Mockery? Heck, yeah! When you bringin' it on, bad boy?

A Skeptical apologist named Brooks Trubee, who apparently also goes by the name "Mr Krinkles" online and maybe even has conversations with himself under that name, maintains a web site called Christianity: Bogus Beyond Belief. Brooks' site contains almost no essays, absolutely no scholarship, lots of simplistic "argument by outrage", and plenty of correspondence in which he insults Bible believers and attempts to attack their positions with such definitive answers as, "I'm not satisified with your answer" and "I just don't understand what you're saying, can you make it more clear?" and "I stand by my statement." Brooks actually thinks it amazing that I once had a page devoted to deceased Bible skeptics entitled the Rogue's Cemetery. Very tasteful? Maybe as tasteful as actually using these deceased Skeptics as reliable sources of information. Maybe as tasteful as it is telling that Brooks must be a real social bottom-of-the-bucket to find such a page amazing. This man's picture is in the dictionary under "boring." Hence we have created this reply/parody and titled it Brooks Trubee: Boring Beyond Belief. If boredom could kill, Brooks would serve a sentence of 8,938,384 years for being so predictable. It's dated from the way Brooks' page appeared a few weeks ago, and I do have a few updates for it since then, but overall I'm not making any more changes.

Curiously, Brooks seems to have a great deal of trouble with self-esteem, both his own and that of other Skeptics, as he wonders why I don't provide links to (some of, actually) the articles upon which I heap punishment. He thinks this makes for a bizarre website, though as yet my Mormon and JW opponents haven't had this sort of self-esteem problem. Maybe they're bizarre, too. Maybe they just don't have ego problems which make them think they need this kind of affirmative action linking. How hard is it to make a link, anyway, Brooks asks? How hard is it to ask me politely to include one? (He seems to forget I link right to HIS site, and have continued to do so [even as it has changed; see below]. Whoops. Did I smell extra-strength Ban, Hypocrite scent?) Sorry, though, I'm not into the maintenance nightmare of constantly checking dozens of fly-by-night Skeptical sites to make sure they haven't changed files from htm. to html, or else gone out of business, like PTET seems to have after only 3 months on the block. You'll see the same links Brooks provides below, but if and when they go dead, don't expect fixes. If they do go dead, they'll stay that way. Beyond that, how hard is it to use a search engine? Is this stuff only for use by the CIA? Yes, I'm so terrified by what the Skeptics write that I have even taken over all the search engines. Search "Earl Doherty" and you will get links for Dougherty County, Georgia. Search "Richard Packham" and you'll get the Green Bay Packers official website. Search "Brooks Trubee" and you'll get the Ken and Barbie fan club site. (Better Biblical scholarship there than at Brooks' place, anyway.) If actions speak much louder than words, then get your inactive rear end to Google and start some action typing rather than sitting there complaining.

Brooks quotes the crybaby Trilemma critic (a.k.a., "Daffy Duck" as we now call him) as saying:

"...he avoids linking to or even naming the essays he rebuts, and usually avoids so much as naming the author he is attacking. He also routinely changes his essays after being refuted, yet rarely announces the changes or concessions in any way, and he also employs childish insults and other rudeness."

Um, yeah. Usually avoids naming? The Trilemma critic, i.e. Daffy, is the ONLY one I have never named (who gave me a name -- people like "Bach Bones" obviously have their own preferences). For polemical purposes, I did not name "Broken Vector," whom everyone knew to be Richard Carrier, though I name him in other places quite openly. When I offered to give anyone who asked for Daffy's real name and his website address, only two people asked for it in 6 months so far. Three other readers -- the intelligent ones that don't seem to find sites like Brooks' and Daffy's to be particularly convincing to begin with -- found his materials easily, at least 2 just by putting in "trilemma" in Google. That was hard, wasn't it? And when they did find it, they didn't care. Let's just face it: No one cares who Daffy is. It's not like they'll get an improved view just knowing his name is Ooplboff Wiggenheimer Bosphrey III, and they'll find his work if they really want to. His arguments just aren't worth the trouble. Other than, I suppose, to the sort of Skeptics too unintelligent to use search engines, who quite sensibly, in line with their limited exercise on the cerebral treadmill, find Daffy's work appallingly meritorious. (We'll see more about how dense these guys are about search engines, a little farther down below.)

Oh -- "Changes essays after being refuted, yet rarely announces the changes or concessions." Like bleck I do. Any change involving more than a single sentence is put on the What's New page, with one major tactical exception I'm going to tell everyone about below, and which is going to give Brooks the Screaming Heebie Jeebies. Perhaps the Skeptics just can't keep track of things because they're too busy passing around bogus quotes by Pope Leo X to be bothered. Concession? Like heck. They can dream, but they can't sleep.

So after giving Daffy his say, here are some other charges Brooks raises to pump up his self-esteem:

• "He freely misrepresents skeptics' positions in order to insult them." Sure. Let's see an example; Brooks doesn't give one. I'll say this: I've run into Skeptics too intellectually discombobulated to state their position clearly, and others who obviously backpedal when they realize the position they clearly stated was just plain dumb stupid. Daffy is a very good example. As the definition goes, a straw man is, "a charge to make when you become confused during a debate." Maybe it's these guys who think I'm "misrepresenting" their position, because they weren't actually sure what they were arguing in the first place.

• "He enjoys calling skeptics 'bigots' if they don't praise the barbaric cultural practices of the ancient Near East." Did you get that tautology? "He enjoys calling Skeptics 'bigots' if they make bigoted statements like calling the practices of the ancients 'barbaric'." Yo Mr. Metzger: You don't have to praise them, just try to grasp them in their social context. Be tolerant and realize the world they live in didn't have a 7-11 on every corner. Even Karen Armstrong got that clue in her bio of Muhammed and defended ancient Muslim behavior (though obviously biting her tongue while doing so) that's of the same sort Brooks in his provincialism would assign to a Frank Frazetta painting. Brooks just couldn't raise his cultural diversity quotient quite that far, though, as we'll see. Instead, he just kept his mouth shut when it was obvious that just gasping "How barbaric!" and fainting while waving a lace hanky wasn't doing the job.

• "He puts considerable effort into concocting ludicrous rationalizations for Bible problems. He speculates wildly about geographical, social, and historical conditions of the ancient Near East in a desperate effort to deny Bible contradictions and justify God-ordained evil." Speculation, right. These Skeptics, who wouldn't take the time to look up anything in a library for fear of being beaten up by dust mites, think I make up stuff about the social and anthropological setting of the Bible; when I cite scholars, they think it sufficient to quote back the mission statement of the college where they teach, or note where their work was published; if that doesn't help, they want to claim I distort what they say; when they write to the scholars, and the scholars back me up, they either spin it out by saying the scholar didn't proclaim the same thing "fanatically," or even now, claiming that they can pick up an NIV and refute the scholar with it. I don't "speculate" about conditions in the ANE; I dig into the sources and find out what the real conditions in the ANE were. The proper refutation would be to show that conditions were not as I report, or did not have the effect I suppose, but all Skeppies seem to be able to do is call it "speculation" as though they had any idea what ANE conditions were like themselves. I don't blame Brooks. He's backed into a corner and that's really all he has left to say. Hoccccch --- ptui. "Ain't no way that thar plane kin fly, boy. Too heavy." These guys, if they were plopped down in the ANE, would get a spear run through their guts because they offended everyone just asking where the bathroom was.

• "He mistakes excessive verbiage for profundity, and will crow loudly about the the size of his responses to Bible critics, as though this is actually supposed to mean anything." You can tell Brooks just doesn't like anything longer than Green Eggs and Ham to read: Make any sentence more than 6 words long, and he clunks out into a pool of dribble. I'm not sure what this "crowing" bit is about. Maybe he's alluding to where I tormented Farris McTill with the 1 meg of material he had yet to reply to. That actually included the text of several different essays (including some from Miller's ThinkTank), so all it means is, McTill has a lot of work to do. And he'd better hurry. Either way, short or long, Brooks et al. won't get anywhere against it until they stop thinking of the Encyclopedia Britannica as a primary source.

• "As a young earth creationist, [Holding] stubbornly refuses to be drawn into discussions about natural history or evolution, perhaps because he knows the facts of science do not agree with much that is written in the Bible." Two can play that psych game. Perhaps Brooks needs a little psychotherapy session to salve that savaged self-esteem. One reason he gets so deep in La Brea is that he hasn't learned the lesson I have: Don't debate on subjects you don't have the proper education to debate. Freethinkers have a chip on their shoulder that makes them think they can discuss any topic rationally with a minimum of exposure. Not surprisingly, their inevitable resort is to even more arrogance. Like the La Brea animals, though, Brooks is likely not bright enough to know he's gotten stuck in the mire. It's like that article I link to that speaks of those incompetent and unaware of it, whose inflated self-assessments lead them to think they know more than they do. If Brooks had any sense, he would stubbornly refuse to be drawn into discussions about ANE culture. Regrettably, he doesn't have the sense. But wait and see what happens when I challenge him to do a wee bit of reading below.

Brooks notes that I am a Baptist, "by the way." That's nice. Luther was a Lutheran, and Raymond Brown was a Catholic. Was there a point you wanted to make there, Brooks?

I became aware of much of this only after getting into a discussion with Mr. [Holding]. He offers his e-mail address for questions-so I decided to e-mail him a few questions in 1999. What follows is the result of our correspondence. After three or four exchanges he asked me to post my next questions publicly. I have complied with his wish and have decided to include all of our correspondence here. I have also decided to include a number of links to responses to [Holding] from other people, as well as other related information. What Brooks means here is, he became so frustrated by not being able to answer my points that he decided to turn his page on me into a pre-emptive "Hall of Hate" and went out looking for stuff to salve his damaged self-esteem and reassure his position with atheism. I'll admit I was pleasantly surprised by his agreement to post our correspondence, but little surprised he evolved it to the level he did. That was the inevitable result of jumping in the deep end where the alligators were. Psychologically -- if he wants to play that game -- it meets nicely the profile of one deeply frustrated and unable to cope with superiors in intellect and gamesmanship. I can only conclude -- based on what follows -- that he had no idea what he was getting into.

Update:

[Holding] has lost his job as a prison librarian and is now soliciting money through his web site, ostensibly to fund his "ministry." I wish [Holding] the greatest success in convincing people to pay his bills so he can make apoplogetics [sic] a full-time occupation, because his apologetic work only serves to further discredit Christianity. Slighty off base to begin. I didn't "lose" my job; I quit it because I didn't want another job I would have been offered. See some more here, and you'll also see how Brooks buys into what C. Farris "Almighty God" McTill says without any questions asked. Brooks should also be sure to drop a line of congratulations to Dan Barker, who has aleady succeeeded in convincing people to send enough to pay his bills 20 times over so he can make anti-apologetics a full-time occupation. Hmm. Do I detect a note of jealousy, Brooks? Just paste that face on a few posters in the neighborhood, along with some writing samples. Maybe that will help pass you as one of Jerry's Kids.

