Will the real atheist please stand up?

What do they believe? What do you think? Talk about religion as it exists today.

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John T
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by John T »

Stephan Huller wrote:I am sure that Richard Carrier is an atheist. What I mean by intellectual charlatan is that anyone who is not earnestly seeking after the truth should be so labeled. First and foremost on this list are people whose research isn't being led by the evidence. These sorts come in all shapes, sizes and affiliations.
So then, you are calling Carrier an intellectual charlatan but that is fine by me.
Craig labeled him a "crank exegetist" that is also fine by me but I would never call Carrier an atheist, a pseudo-atheist perhaps but he is not a real atheist.
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by Peter Kirby »

John T wrote:I would never call Carrier an atheist, a pseudo-atheist perhaps but he is not a real atheist.
Your opinion above is of no value.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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MrMacSon
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by MrMacSon »

John T wrote:.
I quoted Carrier saying he doubts that Jesus ever existed. I then provided a source where Craig debated Carrier using Carrier's own criteria for historical evidence; and not only proved Jesus was real (using Carrier's criteria), but that Jesus rose from the tomb.
Craig did not prove Jesus/Iesous was real. Craig did not prove Jesus rose from the tomb.

John T wrote: Carrier as an atheist, presupposes there is no real God therefore, there could not have been a real historical Jesus either, which is a non-sequitur argument.

That is a non-sequitur - and irrelevant conclusion ( ignoratio elenchi)
John T wrote: One can argue whether or not Jesus was resurrected from the dead but to argue against the actual historical/physical existence of Jesus due to historical ignorance is simply foolish.
John T wrote:The debate starts 7 minutes into the video and that is where Craig immediately goes into laying out the 4 historical facts that not only proves Jesus was real but was resurrected.

http://youtu.be/BaUd234Q3GU
Craig asserts; he does not lay out any facts that prove 'Jesus'/Iesous.

The current absolute absence of contemporary 1st C information* about Jesus makes [irrefutable] proof of his existence virtually impossible.

* ie. primary source information, which is lacking for Jesus/Iesous of Nazareth or Bethlehem - no texts; no archaeology; no artifacts
theomise
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by theomise »

John T wrote:Finally, Carrier admitted he lost the debate to Craig.
Carrier said that he 'lost' in the sophistical/rhetorical sense due to Craig's unabashed use of the Gish Gallop:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

This obviously has no bearing on the ultimate correctness of his positions in that debate.
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John T
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by John T »

@MrMacSon,

I'm sorry if my writing was not clear enough for you. Forgive me, for I barely made it through English 101.
What I was trying to say and it would be clear to you if you actually watched the debate is that, Craig uses the standard 6 point test that historians use in determining what is the best explanation for given historical facts.

1. It has great explanatory scope.
2. It has great explanatory power.
3. It is plausible.
4. It is not ad-hoc.
5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs.
6. It out strips rival theories of 1-5.

Craig stated up front he was not trying to prove to Carrier the existence of God but to show that using the tools and standards of historians like Carrier that the theory of the empty tomb passes the 6 point test.

If you go to about the 25 minute mark in the debate you will see how Craig lays it all out.

http://youtu.be/akd6qzFYzX8
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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DCHindley
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by DCHindley »

John T wrote:... Craig uses the standard 6 point test that historians use in determining what is the best explanation for given historical facts.

1. It has great explanatory scope.
2. It has great explanatory power.
3. It is plausible.
4. It is not ad-hoc.
5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs.
6. It out strips rival theories of 1-5.
Those six standards you cite are hardly objective. In fact, they are all so subjective as to be meaningless.

Even the wildest holocaust denier can find ways to convince his/herself of the great explanatory scope and power of their theories, that they are plausible, not ad-hoc, in accord with beliefs accepted among other conspiracy theorists, and of course outstrips rival theories. Duh!

I found that the statement above occurs exactly in James Edward Stroud, The Knights Templar & the Protestant Reformation, Xulon Press, 2011, page 64, available as an e-book for US $5.77.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0Pd0VA ... es&f=false

He does not cite a source.

DCH
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by DCHindley »

It seems Craig is using his own compressed adaption of seven criteria for evaluating competing hypotheses that were proposed by Christopher Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions, pg 17:
The theory is that one is rationally justified in believing a statement to be true if the following conditions obtain:

(1) The statement, together with other statements already held to be true, must imply yet other statements describing present, observable data. (We will henceforth call the first statement ‘the hypothesis’, and statements describing observable data, ‘observation statements’.)

(2)The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory scope than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must imply a greater variety of observation statements.

(3) The hypothesis must be of greater explanatory power than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other.

(4) The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly any other.

(5)The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must include fewer new suppositions about the past which are not already implied to some extent by existing beliefs.

(6) It must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, when conjoined with accepted truths it must imply fewer observation statements and other statements which are believed to be false.

