[Holding] and the Trilemma

Note that [Holding] could conceivably commit all these transgressions and still be winning on substance, Yep! That's how bad off he is. I could do all that and STILL beat him. but any reading of my unedited arguments shows that he is losing badly on that score as well. [$] I could beat this guy with half my brain tied behind my back. [Holding] nevertheless concludes his response by saying:

...the bottom line as usual: Our critic is manifestly out of his league...

[Holding] may have wasted more of his life on biblical trivia than I have, [!, #] *cough cough* -- "biblical trivia" meaning, "relevant knowledge" -- to a non-mechanic, the details of engine repair are arcana; to a non-pilot, so with flight aerodynamics... but as a polemicist he is 'manifestly' not equipped to deal with a humble atheist [$] Humble! And proud of it! armed just with clear reason Dang! Where do I send the spring-loaded automatic elbow so he can pat himself on the back...Special bulletin: According to Thomas Paine, this is proof that Daffy didn't author his own work! and the relevant fundamental historical facts. "Relevant fundamental historical facts" = "I slapped a Bible open." His inadequacy is probably related to his apparent lack of experience debating in open fora like Usenet, [!] where his current opponent has been debating politics and religion since 1988. Doing it for 12 years, and he still hasn't got it right. Maybe also explains why he thinks sound bites make good arguments. If [Holding] too had submitted and defended over 1500 Usenet postings, he might have learned to avoid the sort of  missteps that we herein document him making 137 times. [$] Or, I too might be an egomaniacal ignoramus with misplaced self-confidence. Um, what sort of professional peer review is there on Usenet postings? What's that? Speak up, I can't hear you! PS -- As of this date I have authored over 1300 different articles in less than half that time. Maybe if Daffy had written half as many... Instead, [Holding] seems to restrict his debating to the safe and cozy confines of his little web site, [!] Little! Yep, 1000+ (now 1500+) items sure is little. Don't forget to tell them how I have taken over all the search engines. where he can evade and misrepresent his opponents' arguments with impunity. [!] And which opponents can say is being done and never prove it, and when they try, fail. But [Holding]'s inability as a polemicist is not to be blamed for him losing this debate on substance, since he dealt himself a losing hand in the first place. [$] Rather, it is his propensity for blunders like these 137 that indicates which of us here is "manifestly out of his league." [!] PS, no, I am not an egomaniac! I am a humble atheist! Alright, who took my mirror??

When at the start of this debate I informed [Holding] that I would be rebutting his Trilemma article, he wrote me:

If you insist on embarrassing yourself with your ignorance...I shall be only too happy to oblige. And boy, I'm still happy! Pass the popcorn!

(1) Quit the debate; [$] OK! --- NOT! continue to pretend that my only responses have been what your editing claims them to be; [!] Let's pretend Daffy is Superman! Hello, my name is Kryptonite! continue to hope that your readers cannot find the full unedited text of my responses; They did. They weren't impressed. save yourself the effort of finding new ways to misrepresent my positions; [$] Nah. The old ways of actually reporting what you said, and sometimes don't understand what you said, work just fine. and deny me the satisfaction of annihilating any more of your attempted counter arguments. [$] Daffy: "Please! Please! Stop, you're hurting me! NO, WAIT! I love hitting myself on the head with a brick!"

(2) Reply substantively to each of my arguments and in particular to each of the 79 cases where you fail to correctly represent, substantively answer, or even admit the existence of my arguments; You asked for it, you got it! They don't exist! link to my responses so I can no longer say you hide your defeats from your readers; Like anyone cares what HE says. Just look at the big pile of letters I got demanding to know who Daffy was. Don't forget to ask me to release all those hostages I'm holding at gunpoint at Google headquarters. and refrain from ersatz arguments (such as those based on bluster, generalization, ad hominem, or slurs) Nah, only he's allowed to do that! 20 times already and we're just getting started. that are so easy for me to diagnose as insubstantial. Sure, the ease is in the ignorance. It's easy to be a naked native running around saying planes can't possibly fly because they're so heavy.

(3) Continue to keep your readers from seeing the full unedited text of my responses; Oops, he just lost that bet. Did he bet the mortgage? Read: "Let them see the full text of stuff I said that doesn't add anything to my arguments, but I think does, because of my delusions of competence." continue failing to correctly represent, substantively answer, or even admit the existence of so many of my arguments; [$} OK, I admit I left out the time he burped. and continue to make arguments based on bluster, generalization, ad hominem, or slurs. Continue to make arguments over your head, and call a spade a spade. Gotcha.

JPH: [the Christ complex] is not in the APA's DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

JPH: the issue is whether indeed there are people who think they are Christ or God, and how serious this delusion is, compared to, say, someone who thinks they are merely a great football player [..] The level of delusion and dissonance required is much greater for one with a divinity complex than it is for one who has lesser-scale delusions

DD: I challenge [[Holding]] to cite any authority saying schizophrenia is more likely to have sudden onset than to develop over time.

JPH: Whose job is this to prove? Our critic bears the burden of proof in this regard, as it is he who makes the claim that Jesus fits the mold

JPH: but even if he proves that gradual onset is possible in such a context

JPH: it proves nothing without a begged question assumed and without corollary data and an explained means of falsification.

1. Jesus seems (at least initially) to have been a disciple of John the Baptist. A Jesus always convinced of his divinity would have been less likely to ever be anyone's disciple. This is one of those errors of scholarship deserving a ho ho ha [#]. As I replied: Why is this the case? No reason is given, much less is it proved that Jesus was a disciple of John (this is sometimes argued, but it is never stated in the text, and no such relationship is described in the text; the only clue is that Jesus' original message of repentance is the same as John's, though this was also a message of the OT!). However, even if it were true, which is possible, Daffy is utterly and obviously not aware of the necessity in a collectivist society of aligning one's self with a fictive kinship group; the goal of the teacher-disciple relationship was socialization, and the ability to identify one's self with a particular teacher. Becoming a disciple of John, or entering the fictive kinship group of a John the Baptist, would have been useful for a Messianic programme because ancient persons were identified in terms of their teachers, and students took on the identity of their schools (sort of like saying one is from Harvard tends to make an impression). However, it is unlikely that Jesus was John's disciple, for Jesus is not once identified in terms of being John's student; rather, it is asked, "Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?", indicating no connection with a known personality like John the Baptist or any other teacher. No doubt Daffy will find a way to make Jesus mentally ill anyway, but such is the flexibility of his methodology. Either way it's a bonehead error in scholarship.
2. Jesus seems to have been estranged from his family. Such estrangement could have been produced by his growing delusions of divinity, and would have been unlikely if he always had true knowledge of his own divinity. We address this later on with other "family-related" issues. It is another anachronistic ho ho ha [#]
3. Jesus was at times secretive about his special nature. Such secrecy would be consistent with Jesus initially not being convinced of his divinity. Ditto. Another ho ho ha [#]. Ironically in all three of these cases the error lies in basic ignorance of the social science background of the NT era, what Daffy derisively calls "trivia" or "arcana" because he is to uneducated to think of it any other way. Moreover, as I added: Of course in not one of these cases are we shown that Jesus "manifests an insidious and gradual reduction in his external relations and interests." It is never shown, just assumed, to be insidious; it is never shown, just assumed, to be gradual; it is never shown, just assumed, that these behaviors, explicable fully and reasonably on other social grounds, may be paired with symptoms uniquely and inseparably tied to mental illness. Once again, Daffy must presume to insert factors of diagnosis not found in the text and has therefore failed to meet the burden of proof and as also violated his own premise of parsimony. To the extent that Daffy must continually add things to the text to make his case, or ignore surrounding social data, or dismiss it anachronistically, the label of "parsimony" for his thesis vanishes over an ever-growing horizon of plausibility and excuses for why the data does not fit what is written, especially since the social data we present showing why Jesus acted as he did in his culture, then the rule of parsimony would declare that, rather than Jesus being mentally deluded, he was simply normal and acting in the typical fashion of the time period in question. Since the latter is far more likely than the former in general, the reasons for Jesus' alleged idiosyncracies are more parsimoniously explained away by the social data inherent to the period rather than that he was "insane" to some varying degree (i.e. "honestly mistaken").

JPH: about finding such conditions in Jesus, our critic accuses me of not quoting material in context,

JPH: but still provides no examples of such behavior in Jesus one way or the other

JPH: and does not show how the alleged misquoting in any way muddles his argument.