TEKTONICS.ORG EXPOSED! A new site that is collection of links and information that exposes [Holding]'s weak apologetics. This essay from the site employs [Holding]'s style of apologetic doublespeak to demonstrate that the cow really did jump over the moon. In other words, it's a site by another frustrated little monkey like Brooks, and it's nothing Brooks didn't already do in his "Hall of Hate." We really needed another clearinghouse for the tens of thousands of rebuttals to the over 1500 items in Tekton for all those Skeptics with intellectual impediments that keep them from using search engines. You'll want to see my counter parody, which will tell you how seriously I take this blatantly informed and scholarly opposition -- I've been passing the link to it to major supporters of the ministry, proving my terror. (This happens to be where "Mojo" got over half his mail from -- when he was still getting it, and before it got too embarrassing to admit he wasn't getting any -- once all 6 of McTill's greatest fanatics have had their word, so he ought to thank me. You may also want to see what comments I have on this guy's hero, Robert Miller of the Jesus Shameinar, whose critical thinking capacities and ability to report accurately what his critics say, rivals that of, um, a box of rocks. Oh. Doublespeak? What that means is, "How to pretend that things like oral tradition factors, social science factors, and so on, actually don't exist or have the relevance they do." It takes a great deal of self-confident ignorance to make the kind of gross applications found in that essay, and think that they are actually valid. Hint: Mother Goose is in the genre of fables. The Gospels, i.e., are in the genre of ancient Greco-Roman bioi. Figure it out.) Mr. Holding and Evolution In this critique, the author describes how [Holding] dismisses all of biological science simply because he doesn't like an analogy that a scientist uses. [Holding], of course, is a Bible inerrantist who accepts Genesis as literal history, so he HAS to denigrate and deny any field of science that shows his position to be in error. [Holding] actually refers his readers to to the YEC site Answers in Genesis for answers about scientific questions. The "reply" for the most part played (note I use past tense; who knows where the heck it is now -- the link is dead) the standard game I get when I use this article -- "We know the analogies these guys use are flawed. So what! Now let's discuss something else!" Denigrating the field isn't the object, though; the object is to show that for all the (assumed) science knowledge, a lot of these guys lack in basic critical thinking skills, which I think fairly allows us to raise the question of how intelligently they have processed the data about evolution. In short, I'm asking people to be "freethinkers" with respect to evolution, though the Skeptical "freethinkers" still don't get the point. With most of that scientific knowledge inaccessible to the average person, it's fair to evaluate thinking skills on matters that are accessible, and point out that, whoops, maybe the rose bed isn't smelling that way because it's June after all. In fairness, I think if I wrote the article today I would ditch the analogies issue and use as examples nutcase evolutionists who accept stupid stuff like, Mithraism borrowed from Christianity. In the meantime Brooks wouldn't know Australopithicus from Farrell Till, so I sure won't take his word on any related subject. Farrell Till's response to [Holding] Till used to be a fundamentalist minister, so he has an excellent understanding of the Bible and he is very familar with how apologists like [Holding] operate. He is willing to go into exquisite detail in order to explain why Bible inerrantists are wrong. McTill is indeed a former fundamentalist minister, from a denomination (Church of Christ) that is one brick short of KJV Onlyism and considers contextual study of the Bible to be of the devil. And McTill's exegetical methods haven't changed since. His "excellent understanding" amounts to "I have memorized all of the Bible, especially where someone dies." This is a guy who had to cover his hiney when he got nabbed on background knowledge and couldn't get one of his disciples to force a scholar to say that he actually agreed with him. Since that didn't work, one of his other disciples is now claiming to know better than a scholar with 20+ years of experience in the field how better to interpret the Bible in terms of cultural anthropology -- based on nothing more than slapping open an NIV. Excellent understanding, eh? Yep. This shows you how the Skeppies respect those "incompetent and unaware of it." [Holding] and Farrell Till had a discussion over the Internet a couple years ago. Till posted his response to [Holding], but [Holding] has never linked to it, and it looks like he never will. Of course this is not terribly surprising, since [Holding] almost never links to skeptics' replies. Unless politely asked, of course, which is probably too difficult for someone like Caveman Brooks to get, as he's still working on which side of face do Thag wipe first after eating bloody hunk of mammoth. Want a link? Not competent to look on the Secular Web under Farrell's name? Too confused and disoriented to use Google to search for "Farrell Till" and "Jehu" and "2 Kings" (the subjects of the debate)? First, apply for a grant from the Americans with Disabilities Act. Then look out the window and be sure the police are not parked in your driveway and getting out to arrest you because you have accidentally gone outside naked today. Then click the link above. Aren't you impressed now? If you are, and you couldn't find it before without the link, then you're not smart enough for your opinion to matter anyway. The real funny is that McTill withdrew when he realized I was answering him as fast as he could crank out his babble; then he scuttled behind the old EVERYTHING stricture for a few years, until I made him saddle-sore on that also. In his response, Till shows that [Holding] very selectively quotes the Bible in order to misrepresent the meaning of a Hebrew word, he explains that [Holding]'s main method of "argumentation" is simply to cite people who agree with his position, he exposes [Holding] as a colossal hypocrite, he demolishes [Holding]'s effort to portray himself as an expert in linguistics, and he also addresses [Holding]'s desperate use of taunts, insults and name-calling. ([Holding] actually goes so far as to suggest that Till is a member of the Klu Klux Klan, something he also implies about me in the discussion below.) McTill didn't show anything except his own rear end as he ran from the discussion trying to (not) answer a detailed linguistic argument by a Hebrew scholar (not by me, per the usual fudd from this crowd, who are so tremble-kneed and so unsure of their own position that they think opening a can of beans means you claim to be an expert in agriculture) whose work was published in a peer-reviewed journal, by noting that the guy had a book published in Grand Rapids and that Bible translations published before he published his work didn't agree with him, as if the translation committees had time-travelled forward and knew he was wrong before he even did his study. For McTill and his fans, that constitutes an answer. They'll soon solve the ecological crisis by pointing out that George Bush lives in Texas. Brooks also forgot to check his membership card; it's Ku Klux Klan, and here's what I said, actually: Till, then, merely continues along the same lines. Thus if Farrell Till or any other skeptic) wishes to engage in fruitful exchange on these topics and be taken seriously beyond a tiny circle of like-minded, closed-minded sycophants, then they need to do more than just read the English text and announce their inexpert opinion. They must rather come to the texts on their own terms. Skeptics who refuse to do this show themselves to be no different than the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who persists even today in the belief that "n-ggers" should sit in the back of the bus where they belong, or the Nation of Islam fanatic who denigrates "crackers" and "rednecks." They still haven't broken out of this circle (can you see McTill's inscribed membership card?) and it's no less accurate as a response to temporal provincialists who resort to calling the ancients "barbaric" as they turn on the latest Terminator movie or Beavis and Butthead episode. Huh huh huh! Brooks spends some time next complaining about how I won't debate or link to McTill. That's obviously out of date now, and McTill is starting to crack like a sidewalk in August, and hoping I'll stop linking so he'll have an excuse to pull out; we'll see what Brooks has to say below. Funny, though, Brooks claimed first that I "repeatedly dismiss[ed] Till as not worth anyone's time" -- once (maybe twice) amounts to repeatedly? (For the cluemongers out there -- at the time I first said that I wasn't on my own website but was occupying someone else's. It was on their dime, on their time. Now it isn't. And now I have time to slap McTill out of his complacency and off his throne. So here we are.) Update After much prodding, [Holding] has finally agreed to debate with Till. Although he has refused to agree to formal rules, [Holding] has been forced to link to Till's articles and his responses. The debates are located here: The only real "prodding" done was by me, as I issued a series of items on how McTill was up to his old tricks, and then, having had my time open up, decided to go ahead and challenge McTill to debate. Forced? Yeah. McTill came to my house and held a gun to my head! No, worse! He threatened to give a lecture on grammar. Anyway, by the time of my fourth "prodding" essay on Marco Polo, I knew linking was the only way to get the old bean out of the bushes, so I held out the lure, and it worked. Now he's saddle-sore, as the saying goes, and wishing he'd wiped his nose before opening the door. As for formal rules, McTill doesn't need 'em to debate people on his errancy list, so why did he need 'em here? He didn't. McTill just wanted to play a long, drawn-out game of negotiation, and it became clear that he was either doing it just to buy time, or was too dense to comprehend a certain issue. So being that I was tired of waiting for McTill to decide which sock went on which foot, I cut to the chase and told him I was going outside, and if he wasn't there in 5 minutes, I was starting the fight without him. And that issue? McTill wanted me to host his material on my server (this was before I knew TSR was going online), so I demanded that he pay in advance for the cost of hosting his articles. This would not have cost more than 5 to 8 dollars per article, but his inability to understand my request -- heck, to even read clearly -- led to his truly bee-zarro "What! You want me to pay for 90% of the website" comments that we note in the link above. Anyway, I told him he could either pay or otherwise he could find someone like Brooks to host it for him. (He didn't know who Brooks was, so this tells you how much he pays attention to the darlings on his errancy list. You're all a bunch of second cousins who don't get Xmas presents.) Why the fuss? McTill is fairly sharp with computers for his age, but he had the goofy idea that hosting entire articles on 100 sites would draw more attention than hosting on 1 site and the rest having only links. If the former were so, then Brooks must obviously be trying to hide something, since he doesn't actually host any of the articles he links to (other than for one site that went out of business). The reality is that McTill has no idea how search engines actually work; 1 site or 100, it really makes no difference how many host the darned thing if all 100 have just links and maybe descriptions. Plus one really wonders what the heck audience McTill is trying to draw in. His readers and mine know where everything is; his have as much trouble finding it as they have finding their own rear ends, but that's what "Favorites" settings are for. "New" readers won't know what to look for anyway, and after looking at the code work of his webmaster, Rob Miles, it's clear -- sorry, Miles -- he doesn't have a clue how use code to attract search engines in the first place. (Sorry, no clues. Do your own digging.) In any event, it never crossed McTill's mind that he could find things with a title search, so little wonder he thinks plopping the same load on 100 different servers makes a big difference. But since McTill stubbornly clung to this goofy idea, I decided to stop wasting my time and just get to thrashing him. And here we are. The Skeptical Review Quotes from one debate, located here: "He ([Holding]) is using a tactic of cutting and pasting irrelevant comments over and over to make the debate so long that some readers won't remember whether he has answered specific points 'above and below.' His dishonesty has become so flagrant that it amounts to outright lying." What McTill means is, I dissected his rhetorical bombast sentence by sentence, showing how absurd it was to demand that I quote EVERYTHING (a demand which he now mysteriously forgets making, in spite of an email just a few weeks ago in which he asked me pointedly how much I was quoting, and when I replied that I was quoting everything, he essentially said, "Good, I'll take what I can get from you."). So in short, I responded to every instance of McTill's bombast with my own equitable bombast, and now he doesn't like smoking his own crack. As for not remembering -- hey, I was courteous enough to provide "fluff free" versions for those with poor memories, which is apparently only McTill himself, who is now so flummoxed that he's forgotten when and where I stated some of my own arguments and thinks I actually "changed" my position on an issue because he forgot when I actually stated the position. It's his bed, and he made it. [Holding] and the Trilemma by [Daffy Duck] [Holding] attacks this article, but will not link to it or name the author. As noted, my offer to name the author and give the link was only answered by two people. Three other readers told me that they found it quite easily on their own. They still weren't impressed. Gosh heck, that was SO hard to do. Daffy will need a classified ad and a reward to recover that lost ego. Here is a quote from the article: "[Holding] is losing this debate so badly that his defeat is amusing to quantify. In his latest response alone [Holding] fails 79 times to answer, acknowledge, or correctly represent my arguments. On six occasions his reasoning is so faulty as to constitute textbook examples of fallacies, and in six other instances he exhibits a misunderstanding of the elementary logic of his own Trilemma argument. In 19 instances he edited his essay to hide from his readers his defeat on particular points, and six other times he changed the subject to deflect attention from a defeat. Seven separate times he adopts the pretense that forcing a successful defense of my thesis is somehow a victory for him. Finally, on 14 occasions he indulges in insubstantial argument by way of generalization, hollow bluster, ad hominem, and slurs (such as calling me 'bigoted' for disagreeing with people of other cultures)." Psych tricks? Fine. Those "incompetent and unaware of it" inevitably fall to delusions such as these to maintain their own self-assurance. Here's my "spin" without detailed evaluation: 79 times Daffy either wasn't bright enough to see that he had been answered, or didn't state his own argument coherently enough or see through the implications of what he was arguing. Twleve times Daffy was so uninformed of elementary data (or so intent upon denying it) that he couldn't see how the logic was suitable rather than flawed. 19 times Daffy was so deluded about the coherency and relevance of his argument that he thought updates based on responses to him constituted "hiding" defeat. 6 times Daffy was so insensate to topical relevance that he figured certain points were changes of subject. Seven times I did achieve victory when Daffy backpedalled from a position. 