Toto

Perhaps you are not going to defend them because your impressions are just wrong. We have gone over some of the points before, and I have demonstrated that you are mistaken. So I don't understand why you continue to repeat these.

I have already explained that any similarity between mythicist and creationist arguments is because creationists are trying to frame the debate over evolution as if it were a debate over a genuinely contested theory, when evolution is not genuinely contested among scientists. You cannot contend that any issue in ancient history is as settled as the theory of evolution.

There is no ideological similarity among Jesus mythicists. Robert Price is pro-religion, and a political conservative. Earl Doherty is a Humanist. I suspect other mythicists are political liberals, but most political liberals are not mythicists.

You started a thread that tried to prove that mythicism was motivated by anti-religious sentiment, and you were unable to show any sort of correlation.

Creationism has no real support among mainstream secular scholars, because it is a religious position.

I don't think that this is a correct statement for any mythicist that I can think of. The charge from most mythicists is that the field of NT studies is dominated by religious institutions, and mythicists would have few job prospects.

The mythicist charge is that some of the methodologies of historical Jesus studies are ineffective, but other historicist scholars have made these same charges. I don't think that anyone has charged that the methodologies are "self-serving."

On the contrary, mythicists charge that historical Jesus studies fail to apply mainstream secular historical standards, and have just invented their own methods that give the results that they like.

There is no funding for Jesus mythicism, so I don't know how this could apply.

This is not true. Doherty aimed his book at scholars, even if they failed to respond. Drew University published the Journal of Higher Criticsm for academic libraries. Richard Carrier is looking for an academic publisher.

??

This is a description of creationism, but not true of any mythicist I can think of. Richard Carrier deals with probability using Baysian statistics.

This makes no sense.

This is true of creationism but not true of mythicism. Earl Doherty has written a book buidling up his own theory.

Is this not true of the historical Jesus camps as well? That is the problem with a field of history that has so little in the way of established fact.

I don't even know what this means.

There is precisely one documentary in which mythicism plays a role. All of the mythicists interviewed in Brian Flemings' The God Who Wasn't There primarily promote their ideas through books or lectures.

You still think that mythicism is motivated by some sort of ideology. You have no evidence for this, and I have given you lots of evidence against it. I don't know why you cling to this mistake.

ApostateAbe

Toto, I find almost all of your counterpoints to be preposterous, or at least delusionally mistaken, but I don't really care. I don't want to argue the points because the relevance of such points is limited to explaining why the comparison to creationists keeps coming up among critics, not to explaining why Jesus-mythicism is wrong. To rebut this explanation relevantly, you would have to show that such points are not actually believed by the critics, or else come up with an alternative explanation that is more plausible.

I will explain the points that you found confusing.

"have founded their own exclusive scholarly journal of self-reviewed (not peer-reviewed) articles"

Among Jesus-skeptics/mythers, I was referring to the Journal of Higher Criticism. Among creationists, this corresponds to the scientific journal published by the Discovery Institute (I forget the name of it). "Self-reviewed" means they employ scholars to review the articles for editing and publication, only scholars who share their fringe positions, and they call it, "peer review."

"treat uncertainty and ambiguity as a winning counterargument"

It means that they will claim that the diversity of possible interpretations of the evidence otherwise in favor of the opposing theory means that no single explanation prevails, and they think this scores a point for their own position and against the opposing theory.

"are most damningly unreasonable with respect to the most popular theory among the laity "

It means that the most popular theory among the laity who promote creationism or Jesus-mythicism accept a variation of creationism or Jesus-mythicism that is most damnably stupid, though more reasonable theories can be found in the smaller circles of higher intelligence. Among creationists, I am referring to the six-day creation theory of the 6000-year-old universe. Among mythicists, I am referring to the cookie-cutter Christs theory a la Acharya S.

Toto

You keep dropping by this board and posting statements that you can't/won't support, that are just wrong. What should I do?

