

I hope that this is helpful as I always think it helps to have a small peek into the formative touchstones that have helped to make the person they are today.