14 times I did things like call Daffy a bigot for making obviously bigoted statements, which, in line with his own self-perception, he didn't recognize as bigoted, etc., and he took his lack of recognition as a sign of his own growing maturity and self-perfection. Anyway, Daffy needs the visitors, as it looks like he gets as many for his entire site per month as I get for my article on the Christain fish symbol per week. We know how hard it is to think through these things. You will want to ignore this and now this as of course it will damage your fragile self-esteem. Richard Carrier's comments on [Holding]'s antics Carrier is the Editor in Chief of the Secular Web. He views [Holding] as childish, disrespectful, misinformed and dishonest: Who cares how Carrier views things? Carrier is a lame duck who will take any view to avoid answering me, and since he knows this characterization will play well among Skeptics who have had the meat gnawed from their bones, I don't blame him for using it. This is a man who answered my item on Zalmoxis on an infidels.org debate board, and when I found it and replied to it, told his readers to just write him in person with any further questions. The old Duck and Run, followed by the End Around. Quack, quack, quack, buuuhcawwww! posted December 09, 2001 03:36 PM "I see no need anymore to respond to Holding. His method is typically polemical, childish and disrespectful, he rarely comprehends anything I or any opponent says or means, and he has a nasty tendency to make wild, unsubstantiated claims about antiquity, and then, when he is called on it, deletes or alters his essays without notice, and modifies them to suit research he conducted only after his lack of research was pointed out." It's interesting how the, um, "wild" claims about come without specific "substantiation." Nice polemical tactic, and it plays well among the Skeptical Snob set, ever since Tom Paine played that card of "you're lucky I pay attention to you at all, moron". (And below we will see that "comprehends" bit is a case of Carrier not knowing what I say, which does explain why he THINKS [or pretends to think] *I* lack comprehension.) Carrier is full of these vague "responses" and vague charges but he seldom gets down to the nitty-gritty of offering specifics. This is as close as he gets: "In this case, his argument against me is simply bizarre. He says that a story about a man who died and came back to life and founded a religion wherein believers went to eternal paradise has no parallel with Christianity. That is to engage in some pathetic special pleading, and I think it is patently absurd to any reasonable observer." So be sure and remember: if you disagree, it can't be because you are intelligent (like our scholar of classics who has years on Carrier, and would profoundly disagree) but because you are unreasonable. Note as well that the argument was not that one could not draw a parallel per se, but that one can only do so as Lame Duck does, by dragging descriptions into the least common denominator. It's like saying there's no variety on the buffet because it's all "food". Fried rice is no different than chocolate cupcakes. My "special pleading" involved noting the vast differences between Zalmoxis and Christ (or in many cases, the complete lack of info on Zalmoxis) which make an attempt to draw a parallel nothing more than an exercise in superficiality. Carrier has just been caught with his waddlers down, and doesn't like it, so the academic harrumph followed by the Duck and Run is all he has left. The simple fact is that Carrier is a blackened pot calling the clean kettle black. I have caught this putative scholar in history withholding vital information (i.e., using Pliny the Elder for stories on nearly-cremated dead people, while neglecting to mention that Pliny also reports dog-headed people; using a Jewish text from the 11th-12th century AD to interpret a passage from Paul, and not mentioning when the text was from), badly misreading arguments (i.e., saying I argued that I said "heaven" was a Judeo-Christian word, when I actually said that Carrier was "using Judeo-Christian terminology"; misreading my argument about Matt. 28:17; misreading Malina and Neyrey), and have seen little but his tail flashing in response. So much for the Sec Web's anti-Glenn Miller. G. A. Wells replies to [Holding]'s criticisms In a familar cycle, [Holding] attacks an article written by a Bible skeptic, the skeptic somehow finds out about the critique and writes a reply (linked above). [Holding] then criticizes the reply, spews a bunch of grade school insults, and links to neither the skeptic's original article or the skeptic's reply. Wells himself probably had little choice but to "somehow" find out about the article since he doesn't seem to be Net connected. But so what? As it happens, I "somehow" found out about his article by being a responsible back-checker -- I check the Sec Web every week at least to see what is new. No one at ii.org dropped me a line, and I don't care that they didn't, so Brooks can stick that little complaint in the box with no bottom attached right over the trash can. It's spelled R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y. Not surprisingly, Brooks can quote passages like this one by Wells quite readily: "Holding begins his criticisms, as do many of my critics, by questioning my qualifications to say anything on the subject at all. His final dismissal of my views as 'the result of a fallen and sinful human nature, and nothing more' is just childish." Somehow, though, he misses block-busting stuff like this which Wells couldn't answer: In my essay I noted the comments of a hardened skeptic (who has no reason to favor the Christian view) and an Emeritus Professor of History, Morton Smith, who severely criticized Wells on methodological grounds. Against this, Wells notes that Smith took the tack of dismissing the highly-divine Jesus of Paul as a distortion that was based upon Paul's ignorance of Jesus, notes that he has criticized Smith's position in one of his books (plugged again, a la the egomaniacal Nietzsche, complete with link to Amazon.com for purchasing), and says, "Holding sets (Smith) up against me, mentioning, however, only his dismissive comments on my work, not any arguments." Irrelevant: The point was that Smith, as a highly trained and distinguished historian, found the whole of Wells' work to be the work of an incompetent. I am not at this point in my essay addressing Christ-myth arguments; I am making a point about the consenus of those trained in the field versus one who has no training at all in the field. Is it possible that Wells knows more than all of these? Yes, in the sense that it is possible that Norbert Beaver might discover a unified theory of physics. The stand of trained consensus is not, as I make clear, a proof, but a weighting factor; beyond that, the arguments exist, but that was not the subject of concern here. The fact that so many trained in the field of history stand against Wells, who has no expertise in the field, should serve as a warning to us, and I say no more than this. I do not "set" Smith, Harvey, or anyone "against" like this Wells for the purpose of addressing arguments. That is a straw man of Wells' own manufacture, a cheap psycho-manipulative tactic meant to make his thralls believe that I somehow argued that Smith's comments somehow constitute evidence against Wells' position. I argued no such thing, and Wells, unleSS he has far less intelligence and reading comprehension skill than I give him credit for, knows I have argued no such thing; yet note how he has arranged his words so that he can tar me with the broad brush of the argument, yet has also arranged the words in such a way as to maintain plausible deniability in replying that he is not accusing me of arguing this way. Wells is playing his typical head games with the reader--and we will make it our business to expose him for these tactics. Or: Wells notes his three reasons for dismissing Tacitus' testimony as merely a repeat of Christian statements; I have answered each of these points: the alleged procurator/prefect mixup; the use of "Christus," and Tacitus' supposed willingness to rely on Christians without confirmation. Wells only addresses the latter point to any extent, but you would never know from him that I address the first two points. No doubt he feels that "his" readers do not need the information. Note, "of course," that we are only given the page number out of Martin's book, not a specific quote--I daresay that Wells does not wish the reader to place any such quote in opposition to those I offer from Syme, Momigliano, and others so that they can make up their own minds. Other than that, I have made clear that there are a number of reasons why Tacitus would ferret out material for his histories, and on this subject in particular. He is not to be compared with a fictional French historian who says that the Brahmins worship one named Brahma; aside from the geographic and cultural anachronisms involved, if the French historian had the characteristics of Tacitus, he would have found out whether Brahma existed as a person before making such a statement. Again, all Wells is doing is playing a mind-reading game, telling us, with no evidential bases--indeed, as always, counter to what evidence does exist--what he thinks Tacitus' "purpose" was and what Tacitus "clearly felt." On the contrary, every scrap of evidence suggests that Tacitus would have been thorough, regardless of what "need" Wells chooses to suppose upon him. I have noted that Tacitus' integrity as a historian was one reason for him to do legwork; Wells does not address this point, and it is tempting to say that it is because it involves a virtue not known to him Here Wells is making the standard error of confusing quantity will quality. The assumption I make is perfectly valid: I am looking at Tacitus' quality of work, and that indicates that Tacitus took care in what he reported. That it took only a single sentence to refer to Christ is irrelevant. If that is all that Tacitus needed to explain the background, then that is all he needed: On the other hand, since he is ostensibly writing a history of Rome, we would obviously expect him to write profusely about Nero--and again, let us remind Wells of his own words from p. 186 of Jesus of the Early Christians: "Tacitus cannot be expected to give the life history of every incidental character he mentions" ! Wells' point is nothing more than another confused obfuscation. Wells once again may wish to manipulate his readers by seeming to turn Thackery against me, but in fact, as I note (but Wells does not disclose) it was Thackery himself who noted that Josephus was a patchwork writer, and also changed from his view of "total interpolation" to a view of partial interpolation along the lines of the majority view. Not that Wells' readers apparently need to hear this: Instead they are only offered the usual uncritical tossing of quotations into the ring. That Norden "powerully advocated" the position is an interesting insight into Norden's personal life, but it does nothing to answer the argument as a whole... I'll stop there, and ask, what kind of dunderhead thinks it an argument to say that so and so "powerfully advocated" a position, yet advances none of these "powerful" arguments for critical evaluation? Who cares how "powerfully" someone advocates? Brooks can sit down at 5th and Main and "powerfully advocate" use of cat hair in marijuana cigarettes, but that won't tell us diddly about the virtues or qualities of his arguments. You need look little further to see why I couldn't take Wells seriously as an opponent. He apparently thinks that if you belch while arguing, it makes your arguments better. For my answer to Wells, which he has ignored past a second round, see here. Response to "Packham Refuted" Richard Packham has to shame [Holding] into actually linking to the original article he attacks (it is a miracle that he makes the link), and [Holding], of course, predictably hides this response from the eyes of his readers. Packham didn't have to "shame" anything. He politely asked me to link to him, in an email a few days after my post, and I agreed. As part of that deal he dutifully advised me not long ago of a change in the address. I'm not sure what Brooks means by "hiding" the response. The link is at the top of the page, and the link to Packham's first response to me is at the end of my original comments. Maybe Brooks has one of those strange visual impairments that keeps him from seeing the top two lines of any document or essay. Anyway, Brooks quotes Packy as saying: "Since we are discussing bigotry and bias, and Holding's accusation that I am guilty of such a terrible thing, it might be appropriate to quote his own statement, referring to himself, from another article on his website: 'As far as the "mind already made up" issue - that is absolutely correct! Hopefully, the whole reason the non-professional evangelist is wanting to witness is because he KNOWS JESUS CHRIST personally. Their mind IS made up - and why else would you witness?!? The personal experience of Christ is so much more convincing than academic and intellectual discussions!' "Thus Holding himself discards the first requirement for the honest searcher for truth: the open mind. I cannot imagine a clearer statement of bias and bigotry than Holding's own statement of his position just quoted. But he accuses me of 'bias.'" Ha ha! Poor Packy. Here's what I had to say about that: But the joke is on Packham, in two ways. First, this selection, though I do not indicate it, is actually an insertion suggested and written by Glenn Miller when he first reviewed the article years ago. This is not to say that I disagree with the sentiment, but it is rather amusing (in light of the complaints by Packham that will follow about literary sensitivity) that he failed to see the difference from my usual style. The second joke is that Packham fails to notice the context of this comment: It is about an evangelist, not an apologist. It appears that Packham is as insensate to this difference as Price was! Folks may also wants to check an even more poignant critique of Packham here. All that talk about ME misrepresenting my credentials (by using a Strong's) pales in reflection to what Packy has claimed of his own experience and capability. Acharya S. describes [Holding]'s apologetic hijinks From article: "(...I have read so many absurd and inaccurate statements of his I am beginning to wonder if he's a joke, hired by some millionaire philanthropist out to destroy Christianity by making its representatives look idiotic. Not that they need any help.) I think it's amusing and telling enough just that Brooks actually links to Acharya S (no period), here and elsewhere on his site. This is a woman who thinks aliens spoke to her, and even the meanest Skeptic of them all, Robert Price, has an opinion of her that matches my own. The Skeppies had better get their house in order and decide whether to embrace Acharya or discard her, because until you do discard her, I'll be making hash of it. To help you out a bit, here's what Blisterin' Bob had to say about Achy's Christ Conspiracy in a review printed in Free Inquiry: "...no one whose disquiet with traditional Christian faith is based on solid fact or credible theorizing will want to recommend this book, much less appeal to it as justification for one's own doubts." Whaddya say, Brooks? Is Price on the ball, or not? Wanna fight him? Anyways, here's my response to Achy's complaining. Hilarious [Holding] quote The "quote" Brooks provides for the amusement of those who have found pulling wings off flies too tiresome is a goofy little bit of reasoning in which McTill disciple John Kesler (actually the most reasonable of that bunch, which doesn't say much) takes my note here about differing uses of Yahweh and Elohim in the OT as some kind of concession in line with the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP). Well, duh, folks. It's also in line with the variable assigning of multiple names to persons and deities in the ancient world, even within the same document. JEDP was using right information to reach erroneous conclusions. Hello? Has anyone ever heard of such a process before? E-mail about this apologist What Brooks provides here are some comments by James "Moonshine" Still, who has the honor of being the first Skeptic I know of to lie to me. Back when I was still in a team with the Christian Apologetics Bookshelf, I was passed a comment from Still on a forum referring to my writing as tedious, etc. and he made the suggestion that I was Glenn Miller writing anonymously. Kind of funny, huh? Even funnier, he wrote me being all nicey-nice, and started asking not-so-subtle elephant-stampede questions about whether Glenn Miller influenced me. Boy, these guys ask for it with whupped cream on top. I slyly noted that I had received some comments that somebody thought I *was* Miller writing anonymously. Smart people would smell a trap; Still only smelled his own pits and walked right into them, nose first. In essence: "You? Miller? Nah. His writing is terrible, yours is great!" Ha ha! Liar. Mr. Still does one thing well other than lying, and that is, he makes a good pretense at being superior to others. But if you like to see that dispelled, check out my pal Venerable Bede taking him to the cleaners on the ii.org forums, where the typical Skeptical answer to his solid research and arguments is, "Urrrrrrgh?" Demented [Holding] quote Basically, a quote where I say that people get what punishments they deserve, like the rebellious teenagers who threatened Elisha. Brooks doesn't think punishment is ever deserved, so I'm demented for thinking that it is. Unfortunately Brooks leaves out the next two parts; don't forget those: What's this "trivial" business? Let's approach this from two directions. First, was this sin really just a trivial case of making fun of someone's bald head? Probably not. Natural baldness was a rarity in the ANE, and when done deliberately was a sign of shame (cf. Is. 3:17) or mourning (cf. Job 1:20). If Elisha was actually bald here, he was perhaps mourning the loss of his master Elijah - and perhaps, then, the "go on up" is a reference to the idea of Elijah's ascension, a suggestion that the event is doubted and that it is a charge that Elisha actually murdered his master and that his mourning is a sham. But whatever the case, here is the other direction: There is no such thing as a "trivial" sin in the eyes and presence of an infinitely holy God. This "ha ha, no big deal" approach to sin of any kind won't change the fact one whit that even the smallest sin is an infinite distance from infinite holiness. Who would worship such a God? Who would worship a god that was anything less than 100% holy? What was up with these yaled anyway? Finally, to tie the two points together: What were these kids up to in the first place? Callahan derisively notes Gleason Archer's explanation that this was a group akin to a modern street gang, saying, "Presumably the gangs of Elisha's day would have whipped by in hot chariots discharging arrows." [x] There is, he says, "nothing in the actual story to justify" Archer's explanation. Really? Archer knows quite a bit more about the social context of this story than Callahan does, and is indeed on the mark, although he could have done with more explanation. Chariots and arrows? No - but let's try things like robbery and banditry (remember the Good Samaritan story?) and perhaps theft of animals from farmsteads -- no mere prank, the latter, in this day and age, but a very serious offense that could lead to the starvation of a family of innocents. The key here is the concept of corporate survival: In this day and age, every family member was required to make a contribution in order to help the family survive - for in this day, there were no social services, no welfare checks, no supermarkets to stock up from in case your pantry was raided. The question then becomes, why were these yaled banded together in such large numbers, and then, why were they not at home contributing to the corporate survival of their own families? To throw the analogy back in Callahan's teeth, is he suggesting that these were just a glee club of Beaver Cleavers walking casually back from school and having a little fun at Elisha's expense? Hardly so. That they were banded together in such large numbers suggests rather that they were indeed as Archer tells us - a gang of rovers who survived on their own, probably by robbing others of their lives and property (they certainly did not own their own farms or go hunting for game. For more useful points, see Glenn Miller's item on this subject.) Oops. Not exactly vandals with spray paint cans, were they? Brooks really doesn't care if families and their children starved because of these hooligans, I guess. Maybe he'd want to join up and spread the hunger and pain. "blatant lie" Um, yeah. Blatant inability to read, more like. The link is to a Google forum letter by one Tim Taylor, on the subject of the Pope Leo quote, with the following allegations, which I will just interrupt to correct: "I honestly don't know whether the information at 'Holding's" website is accurate on this issue or not but if I were a Christian I would be cautious about using information from tektonics.org. [Which is why he's not a Christian, and still a Skeptic.] First, Holding is not his real name. His real name is XXXXX XXXXXXX. [Yeah, that sure affects the info on the site, huh! If Brooks' name were really Ooflebert Blebberskeit, his entire site would be disproved. Fortunately for him, his real name is actually "Fluffy". By the way, Brooks and Timmy, Acharya doesn't use her real name either, as Robert Price dutifully pointed out. So that means her stuff is worthless, right? And Mr. Nous Ministries never stepped out of Anonymous. So that means his stuff was junk too, right? What? I didn't hear that, can you speak up?] His website is a place where he quotes skeptics selectively and out of context. [Standard yelp from the parrot's beak; of course not one example, all he did was take McTill's Mighty Word for it, and that's good enuff. On the other hand, these guys are so insensate that they think omitting bombast is the same as omitting a good argument. "You can't edit out that burp! It was his best point!"] He also has a writing style where he frequently provides references consisting of titles, authors, and page numbers and then concludes that such arguments "settle" the issue at hand (see his parousia article for a fine example.) [Heck, yeah. And don't ask little Timmy to go down to the library and do any actual bootwork against the real scholars proving them wrong. Nuh uh. Translation: I provide cites from scholars who know their business, who get their doctorates in the field, and do the actual legwork while Skeppies like Timmy and McTill are scraping the fungus from under their toenails and using extra-drippy ice cream as a proof against God's omnibenevolence.] He continually rails against books that are critical of Christianity claiming that many of them are not written by scholars, yet he never tells his own readers that he is no scholar himself, but is in fact a prison librarian. [Many of them are NOT written by scholars (i.e., relevant scholars); they are written by kidney specialists or news broadcasters or some other non-related profession. I mentioned frequently that I was a librarian; where has Timmy been all this time? And what paranoia led Timmy to thereby conclude implicitly and in reverse that I claimed to be a scholar by profession? Where was Timmy? Collecting bogus quotes by Pope Leo, no doubt.] Further, I caught him in a blatant lie a couple of years ago on the "created/had created" issue in Genesis 2. His initial article claimed the "only version I am aware of that renders it as 'created' is the KJV." [Timmy definitely has a little memory problem; we'll relate that after we relate his full charge.] After a Christian on Till's list forwarded rebuttals back to [Holding], he rewrote his article and included language that indicated that he had been aware of other versions at the time he wrote his first article. [To put it mildly, horse hockey. I never wrote anything about the word "created" being rendered any way, and it wasn't in relation to the KJV. Here is what Timmy is muddled over: G1 says that animals were created before man; G2 says that man came first, there was a need to designate a helpmeet, then animals were created for the first time...or does it? For quite some time now the classical solution to this problem has been to do what the NIV (but no other version that I know of) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so: Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. So it was "formed" and not "created"; it was the NIV, not the KJV; and while that essay was updated in response to some McTill hacks who had apparently found a Hebrew grammar on the floor, and despite Timmy's implication, the version I was "only aware of" was something that favored the position I took, not something against it, and I said zip about other versions. Timmy has his head in the peanut bag and needs to come up for air.] Finally, he refuses to debate Farrell Till in an open forum where all comments written by both sides can be seen. [They can also be seen by any doofus with a search engine and a working intellect. Timmy has one of the two. Guess which it is. Hint: he wrote this message on a Google forum! Maybe here's what Timmy really means: "Holding doesn't give links and Christians are too dumb to find the responses. We'll never get to change their mind that way, but once they see our full arguments, they'll be convinced!" What conceit!] The one written debate he did have with Till can be viewed at inifidels.org and if you read any of it you will see the pattern of debate I note above. He repeatedly provides a long list of authors and page numbers as if such tactics demonstrate the reasoning behind the scholarship. [You will see, as linked above, McTill getting his tuckus whupped because he can't handle the scholarship cites either, his best answer being, "That was published in Grand Rapids!" Keep in mind, folks, these are the people who think that I misquote and selectively edit people. Given Timmy's problem with neo-Alzheimer's, I wouldn't be sure to take their word for it.] As a side note, Brooks recently added a link to a message by little Stevie Carr claiming I "lied" about brackets erasing a URL from the browser. Think so? Does anyone see the URL after this sentence? No? Hit "View" on your browser, then "Source". Get the code on your word processor and then do a word search for this sentence. I copied the URLs right from the TSR website, which have pointed brackets around them just like those. And these guys do HTML editing on their own? Finally, speaking of blatant lies, Brooks openly admits that he subscribes to my newsletter, and he does so under false pretenses, not admitting who he is. Now isn't that a little act of cowardice? [Holding]'s childish parody of a Secular Web article "Childish" is the word Skeppies use to mean, "Ouch. My ox was gored!" I still have this one online and it's a reflection of the tactics of C. Farris McTill to a T. Another silly parody Ouch. Ox #2 goes down. I think I have this one online, but if not, click or else ask me for a copy. It's funny. [Holding] accepts the "Josephus" quotes Despite the overwhelming evidence against the legitimacy of statements about Jesus attributed to the historian Josephus, [Holding] concludes the quotes are genuine. Yeah...most of it. So does Jeff Lowder. So do Josephan scholars -- of whom, Earl Dodododherty, isn't one. Your point, Brooks? Wanna send Jeff a bouquet of laughs to sniff? Neither Earl nor Brooks provides any actual answer to the data and arguments I collect from the Josephans; Brooks has nothing to say but to spin-describe it as "overwhelming evidence." It's nada evidence, folks. It's Doherty imagining that "brother of Jesus" is a religious term (as in, "brethren"), in spite of no evidence for the term ever being used that way in any other writing of the period. It's Earl hacking out any excuse or explanation he can think of to keep his thesis of the Christ-myth from poofing. Brooks a.k.a. Linus hides under people like this to feel safe, while sucking his thumb and holding that stupid blanket. Released from the Holding Cell [Holding] critisizes this guy, but-surprise, surprise-does not actually link to the guy's site. Yeah, and we know how hard it is for someone like Brooks to figure out to put "Cygnus' Study" into a search engine. He keeps forgetting how to spell it. "Study", not "Cygnus". This guy replies to [Holding]'s criticisms, and among other things, has this to say: "Once he got back to his site, the apologetics began. He did what all 'good' apologists do; he attacked, he belittled, he used ad hominem arguments, he ignored the issue at hand, and he was largely dishonest." Yeah. Sam does that, too, and like me, he enjoys it, and unlike Brooks, he doesn't take himself too seriously. You should see him in action on his forum. You'd think everyone else's first name was Moron or Retard. I'll give Sam some leeway: We had some fun insult exchanges, and then he sorta levelled out and admitted, "Hey, I gotta admit, I do like your sense of humor. Any chance you'll switch sides?" I levelled out too and told him, no thanks. I also owe Sam a debt of thanks for inspiring a certain person to write me, who in turn got me interested in Mormonism, which led to my writing a book which has gotten some top-notch comments from leading apologists. So, thanks, J. J., and thanks, Sam. You're a thin cut above the rest of the Skeptical Goon Squad. But he still hasn't answered what I have said in reply here. A response to [Holding] from Earl Doherty From the response: "I have been known to employ touches of sarcasm myself, and I can be provocative, but I have always been careful to maintain a basic level of civility. Mr. Holding knows little of this concept, which is a common characteristic of the zealot, who regards dissenters as the incarnation of the devil." Oh, yeah, I can just see Doherty on a can of Spam with red tights. Like I said at the end of one of my articles on Doherty, "As for those who see Doherty's web site as a product of Satan - knock it off, folks. Satan wouldn't ruin his reputation by being associated with this sort of material." Ask Boss Tweed how civil Thomas Nast was when you have a chance. And be sure and see Doherty getting his rear kicked here. Another response from Earl Doherty From the reply: "Absolutely no reason . . . superfluous data . . . out of context. Mr. Holding is clearly in a state of denial, one which has led him and many others to make the most untenable claims and rationalizations about the great void on the Gospel Jesus in the early Christian record." Denial is a river, not a state, sorry. That's really all Earl can say, since he has no actual answers to offer except a harrumph. I've now issued a coup de grace to his theory about "silence" being problematic in the Epistles by confirmation of my "they already knew" argument -- verified by the "high context" social-anthropological setting of the New Testament world. Too bad, Earl. Nous Article Critique of [Holding]'s extremely humorous article on the Genesis creation stories. [Holding] has since changed his article in reponse to this critique. This one deserves two hundred laugh icons, because Brooks basically suckered himself into driving this pond frog Nousie Boy out of business. Shall we relate? Let's. We'll do it in the text of the letters below. Meanwhile here's a nice portrait of Brooks after our correspondence: I believe the following quotes illuminate the motivations of people like [Holding]: "A major function of fundamentalist religion is to bolster deeply insecure and fearful people. This is done by justifying a way of life with all of its defining prejudices. It thereby provides an appropriate and legitimate outlet for one's anger. The authority of an inerrant Bible that can be readily quoted to buttress this point of view becomes an essential ingredient to such a life. When that Bible is challenged, or relativized, the resulting anger proves the point categorically." Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism, (San Fransisco: Harper Collins, 1991), p. 5. Lovely. Spong offers some of the most dismal scholarship outside kindergarten; his work has never appeared in a peer-reviewed journal (which is why he sticks with popular presses like Harper; no peer-reviewed journal would ever accept his garbage). That's why he's left to resort to amateur psychoanalysis and reading emotive intent into his opposition. Angry? Heck, yeah. You can see a pic of someone as angry as I am, right up at the top. The guy with the nose. We'd like to ask Spong (see some items on his lackluster scholarship here) and Brooks how one tells the difference, especially having not met a person, between "anger" and "laughing so hard as to split a gut, and enjoying pointing out the sorrowful deficiences of Skeptical arguments." Meanwhile get a kick out of the fact that the liberal churches Spong is championing are mainly hosting sermons for spiders. "To say that atheism is credible is to suggest that the atheist may be right; to say that the atheist may be right is to suggest that the Christian may be wrong; to say that the Christian may be wrong is suggest that faith may be an unreliable guide to knowledge; to say that faith may be an unreliable guide to knowledge is to suggest that each and even tenet of Christianity should be reexamined in the light of reason-and from here all hell breaks loose as the process of deconversion dashes headlong to its logical destination." "When reason is liberated from the shackles of faith it will inevitably claim sovereignty, the right of critical jurisdiction, over every sphere of knowledge. This inner logic of ideas (for which we have many historical examples) is one reason why so many theologians have found it necessary to dismiss the case for atheism as unworthy of serous consideration. To move from the position that atheism is unreasonable to the position that it is credible is a bigger step than the step from credible to justification-for it may require the Christian to question God himself by subjecting his divine revelation to critical analysis. Thus has the slander of atheism and atheists played a major role throughout the history of Christian propaganda." George H. Smith, Why Atheism [Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2000] p. 17-18. Wheee heee heee! Brooks' hero, Georgie Porgie Smith. The two paragraphs above contain no less than one major error (the definition of "faith") which renders the whole thing an exercise in pointless futility. As I noted here Smith is yet another of those blunderbuss atheists who has no conception of the Bible as anything but what they read it to be in plain English. Needless to say, it's telling enough that Brooks prefers these "psychoanalysis" gotcha quotes from Spong and Smith to anything debating an actual fact. We'll see why, very shortly.

