Toto

Funny, I imagine the same about your education.

Yellum Notnef

For some reason you took it upon yourself to assume that I didn't know anything about what goes on in the far away land that is the United States. :huh:

I ask where you think I'm from and you insult my education.:huh: My education is none of your business although I assure you it did not involve Texas textbooks.

spin

Your sweeping generalizations are no substitute for serious analysis. Your ingenuous approach to the pseudo-academic control of the organs of research in religious studies doesn't bode well for your analytical facilities.

I see no difference between your belief in a historical Jesus and any other belief. All you do is project your own ignorant perspective on a past culture which you've shown no knowledge of and expect to be able to talk about probabilities. All you are doing is performing your own version of voodoo.

People lump the agnostic approach to Jesus into the category of mythicism, when, given the dearth of evidence either way, (I think) agnosticism is the only rational position. You don't need to believe Jesus existed or didn't exist to carry on as a rationalist.

Your dogmatic approach to the material you are being dilettantish with is also what you'd call "woo" if you weren't so caught up in your own delusion.

You have confused content with methodology. The rationalist attempts to use a coherent methodology to confront the world. They will make mistakes like everyone, but it is the methodology that separates them from the believers. That methodology attempts to give a certain objectivity to any analysis carried out, for it is the attempt at objectivity that has the hope of obtaining knowledge. Without it you have belief. And all I've seen from you is belief.

The first tool the learner should pick up is the ability to detect crap. The start of methodology. You spend your time engaged in polemic about something you believe to be the truth. Instead, you need to work on your crap detection skills. Then you can fix up your own home.

Frank

Texas is pretty conservative, and very Baptist, but backwards? I'd suggest you check out Austin sometime (great town, IMO one of the best towns in the US). San Antonio is pretty awesome, Houston is anything but backwards. South Pedre during spring break isn't exactly a hallmark of Christian virtue.

It can be a funny place. Bar hopping in Austin I think you're more likely to run into an atheist than a conservative Christian. San Antonio you're more likely to run into people who are fairly average in terms of religiosity (e.g. pay lip service to it, but not exactly praying every day either). Drive between Austin and San Antonio, if you take local roads, then you'll see one church after the other (to the point where you wonder even if everyone in those areas went to church, there's so many churches that by sheer statistical distribution, the pews in each one must be pretty empty on Sunday)

And I'm a New Yorker btw (so if I enjoyed Texas, anyone could enjoy Texas)! Plenty of industry & high tech in Texas as well (particularly around Austin), so it ain't all bad. But yes the school textbook thing, appalling. It's like anything else, people with extreme positions are always more politically active than moderates (who hold much more rational views).

Frank

I think an agnostic position regarding whether or not Jesus "existed" is probably the "most rational" position (given, as you stated, the evidence we have is pretty meek). Of course whether or not a historical figure existed or not doesn't say anything about the legends associated with that figure (and historians, by default, would define any claim that defies the laws of nature, as mythic). So religious claims really can't make their way out of the gate under the typical guidelines of historical method (ergo, biblical scholarship is it's own field, and apologetics requires a presuppositionalist stance, which is completely at odds with historical method).

We have to say that the evidence required to uphold any claim should correlate with the probability it could be true. If that probability is zero or very close to zero (for instance, we know people who are dead for several days, do not and cannot come back to life, and certainly not under primitive circumstances if they were truly "dead" to begin with), then incredulity is the default position (and the evidence really needs to be overwhelming). Only when such a claim is ancient enough do we apparently suspend this modus operandi in examining its veracity (obviously a special pleading). The fact that most of the churches formerly held positions regarding the authenticity of biblical texts have been essentially debunked, pretty much kills this thing (from an academic perspective). Religion survives because most people don't find it worthwhile to deeply examine these claims (and given that Christianity has become pretty benign from the perspective of many, it's not a completely unreasonable thing to conform to this aspect of our culture without deeply questioning the underlying evidence, or in this case lack thereof). Those who do understand this well, and still cling to their beliefs, learned it for the purposes of defending it (not to simply learn). In some instances such people can move away from their faith (as with Bart Ehrman), but it's rare (because they often build their lives around it, or at least invest significant intellectual and emotional capital in it).

Chaucer

None of that means that the educational attitudes there don't glorify know-nothingness there as macho and Amurrrrikan. Education there is looked down there as furrin and being knowledgeable makes one a pariah. Half the bullying that takes place in schools there stem from hatred of students who study too much. Not that there aren't other regions in the U.S. that have the same attributes. But it's especially virulent in much of Texas.

Chaucer

aa5874

But, BARTH ERHMAN offers NO credible evidence from antiquity to support the historical Jesus.

BART ERHMAN MERELY ASSUMES the "historical Jesus" existed.

Scholars who SUPPORT HJ appear to have NO time to waste with evidence from antiquity for HJ.

An HJ Scholar was once asked, "How do you know or why do you believe that Jesus did exist."

The HJ Scholar replied with words to this effect, "I don't KNOW any Scholars who don't Believe Jesus existed and I know THOUSANDS of Scholars".

It is CLEAR THAT HJ is an ARTICLE of FAITH and that BART EHRMAN cannot produce any credible evidence of antiquity for HJ.

Frank

I can only offer my anecdotal observations into evidence, but this does not correlate with my experiences (and I lived there for almost an entire year), although I guess I roamed in the urban and suburban regions of the state (and I cannot speak to conditions in rural Texas).

Are you from Texas, or have you lived there for a significant period of time?

Doug Shaver

Nope. I see evidence both for and against historicity. I just think the evidence against it is stronger.

Doug Shaver

This forum is certainly not immune to bad semantics as well as bad arguments, no matter what position is being argued.