MOJO-JOJO

Not sure if this is the correct area to ask the question. This guy trashes the SecWeb including some specific posters (ie; Zoroaster), and his website purports to argue convincingly against all the "village atheists'" and their unfounded arguments.

Has anyone had any experience with this guy? What is your take on his arguments, generally speaking?

<a href="http://www.tektonics.org/index2.html" target="_blank">JP Holding</a>

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]</p>

Benjamin Franklin

There is some discussion of him in this two threads

<a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001793" target="_blank">http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001793</a>

<a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000005&p=3" target="_blank">http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000005&p=3</a>

Tjun Kiat

MrKrinkles

Mojo,

I got into a discussion with him, which is ongoing, sort of:

<a href="http://members.aol.com/bbu85/hold.htm" target="_blank">e-mail to an apologist</a>

I have linked to every response to him from skeptics I have so far been able to find, since he does not have the courtesy-or the courage-to do so. He prefers to attack people's articles, but not link to the articles themselves, or link to anyone's response to his attacks. And yet he has a master's degree in library science and has worked for years as a reference librarian. Curious. I have heard that he has a habit of changing his critiques of other people's articles AFTER they respond to him and point out errors, yet he will not acknowledge making changes to his original critiques. He has no "this page changed on such and such a date" references on his web pages as far as I can see. This makes responses to his critiques seem superfluous, and this actually appears to be his aim.

He is one of these Christians who justifies eternal torture in hell as the deserved punishment of those who offend an infinite god. Sad.

He defends biblical atrocities as necessary and good, and so I asked him if he would butcher mothers and their children if he had been a ancient Hebrew holy warrior. He has answered enthusiastically in the affirmative. He has also said he would pulverize non-virign girls with rocks, as per Deuteronomy 22:20, had be been an ancient Hebrew.

He refuses to discuss natural history, but clearly believes that Genesis represents the literal, scientific, absolute truth about the history of the earth and the universe. He actually has a link to a feasibility study of Noah's Ark by that guy "Woodmorappe," who spculates that Noah potty trained bears and elephants.

He writes a lot, in fact aplogetics is now his full time job. He is funded by his fans. And he has many loyal fans, whose adulation he obviously craves. He has a very high opinion of himself, and clearly considers himself to be some sort of scholar or intellectual giant, but is incredibly pompous, immature and insulting to others.

I think many skeptics probably just ignore him now because they see no point dignifying his rantings and insults with replies.

Brooks

Muad'Dib

A very impressive effort!

One minor correction, though: Jeff Lowder is the current president of Internet Infidels, whereas Richard Carrier is a member of the board of directors.

Keep up the good work!

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: Muad'Dib ]</p>

missus_gumby

J P Holding isn't even his real name. You may care to check <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/turkel.html" target="_blank">this</a> out in the II library.

Martin

MOJO-JOJO

Now wait a minute.....didn't they execute Ted Bundy??


Thanks everyone! Obviously just another delusional knucklehead at large, and yet another example in support of concealed carry permits for protection (...you say you want to stone whose daughter JP?? )

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]</p>

MrKrinkles

On my page, I just changed Carrier's title to "Editor in Chief"-as it is listed in the Sec Web faq. Thank you.

Brooks

James Still

I've corresponded with Holding (privately and publicly) so I have a good sense of the man. And it's not complicated really. He remains a devoted disciple of Glenn Miller, which is obvious in his writings, and one day he woke up and decided that nonbelievers needed a good kick in the pants. So these past few years he has made it a good part of his life's work to build up his Rogue's Gallery and to provide a fundamentalist response to liberal theological viewpoints. Lately he has turned his attention to Latter-Day Saints with a self-published book critiquing LDS theology.

I have only one complaint about him and it's a serious one. He consistently fails to cultivate within himself a much-needed sense of humility. To me, that is a necessary criterion for any person who would aspire to be a scholar. If you cannot humble yourself before the evidence -- with all of its pitfalls, qualifications, and nuances -- then your ego will smother good judgment. Rather than seeking to cultivate good research practices within himself he comes out swinging, being the know-it-all and setting an ascerbic tone that poisons the well, thus preventing any healthy exchange of ideas. Now, after enjoying accolades from fellow fundamentalists in the choir to whom he preaches, it has gone straight to his head. For what he lacks in knowledge of philosophy, history, Greek, or NT Studies he makes up in condescension and arrogance. For example, in his rebuttal at <a href="http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_02_02_04.html" target="_blank">http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_02_02_04.html</a>, he writes:

"I continue to find that the 'Q' hypothesis has been absurdly abused by scholars like Burton Mack and John Kloppenborg...."

Amazing! Our critic knows so much about the seams and construction of the Greek texts that he can charge Mack and Kloppenborg with "abusing" the Q hypothesis. Yet, he refers in the singular to Apollonius' "bioi," mangling the declension of a common Greek noun and showing that he doesn't know a lick of Greek. There's nothing wrong with being an amateur student of the Bible (I consider myself one) but it's ridiculous to pretend that you are an expert when you're not even close.

Things between us blew up quite some time ago when I found him plagiarizing my work. I have a super-low tolerance for plagiarism and I wrote him about it. Basically he had lifted whole paragraphs of mine, word for word, and prefaced them with the introductory "some critics suggest that," thus making it look as if the argument were his own formulation rather than mine. These are the lengths to which he's willing to go in order to censor others and prevent his readers from discovering opposing points of view. Yet, even though citations and the back and forth of arguments are the glue that hold scholarship together, Holding will have none of it. He did finally edit the article in question but in his own mean-spirited way he wrote that he did so only because I had written to him and complained that I wasn't getting my due credit. In other words, I was an arrogant bastard and he was the innocent victim of my enormous ego. I didn't say anything at the time because I knew that he knew the real truth and that was enough for me.

We're in an exciting time when any yahoo with a modem can publish to the web for all the world to find. The trick is to discriminate between careful research and sheer lunacy.

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: James Still ]</p>

Pantera

A minor correction to the minor correction - Jeff Lucas is current president. Jeff Lowder is past president and President Emeritus. Other board members are listed in the <a href="http://www.infidels.org/infidels/faq.shtml" target="_blank">FAQ</a>.

John the Atheist

Man, you guys are good. Do you track down missing persons too? If so, what can you guys tell me about Osama bin Laden?

John