Highlights

This discussion is lengthy so I have highlighted what I feel are some of the more interesting comments and statements. Enjoy! What Brooks means is, "This discussion got me so frustrated that I have decided to make pre-emptive comments in an obvious and blatant attempt to bias any reader in advance." Trubee is as transparent as dog drool in his methodology, but not quite as slippery.

• [Holding] believes that all Jews deserve to suffer in hell for eternity, and uses an example which, intentional or not, equates all Jews with mass murderers. Go here. The theological sophistication here is on the level of Caveman Thag, as may be expected. I would point the reader to Part 2 of Miller's top-flight piece which gives Skeppies like Brooks headaches and leaves them running and screaming about having cooties. The suffering is equitable, and not Dante-esque; Skeppies have no reply to this other than, "Well that's not what other Christians have said!" Yeah, so? Like your mother asked you, if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it, too? (I think Brooks DID, actually. I think he was the first to jump and everyone else went to their mothers afterwards to ask permission to follow.) What I did, actually, was expose Brooks' blatant attempt at guilt manipulation. Try this logic on for size: A Holocaust survivor turns pedophile/murderer and victimizes 500 children. He is shown to be mentally stable and in control of his faculties. Brooks' logic is that since he suffered in the Holocaust, he doesn't get punished. Make sense? Justice and a super-size order of fries, please!

• In answer to a question, [Holding] cheerfully admits that if he lived in biblical times, he would hurl stones at unmarried, pregnant girls until they were pulverized into bloody piles of protoplasm. Go here for the my question, and scroll down for his response. Brooks knows how cheerful I was, see? He can read minds. Yes, though, I would exact the punishment -- as I point out to Brooks, this was an age when waving off such irresponsible behavior could have meant the collapse of a society and death and starvation for hundreds or thousands of people. The penalties were a necessary part of societal survival at a crucial stage. Selfish individualists like Brooks have no answer to this other than the cheap, shame-faced tactic of describing the punishment in "outrage" terms. Such "spin" is always possible, of course, as I point out, but it doesn't at all change the question, "Is the punishment just and necessary?" Fine, Brooks: So you would let such behavior pass, and by that example, allow the behavior to continue and permit thousands of innocent persons to starve until they were gaunt, matchstick-thin, hunger-crazed and malnourished. Selfish pig.

• [Holding], a college-educated, grown adult, believes Genesis is historically, scientifically, literally true. In fact, at the time of this discussion, he provided a link to a "feasibility study" of Noah's Ark by an author who speculated that Noah potty-trained lions, elephants and polar bears. Go here ([Holding] is apparently a YEC as well) And as I asked Brooks -- to address the one specific he gives here, lacking the ability, apparently, to actually argue the point beyond "Duh, isn't it obvious?" -- animals can't be trained to do these things? Hello? No answer yet, though. I guess they missed that question while Brooks was educating himself watching Romper Room. Yes, note the manipulative polemic, which is the best this crowd can do when frustrated.

