Jesus or Christ Myth Theory

[Bunyip]

Alt Thinker

I'm sorry but your dishonesty makes any further exchange pointless. For example:

You repeatedly claimed that it is not possible to know anything at all

Why lie? I don't understand why you feel the need to do so, this is just a friendly exchange.

I have already specifically reminded you that WE DO NOT KNOW IF HERCULES WAS BASED ON A REAL PERSON OR NOT. That is a specific claim - and very different from claiming that we can't know ANYTHING about Hercules. I did not at any point claim that we could not know anything about him. Why you persist with such deception I have no idea.

and that "I don't know" is the only possible position even with regard to Hercules.

Again, why lie?

I said that 'I don't know was the best position on whether or not Hercules was based on a real person. That is a specific claim.

-I repeatedly quoted you in saying that exact thing multiple times.*

Well this is where things just get offensively dishonest. You quoted me making the specific point that we do not know if Hercules was based on a real person (which is true), NOT that we can not know anything about Hercules. A mistake which would be forgiveable had you not been corrected on it before.

And now I find that instead of addressing my arguments as I repeatedly asked, instead of even*reading*my arguments as I showed you had not, you jump to another thread and lie about me.

Mate, I would ask you to back that accusation - but won't hold my breath.

Why should anyone take you seriously about anything?

__________________

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

I said:

I did not feel it a point worth persuing.

You respond:

Despite claiming it was a central point earlier

Which of course I did not. It seems that the case for the historicity of Jesus is essentially just to invent a few lies and repeat yourself. You have now posted several thousand words on Osirus, pompously lecturing me on a point nobody was making, nobody was challenging and nobody is remotely interested in.

You actually seem to believe that you can validate a non-sequitur by repeating it.

If you had any kind of defense or case to prosecute, you would not need to constantly misrepresent and divert.

egion

 

[Alt Thinker]

The issue with that stance is that it does not offer a unique solution. It is true, even if likelyhood of a historical Jesus is 2% while the likelihood of no historical Jesus is 1%, and it is also true if the likelihood of a historical Jesus is 99% even while the likelihood of no historical Jesus remain at 1%, very different answers.

Historicity should be a binary choice, it either is, or it isn't. It does not appear to me that there is sufficient "proof" (especially when you take the "special case" historical analysis that this issue receives ... what with secondary sources becoming primary sources and such) for historicity to stand on it's own (is that not what you are saying when you write, "I never said historicity was established?").

History, the account of what happened, generally does not become binary until evidence is presented and argumentation carried out. Even then a commonly accepted account might be modified and sometimes reversed. What I am trying to do is to provide evidence based argumentation. This is how progress toward knowledge is made. People offer arguments based on available evidence and others critique it.

But no one seems interested in examining my set of arguements and commenting on them. Instead I get arguments about percentages and what ‘likely’ means. What matters is not my opinion of likelihood but what others might make of the arguments. Which no one has done so far and I suspect no one ever will.

It occurs to me that there are several possible reasons for this lack of feedback.

(a) For those who have decided that Jesus is not historic, the arguments unacceptably point toward a historic Jesus.

(b) For those who consider Jesus to be quasi-divine, the arguments unacceptably point toward an ordinary human Jesus.

(c) Then there is always tl;dr

My arguments are mostly about reading between the lines of the scriptural documents, pointing out what is believable in a historical context, then pointing out problem areas that indicate inconvenient things being swept under the rug. If Jesus is fictional why should there be any inconvenient things to cover up? Why are these ‘explanations’ so unconvincing, if one is not already predisposed to believe them.

In any case, I have several times offered what I thought were pertinent arguments on various subjects, arguments that however were not aligned with any of the standardized pro/con arguments. My very first post on this site was a metaphysical argument against the existence of God, providing a less problematic and more explanatory metaphysical alternative. I am still hard of hearing in one ear from the magnitude of that silence. The only one so far who has understood my (admittedly non-standard) arguments and held his own in the ensuing give and take was …. wait for it …. serenity!

Most likely it is time to give up on this site and move on.

 

[Bunyip]

Alt Thinker

The point being made, and the one you are so desperate to resist engaging with is very clear and simple.

1. We do not know if Hercules was based upon a real person or not, we have no evidence either way.

2. So to claim knowledge either way would be unsustainable.

The position that we do not know in this case is the truth, it is a better explanation than is either claiming historicity or that he was entirely mythical.

In this specific case (the historicity of Hercules), the best explanation of the available evidence (there is none either way) is 'I don't know'. Claiming knowledge either way would be equally misplaced.

Now your response at this point seems either to simply misrepresent what I said, or invent some rationale where the neutral claim although true somehow is less 'useful', and therefore is meaningless.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Which of course I did not.

Contrarily, what evidences the layers of myth, or in other words, what parts of the mythological parts where put into the story and why?

Well the whole messiah, death and ressurection thing is a pretty common theme for starters. I'd be happy to elaborate.

Did you elaborate? No. You accused me of proffering a terrible rejoinder to an argument you never made and have subsequently refused to apart from referencing Wikipedia (despite your flawed reliance on your misrepresentation of the "appeal to authority").

However, this isn't remotely close to the best evidence that you contradict yourself freely:

Paul never met Jesus, and neither he nor Josephus are contemporary.

I never claimed that Paul was not contemporary with Jesus, as you Legion and Prophet seem to imagine.

It seems that the case for the historicity of Jesus is essentially just to invent a few lies and repeat yourself.

Or to use historical methods, historical research, and not vague references to "wiki" lists.

If you had any kind of defense or case to prosecute, you would not need to constantly misrepresent and divert.

See your above contradiction.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

I'm not sure what it is about being told that I am not interested in this line of 'reasoning' that you are failing to grasp.