JPH: Our critic [says] that his actual stance is that "the gospels are probably the result of not necessarily fabrication, but of some combination of misinterpretation, exaggeration, rationalization, delusion, and deception"

JPH: a combo claim that sounds effective when hurled in elephantine form

JPH: but indicates an unwillingness and an inability to break down the Gospel records into each of these categories

• misinterpretation: Jesus' divinity claims; reanimation miracles The former is also a dodge [&] relating to Daffy's refusal to explain the "proper" interpretation of Jesus' divinity claims, and I'll add a ho ha ha [#] for his refusal to engage the relevant scholarship. The latter Daffy provides no details of explanation for.
• exaggeration: Jesus' water-walking And I refuted his explanation; this is therefore a parry [%]
• rationalization: Jesus' danger avoidance as knowledge that it wasn't his time A ho ha ha [#] showing Daffy's manifest ignorance of the relevant social data (see below)
• delusion: Jesus' self-conception Both a parry [%] (repeated arguments) and a ho ha ha [#] (ignorance of social data that leads Daffy to this conclusion)
• deception: the empty tomb This one will be a thrust [!] since Daffy presents zero argument or evidence for any deception -- he makes life easy on himself by using only one-word descriptions with no critical analysis
• fabrication: the Easter zombies Ditto [!] -- also a ho ha ha [#] since if Daffy were familiar with the social world of the NT he would know such a claim would have at least had to have some backup to make it past the social controls. Matthew had to at least have people who claimed to have seen the raised saints. "Fabrication" just won't do the job.

JPH: and a mere attempt to sound as though some authoritative and reasonable thesis is being presented, when in fact, it is no more than several begged questions rather than just one.

JPH: In the latest report, our critic ignores the link [referring to John and Mark's respective Christologies]

JPH: makes hash of the idea that I supposedly allowed that Jesus did not spread around his identity, even as it was spread around anyway

JPH: [Daffy] now merely declares [[Holding]'s disputing of Q/Marcan priority] to be a "dead meme" and therefore not open to discussion, because it is held by authoritative sources like Encyclopedias!

JPH: [to disagree with the scholarly consensus] requires a certain degree of ego anyway. One must assume themselves to be wiser, smarter, more informed, than literally hundreds of trained historians and other specialists who have reached the opposite conclusion. One must assume to have understood things clearly that few others have clearly understood; one must seek conspiracy under every bush, an enemy behind every piece of furniture, and maintain that others who disagree with you are simply too blind, biased, or ignorant to appreciate your rampant genius. This is a turn [*]. as I noted, the bracketed words are Daffy's own idea; the actual sentence, in an essay written against G. A. Wells, says, "Of course, to be a Christ-myther requires a certain degree of ego anyway." Daffy here stooped to the highest levels of dishonesty in his frustration. The Christ-myth is not to be compared in terms of consensus to the dispute over Q/Marcan priority, which is in fact undergoing serious reconsideration in the scholarly literature, as is shown in the linked article Daffy has little choice but to continue to ignore.

JPH: Of course, it is quite possible that all of the professional historians (even those with no religious interest!) are biased or wrong, while proponents of the [contrarian thesis] are the objective ones. And yes, a consensus does not equate with evidence. But a consensus on any historical question is usually based on evidence which is analyzed by those who are recognized as authoritative in their field, and therefore may be taken at their word.

DD: Several examples are in section 1.2.2. (Philosophy / Metaphysics / Theology) of my book

JPH: Our critic now adds some arguments from his own book (quoting himself as an authority in essence!)

DD: In order of writing, the gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrected appearances become increasingly elaborate. Original Mark claims an empty tomb but describes no appearances. Matthew says simply that the two Marys and later the Eleven "saw him" but "some were dubious." The Longer Ending of Mark says Jesus appeared "in a different form" to two disciples, and simply "appeared" to the Eleven. Luke elaborates on both of these episodes, building the latter into an account that approaches the full Doubting Thomas story finally told in John.

JPH: The progression here is only in our critic's imagination. Mark is exempt from such analysis [..] as it is far from clear that the ending of Mark was the original as it now stands, and the longer ending is too late to be given consideration--that our critic sees fit to include it shows a remarkable lack of scholarly discipline.

JPH: Matt. 28:17 does not say that some 'didn't believe'; it said that some 'doubted' -- doubted what?

JPH: the verb used here points not to belief or uncertainty, but to hesitation and indecision. They did not doubt the presence or veracity of the resurrected Jesus; they wondered [..] what was to be done next... Here we have a case of a dodge [&] in which Daffy left out telling words from the ellipses: "rather, in the face of a heretofore unexpected event (a unique resurrection before the final judgment)" -- the crucial context that shows that the "doubting" was not a case of not knowing it was Jesus.

JPH: In terms of Luke and John, by "elaboration" our critic presumably means, more details are given. That may be so

JPH: but none of the details adds any degree of elaboration to the actual event of the resurrection.

JPH: Luke and John add nothing that Matthew would not, in actually claiming a resurrection, already indicate via the conceptual template of a resurrection

JPH: Does he think Luke elaborated on Matthew directly, and John on Luke? If he thinks there is a progression, then that implies that one built on the other knowingly.

JPH: The "progression" thesis is quite imaginative, but completely devoid of substance.

JPH: if this progression theory has any validity, one must date 1 Cor. 15, whose quantity-substance is far more significant than the Gospel records, later than the Gospels!

DD: In the earliest gospel (Mark), Jesus [..] is reluctant for his special nature to be known, and (as he does in Matthew) despairs on the cross. (By contrast, in the later Luke and John, Jesus asserts he is Christ, and confidently assures a co-crucified criminal of their impending ascension.)

JPH: As noted above, and still again, our critic ignores the very definitive claims to divinity listed in Mark

JPH: And an "impending ascension" (which is not an accurate descriptor anyway) is no divine claim!

JPH: Anyone familiar with the social background data, with the contextual meanings of the words used by Jesus of himself, sees no such progression within the Gospels

• the elaborateness of the resurrection appearances As shown, false. This is a repeat argument and a parry [%].
• the impressiveness of the healing miracles (Lazarus; the congenitally blind man) Daffy did not develop this, but there is no such progression at all. This is a thrust [!] as it stands. If he wants to dispute we want to know whether walking on water is more or less "impressive" than healing a blind man, and how he knows.
• Jesus' confidence on the cross, False, as shown; this is a parry [%]. and
• Jesus' divinity claims Also false, as I showed; Jesus is consistently portrayed as claiming the divine titles of Wisdom and of the Son of Man, and Daffy had no answer to this other than, "Duh!" This is a thrust [!] of generalization.
  

  JPH: we want some proof of "delusions of persecution" [..] and "unrealistic, illogical thinking" as well as hallucinations. A bit of a turn [*] as an outright lie, as Daffy omits my note that we want such examples "as opposed to cases of actual persecution -- like a case where Jesus thought Peter was out to get him!" Daffy knows he can't produce any such actual cases, which is why he left that part out.

  DD: I'm not saying that some separate evidence for Jesus' being unrealistic and hallucinatory therefore establishes him as a schizophrenic. A dodge [&] of my request for evidence -- wise, because Daffy has NO evidence. This is how Daffy reacted to my demands for specific evidence of Jesus' lunacy otherwise uninterpretable within the paradigm of an actually divine man.

  JPH: Well, if not, then why quote the article on this point, or why not quote it and admit that that phrase is not being taken into consideration?

DD: [Holding] seems to think we are looking for gospel admissions that Jesus hallucinated or was deluded. We are instead looking for gospel reports that are consistent with Jesus hallucinating or being deluded. Hallucinations: Jesus hears or sees God, Satan, demons, and angels. Delusions: Jesus believes he is sent by God, believes he has apocalyptic foreknowledge, etc.

JPH: What is happening here is that our critic simply threw up a quote from the encyclopedia uncritically -- as he has done with numerous sources -- hoping to land one blow, any blow, with his skeptical cohorts -- and now has to backpedal furiously in order to avoid defending himself.

JPH: Indeed, this is shown in that here, for the first time, our critic shows his hand, which we have anticipated:

DD: I'm saying that if we reserve judgment about the truth of the reports about Jesus, and instead can show that they are consistent with paranoid schizophrenia, then it becomes a simple matter of asking which explanation is more parsimonious: divine incarnation or mental illness? Since mental illness is obviously more parsimonious than divine incarnation, [Holding]'s burden is to show that the reports about Jesus are INCONSISTENT with paranoid schizophrenia.

DD: the mere existence of this fourth alternative [deluded faith-healer] doesn't in itself prove that this alternative is true. But its unrebutted existence DOES invalidate the trilemma argument, whose validity depends on there being no non-lord options besides liar and lunatic. It may in fact be possible to prove Jesus' lordship through other more-direct arguments, but the Trilemma itself fails to do so if the fourth option is not actually SHOWN to be false.

JPH: the entire premise from our critic rests upon the begged question (turned via positive spin-doctoring into a matter of a "more parsimonious explanation!") that no such thing as a divine incarnation is possible.

By contrast, we have no reason to think that [Holding] admits that it was even remotely possible that Jesus was delusional. Given the data I've thrown in Daffy's yard, that possibility requires too many surds and excuses to be believable; thus he has his answer to this, and this is a thrust [!]. I've already said how different the Gospels and associated evidence would have to be to convince me that Jesus was divine.  His subjective and unjustified list below. Does [Holding] dare declare how different the evidence would have to be to convince him that Jesus was instead delusional? A guard [@] -- ineffective dare. As I say, "Yes, I do: Our critic needs at least to provide 1) symptoms uniquely associated with delusion and not with normal human behavior; 2) evidence explaining why various social factors (ritual uncleanness associated with delusion in the ancient world, for example) somehow managed to be circumvented where Jesus was concerned. That would be for starters. If our critic can do that (and he cannot, except by inserting things into the text and anachronizing), he may have a start."