• He proudly admits that, as an ancient Hebrew holy warrior, he would butcher mothers and the babies in their arms. He jokes about this. Go here The "joke" was actually on Brooks, who by this time was so steamed that he couldn't manipulate me that all that remained was to have fun at his expense. Let's remind Brooks, the man living in A/C and gnawing at his roast beef sandwich, that killing the mothers and babies was the most humane solution in this era. Glenn Miller has explained that well here in a way that makes Skeptics foam at the mouth and offer the solid answer, "How barbaric!" As barbaric as euthanasia...wonder if Brooks supports that, hmmm?

• Without providing direct evidence, he insists that the ancient Hebrews stoned men to death for not being virgins on their wedding nights, and claims, without providing any evidence whatsoever, that the status of their virginity was determined by the physical appearance of babies. In other words, [Holding] asserts that men were linked to babies by the babies' appearance and that these men were stoned to death on this basis. Go here. "Direct evidence" here meaning, "I need for you to bring an ancient Hebrew forward in time to take a lie detector test." Brooks just couldn't grasp the idea that the ancients didn't simply walk around with copies of their laws, and when someone (they thought) broke one, they looked it up and followed the instructions, no trial, no investigation; he could not grasp that these law codes were didactic; and he's somehow mixing the "status of their virginity" issue with the "appearance of babies" issue. Rather, Brooks bigotedly insists that these "google-eyed pinheads" had no sense or ability to look into things. Case closed. The man in the white sheet has spoken.

• He insists that the "God"-given law requiring girls to marry the men who raped them was a wonderful thing. Go here. Brooks pretends that the social world of the ANE was the same as it is today. As I note, and to which Brookee had no answer other than "Huh!", this was a solution that the girls would want -- in fact, demand. Thus:

• To bolster the claim above, [Holding] asserts that he would find it "immensly satisfying" to marry and spend the rest of his life with a rapist psychopath who raped him. Go here. Not quite as Brooks spins it, since the "marriage" involves the rapist psychopath essentially supporting you the rest of your life as your family and the village elders hover over him, ready to beat him to a pulp. Brooks never does answer my question about which side of Patrick Henry's dictum he sided with. Give me liberty or give me death? His answer: "Give me the remote. Give me my potato chips."

Anyways, from here on my responses/comments will be in purple. Enjoy.

first e-mail to apologist

Subj: George Smith:Atheism-the case against God
Date: 6/30/99 10:55:20 PM EST
From: BBu84
To: jpholding@integrityonline15.com

Of course, my address is now jphold@earthlink.net

Mr. Holding,

You have a very impressive website. Quite large.

Notice that this was the same guy who criticized me for supposedly bragging about the lengths of the responses I make. How things change when it's your ox being gored!

I was referred to your site by someone who visited my page. I have not gone through your entire site, but I did not see a critique of George Smith's "Atheism: The Case Against God" This is a an excellent book and lays out the case against Christianity very clearly. Is a critique of this work on your site, and if not, are you planning to make one?

By the way, if you want to visit my site, it is located at:

http://members.aol.com/bbu84/biblicalstupidity/home.htm

Thanks for your time and have a nice day.

Brooks T

I did visit Brooks' site fairly quickly, and it wasn't hard to see how he operated. This "polite act" was nothing but a manipulative smokescreen. It's Brooks' way of making you feel guilty, so he thinks. Too bad. I saw through it like a laser beam through butter. My response tactic was to shatter that candy-coat shell and make the real Brooks show his hand. And it worked.

second e-mail to apologist

Subj: a stumper question
Date: 7/1/99 10:54:53 PM EST
From: BBu84
To: jpholding@integrityonline15.com

Mr. JPHolding,

According to Christian theology, anyone and everyone who is not a Christian deserves to be and will be tortured for eternity. This includes all the Jews who suffered and died during the Holocaust.

My question is this: does your god or does your god not torture all the Jews who suffered and died in the Holocaust?

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Brooks T

As noted above, Miller answers this bit about "torture" and my response will follow that line, along with my point about how suffering in life does not mitigate sins. But if you disagree, and want to rape a baby, go out and have someone punch you a few hundred times. Then you'll be able to get away with it scot-free.

first apologist response

Subj: Re: George Smith: Atheism-the case against God
Date: 7/4/99 7:21:01 AM EST
From: jpholding@integrityonline15.com
To: BBu84@aol.com

Greetings, JP Holding here -- sorry it's taken a while to answer, but I only answer mail twice a week and you sent your first message a few hours after my last session. At any rate --

"Atheism: The Case Against God" This is a an excellent book and lays out the case against Christianity very clearly. Is a critique of this work on your site, and if not, are you planning to make one?

None yet -- since my material tends to be request-driven, I usually only write about books when people ask me to. I suppose your inquiry counts as a request, so I've ordered it via interlibrary loan, where hopefully it will fall on the positive side of my local library's 95% ILL success rate.

I gather that Smith is mostly concerned with the "existence of God" debate. I don't enter that arena much because the field is far too crowded as it is, so if that's his main concern, don't expect me to say much of anything about it. A book review may be all I'll do.

As noted above, I did get Smith's book and wrote a piece on it.

Concerning item #2 ---

According to Christian theology, anyone and everyone who is not a Christian deserves to be and will be tortured for eternity. This includes all the Jews who suffered and died during the Holocaust. My question is this: does your god or does your god not torture all the Jews who suffered and died in the Holocaust?

Well, let's see. My guess is I'm supposed to do one of two things here: 1) Fudge and fumble and compromise by saying "no", because I'm supposed to be ashamed of a God who condemns to hell anyone who went through something so awful on earth; 2) Say "yes" and thereby justify your view of the Biblical God as a cruel and vicious beast who unfairly sends to Hell anyone who went through something so awful on earth. I'll answer closer to #2, although "torture" implies a sense of direct activity where Christian theology actually avers that Hell is esentially a person's own choice (so that God's role in "sending" someone there is more passive rather than active). It also seems to assume a Dante-esque vision of eternal torment; I doubt if things in Hell are that variable and creative.

The "question" you put forth rates well as a psychological manipulation, but I don't fall for that kind of thing. The modern notion that some previous experience ought to mitigate a penalty for a crime ("Your honor, although my client did murder 32 people, he deserves to get out of the death penalty because his father kicked him as a child.") is an irrational play on the emotions. Were the Jews who suffered and died in the Holocaust not sinners? Did they have a perfect life before and during the Holocaust? No more so than anyone else, unless you have a list of them you can show me who didn't sin. The question is really no different if you substitute "Jews/Holocaust" for "peasants/invasion of the Visigoths", "unwilling Aztec sacrificial victims/Aztec sacrifices", or "Kosovars/Serbian invasion".

If you have sincere questions for me, or if you just threw this out because others do, fine -- I'll be glad to exchange thoughts with you. But don't think that you're just dealing with an everyday doof-Christian who attends church and sits there with a hypnotic gaze swallowing sermons whole. I've had my bouts with the arguments by the likes of Barker, Paine, etc. and they don't impress me. Knowledge isn't picked up just by shuffling through the pages of a few books down at the Seven-Eleven.

Regards,

XXXXX aka JPH

Brooks got his manipulation game headed off at the pass; but he'll still play it a bit, we'll see, by dodging most of what I say.

third e-mail to apologist

Subj: follow-up from BBu84@aol.com
Date: 7/15/99 1:09:05 AM EST
From: BBu84
To: jpholding@integrityonline15.com

July 14

Dear Mr. Holding,

I wrote a few weeks back concerning a book called "Atheism: The Case Against God" and I also asked you a question regarding the Christian hell. You replied to both my questions, for which I thank you. I will check back on your site to see when you review the George Smith book. I was not satisfied by your answer to my question about the Christian hell, however. The question was regarding the torture of unbelievers in the Christian hell. Note how Brooks fudges already -- I already said "torture" was the wrong word to use [re Dante] and he just ignored that, and uses this ploy as he continues to "argue" this point -- never actually addressing it until after he was done with this part of the manipulation. I asked if the Christian god tortured the victims of the Holocaust in the Christian hell, and you replied that the Christian god does not actively send people there and torture them but that it is a person's choice to go there. I have problems with both parts of your response. To begin with, I have never met anyone who would chose to go to a place where they would be tortured for eternity. Have you met anyone like this? Can you imagine anyone "choosing" to be tortured for eternity? I can't, but maybe you have a more active imagination than me.

As far as your god not actively torturing people, well, that is just semantics. According to Christian theology, the Christian god created Hell and is all-powerful: a person would not go to the Christian hell unless it was the wish and desire of the Christian god. If the Christian god thought it was wrong for a person to end up in hell, all this god would have to do is snap its fingers and, presto, that person would be elsewhere. It is meaningless to talk of an omnipotent god not "actively" sending people to a hell it created.

You also try to say that what happens to people in the Christian hell does not qualify as eternal torture. However, the torments of Hell have been a part of Christian theology for the last 19 centuries. The answer to which is, Who cares? This note well comes from a "freethinker" who would tell us not to simply accept authority blindly. But I'm supposed to, anyway! This is just a lazy way to avoid answering the data at hand. Was it Augustine who mused that one of the main pleasures of Heaven would come from observing the torments of unbelievers in Hell? If he did, again, so what? I can ring up quotes from Stalin, Mao, and countless others about the joys of atheistic communism. Is Brooks compelled to endorse them? In any case, your claim flies directly in the face of Jesus' own words. He describes the Christian hell as a place where "their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched," (Mark 9:48), where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."(Matt. 25:30). Jesus warns people that "If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned." And there is, of course, Jesus' colorful parable of the suffering man in Hell begging to have his thirst quenched. See of course Miller's item on this, where each of these passages is exegeted in their context. Presumably Brooks also takes it 100% literally such typical expressions of Oriental imprecation as "May God burn the bones of your fathers". Because of all this, I am a little perplexed as to why you would think that the Christian hell is not a place of torment and pain. Does the Christian devil just spend his time throwing ice cream parties? Notice as well here how Brooks mixes and switches between the words "torture" and "torment" as though they are fully synonymous. They're not.

You made an interesting foray into a strange form of "blame the victim" argumentation by averring that anyone who goes to hell deserves to go there because they are sinners. Since I am not a Christian, I am a little fuzzy on the meaning of the terms "sin" and "sinners," though, obviously from your perspective, the crime of sinning deserves eternal torture. A little fuzzy? No, this is Brookee playing "dumb" as a manipulation. He knows what it means. I'm sure he'd have no trouble figuring out when someone "sinned" against him, by, i.e., beating him up and taking his wallet. Whatever sinning is, it must surely be more evil than eternally torturing people since eternally torturing people is deemed the appropriate punishment for sinning by an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful god. I surely can't imagine what would be more evil than eternally barbecuing someone, but again, maybe you can enlighten me. Yep, back to that begged question about "torture" which he still can't answer, being a pedantic literalist and all.