This is not a topic of any interest to me Legion. Especially from a person who could bore a stone to death, it is just a non-sequitur.

 

[Prophet]

Legion

I'm not sure what it is about being told that I am not interested in this line of 'reasoning' that you are failing to grasp.

This is not a topic of any interest to me Legion. Especially from a person who could bore a stone to death, it is just a non-sequitur.

We all know that if we do not come easily to the place Bunyip wishes to pull the debate with his loaded questions, he will accuse us of being liars and evading. We have done more than resist where Bunyip wishes to pull the debate mindlessly as Bunyip himself has done repeatedly--we have offered REASONS for doing so. Bunyip will not offer debate against these reasons, but instead tells us we are "whinging" or "boring" as if these are sufficient cause for anything more than a thoughtless rejection.

It is HARDLY non sequitur to point out that Bunyip makes claims such as being "happy to elaborate" on an idea as a fill-in for actual evidence and then when pressed to present said evidence and live up to his words, employs ad hominem to escape his promise.

ANY TIME I WANT

 

[oldbadger]

Most likely it is time to give up on this site and move on.

...... No!
Plx don't do that!
You hang around a bit. Some of us might be slow, but we do get there eventually!
And I like your doggy avatar!

 

[Bunyip]

We all know that if we do not come easily to the place Bunyip wishes to pull the debate with his loaded questions, he will accuse us of being liars and evading. We have done more than resist where Bunyip wishes to pull the debate mindlessly as Bunyip himself has done repeatedly--we have offered REASONS for doing so. Bunyip will not offer debate against these reasons, but instead tells us we are "whinging" or "boring" as if these are sufficient cause for anything more than a thoughtless rejection.

It is HARDLY non sequitur to point out that Bunyip makes claims such as being "happy to elaborate" on an idea as a fill-in for actual evidence and then when pressed to present said evidence and live up to his words, employs ad hominem to escape his promise.

ANY TIME I WANT

Attacking me like that is a poor alternative to debate. If you thought you could defeat me in debate you would not be trolling me like this.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm not sure what it is about being told that I am not interested in this line of 'reasoning' that you are failing to grasp.

Mainly your claim to have used something like "reasoning", at least in any way that is defensible in any academic field.

You refuse to defend any argument you make.
You refuse to defend any supposed methods used by historians you claim show anything.
You refuse to address any and all arguments I have made with any substantive response.
You refuse demonstrate any familiarity with primary sources.
You refuse to demonstrate that your conception of primary sources is anything other than ignorance and fantasy.

Most importantly, like so many freshman I've taught, you don't understand how academia and scholarship work. Instead, you mistake THE fundamental method for substantiating claims in everything from Near Eastern Archaeology to computational neuroscience for some "appeal to authority". That's what the entirety of modern academia is built upon (which you would know, were you familiar with it).

This is not a topic of any interest to me Legion.

Of course not. Evidence and honesty seem to bore you while your utter inability to present arguments logically defensible even by your own standards seem to be all that you have.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

I'm not interested in arguing about nonsense Legion. Please address your comments to somebody else.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Legion

I'm not interested in arguing about nonsense Legion. Please address your comments to somebody else.

You haven't argued anything...ever. You rely on unsubstantiated claims, misuse of classical fallacies, and son on. And when, as now, you find yourself completely out of your depth with no recourse you can rely on that is based upon any logical, academic. scientific, or otherwise defensible method you could appeal to, you fall back on your standard misdirect.

Have you ever supported even the basis for any claim you've made about reasoning/logic/argumentation? No.

Have you supported any claims you've made about fallacies?
No.

Have you supported or even shown that historians define, use, or otherwise rely on the methods you claim they do?
No.

Your knowledge of argumentation is so bereft of anything remotely resembling logic you haven't even the ability to address the ways in which you understanding utterly fails.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

Sure mate, you have said all that.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Legion

Sure mate, you have said all that.

And you have done everything other than show I am absolutely correct and you are completely unfamiliar with scholarship in general and historical scholarship in particular.

You have shown that you aren't familiar enough with logic to recognize your own blatant reliance on paradox.

 

[Prophet]

I like how quiet debate threads get when one imbecile is receiving a particularly savage beating.

 

[Bunyip]

And you have done everything other than show I am absolutely correct and you are completely unfamiliar with scholarship in general and historical scholarship in particular.

You have shown that you aren't familiar enough with logic to recognize your own blatant reliance on paradox.

Yes dear.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Yes dear.

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools learn in no other"

 

[Bunyip]

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools learn in no other"

Legion, all you have ever presented are tangential non-sequiturs, personal attacks, whines and a case for the historicity of Jesus that relies on nothing more than an appeal to popularity.

You can attack me all you like, and repeat ad naseum whatever accusation, allegation or deflection you care to persue.

All of that simply demonstrates the weakness of the case for the historicity of Jesus. If there were any real case you would have been able to prosecute it without the need for all the empty nonsense - which comprises 99% of your posts.

A debate does not rely on appeals to authority - except when you find yourself with nothing else - as you have done.

 

[outhouse]

You haven't argued anything...ever. You rely on unsubstantiated claims, misuse of classical fallacies, and son on..

I guess you have not heard, we are shutting down all college courses on NT and Paul and the OT, because mythicist bloggers in online forums are stating they have all that covered because Price and Carrier "only" have the right conclusions out of thousands of credible scholars and professors

Bloggers site's ran by untrained trash like Rene Salm have all the information we need.

 

[Prophet]

I guess you have not heard, we are shutting down all college courses on NT and Paul and the OT, because mythicist bloggers in online forums are stating they have all that covered because Price and Carrier "only" have the right conclusions out of thousands of credible scholars and professors

Bloggers site's ran by untrained trash like Rene Salm have all the information we need.

Why not have Kent Hovind teach science and history while we're at it?