JPH: To that end, in the service of a "more parsimonious explanation," do we see our critic spinning out every event possible into a sign of mental illness, while dispensing with contrary or insufficient indications of data by any illicit means possible. We shall see more of this as we proceed.

JPH: we do have places where the voice of God is heard, but there, others hear the voice too. Presumably skeptics would posit the usual convenient "group hallucination" theory for that one. Our critic has no answer for that

JPH: but does as we expected beg the question by assuming that Jesus' encounter with Satan and apocalyptic fervor are the result of delusion. The scent of begged question is overwhelming!

JPH: Critics sometimes appeal to the cleansing of the Temple; if this prophetic demonstration reflects mental disorder of this sort, then protestors [sic] in front of nuclear power plants and members of PETA also need help

DD: This analogy fails utterly, as such protests do not get the protester killed.

JPH: Whether they get someone killed is beside the point

JPH: though in that case, one may ask about the sanity of American Revolutionary soldiers, for example, who fought for their freedom knowing there was an excellent chance they would be killed.

JPH: At the same time, our critic assumes upon the ancients certain values and judgments about the value and purpose of life that are held only by moderns; the ancients had no qualms about dying sacrificially for a cause they believed in

DD: "Impairment: Intellectual functioning is unimpaired. Daily living, occupational activity, social functioning, and quality of marriage are likely to deteriorate during exacerbations." Jesus abandoned his profession of carpentry for a life of wandering asceticism. His ministry caused strained relations with his family that even the gospels felt obliged to report.

JPH: the "strain" was clearly only from the family's side, not from Jesus'.

JPH: As for abandoning a profession, does this mean we are mentally ill when we change careers or lifestyle?

JPH: Is asceticism a sign of mental illness?

JPH: none of this even so reflects a "deterioration" in the named areas, except by virtue of a modernistic value judgment that assumes that living in a nice house is a sure sign of mental health order.

JPH: One would also ask for detailed qualification proving that a move from carpenter to traveling teacher is somehow "deterioration," other than by making bigoted and modernistic value judgments.

JPH: Do those who leave a comfortable home and join the Peace Corps to dig wells in Africa count as mentally ill?

DD: [Qumranites and by John the Baptist were] cave-hiding fanatics and a similarly delusional preacher.

JPH: It is telling that our critic is forced to resort to bigoted ad hominem here

JPH: extending the diagnosis of mental illness to as many as is needed to make his case!

JPH: Are, for example, ascetic Buddhist monks in their mountain temples "hiding fanatics"?

JPH: Is it possible at all to live a life of religious or other asceticism and not be declared mentally deluded? Evidently not!

JPH: Our critic in response offers yet more bigoted and begged questions, pointing to the ascetic habits of Jesus:

[Holding] again uses his favorite [#childish] slur "bigot". The shoe fits and Daffy wears it. We would call it an "accurate description".

DD: the gospels report that Jesus was sometimes socially ostracized for his unconventional associations and was at times was considered mad by his family (Mk 3:21) and other Jews (Jn 10:20).

JPH: Our critic once again displays his incredible lack of knowledge of the social background of the situation. Jesus' "unconventional associations" were with tax collectors and prostitutes and lepers, the marginalized and oppressed of society.

JPH: What was actually happening here is that Jesus was standing against ritual purity taboos heavily ingrained in ancient society.

JPH: Good or bad, whatever Jesus does, it seems, is evidence of mental illness!

JPH: As for the declarations of madness, we would point out as we did long ago, and below, that the assessments are hardly those of qualified professionals, and are countered by assessments by persons just as qualified: John 10:21

JPH: The best our critic can do here, and several times hereafter, is claim that the Trilemma fails if "the reports of Jesus are consistent with mental illness"; actually it fails only if the reports are shown to be only consistent with mental illness, and there is no contrary evidence.

DD: The mere existence of this fourth alternative [of a delusional Jesus] doesn't in itself prove that this alternative is true. But it's unrebutted existence DOES invalidate the trilemma argument, whose validity depends on there being no non-lord options besides liar and lunatic. It may in fact be possible to prove Jesus' lordship through other more-direct arguments, but the Trilemma itself fails to do so if the fourth option is not actually SHOWN to be false. All this means is that the real debate is between "lord" and such a fourth option. The invalidity of the Trilemma doesn't lend any weight to either side of that real debate -- it's simply a fact of logic that is inconvenient for those seeking an easier alternative to the real debate. Daffy repeats himself for effect, and the argument gets no better in quality. A parry [%]. Bite this: The mere existence of this fifth alternative [of a space-alien Jesus] doesn't in itself prove that this alternative is true. But it's unrebutted existence DOES invalidate the trilemma argument, whose validity depends on there being no non-lord options besides liar and lunatic. It may in fact be possible to prove Jesus' lordship through other more-direct arguments, but the Trilemma itself fails to do so if the fifth option is not actually SHOWN to be false. All this means is that the real debate is between "lord" and such a fifth option. The invalidity of the Trilemma doesn't lend any weight to either side of that real debate -- it's simply a fact of logic that is inconvenient for those seeking an easier alternative to the real debate. Oops. Now to give some credit to Acharya S....

JPH: the expression could mean that Jesus' family members "are such not merely by human bonds, but especially because they obey the Father." (Keep this in mind, as our critic elsewhere claims that Jesus has nothing good to say to his family

DD: [[Holding]] says nothing to contradict 1) Elst's implication that Jesus was angry with his family and 2) Elst's statement that Jesus has no friendly words for his family or mother Daffy is trying to dodge [&] his clear endorsement of Elst on this point. Otherwise why would he care if he thought I said nothing to contradict Elst on these points? If he didn't endorse Elst, he shouldn't care that I didn't refute it. Just another dodge to get out of an embarrassing error.

JPH: but as Elst's poor interpretation of this passage is his grounds for such an argument, our response does render the matter pointless, for in that case the anger and lack of friendliness otherwise must be gratuitously assumed to be behind the scenes

JPH: as well as rest on the assumption that it was Jesus, not his family, that was the instigator of the hostility

JPH: Jesus is predicting that the family will be the miscreants, not himself or the believers. (Our critic is forced to spin this out for his purposes by claiming that it shows "bitterness" on Jesus' part! There's that ability to mind-read over the centuries again!...)

DD: his own family [..] would have been his earliest and most devoted disciples if Jesus were really divine. But they weren't, because he wasn't.

JPH: Why could it not be said regretfully, or matter-of-factly?

JPH: Not surprisingly, our critic almost entirely washes his hands of Elst and does nothing to defend him from our critique, other than the two minor points above. One wonders why Elst was even bothered with at all.

JPH: our critic has provided no way to differentiate between blindness, etc. caused by hysteria and that which is not

JPH: and merely assumes (presumably, under the all-purpose guise of the "most parsimonious explanation") that the conditions described must be associated as such.

JPH: This amounts to an admission that the data, as it stands, does not support the critic's view, and therefore must be serviced with filled-in gaps amenable to the assumed skeptical paradigm.

DD: Embellishment implies falsehood, but falsehood alone does not imply lying.

JPH: Didn't our critic just get through saying that the Gospels were probably a mix of "misinterpretation, exaggeration, rationalization, delusion, and deception"? In other words, at least three parts out of five, possibly four, involving lying?

By now, of course, our remediation of [Holding]'s vocabulary i.e., his effort to spin [$] out of having been gigged has taken us far afield from the original point, which nonetheless remains perfectly valid: three of the four Gospel accounts of the severed ear -- including the most detailed account -- do not mention Jesus healing it, and this is sufficient grounds to reject that story element as an embellishment (by Luke or his source(s)). In terms of ancient composition practices, no it isn't -- see here for an example, and I worked out similar details on Malchus below.

JPH: So which is it? Is it whatever is convenient to keep the theory afloat?

JPH: That our critic only calls the Gospel writer liars most of the time is not lessened by that he does not call them that at other times!

DD: Even theist philosophers acknowledge that miracles are by definition unusual and out of the ordinary. [Holding]'s 'I haven't seen one' standard is another of his hopeless strawmen. [Holding] doesn't dare enunciate the ACTUAL justification: I haven't seen one, and I haven't seen a credible report of one, and I've seen many reports of them that are non-credible, and everything I have seen can better be explained without miracles and miracle-workers.

JPH: Our critic has again done nothing but sum up subjective experience and judgment, and thereby only proven me right once again! The entire basis is his personal experience, and that of those he agrees with!