You made this point about sinning by using an interesting metaphor:

JP Holding: The "question" you put forth rates well as a psychological manipulation, but I don't fall for that kind of thing. The modern notion that some previous experience ought to mitigate a penalty for a crime ("Your honor, although my client did murder 32 people, he deserves to get out of the death penalty because his father kicked him as a child.")

With this metaphor, you were implying that all 6 million Jews who suffered in the Holocaust were each guilty of committing something as evil as murdering 32 people apiece and thus richly deserve their fate of being sent to the Christian hell. Again, please enlighten me: what "crime" did these people commit such that they deserve eternal, infinite punishment? I wasn't "implying" diddly-squat. Brooks is either metaphorically impaired, or else playing dumb as usual to score brownie points. Not a word was said about the levels of evil being equal. What was equated was the general principle Brookee's argument implies: "If you suffer, that mitigates any punishment for sin. You get free sympathy points." The likely reason Brooks played dumb here is because he knew he couldn't answer the actual argument.

Let's do a brief review, shall we? In other words, let me repeat the same thing over again, as a substitute for actual argument. Skeppies cry about me "editing" their arguments; they should keep themselves quiet, because they are living rants in need of an editor. Repetition is their primary argumentative weapon. They think it helps even after the argument has been soundly refuted.

• First you said that people choose to go to hell, but did not describe anyone who would chose to suffer and weep and gnash their teeth for an eternity. Mixing the begged question (torture) with the assumed premise (it doesn't reflect a choice). More on this as we proceed.

• Then you said that your god did not actively send people to hell. That is nonsense. It is contradicted by the qualities attributed to the Christian god by the Bible. Which Brooks didn't actually name. Oops. Weren't two of those qualities "justice" and "mercy"?

• Then you said that hell is not a place of eternal torment, which is clearly contradicted by the Bible and Christian theology. And clearly believed to be thus contradicted by contextually uneducated cornballs like Brookee, who anyway is still using "torment" and "torture" as synonyms. Keep this in mind.

• Then you said that those people who go to hell deserve it, which begs the question of what these people did to deserve eternal torture. See? Mix and match. Brooks also begs off by assuming it isn't deserved, though. Where's his meter showing what sin does or does not deserve?

Could you please clarify you responses for me? Help me to understand your belief system, because so far it is not making any sense to me. Playing dumb is Brookee's best weapon in the arsenal. It's a way of pretending that the argument wasn't coherent, just a rah-rah in context. As noted, I was on my way to cracking this candy-coat shell; already the cracks were beginning to show by the next letter.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Brooks T

second apologist response

Subj: Re: follow-up from BBu84@aol.com
Date: 7/18/99 8:25:23 AM EST
From: jpholding@integrityonline15.com
To: BBu84@aol.com

G'day,

your site to see when you review the George Smith book. I was not satisfied by your answer to my question about the Christian hell, however.

I rather wonder whether your "satisfaction" is a goal that can be achieved on this subject. I will respond to your query at any rate, but may I ask if there are any circumstances under which you would accept that eternal punishment is justified? Or is this a dead steed that I will be beating?

met anyone who would chose to go to a place where they would be tortured for eternity. Have you met anyone like this? Can you imagine anyone "choosing" to be tortured for eternity?

Perhaps you have not understood my point; notice that I said "essentially" people choose hell. I do not imagine people "choosing" hell in the sense that they open one of two doors, and seeing what is behind each door, state their preference. I see the choice being made first in the very actions of living, i.e., in that rebellion against God is chosen; therefore, the end result is that they end up where those who have rejected God belong. [Of course this inevitably involves the question of whether Christian faith is the "correct" choice; for the sake of further discussion (without tangents) we must assume that it is.] Of course you will reply that no one would choose to act in such a way as to obtain that fate; but faced with the choice, what is it that people do? They either a) accept it as true and thereby avoid it; b) reject it as false -- for what reason? Christian theology assumes that it is because of the sinful nature that people choose b). It may well be so, and I see no reason to doubt that it is so, but nor do I see it as provable from a scientific or logical perspective. Intent of mind/heart is hardly the sort of thing that can be put in a test tube. I am content to argue that a severe shortage in critcial thinking skills is a primary cause of poor choice-making...and at least can prove it to a goodly extent where certain individuals I have encountered are concerned.

According to Christian theology, the Christian god created Hell and is all-powerful:

I have addressed this matter in an essay at http://www.integrityonline15.com/JPH_DTW01_VV.html, but for convenience will summarize here. You speak of God "snapping His fingers" and getting people out of Hell. Christian theology also avers that God cannot change His nature so that sin/sinners can remain in His presence. This has nothing to do with being "all-powerful". It has to do with being holy, with being unchanging and immutable, and being non-contradictory.

You also speak of sending them "elsewhere". By definition there would be no "elsewhere" -- I see we're getting to this, so I'll hold off a moment.

You also try to say that what happens to people in the Christian hell does not qualify as eternal torture.

No, what I said was that the word "torture" "seems to assume a Dante-esque vision of eternal torment; I doubt if things in Hell are that variable and creative." Beyond that, if you have studied the literature of the period, as I have, you would realize (unlike Augustine and Dante) that the descriptions given are metaphorical -- how else could hell be a place of fire, but also a place of darkness? Is the fire black?

I can't recall whether Glenn's "gutripper" article was online at this time or not. It may not have been, for I would ordinarily have directed Brooks to it right away. It probably would have scared him off a lot sooner.

I would ask you to read an item of mine at http://www.integrityonline15.com/JPH_BOC.html. It is not all relevant, but pay particular attention to the word "apollumi" and its meaning. This does not eliminate torment and pain, incidentally; I imagine the actual nature of hell -- a place where God's presence is absent (2 Thess. 1:9) -- is far worse than the metaphors can capture.

hell is not a place of torment and pain. Does the Christian devil just spend his time throwing ice cream parties?

He tried it once, but the ice cream melted. These days they have weenie roasts. ;-)

You made an interesting foray into a strange form of "blame the victim" argumentation by averring that anyone who goes to hell deserves to go there because they are sinners. Since I am not a Christian, I am a little fuzzy on the meaning of the terms "sin" and "sinners,"

The three words used most often in the NT are:

266. hamartia, ham-ar'-tee'-ah; from G264; sin (prop. abstr.):--offence, sin (-ful).

4624. skandalizo, skan-dal-id'-zo ("scandalize"); from G4625; to entrap, i.e. trip up (fig. stumble [trans.] or entice to sin, apostasy or displeasure):--(make to) offend.

3900. paraptoma, par-ap'-to-mah; from G3895; a side-slip (lapse or deviation), i.e. (unintentional) error or (wilful) transgression:--fall, fault, offence, sin, trespass.

Giving Brooks the Greek terms was probably like asking Thundarr the Barbarian to take an art appreciation class.

good, all-knowing, all-powerful god. I surely can't imagine what would be more evil than eternally barbecuing someone, but again, maybe you can enlighten me.

I think I have made it clear. The "eternal BBQ" is the result of willful rebellion against God. It is what people choose: They do not want to live with God while on earth, and God, consistent with His nature, will not force them to be with Him afterwards; nor can they endure His presence unless their sin is paid for, and because any sin, no matter how small, is an infinite offense against an infinitely holy God (Anselm first noted this, I believe), it requires an infinite payment of some sort -- hence Christian theology's argument that Christ's sacrifice pays for sin. Hell remains the only place that will hold those who reject the payment.

Could you please clarify you responses for me? Help me to understand your belief system, because so far it is not making any sense to me.

I perceive that by "making sense" you mean more along the lines of "I find it distasteful, offensive," etc. rather than "I don't understand the process." But I have answered as though it were the latter rather than the former.

Regards,

JPH

Now notice how quickly -- right away -- Brooks throws in a subject change -- i.e., OT "atrocities" and slavery. This was a sign that the shell was cracking and that he couldn't handle the argument then being pursued. When Skeppies pile on, they are getting frustrated. Keep it in mind.

fourth e-mail to apologist (months later-3/00)

From: BBu84
To: jpholding@integrityonline15.com

Mr. Holding,

Could you please explain something to me? The Christian god is called the source of morality and goodness by Christians, and yet this god is responsible for much murder and suffering in the Old Testament. He murders children, he supports slavery and he continually orders the massacre of men, women and children in the Old Testament. In the new Testament, of course, this god is said to torture people for eternity for their opinions. There is one verse in particular which I have a great deal of trouble understanding, in light of Christians' continual claim that their god exemplifies moral perfection. Deuteronomy 20:22 contains an explicit order directly from the Christian god which reads as follows:

"But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you."

A few questions regarding this quotation. Why is this viriginity law directed at females and not at men as well? How was the girls' virginity determined by the men of the village? The quote mentions "tokens of virginity"-what does this refer to? What God-ordained failsafe investigative method was used to insure that true virgins were not inadvertantly stoned to death by the men of the village? Would it be morally right to stone girls to death for not being virgins on their wedding nights in the first place? Which is the worse crime, not being a virgin (or not appearing to be a virgin) or ganging up on a girl and pitching rocks at her until she was a splintered, bleeding pile of pulverized protoplasm?

Finally, do you think the Christian god smiled as these ancient men pelted helpless young women with rocks on his command?

Thanks for your help in answering these deeply intellectual questions.

Brooks T

third apologist response

Subj: Re: a question - from JP Holding
Date: 3/7/00 7:37:58 PM EST
From: jpholding@integrityonline15.com
To: BBu84@aol.com

Ah -- you again. You haven't changed, have you? Have you really gotten interested in an answer yet, or is this just another attempt to annoy me? It looks very much like the latter, but you amuse me, so I'll treat it seriously for a while.

Tortured for their opinions, eh? That's an interesting way to refer to sins...merely opinions, are they? Yeesh -- and people like you wonder why God doesn't interfere when the Holocaust victims cry out? Little wonder -- you want God's help when bad things happen, but when it comes to following a few simple standards He lays down, it's: "What? Get out of my face -- we don't need you telling us what to do." You want a senile Grampa who pats you on the head; why aren't you happy when He gives you that?

To business. Deut. 20:22. I have some social background data for you, although I seriously doubt that it would interest you, or that you inquired actually having the desire to know...or that you won't just smugly and anachronistically assume your personal values to be superior to those of a bunch of backwards, bone-in-the-nose tribesmen...but just in case you are sincere...

A few questions regarding this quotation. Why is this viriginity law directed at females and not at men as well?

That it is directed at females does not exclude men at all. Ancient law codes were didactic in nature; they were meant to present case law, not an exhaustive remedy for all situations...no more so do all the laws that begin "If a man..." mean that a woman could get away with whatever it was. (Thus a judge could use the case law Deut. 22:22 to convict a man who had violated a willing virgin.)

I repeated this about 500 times, and Brooks never did answer. A proper answer would be: "No, the law codes were not didactic, because..." Fat chance. All Brookee could muster was, "Nuh uh! They was too stupid, ptui!"

How was the girls' virginity determined by the men of the village? The quote mentions "tokens of virginity"-what does this refer to?

There are two ideas offered:

1) It refers to menstrual blood -- proving the woman was not pregnant (and therefore did not have sex) before marriage.