You don't understand why some people find mythicism more probable, so you try to explain their views as based on ideology rather than the evidence. But you just don't understand the evidence.

The Journal of Higher Criticism was not founded to promote mythicism, and did not confine itself to mythicism. It was associated with Drew University, a respectable academic institution.

You have no citations for this. I know that creationists use this tactic because they are faced with an overwhelming amount of evidence for evolution, but there is no such overwhelming evidence for most theories in ancient history. I can't think of an instance where a mythicist has made this argument, but I can think of cases where it might be a valid argument - to counter the common Christian apologetic argument that there is no other explanation for Christianity than divine intervention.

This is a really pointless comparison. Acharya S is not the most popular mythicist here, and one mythicist theory does not depend on any other. On the other hand, creationism is just wrong, whether it is YEC or ID - and the Discovery Institute tries to represent all sorts of creationism, because they all are based on beliefs in a higher power.

judge

Why does Doherty avoid peer review then?

aa5874

Please be rational. You MUST know that Science plays an INTEGRAL role in the reconstruction of the PAST.

It is NOT just the mere words on a piece of paper that determine HISTORICAL facts. The very paper itself and the location of the paper with the use of techniques developed in the field of Science can help to UNRAVEL the Past.

You seem to think Science is some kind ISOLATED field but you are terribly mistaken.

You don't even seem to understand that RECONSTRUCTING the PAST is more than words in a book and that EVERY available tool KNOWN to mankind must be used to understand what happened in antiquity.

Anyone who has been to a court trial KNOWS Past events are RECONSTRUCTED, not only by ORAL EVIDENCE, but through the use of techniques developed in the Field of Science.

You must understand that the history of the Past MUST include the Field of Science since The past cannot be reconstructed in a vacuum.

spin

You need to know what it's like to try to go through the peer review process when you have a non-industry-standard position to publish. What usually happens is that the industry-standard peer review process tends to avoid you. When nobody's going to listen to you, you can say what you want. This is known by the Gramscian term "repressive tolerance". Cultural hegemony is inherently conservative. It comes down to the old Genesis line: "I know what I like and I like what I know." That which is outside one's frame of reference doesn't need to be contemplated until it is forced into that frame of reference. Outside-the-pale has a very peripheral significance that garners at best a perception of quaintness about it and at worst a perception of ridiculousness, all of which is arrived out without having to actually deal with any substantive argumentation. In this context peer review simply tends to cull that which is too far out of the common.

This problem is latent in all scholarly fields, but more tangible in the religious studies field where religious commitments cannot but intrude in any scholarly desires.

judge

Didnt Dr Gibson offer to help Doherty, though? Right here on this forum?
It may not have been much, but this was some help to get through what you claim is the biggest obstacle.
This appears to be avoidance.

Ok so he avoids it because he believes they are against him or his ideas, and will never give him a fair hearing.
Thats what you believe?

jgoodguy

"Doherty has stated that he deliberately avoids the scholarly language in his books, and pitches his style at the educated non specialist. " vridar

I find it hard to believe that ' Doherty aimed his book at scholars' while he 'pitches his style at the educated non specialist'. :constern01:

Another interesting quote from the same vridar post "Doherty has the insight to expose the fallacies, the circularities, the question-begging, the avoidance games, of even a scholar who is attempting to make a serious and scholarly rebuttal against the Christ Myth idea. Doherty’s critique, I believe, is able to identify the unsupported and circular assumptions tyrannize the conclusions because he is an outsider from the academic guild. His isolation from the guild is both his strength and, unfortunately, his disadvantage, too. "

And all this time I thought peer review was supposed to "expose the fallacies, the circularities, the question-begging, the avoidance games".

jgoodguy

Wasn't the HJer position the non-industry-standard position at one time?

dog-on

Indeed, one would think so. However, when the entire dicipline of HJ scholarship is built on the foundation of fallacious arguments, circular reasoning, question begging and avoidance games, it might be difficult to get around them...