[Holding] here does not dare let his readers see[#] my rebuttal of his charge that naturalism is my "faith-paradigm":

DD: [he] seeks to defend what he seems to acknowledge is his epistemic crime of faith, by fatuously saying that I too am guilty of it. He is of course flat wrong, as he is unable to name a single proposition that I believe based on authority and hold exempt from doubt. Guard [@] because this is no "rebuttal" at all -- it's a misplaced definition of faith anyway (I don't hold to any such definition as implied, so I can hardly be guilty of a "crime" that I am incapable of performing) and Daffy has been holding virtually every argument as exempt from doubt by means of propping them up with excuses and nuh-uhs and whatever else will do in a pinch. Guard, turn, dodge, parry, spin, thrust.

DD: Which is more 'convenient': 1) assuming that a set of reported faith healings of possibly psychosomatic afflictions were indeed no more than faith healings, or 2) assuming they were miraculous? Guard [@] again, and repeat (parry [%]) of previous arguments. Again: The definition of "faith" is wrong, so there can be no Hinnlike "faith healings"; the data is wrong for such healings in the NT; hence Daffy's theory of "parsimony" becomes the more unparsimonious explanation anyway.

JPH: From there, the rest which cannot be explained away definitively is explained away via rationalization and the hope that someday, someone -- science, aliens, James Randi -- will figure out what "actually" happened and that it wasn't a miracle!

JPH: And when necessary, claim that an explanation is "more parsimonious" simply because it fits in our assumed worldview better!

JPH: Our critic makes the point that John does not mention the healing; what of it? John does mention other things uniquely that he considered more important; this does nothing to alter my thesis of general inclinations of individual writers, and ignores the point that John was intended to supplement the Synoptic records.

JPH: Was Malchus now a Christian, and would bringing up this incident have endangered him if it had been reported in Matthew and Mark's earlier works, whereas in the later or geographically removed works of John and Luke, it would not? [..]  This does not require, as our critic somehow thinks, that Malchus "wore a hat pulled down over his restored ear for the rest of his life" -- why would that be necessary?

JPH: The ear was healed and there would be no sign of it ever having been lost!

DD: If [Holding] has any evidence that placebo effects (such as conventional faith-healing) cannot be indefinite, he should present that evidence rather than baldly asserting it to be obvious.

JPH: It is obvious, in terms of the types of miracles under discussion: Healing those blind from birth versus healing back pain, for example! Our critic commits that category error yet again!

And of course, [Holding] does not dare let his readers see[#] (let alone answer) my challenge to deny the comparability of the treatment of psychosomatic affliction through placebo effects and conventional faith-healing. A guard [@] (ineffective dare) for I deny any relevance to either (see above -- anachronistic imposition of faith-healing template; false diagnosis of psychosomatic affliction). Repeat is also a parry [%].

Lastly, [Holding] dares[#] not attempt to satisfy my request for evidence that placebo effects cannot be indefinite. None is needed, for this argument is based on the same paradigm and is no more than question-begging. Plus again, it doesn't fit present medical data about such conditions, per the link above.

JPH: Are these faith-healers able to induce a permanent cure? [..] if the parallel were to hold, then Jesus and his movement, like the faith-healers, ought to have had a minimum following of loyalists and practically no new converts!

DD: [Holding] here cites no faith-healer who claimed divine specialness and then martyred himself, and thus his "parallel" does not "hold." A blatant turn [*] by Daffy, a distraction, since whether the faith-healer claimed divine specialness, etc. is utterly beside the point, as I say next:

JPH: He also says I have named no such healer who went to martyrdom, which is exactly the point! They don't have the wherewithal or the goods to even try, which they should have, if they had a genuine gift and an anointing from God!

JPH: it doesn't take many complaints of false healing  to flush the whole effort down the toilet! Here again our critic can only point yet again to Jesus not doing miracles at home, and the "mad" evaluation of his family, addressed below and above respectively.

JPH: [our critic] has now even declared closer allegiance to the idea that Jesus may not have died

DD: the prior plausibility of the story element in question, the possible motivations for the one author to include it, and the likelihood that the remaining authors would exclude it if they believed it.

JPH: what if one mentions only algor mortis, and one mentions that and rigor mortis?

JPH: skeptics have a ready excuse and a theory [sic] for every possible combination of events.

DD: if the ancients who created the gospel tradition prematurely and incorrectly considered these non-dead people to be dead, and these people later recovered from their illness, then their recoveries are not the miraculous resurrections that the gospels say they are.

JPH: What is at stake is preserving disbelief, not a rational consideration of the available data.

JPH: The initial complaint, requiring mention of these various symptoms of death, falls flat unless it is definitively shown that description of such effects was somehow normal in ancient accounts of death

JPH: it would defy common sense to suggest that Lazarus' family and/or friends did nothing to ascertain death before taking steps for ritual observance and burying

DD: I of course don't suggest they "did nothing"; I merely suggest that whatever they did may have led them to an incorrectly premature diagnosis of death. And there is no indication that the ancients ever could have made such a premature diagnosis, as the link shows, but as Daffy ignored. Dodge [&].

JPH: Our critic backpedals furiously

JPH: not even acknowledging the irrelevance of certain of the criteria he uncritically listed

JPH: Six of one, half dozen of the other! The point remains, our critic thinks they did essentially nothing viable to ascertain death, or did not recognize it as such

JPH: this in spite of obvious signs, the obvious human concern, and the immense experience of the ancients with death; see link just above.

DD: Their ability to recognize a definitely dead person as dead simply does not imply their inability to ever consider a barely-alive person to be dead.

JPH: That's a real whopper of logic!

JPH: So they knew the signs of "dead" but didn't connect it with dead?

JPH: They didn't make the connect this time, because it is convenient for our critic to say so?

JPH: They had some category of deadness where those "barely-alive" or in the tomb for days were called dead?

JPH: Where is this shown to be true in any ancient document? The only possible example is in the case of imminent death with Jairus' daughter; see below, and that is not at all applicable to post-mortem categorization!

JPH: Our critic is desperately grasping at any straw now, begging exceptions and oddities wherever he can!

JPH: what this all boils down to is the same issue of assuming the ancients were too stupid to recognize serious illness and death when they saw it, or were just stupid at the times necessary for our critic to keep his thesis afloat, but not necessarily at other times.

JPH: and it just so happened that no one checked, no countering signs took place, no nothing

JPH: (and quoting Carrier here, when he has been soundly refuted for drawing illicit parallels [on some other topic], accomplishes nothing).

JPH: he claims he didn't call them different events, but is obfuscating: listing them twice amounts to doing the same thing if one does not signify somehow that they are parallels

JPH: What normal person or being doesn't [sometimes chose discretion over valor]? (He thinks an "omniscient omnipotent deity" doesn't, but still does not solve the problem of what just such a deity ought to do; see below)

JPH: Our critic then puts his foot in his mouth yet again, saying

DD: Mark 3:7 continues: 'But Jesus withdrew himself and his disciples to the sea' and to the (presumably protective) midst of 'a great multitude' of his followers.

JPH: So now apparently, Jesus could not even have followers without being accused of cowardice!

JPH: Our critic has this idea that I do not "dare" do certain things -- more of that long-distance psychology again, no doubt -- but if the daring is lacking, it is only because the dare is without substance in the first place!

JPH: He tries to salvage his bacon further by quoting Luke 13:33

DD: "Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." It's indisputable that when Jesus was told of the threat, he admitted he would be withdrawing 'today' in the face of this danger and apparently was embarrassed enough to try to make an excuse for his retreat.

JPH: Some retreat that would be! Not only does Jesus tell everyone in hearing where he was going (Jerusalem!), he announces that he is walking (not "fleeing" or "running" -- the word used implies a normal journey). That's some kind of retreat in process!

JPH: Our critic crows here that I "do not deny" the danger avoidance, but as we have said time and again, this is of no relevance -- he has not, and still will not, show any logical way to exercise true prudence for the sake of preserving a mission.

JPH: Now we are told that

H: an omniscient omnipotent being could arrange to never have to retreat from danger. For example, he could have arranged that at key moments of danger he always just happened to be in a crowd of followers who would be understood by 'the bad guys' as preventing harm to Jesus.

JPH: What the hey? We were just told a few paragraphs ago that this was just another form of running away!

I will try to make this as easy as possible for [Holding] to understand:

• (withdrawing from danger to a protective crowd) counts as (withdrawal from danger);
• (already being in a protective crowd when danger arises) does not count as (withdrawal from danger).

  And there is not a lick of difference, in practical terms, between these when it comes to one's reaction to danger or conflict. Both are designed to avoid it. Daffy deserves a dodge [&].

  
  JPH: Our critic apparently can't keep himself consistent -- and still hasn't provided any logical alternative!

JPH: And again, sorry, hiding in crowds is just another form of running!

H: a truly omniscient Jesus [who] could have continued his journey five minutes before being told of Herod's threat

JPH: -- not that five minutes, or even hours, did much when the powers that be had horses and you didn't!

JPH: -- it could still be spun out as "avoidance of danger" to say nothing of dismissed by our critic as embellishment!