2) It refers to blood drawn after the initial act of intercourse -- this is a practice still done (quite proudly, and with no reservations by anyone, may I add) in some Near Eastern countries today.

What God-ordained failsafe investigative method was used to insure that true virgins were not inadvertantly stoned to death by the men of the village?

As noted, ancient law codes were didactic -- ancient judges made the decision based on evidence at hand; the laws were exemplars. Investigative methods would be used just as they are used today for any crime. (You can debate standards of evidence and competence of investigation, of course...but that is a human matter.)

Would it be morally right to stone girls to death for not being virgins on their wedding nights in the first place?

In the context of the Ancient Near East, where the family structure was essential for personal survival, I would say that it was quite right to stone someone to death who put the survival of the family and community at risk by their foolish behavior.

not being a virgin (or not appearing to be a virgin) or ganging up on a girl and pitching rocks at her until she was a splintered, bleeding pile of pulverized protoplasm?

This is rational argument? I favor the death penalty: That you may say that the electric chair is an instance of men forcibly tying a man to a wooden seat with cutting leather straps and zapping him until he is a quivering, burning, sizzling chunk of flesh may stir the emotions of those whose maturity as on a kindergarten level, but it hardly passes as a rational argument against the implementation of the supreme penalty. Suffering is temporal. Results are eternal. Please grow up before you write to me again.

Finally, do you think the Christian god smiled as these ancient men pelted helpless young women with rocks on his command?

No; most likely He strummed a tune from the Rolling Stones on his harp. Maybe He played "Rock of Ages." A stupid question deserves a stupid answer.

Thanks for your help in answering these deeply intellectual questions.

Snort, snort, guffaw....

- JP

fifth e-mail to apologist

Subj: corrected-stoning of non-virgin girls e-mail
Date: 3/19/00 9:25:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: BBu84
To: jpholding@integrityonline15.com

Mr. Holding,

Thank you for your response to my last e-mail regarding the stoning to death of Israelite females who are not thought to be virgins when they are married.

In the first part of your response you wrote:

"Tortured for their opinions, eh? That's an interesting way to refer to sins...merely opinions, are they?"

What I was referring to was the New Testament's description of the punishment of those who do not accept the divinity of Jesus Christ. According to the New Testament, people who do not hold to the idea that Jesus Christ was a god or the son of a god deserve to be and will be tortured in a place called hell for eternity. Not believing that Jesus Christ was divine is an opinion. So, torturing people for not believing that Jesus Christ was divine is torturing people for their opinions. There is no other way to describe it. Especially if you're looking for an excuse for disbelief, righto? A typical American, individualist answer. "It's my opinion that pedophilia should be legal. You shouldn't punish me for that."

Regarding the stoning of non-virgin girls on their wedding nights: the appearance of menstrual blood does not prove a girl to be a virgin, of course. And the lack of menstrual blood indicates pregnancy, of course. If the accused girl was stoned to death in the absence of menstrual blood, if she was pregnant, then the men of the village would not only be killing her, but would be killing the embryo developing inside her. Don't you think the biblical god could have come up with a more intelligent way to deal with a pregnant, unwed girl than murdering her?

Maybe the "tokens of virginity" refers to the blood produced from a hymen being broken by intercourse. But there is an obvious problem with this. Remember that this law comes directly from the biblical god-it is a direct quote. Surely this being, the creator of everything, would know that not all girls have hymens in the first place, that in the course of everyday life hymens do break prior to sex, and that not every girl bleeds from having intercourse for the first time. So the lack of blood from sexual intercourse does not necessarily prove that a girl is a non-virgin. And what about girls who are the victims of rape or incest? If they could not prove their virginity to the satisfaction of the men of the village, would they then richly deserve to be battered to death with rocks? Again, it seems doubtful that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good god would create such a ridiculous law. Hello? What if, what if. Brooks didn't bother looking up "didactic" in the dictionary, maybe. Just wait and see how I smack him in the forehead with Glenn's more detailed treatment.

I found it interesting that you would equate the imposition of the death penalty on murderers with the stoning to death of girls whose only crime was not being able to sufficiently convince some village yahoos that they possessed hymens on their wedding nights. There is no comparison. You say that girls who cannot prove their virginity on their wedding nights "put the survival of the family and community at risk by their foolish behavior." Could you describe in detail how? Yeah, describe for me how. Couldn't they just go to the welfare office and apply for food stamps? Huh huh huh. In any case, here is an idea: why doesn't the biblical god, in his infinite wisdom, make a law that a gentleman who gets a girl pregnant has to help her raise the child? Wouldn't that make far more sense then having a gang of men pelt helpless, pregnant women with rocks till they died? Actually the community as a whole -- women included -- would be participating morally. Their life was threatened, too.

This brings us to the question of equality. If a girl is to be stoned to death because some village men think she is not a virgin when she is married, then how is this law applied to men? What are the "tokens of virginity" that a man would have to generate to certify that he was a virgin on his wedding night? Realize that this quote, which comes directly from Jehovah, does not refer to a "young man" but rather to a "young woman." If we are to take the Bible literally, not adding to it or taking away from it, then this law is only applicable to girls and women. Why would the biblical god make this law apply only to females?

You say that I am making an emotional argument when I describe the effects of being stoned to death. I agree with you. The idea of stoning a girl to death because she could not prove her virginity is barbaric. To get that point across, it is necessary to make it clear as possible what is being described. I am sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. Uncomfortable? It made me laugh that Brooks thought this constituted rational argument. It made me laugh further that he re-justified it with even more emotion, and stood it up further by imputing emotion to ME, yet again. As a villager living in ancient Israel, would you personally take part in stoning a girl to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night? Yes or no? Back to that frustration tactic -- where you're supposed to either compromise and answer "no" or be "barbaric" and answer "yes." Brooks could never predict nor comprehend that the social world of the ANE, again, wasn't just a day at the amusement park.

Finally, the murder of presumed non-virgin girls or women was not confined to new brides among the Israelites-it was also practiced on girls and women living in the villages around the Israelites. As we read in Numbers 31:17, Moses commands his soldiers to go into a neighboring village and "kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." I wonder how they determined the virginity of the girls and women? I mean, it does not appear that there was time to collect "tokens of virginity." We'll see later I offered a general answer about identifying markers, which was backed up by Glenn's more detailed article which he posted in the interim following. Brooks had not a peep after that on this subject.

Thank you for you considering these questions.

Sincerely,

Brooks T

fourth apologist response

Subj: Re: corrected-stoning of non-virgin girls e-mail
Date: 3/21/00 4:59:47 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: jpholding@integrityonline15.com
To: BBu84@aol.com

for eternity. Not believing that Jesus Christ was divine is an opinion. So, torturing people for not believing that Jesus Christ was divine is torturing people for their opinions. There is no other way to describe it.

Other than as a refusal to accept hard fact, and if you are able to prove otherwise, I have a challenge posted...you know where it is.

In terms of the rest of this you wrote, I bother little with it. Most is already answered. I have told you at least twice how ancient law codes were put into effect; if you understood this point then you would know that your "questions" are already answered. The fact that you are clearly unable/unwilling/pretending not to see this is prime evidence that you are writing merely to make a nuisance of yourself and have no true interest in these subjects...or else do not have the capacity to understand them. The fact that you resort to mere denigration and snobbery ("village yahoos") is further evidence. Do you think ancient judges were picked by drawing straws?

I am answering no further inquiries from you. If you have anything further to say to me, put it on your page and send me the URL, because I want the next question to serve to publicly expose your intentions and your manifest ignorance/snobbery. If you want to know more about ancient cultures, haul yourself down to a seminary library and learn something; start with "Social World of Ancient Israel" by Matthews and Benjamin if you are actually interested in anything beyond snobbery and anachronistic inquiries.

being a virgin on her wedding night? Yes or no?

YES.

with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." I wonder how they determined the virginity of the girls and women? I mean, it does not appear that there was time to collect "tokens of virginity."

Gee, if you weren't such a snob, you would know that ancient cultures often had coded dress for various strata-members of society. Beyond that, how about a simple question to the girl at issue, the answer taken for granted in the context of one outside of Israel's laws? Now leave me alone before I report you for spamming.

sixth e-mail to apologist

Subj: web page now up, as per your request
Date: 4/16/00 12:10:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: BBu84
To: jpholding@integrityonline15.com

Mr. Holding,

Thank you for your prompt reply to my last e-mail. In your reply you wrote:

"I am answering no further inquiries from you. If you have anything further to say to me, put it on your page and send me the URL, because I want the next question to serve to publicly expose your intentions and your manifest ignorance/snobbery."

In order to comply with your wish and show my questions in their complete context, I have compiled all the e-mails we have exchanged, including this one, and made them into a web page, which is available here:

http://members.aol.com/bbu85/hold.htm

This web page will serve to publicly expose my "manifest ignorance/snobbery" and will allow others to judge how well you respond to questions about the Bible. Since you have already stated that you will not answer any more of my questions, the lack of a reply to this e-mail will not necessarily be interpreted as an inability to answer any of my latest questions.

I appreciate the fact that in your last e-mail you did answer my query about whether you would hurl rocks at pregnant young girls till they were dead. You said that "YES" you would stone girls to death. I would not, but I guess I am not as morally advanced as you. I guess that, unlike you, I don't have the moral fiber to pitch rocks at a young girl as she was crying, screaming, bleeding to death, suffering multiple bone fractures and internal injuries. But, he does have the "moral fiber" to condemn future generations to starve and die as a result of civilization collapsing because of his endorsement of not punishing such behavior. It's easier to have "moral fiber" when you won't be around to see or suffer the tragedy of your own complacency. It's not surprising that our society is too short-sighted to do simple things like preserve natural resources and fix Social Security.

You wrote that in order for the rampaging Israelite warriors to determine the virginity of the young women of the village they were attacking, all they would have to do was ask them. Interesting. Whoops, he missed that part about dress coding. Naughty Brooks. Let's see…how would it work? The soldiers would be running amuck, slaughtering the men, the young boys, the women, the elderly and the infants with swords. If they momentarily interrupted their stabbing and hacking frenzy to ask a young woman or girl if she was a virgin and she answered no, what would the soldiers do? Hmm, hey, Brooks? How about gathering all of them together and asking questions later? Mighty one-dimensional fella, isn't he? Well, according to the clear instructions from Moses, they would then kill her, with their swords. If she answered yes, then she would be abducted and raped. Pretty much a lose/lose situation for the girl or woman, but apparently what was of utmost importance was that the soldiers did their killing and collected their virgins, as per Moses' direct command. Would you follow this command from Moses? As Glenn has shown here, it was an act of mercy -- you bet I'd follow it. Brooks doesn't mind future people suffering on his conscience, because he lives for the moment. He won't be there later on.

You said that you explained to me twice how ancient law codes were put into effect. I examined your e-mails to determine if you had, in fact, clarified how ancient laws were put into effect. Here are the relevant quotes:

"That it is directed at females does not exclude men at all. Ancient law codes were didactic in nature; they were meant to present case law, not an exhaustive remedy for all situations...no more so do all the laws that begin 'If a man...' mean