(7)It must exceed other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject by so much, in characteristics 2 to 6, that there is little chance of an incompatible hypothesis, after further investigation, soon exceeding it in these respects.
Hector Avalos describes McCullagh as
a well-known Australian philosopher of history. His website describes him as being recently retired as a Reader and Associate Professor of Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and he is currently an Honorary Associate at La Trobe University Philosophy Program.” See McCullagh's bio.

McCullagh describes himself as a Christian, but he offers mostly pragmatic, rather than historical or scientific, reasons for affirming a belief in the resurrection. This position has been rendered even clearer in his article: C. Behan McCullagh, "The Resurrection of Jesus: Explanation or Interpretation?" Southeastern Theological Review, 3.1 (2012) 41-53.

McCullagh's article is mainly a critique of Michael Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Account (2010), a defense of the resurrection. McCullagh reiterates that he does not believe that the resurrection of Jesus is a superior explanation of the data, and he opts for a pragmatic reason to believe in that event (e.g., it has good consequences for modern believers).

McCullagh further clarifies that “a theological account of the disciples’ experiences of the risen Jesus is better understood as an interpretation, not an explanation, of those experiences” (McCullagh, “Resurrection,” p. 42; my underlined emphasis).
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.c ... se-to.html
Adultering and twisting the ideas expressed by others to better express one's own ideas is something I accused J D Crossan of doing with the sociological theories of Gerhard Lenski (Power & Privelige) and John Kautsky (Politics of Aristocratic Empires), when he conjured up his "Lenski-Kautsky model" of class in Birth of Christianity.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hjm ... dolgy/info [dead link, now*]

What Crossan says:
The rest of the story:
Crossan adopts what he call the "Lenski-Kautsky model" of class, drawing on Gerhard Lenski's Power & Privelige and John Kautski's Politics of Aristocratic Empires. However, the definition of social class is that of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix ("Karl Marx and the History of Classical Antiquity", Arethusha 8, 1975), not that of either Kautski or Lenski.
On pg 153 of BOC, (Marked Social Inequality), Crossan quotes Lenski to establish your three distinctive features causing the increase of social inequality, to support his contention that 1st century Galilee was feeling such pressure. Crossan leaves out the context of Lenski's statement, which is when an agrarian society replaces an advanced horticultural society, and not the situation we have in 1st century Galilee, which Crossan says is the commercialization of an advanced agrarian society.
Crossan quotes Lenski, pg 199, to illustrate the mushrooming process of urbanization in newly agrarian societies. Crossan does not mention that Lenski elsewhere on the same page of his book indicated that these "fairly large" cities were more often than not national capitals, with perhaps five hundred thousand permanent residents at the very most, with the vast majority of towns being much more modest in size, leaving the vast majority of the population unaffected by mushrooming urbanization.
In support of the feature of monetization, Crossan quotes Lenski, pg 207, to the effect that the introduction of money in agrarian societies offered aristocrats the opportunity to use it to indebt and consequence exploit the peasants. However, Lenski also says on the same page that "in the rural areas especially, the use of money was an infrequent experience, especially for peasants," so in other words, while money lending could be "highly rewarding", it appears also to have been the exception rather than the rule.
On page 155, Crossan quotes Lenski (pg 271) to the effect that "[t]he Peasant Class, that vast majority of the population, was held "at, or close to, the subsistence level." Crossan ignores the fact that all Lenski's examples are drawn from medieval Europe, China and Japan.
Crossan adds the comment "so that their appropriated surplus could support elite conspicuous consumption". While the phrase "conspicuous consumption" is based on a passage elsewhere in Lenski's book, the comment is not relevant to the kind of situation he is analyzing, and thus seems inserted to score an ideological point.
At pg 157 (Agrarian Commercialization), Crossan begins to quote John Kautsky, pg 25, note 31, to the effect that “ ‘ancient Athens and Rome ... are commercialized’ agrarian empires.” However, Crossan leaves out the rest of note 31, "To be sure, the term 'traditional' has also been applied to empires existing up to the emergence of modern states, like the Chinese, Russian, and Ottoman empires into the nineteenth century ... not to mention ancient Athens and Rome -- all of which are commercialized and hence *modern*" societies, not advanced Agrarian.
On pg 158 Crossan emphasizes that Kautsky represents aristocrats as living off peasants surplus in a one sided manner with no reciprocity involved for the Peasants. However, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, who Crossan earlier cited approvingly for a definition of "class", published The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981, a year before Kautsky), takes a far more lenient view of the exploitative relationship between aristocrats and peasants than does Kautsky.
Crossan does not cite de Ste Croix's 1981 book in the bibliography of BOC. This gives the impression that Crossan should have been aware of this publication with a far more lenient view, but chose not to present that view, and thus left to wonder why de Ste. Croix is so reliable when he defines "class" but not so reliable when he defines economic relationships between classes.
On page 158 Crossan discusses (localized) peasant revolts as characteristic of commercialization of agrarian empires (relying on Kautsky alone in this matter, although representing it as inherent in both Lenski & Kautsky. However, Lenski speaks only of "inconsistent status" individuals as leaders of revolutions, and only on pp 88 & 409, and Crossan again ignores de Ste. Croix who indicated that crushing levels of economic exploitation did not characterize the Roman empire until the 4th century CE.
On pg 166 Crossan asks a rhetorical question: "What if priests, prophets, scribes, bureaucrats, or retainers, acting institutionally or charismatically, instigate an *ideological* revolution?" Crossan is essentially endorsing an ideological perspective by presuming an "ideological revolution" rather than the political revolution such sociological changes might normally be expected to produce.