JPH: Direct, ideological confrontation with his opponents was essential to Jesus' ministry! The exchanges between Jesus and his enemies represented contests of personal honor before witnesses which an ancient, honor-respecting society would require of anyone who defiantly stood against a given status quo. Hustling out five minutes before the opponents got there wasn't a live option if Jesus wanted his message to be spread and respected by others!

JPH: I note that the critic still offered no connection to a "time" when things would be right. The critic quotes John 7:6 (and requotes it again, still not effectively rescinding my point as no explanation or exegesis provided, merely "quote and there it is")

JPH: Jesus was "purposely staying away from [people] waiting to take his life" because "the right time for me has not yet come."

H: [Holding] here doesn't dare deny my statement that 'the mere existence of Christianity hardly proves that Jesus was divine'.

JPH: Actually I do deny it -- I had an article in process at the time I wrote this; here it is.

• John's chronology vs. synoptics
• Olivet prophecy
• Jesus as God's Wisdom
• Lincoln biographies
• Divine claims of Jesus
• Despair on the cross
• Jesus hating his family
• Miller on Mark/John Christology
• How God could prove himself

Here [Holding] tries to pull yet another essay onto his funeral pyre of arguments. Give that duck a spring-loaded elbow so he doesn't get too tired patting himself on the back! Also award a thrust [!]. Since it is so tedious -- not to mention cruel -- to enumerate [Holding]'s dozens of blatant failures to adequately answer my Trilemma counter arguments, I may indeed decide to switch gears and annihilate another of his toplevel articles. Daffy started this "toplevel" attack against a guest editorial. Then he took on The Impossible Faith and looked even worse. The words "tedious" and "cruel" were no doubt chosen as a reflection of a certain state of mind on Daffy's part. He is quickly finding that attacking the Biblical record is more than a matter of opening the book, reading the text in English, and announcing what you think it means, maybe in the process finding a scholar or two (or even a non-scholar or two) that holds the same or similar views. To such persons, it is indeed "tedious" to have to dig deeply into the data, and "cruel" to make them do so. Hence the inevitable refuge in anachronism and tough-guy language: anyone who is not a serious student has no other alternative. The criterion I use for my decision would probably be the number of outstanding points he has failed to answer [#total: 9 + 37] and clear misrepresentations [#total: 33] of my positions. With this number totaling 79 in just his most recent response, it's anyway probably time to pronounce as dead the smear on the ground that constitutes the remains of his Trilemma argument.) Daffy's way of excusing himself from any further response on the Trilemma: By engaging in his own delusional fantasy of being a "superman". Well, we have a count, too, now. Plus, one more thrust [!].

H: What reason do we have to believe that this so-called 'polemical record' represents anything approaching a thorough and contemporaneous effort of skeptical journalism? And note that miraculous power was ascribed to many people in ancient times.

JPH: -- the first aspect is nought [sic] but the same begged question [i.e., "If James Randi had been around he woulda figured it out! Everyone else was too dumb."];

JPH: the second aspect a meaningless, non-specific parallel thrown in the air for polemical purposes, as well as the same begged question

D: a "lack of people's faith" is for a mere faith-healer PRECISELY THE SAME THING as the faith-healer not being able to do the faith-healing

JPH: it is no such thing; it is the same as saying that one could not rescue another from a pit, because the victim in the pit refused help, pelting the rescuer with rocks and missiles until they left.

D: [Holding] dares not address my point that the opinion of Jesus' madness was rendered by those who knew him best: his family (Mk 3:21).

JPH: Jesus violated the norms of his culture in a variety of ways, for example by associating with tax collectors and prostitutes, he was violating the accepted social norms and purity codes. In so doing he brought dishonor on his family in the eyes of his contemporaries -- and the "madness" line of reasoning not only does not represent the evaluation of a trained psychologist, but also amounts to no more than a makeshift accusation designed to a) explain away and mute the dishonor of the situation;

JPH: [or] b) get others to move away from Jesus by describing him as ritually impure! The "madness" reasoning is functionally equivalent to saying Jesus was a leper, but had the advantage of not being visibly testable.

JPH: That there were not trained professionals making the diagnosis is merely waved off as of no relevance, but as shown, nor is the family's judgment in the context the critic wishes to prove!...

D: a) that Jesus' family's opinion was "polemical", [..] and c) that "but others said" is in John 10:21 an indication of "overwhelmingly contrary opinion." [Holding]'s claims here are self-refuting. Er, yes, how, exactly? Daffy doesn't explain, and sure hopes you won't notice.

JPH: OK, let's name all those places where Jesus "often was reluctant or evasive when asked to demonstrate his powers" -- the only place like this that might work, where Jesus did not indeed go on to use his powers, is [example] (the "sign from heaven" -- why does Daffy omit this?! Our critic says I don't "dare" deny it -- OK, I deny it! Now bring up the goods!

I said [Holding] "dares not deny that Jesus often was reluctant or evasive when asked to demonstrate his powers," and I did not qualify it with the condition that Jesus was not later recorded in the Gospels as nevertheless "go[ing] on to use his powers." I could indeed "name all those places" where Jesus was reluctant or evasive, but [Holding] will just claim that he intends the qualification.  Daffy backpedals -- call it a guard [@] again -- and creates an excuse of accusation, a spin [$]. I in fact dared him to deny that Jesus often was reluctant or evasive, period -- No, he said clearly above, "when asked to demonstrate his powers" -- dodge [&]. even if Jesus is said to subsequently use his powers.  [Holding] won't deny this unqualified statement, because it's so obviously true.  Got a big ho ha ha [#] on this one. Here is some more social-science homework, from Malina and Rohrbaugh's Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels [204]: Any place where Jesus does show what we would call "reluctance" is a reflection of the fact that excessive honor claims, such as of course divine claims would be, were meant to be kept from outsiders and would also be considered shameful. In addition to the problem of things like making Jesus into a king, the ancients held to a concept of "limited good" in which any time any person gained anything, whether prestige or power, it was seen in context of a "zero-sum" game in which their gain meant someone else's loss. Appearing self-aggrandizing in public immediately raised suspicion and envy; for a low-born person like Jesus to be known to make of himself such extravagant claims would have been seen as a form of grasping. His status had to be recognized by others (cf. Mark 8:27 and our comments on that) to be validated. Jesus' "reluctance" is actually, in context, an honorable behavior and doesn't support Daffy's case. The bottom line here is that, unable to refute my claim that Jesus "often was reluctant or evasive when asked to demonstrate his powers," [Holding] tries to claim that it doesn't matter.  It doesn't, because Daffy is on the wrong social train. Busted. He is oblivious to the fact that reports of such reluctance and evasiveness are precisely what we would expect if Jesus weren't divine -- Rather, what we would expect if Jesus were divine, but living in a limited-good, honor-shame setting. just as later allegations of subsequent miracles are precisely what we would expect from accounts trying to convince us of his divinity. Or, of events actually reporting historical miracles. Daffy can't show us how it would be any different. Since he's said this before, call it a parry [%].

JPH: I am accused of red herring fishing by our critic, but this is mere whitewashing on his part, an attempt to evade the argument and defense of the premises upon which so much of his thesis is based.

H: [Holding] continues his red herring attempt to attract attention away from his indefensible comparison of my "sound bite" reporting the consensus of professional secular scholarship [about the length of Jesus' ministry] and his "sound bite" that simply assumes the gospels are completely true. The two simply are not comparable, and so [Holding] vainly tries to change the subject. Too bad for Daffy, I never pursued that sound bite, but he did pursue that straw man; he can cite no place where I say such a thing, or do anything that would not be done in discussing any historical work and granting it "benefit of the doubt". Call it a turn [*] as he tries to score brownie points with the Skeppies who will uncritically agree with him.

D: The idea that Jesus' ministry was three years long and that he cleansed the temple twice etc. is a dead meme.

JPH: 1. Jesus knows many people in the Jerusalem area [..]

JPH: 2. Jesus had certainly been to Jerusalem before numerous times; as a Jew he was almost obliged to go there to attend the festivals! Would critics contend that he never went there in his 12-15 years as an adult, or during the key 2-3 years, even as an observant Jew?

JPH: Those who read the Synoptics woodenly think he was there only once, at the end of his ministry

JPH: 3. Mark's allusion to "green grass" (6:39) indicates a season before summer heat scorches the grass brown

JPH: Matt. 24:30, where the "Son of Man in the clouds" image first appears, is now covered in the essay and we encourage our critic to read it and offer no response as with these others. Which in essence he does now, saying,

D: None of [Holding]'s obfuscations can make it plausible that some preaching in Rome and the destruction of the Temple makes the Olivet prophecy true.

D: The the [sic] city of Rome is not the same thing as the "whole world," and being in "heaven" is not the same thing as "appear[ing] in the sky" and being "see[n as] coming on the clouds of the sky." The prophesied things plainly didn't happen during "this generation," and the prophecy is plainly false. That's Daffy's entire refutation, and it's the same response he gave in essence from the beginning: "Nuh uh!" Call Daffy's refusal to engage the issue a big fat ho ha ha [#], plus add another [#] for referring to Rome here and not Jerusalem. As before see here for the essay Daffy won't face.