Just as Crossan managed to gut and bowdlerize both Lenski and Kautsky, making the use of these authors invalid since they really did not say or even imply what Crossan said (or wanted to believe) they did, so does Craig with McCullagh.

DCH

Edit 7/23/2022: Due to now broken link, added the table comparing Crossan's statements about "the Kautsky-Lenski" model to what John Kautsky & Gerhard Lenski actually said.
Last edited by DCHindley on Sat Jul 23, 2022 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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John T
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by John T »

@DC Hinley,

Thanks for your comments. However, Carrier does indeed accept the 6 step test. So, Craig was not using 'Gish Gallop' but instead using an accepted method by historians including Carrier. Perhaps you should take up your objections to the 6 step test with Carrier but you should read a sample of what he has to say about it first.

"When we compare the standard historicist theory (SHT) with Doherty's ahistoricist or "mythicist" theory (DMT) by the criteria of the Argument to the Best Explanation, I must admit that, at present, Doherty wins on at least four out of the six criteria (scope, power, plausibility, and ad hocness ; I think DMT is equal to SHT on the fifth criterion of disconfirmation ; neither SHT nor DMT wins on the sixth and decisive criterion). In other words, Doherty's theory is simply superior in almost every way in dealing with all the facts as we have them. However, it is not overwhelmingly superior, and that leaves a lot of uncertainty. For all his efforts, Jesus might have existed after all. But until a better historicist theory is advanced, I have to conclude it is at least somewhat more probable that Jesus didn't exist than that he did. I say this even despite myself, as I have long been an opponent of ahistoricity"....Carrier

http://infidels.org/library/modern/rich ... uzzle.html

Respectfully,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
theomise
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by theomise »

John T wrote:Carrier does indeed accept the 6 step test.
Uh, no. What you have presented is utter nonsense.
John T wrote:So, Craig was not using 'Gish Gallop' but instead using an accepted method by historians including Carrier.
That makes no sense at all. The 'Gish Gallop' is a debating technique focused on manipulating low-IQ folks into accepting Bill-Oreilly-type moronic conclusions on the basis of sheer quantity of utterances.
John T wrote:Perhaps you should take up your objections to the 6 step test with Carrier but you should read a sample of what he has to say about it first.

"When we compare the standard historicist theory (SHT) with Doherty's ahistoricist or "mythicist" theory (DMT) by the criteria of the Argument to the Best Explanation, I must admit that, at present, Doherty wins on at least four out of the six criteria (scope, power, plausibility, and ad hocness ; I think DMT is equal to SHT on the fifth criterion of disconfirmation ; neither SHT nor DMT wins on the sixth and decisive criterion). In other words, Doherty's theory is simply superior in almost every way in dealing with all the facts as we have them. However, it is not overwhelmingly superior, and that leaves a lot of uncertainty. For all his efforts, Jesus might have existed after all. But until a better historicist theory is advanced, I have to conclude it is at least somewhat more probable that Jesus didn't exist than that he did. I say this even despite myself, as I have long been an opponent of ahistoricity"....Carrier
Just to clarify... are we arguing about Carrier's views on the historicity of Jesus circa 2002, or his views as represented in OHJ?

:scratch:
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John T
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Re: Carrier: Should We Still Be Looking for a Historical Jes

Post by John T »

Peter Kirby wrote:
John T wrote:I would never call Carrier an atheist, a pseudo-atheist perhaps but he is not a real atheist.
Your opinion above is of no value.
Then I shall assign value by stating what my opinion is based on.

Gary Habermas has worked with a clinical psychologist for over 20 years trying to understand why skeptics (atheist/agnostics) doubt the empty tomb theory. They found out that about 85% of doubters do so not out of factual reasons but for emotional reasons. They are God haters. They hate God for not answering their prayers the way they wanted, e.g. God did not spare the life of a sick parent. Gary Habermas says that 19% of self-proclaimed atheists fit into that category. You can watch Habermas explain this around the 1:16 minute mark during a question and answer portion. However, I would highly recommend watching the video from beginning to end, especially for those who want to learn what types of evidence even skeptics in academia now accept for proving a historical Jesus.

But anyway, in my opinion, real (strong) atheists based their religious belief out of scientific or intellectual grounds but pseudo-atheists (weak) do it based on emotions.
My opinion is that Carrier fits into that 19% category based on his hateful labels he used for Christians during the Craig vs. Carrier debate.

http://youtu.be/ay_Db4RwZ_M

So, my opinion is based on clinical studies and I leave it up to you what value you place on those.

Respectfully,

John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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