JPH: It appears that our critic can't handle a revisit to complex subjects, and settles for calling them "dead memes" and blowing them off!

JPH: What I'm doing is citing someone who says that there are no references in Josephus of this sort

JPH: [But I have the works of Josephus sitting at my feet as I type this -- ] let's hear some of those cites, then, where Josephus records someone saying he is the Messiah!

JPH: Significantly our critic in his latest reply manages not to report to his readers that I have my copy of Josephus

D: Carrier's claim was that "many individuals were claiming to be, or were proclaimed to be, messiahs of one form or another in Jesus' day (Josephus recounts several)." Since [Holding] cannot even precisely state the contested issue, his non-quoting citation of O'Neill to the contrary is even more suspect.

[Holding] hypocritically ignores my refrain that I have no fear of anyone reading anything [Holding] writes, and have been posting [Holding]'s unedited responses in full and linking to them from my responses. Oh, sure. That has so much to do with Daffy not consulting Josephus and never providing a cite to back up his claim! He has fear, all right -- of being plucked and washed, and roasted at 350 degrees for 3 hours. By contrast,  [Holding] dares not include this link in either of his two essays in which my edited responses appear. Guard [@] -- here it is, for the Skeptics with mental difficulties who had trouble figuring out how to use a search engine. My readers sure didn't -- they found that with no help from me.

JPH: and have made my check

JPH: -- and then passes on making his own report, still deferring merely to Carrier.

D: I've quoted Carrier, but we have only [Holding]'s word that O'Neill contradicts Carrier. Given [Holding]'s past scholarship errors (e.g. misquoting me above, distorting the context of the psychology article earlier, being unable to find and report all the gospel passages relevant to withdrawal in the face of danger), I'm not going to recapitulate anyone's published research on the basis of [Holding]'s hand-waving non-quoting claim that some other research contradicts it. Guard [@] and spin [$] combined. I have neither misquoted Daffy, nor distorted any contexts, nor been unable to find anything: the latter is Daffy's spin on a challenge to him to find and explain his quotes within his paradigm.

JPH: It is claimed that I "admitted" that none of the claims [of Jesus' personal divinity] were such a direct statement, which is patently false in some cases, and in one case, no longer true, as in the Son of Man title.

D: people could not be guaranteed not to misinterpret, misunderstand, exaggerate, or selectively forget the sayings or claims of Jesus

JPH: in which case, let us have some positive evidence of misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or exaggeration (i.e., a saying of Jesus, shown to be misconstrued via contemporary parallels with differing meanings

D: [Holding] has not demonstrated that if these recorded sayings were not true then no human could have done anything that could later lead to these recordings

JPH: -- this is merely an illicit shifting of the burden; it is the critic's burden to explain how this could have come about

JPH: It is wrong to say that "the burden of proof does not fall completely on any one side" -- it falls not completely, no, but very heavily on the critic claiming doubt.

(A or B or C) & (not-A) & (not-B) => C

JPH: That [certain doubts of gospel authenticity that [Holding] does not address] are, as our critic says, "especially significant for the case at hand" does not make them any less a case of creating a root upon which to spin whatever theory suits one's purposes

JPH: all the while not meeting the burden of proof as the contrary claimant.

JPH: in the latest reply my comments here are merely dismissed with such comments as "wishful thinking" -- quite a hypocritical comment from one who has yet to provide a valid example of any of the above

What [Holding]'s readers of course cannot see [#lose] is what the unedited text of my responses actually contains: I.e., nothing substantive. Guard [@]. a clause-by-clause refutation of any substantive counter arguments [Holding] offers toward me, Actually, as we are now showing, mostly avoidance, anachronism, and substance of the sort only hippies smoke. Thrust [!] and spin [$]. and a fully-quoting diagnosis of each of his many insubstantive ad hominem generalities and strawman histrionics. Which we now offer as a service in return. If [Holding] thinks I have not rebutted the substance of any sentence in his "comments here," I defy him to identify it. We have been. My readers can match his sentences one-to-one with my rebuttals of their substance or diagnoses of their insubstantiality, and all of [Holding]'s impotent claims to the contrary cannot change this fact. Thrust [!]. Note that Daffy expects you to do this, but figures you are too lazy to use a search engine or write me a letter asking who he is.

JPH: claiming that I am "unwilling to deal with" his alleged case for Jesus as a moderately deluded faith-healer and that he thinks I haven't done the job. I may as well be unwilling to deal with the case for Jesus making a trip to India as a child or being a former sandal salesman, for in spite of our critic's one-phrase dismissals, his portrait is about as clear as graffiti on a restroom wall, and at about the same level of documentation.

D: [Holding] here gives two [now three] obviously worthless analogies, while essentially admitting he is unwilling to deal with what is now a tetralemma: liar, lunatic, lord, -- or faith-healer and apocalyptic preacher whose deluded belief in his importance was strengthened in the months leading up to his anticipated execution and was misinterpreted and exaggerated afterwards. I have dealt with it, and knocked it dead. Spin [$] by Daffy.

D: The mere existence of this fourth alternative doesn't in itself prove that this alternative is true. But it's unrebutted existence DOES invalidate the trilemma argument, whose validity depends on there being no non-lord options besides liar and lunatic. It has, however, been rebutted; hence Daffy just wants to bore you to death or sway you with repetition of his thesis. It may in fact be possible to prove Jesus' lordship through other more-direct arguments, but the Trilemma itself fails to do so if the fourth option is not actually SHOWN to be false. All this means is that the real debate is between "lord" and such a fourth option. The invalidity of the Trilemma doesn't lend any weight to either side of that real debate -- it's simply a fact of logic that is inconvenient for those seeking an easier alternative to the real debate.

D: Which Lincoln biographies are touted as the divinely inspired word of a deity?

JPH: It doesn't matter what they are "touted as"; even treating them as human records is enough, and this is not a case of me not "liking the answer" (whatever that means in this context!) but of making the point that the Gospels deserve treatment at least consistent with any other set of documents, whether our critic likes it or not.

D: Which Lincoln biographies give contradictory genealogies in trying to demonstrate his royal lineage?

JPH: Our critic completely omits these last points [recapitulating Miller's excuses] Spin [$] of Daffy's inability to counter Miller. , referring only to "laughable contortions" to resolve the matter, and also manages to omit the link to Miller's article.

D: Which Lincoln biographies give contradictory information for Lincoln's birth year?

JPH: our critic blanks out the Miller link and replaces it with one from Carrier for the "Barnum victims" in his readership. Dare I say, our critic does not dare provide access to such material?

[Holding] doesn't dare let his readers see[#] my Carrier link (which was given in plain text:  http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/quirinius.html) or the quote I gave from it. For Miller's link, see below. Guard [@]. Of course Daffy isn't consistent and thinks you'll never find this with a search engine.

D: Note that [Holding] names not a single Lincoln biography that supports even a hint of controversy regarding Lincoln's birth year.

JPH: There isn't one in the Gospels, either

JPH: but there is plenty of controversy about Lincoln that can be manufactured about his heritage, his parentage, and his childhood

D: Which Lincoln biographies seem to switch Lincoln's birthplace in a transparent attempt to make Lincoln fulfill a prophecy?

JPH: if he has a good look at the Lincoln bios, he will see plenty of "glaring contradictions" just as serious and as painful as those alleged in the Gospels [[Holding] now adds:] (a challenge which he simply ignores).

D: Which Lincoln biographies omit events as spectacular and memorable as the resurrection appearances (missing in original Mark), the Easter zombies swarming Jerusalem (only in Mat 27:53), or the Easter darkness "over all the earth" (omitted in John)?

JPH: [..] on this our critic merely flees into denial, saying since "many" sounds like a "swarm" to him it must have been, never mind that both words are simply vague

Nor does [Holding] dare let his readers see [#lose] my summary of his 0-5 loss on the Lincoln bios: "having asked 'why the Lincoln biographies [..] should be taken as accurate', [he] identifie[s] not a single one that is comparable to the gospels in any of the five ways I asked about." It's not even that the examples he gives are not comparable; he hasn't even attempted, in two rounds on this subject, to give a single example! Guard [@] as Daffy's summary is worthless if his comments are defeated, as they are above; and we have no obligation to include it just so that his ego can be massaged and his self-esteem propped up. The linked article was filled with examples that Daffy refused to deal with.

Finally, [Holding] does not dare let his readers see[#] my point that "it's laughable to say that some audiences would not have been impressed by [the Easter zombies miracle], or that miracles so spectacular were consciously downplayed for fear of straining anyone's credulity." Daffy wants you to see his thrust [!] comment about how laughable it is, because that's all the argument he has in the end. No answer about ancient compositional constraints, or about ancient consideration of resurrection; all he can do is call it names.

D: Nobody is claiming they should not be weighed, considered, compared, or factored. On the contrary, the difference that indeed needs to be weighed/considered/compared/factored is that evangelists want their readers to repent and save themselves from eternal damnation, whereas secular historians at most want to influence their readers' political opinions. It would be absurd to say this difference is insignificant.

JPH: Insignificant in what way? The subject matters are different, but the bottom line is that each writer had an agenda, and the mere having of an agenda is no test of truth or falsity

JPH: our critic's assumptions and biases against religious issues aside

JPH: and his inability to differentiate between categories -- content versus intent -- notwithstanding.

D: background plausibility, external objective confirmation, internal consistency, spatiotemporal proximity to the reported events, evidence of contemporary skeptical cross-examination, absence of plausible alternative explanations, etc. All of these factors tend to argue against the complete veracity of the gospel accounts. My book discusses five of these six factors in explicit detail.

JPH: we are referred to our critic's own book on the subject, which he can send us free to PO Box 112, Clarcona FL 32710-0112 if he thinks it has anything worth reading.

JPH: Until then I'll consider it no more than the same mumbo-jumbo in book form.

JPH: Here it is said that I don't "dare quote my counter-challenge" -- OK, I'm about to, now what?

D: why it is that the secular scholarly consensus is so univocal on things like the 2-source theory and gospel anonymity?

JPH: Because most of them merely accept the thesis on the basis of previous works

JPH: and have their own interests, and therefore no recourse to examine the matter [..] afresh. And as it happens, examples of such complacency are rife.

JPH: An example? Try Mithraic studies. It took a revolution to shake off Cumont's thesis, and those, including scholars, whose specialty is not Mithraism are still using Cumont, unaware that Mithraic scholarship since Cumont has moved on.

JPH: And our critic is apparently unaware that within the ranks of specialists on the subject, Q/Marcan priority is indeed under fire, and that a coterie of secular scholars who examined the subject afresh in the 1970s were not impressed -- if he "dares", let the critic address our material on the subject.)

JPH: Our critic fails to quote [[Holding]'s reference to] oral tradition

D: If a text were discovered that repeated the gospels' quotes of Jesus but were written during his ministry or by Jesus himself, would [Holding] really claim that it gives us no more confidence that we know what Jesus really said?

JPH: I would claim that it gives us more confidence, yes -- but that does not mean that the present confidence is not sufficient in itself.

D: [Holding] thus admits that the evidence of Jesus' words is suboptimal.

JPH: I have admitted no such thing, as anyone who reads with care may discern

JPH: and our critic has still done no more than throw straw in the air.

[Holding] then moves on to Jesus' divinity claims without daring to let his readers see [#lose] his defeat on the issue of whether I "backpedaled": Guard [@] as Daffy refuses to admit backpedaling -- not from a position, as I clearly said, but to avoid engaging specifics and explaining how the various claims of Jesus could have been misunderstood, misinterpreted, etc. as Daffy claimed. He knows he doesn't have the "up and up" on NT scholarship to do more than shake his rattle on this subject.

D: In floating his strawman argument about divinity "claims being invented", [Holding] merely confuses himself and thinks that to make a word-for-word restatement of my position is to "backpedal mightily". It is, if Daffy uses it to avoid addressing specific claims and their contexts. Same guard. [Holding]'s strawman claim that I charge "invention" is simply not justified by my statement that "we only have the second-hand word of evangelical Christian authors that Jesus fully held this conviction". Aw heck no, if we say we have only "second hand word" of "Christian authors" then we sure as heck aren't charging "invention" are we? Call this a dodge [&].

D: [[Holding]'s article] asserts "ontological equality" of Jesus and Wisdom and God, but does not support this assertion with actual gospel quotes that cannot also be interpreted as metaphor.

JPH: Well, then, where is the proof that such phrases (drawn, as they clearly are, from Wisdom traditions) were ever used metaphorically in the Jewish literature or by anyone else of relevance?

JPH: This is still merely hayseed thrown in the air by someone either not competent to, or unwilling to, deal with the texts.

JPH: We are being asked to ignore clear and direct parallels in favor of some obfuscatory supposition that somewhere, somehow, these phrases, which just happen to match contextually and linguistically with the Wisdom tradition, actually mean something entirely different in a way entirely unattested!

JPH: an update: I no longer hold that this title was intended to be mysterious. "Son of Man" is clear indication of divinity, at all times it is used by Jesus.

D: This does not imply that Jesus calling God 'abba' is the same thing as Jesus calling himself God.

JPH: As we have shown in the article referenced many moons ago, it does indeed equate with asserting ontological equality with God -- technically, what we actually argue for, not Jesus = God in one to one correspondence -- and our critic has still not replied with anything better than, "No, it doesn't have to!"

D: That could simply mean Jesus believed he had new superseding revelation.

JPH: "could simply mean" is not enough! This needs to be addressed within the proper socio-historical context, in which the ability to contradict or modify existing revelation from God required, from a human, a "thus sayeth the Lord" -- not merely an "I say unto you"!

JPH: In the latest edition our critic merely claims, in essence, "Yes, I have done enough, so there!"

[Holding] substitutes [#misrep] a childish strawman for my actual argument that I've asserted a prima facie plausible alternative explanation, and that the Trilemma is invalid if any such alternative is not rebutted. Another big fat dodge [&] as Daffy refuses to deal with the data here which shows that his "alternative explanation" is a load of anachronistic and irrelevant malarkey.

JPH: Misc. claims -- in this category, "Jesus says (Mt 7:21ff) he will be addressed in heaven as "Lord"; Jesus indicated (Mt 11:27) an exclusive father-son relationship with God; Jesus claimed (Mt 9:2) the ability to forgive sins; Jesus affirmed to the high priest that he is the Christ; Jesus said (Mt 23:34) he sends prophets. I would now regard the second as not as strong, but the rest remain [..] our critic has not shown in any sense that these claims are consistent with merely claiming to be a special prophet. Daffy omits the words, "and all our critic can do is play the same "could be" game without any critical examination of the relevant Jewish contexts" which show him to be incompetent to address the issues in those contexts. Call this a turn [*].

D: Malina et al.'s conclusion is plainly not warranted by their vague generalities. (Mark 8:27 is simply Jesus being evasive.)

JPH: Imagine that! Two NT scholars with recognized expertise in social psychology of the ancient world are merely palming off "vague generalities"

JPH: and no, Jesus isn't a man of his world, but is committing a 21st-century tactical evasion!

D: It's ludicrous to claim that delusions were impossible in the ancient world.

JPH: This is not what is said; what is said is that delusions would not take the form, nor have the reaction, nor develop in the way our critic requires for his thesis, in the ancient world.

JPH: The ancient world was not individualistic, but group-oriented. Malina and Neyrey explain in Portraits of Paul that group-oriented persons:

...rely on others to tell them who they are ("Who do people say that I am?" Mark 8:27). Consequently, from this perspective, modern questions of "consciousness" (did Jesus know he was God? did Jesus have faith?...) make no sense. For such questions are posited with the freight of the individualistically oriented persons in mind, and not in terms of the group-oriented persons of antiquity, who depend on others to tell them who they are, what is expected of them, and where they fit.

D: That Jesus' delusions were mutually reinforcing with the beliefs of his followers does not contradict my thesis. That Jesus could not have been delusional because his culture was 'group-oriented' is simply laughable.

JPH: You heard it fresh from the latest expert in ancient social psychology, folks. Malina and Neyrey are just prattling in the wind, and our critic knows better than a whole boatload of Malinas and Neyreys. Trust him, it's laughable!

JPH: And don't even bother to explain how that square peg of reinforcement fits into that round hole of a thesis, how such a social shebang so contrary to deeply ingrained contemporary social and religious values (to say nothing of the purity taboos that would be enforced around a delusional Jesus) managed to survive and grow

JPH: But is this any surprise? Our critic always seeks refuge in such evasions when cornered; if it isn't a dead meme, it's fit to be laughed at, and our man knows it better than anyone trained in the field!

D: It's simply not the case that followers of deluded people always act rationally and skeptically.

JPH: But they do act as their society dictates, and the ancient group orientation and other social factors cannot be evaded by simply snuffling, "They were just stupid and different than everyone else."

JPH: The group orientation meant that anyone "hanging with" a deluded Jesus would have been socially pressured to leave his company.

JPH: in this society, again, the ritual uncleanness of mental illness -- associated especially as it was with demonic powers -- would have driven away anyone that wasn't fast asleep!

JPH: As usual our critic merely throws uninformed generalities in the air with the assumption that the ancient world was no different than the one down the road in his local grocery store.

JPH: Our critic [..] offer[s] the thesis that the distance into the sea described is one of those "exaggerations" to be taken out of the pot and designated as such when convenient. Daffy leaves out this part: "As noted, the Sea of Galilee is a relative puddle, but it is 4 by 7 miles, and it does get as deep as 150 feet. Not much, but also not much room for misapprehending depth when one is in the midst of this sea (not near the shoreline), where the water is at least deep enough to be worried about a ship being swamped, night or no night..." A turn [*] to hide his inability to answer.

[Holding] of course does not let his readers see his defeat [#lose] on denying the exaggeration: Guard [@] of ineffectual dare.

D: [Holding] tries to show that the text is not exaggerated by -- wait for it -- quoting from the text itself! Just like historians quote from the texts themselves to make a point about the texts. Again, a guard. This again demonstrates [Holding]'s clumsiness with the contextual subtleties that are so critical to good scholarship. Thrust [!]. Apparently "good scholarship" here means tweaking and excusing away the text in accordance with a pre-determined paradigm. An honest skeptic would admit that the account as it stands can be neither directly proven nor disproven via the historical method, but has to be taken in the larger context of the phenomenon of the Jesus-movement and coherence within the socio-theological contexts, i.e., is it something Jesus would do if he were divine? Yes, because as noted above, walking on water is said to be something only God can do. Episodes like this are no doubt the reason why [Holding] is too chicken to give his readers any way to see my undoctored writings in this debate. Guard [@] and parry [%] and thrust [!] all in one. BTW just today (12/3/02) I was on a forum and with no help from me a member I was arguing with came back asking me about Daffy's article on his site, which he had found -- wait for it! -- all by himself. Daffy wants links for the stupid people who don't exist. He also wants a good complaining point.

JPH: As predicted, the thesis is altered and tweaked as needed to make the whole machine continue to work.

JPH: there is nothing "confusing" (real quote) about the Trinity, or about the dual nature, except to uneducated skeptics. (Our critic calls this an "[a]rgument by (laughable) assertion" but naturally this is the sum and total of his answer)

JPH: I have said nothing about a "clear claim"; I have referred to a direct claim (which in this context is indeed different from a "clear" claim as it is both clear and strong)

JPH: and as shown in the item on Wisdom (which our critic has no answer for...)

D: Nothing in [Holding]'s Wisdom item demonstrates that it would have been 'technically inaccurate and imprecise' for Jesus to say at least one of [list of claims] Yes, it does, and Daffy is too "duh, oh" to know. Ho ha ha [#]. Analysis shortly.

JPH: Note well, as our critic has not, that I have only said that one particular claim -- "I am God!" -- would be technically inaccurate and imprecise

JPH: In identifying himself as Wisdom, Jesus did claim, in one package, to be, as our critic complains, "divine ... omniscient and omnipotent (which in the Wisdom context means, having access to all power and knowledge via direct relationship with God; Wisdom was always, as Jesus was, functionally subordinate to the Father) .. ontologically equal to God ... God incarnate (more properly, God's Wisdom incarnate) ... El/Yahweh made flesh" (though as these were titles of the Father, actually not usable in this context). Our critic has no way around these clear divine claims

• I am divine. Jesus did say this when he called himself Son of Man, referred to himself in terms of Wisdom, etc. and Daffy is simply too uneducated to know better.
• I am omniscient and omnipotent. Not really a claim Wisdom or Jesus would make, since Wisdom was functionally dependent on the Father and was only omni-whatever through the Father's power. Call this a theological ho ha ha [#].
• I am ontologically equal to God. Jesus said this when he referred to himself in terms of Wisdom.
• I am God incarnate. "God" was not a personal name at this time so Jesus would hardly say this. Another ho ha ha [#] of Daffy's profound miseducation.
• I am El/Yahweh made flesh. These would be technically incorrect since El/Yahweh was the Father.

JPH: despite his best efforts to rob them of meaning or take them from their source.

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners'. But wisdom is proved right by her actions." Mat 11:19, Luk 7:35

"The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here." Mat 12:42, Luk 11:31

"God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.'" Luk 11:49

"For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict." Luk 21:15

JPH: one finds a lesser variety of Christological titles in the works of Paul and the rest of the NT

D: Lesser in variety, and no doubt more consistent in claiming Jesus' divinity. This is precisely what my thesis would predict. More ho ha ha [#] -- they are not "more consistent" but the same (mostly "Wisdom" parallels), though Daffy is so contextually uneducated that he wouldn't recognize a Jewish title of divinity if it bit him on the tailfeathers.

JPH: No doubt more consistent? Try again: The Wisdom factor is the same across the board

JPH: the Son of Man title is not used

JPH: the sonship language is used across the board

JPH: and bottom line, the thesis is under the wrecking ball yet again.

JPH: [our critic] finds it easy to speak as though Peter should have stood firm and takes his failure as evidence of guilt and trauma which inspired their faith

JPH: (which fails as well on the grounds that no one was expecting a resurrection)!

JPH: Let's put our critic before the Roman gallows with a spear in his left nostril -- I doubt if he'll do any better!

JPH: On my matter of Jesus quoting Ps. 22, and thereby alluding to the whole of it, including the triumphant ending, our critic [..] merely repeats yet again in the latest response in different words, suggesting merely convenient re-interpretation on our part, and "maybe Jesus used it in an entirely different way than the meaning that was otherwise universally known and accepted" Daffy omits the phrase, "has no answer other than the makeshift game" -- guard [@].

JPH: what on earth he did say that could have been mistakenly remembered as the distinctive first line of Ps. 22.

D: The answer is obviously: anything else indicating despair at abandonment or betrayal.

JPH: Oh, really? Find us a contemporary expression of despair at abandonment/betrayal with enough linguistic/structural features similar to the first line of Ps. 22

JPH: as it is, just throwing "anything else" in the air is an admission that the critic has no actual answer

• Why have you rejected me?
• Why have you renounced me?
• Why do you not save me?
• Why have you betrayed me?
• Why do you not rescue me?
• Why did you let me come to this?
• Why have you left me alone here?
• Why have you cast me aside?
• Why do you not defend me?
• Why have you disowned me?
• Why do you not deliver me? These are a laugh. Only 1, 3, and 4 even come close; none have the double divine name; and Daffy doesn't of course even try to see if these words in Aramaic/Hebrew are close-sounding enough to have been mistaken for the Ps. 22 reference.

JPH: there is no evidence that such fantastic claims were never disputed

D: Christianity took decades and centuries to become a significant force, and so not many people would have cared until the evidence was gone.

JPH: This is simply irrelevant

JPH: ("significant" in what way, and to what effect?)

JPH: and in the latter case, absolutely false, merely an uncritical acceptance of Carrier

JPH: see here factor 13, for a response. [which says] In a society where nothing escaped notice, there was indeed every reason to suppose that people hearing the Gospel message would check against the facts

D: The Christian side of the story had a better chance of being preserved than the anti-Christian side.

JPH: In substance and value this is no better than Acharya S with her wild fantasies of suppressed and destroyed documents and an immensely begged question.

JPH: Moreover, we have ample amounts of material telling the non-Christian side of the story

JPH: our critic however will merely do as done above and assume that the opponents weren't of good enough caliber to do the job.

D: Nevertheless, Matthew 28 DOES report (and of course denies) a widespread story that the empty tomb was faked.

JPH: It does, and how does this help our critic?

JPH: It doesn't -- we would expect some explanation to emerge; that resort was made to a ludicrous "stolen body" line merely shows that, as often comes from critics, they had no better explanation to offer than one that was manifestly absurd on its face.

[Holding] baldly and inexplicably asserts that the stolen-body theory is "ludicrous," "manifestly absurd on its face," and doesn't count as an "explanation." If he can assert this with a straight face, one wonders why he bothers debating this subject at all, since it's hard to imagine how even most Christians would agree with this ridiculous assessment. It's more likely that [Holding] saw he was near the end of a 33-page essay that almost no visitor to his web site would be reading, and so he just wilted under the weight of my arguments and couldn't bring himself to attempt an actual rebuttal. As I say: Speaking of actual rebuttals, there is none here to the point that the stolen body thesis is indeed ludicrous and manifestly absurd. It's quite likely that Daffy has no answer to offer, because he was getting worn to the bone after defending himself from this essay that many have written to me about in appreciation, and which actually has been read by between 151 and 204 people every month -- which seems to be as many as Daffy gets for his whole, ego-binding "Human Knowledge" site every month -- in the last four months, and so could not bring himself to commit to an actual rebuttal. Isn't psychoanalysis fun? Thrust [!].

D: If we believed in 'trained sorcerers', we wouldn't necessarily be interested in disproving the alleged miracles of an alleged sorcerer.

JPH: Yes we would, because in disproving the miracles, we disprove the person's capacity as a sorcerer !

JPH: there is now as much superstition and ignorance as there was in ancient times [..] and it is not merely a matter of lack of info as our critic claims, for there was no lack of information concerning the possibility of naturalism. Daffy omits and turns [*]: "...Of course we prefer horoscopes and wearing lucky socks to going to the temple of Asclepius, but what we lack in scale we make up for in volume (as well as in terms of subject matter at hand, which our critic also doesn't understand as part of the category-package). The bigot remains at large and the white sheet still fits; and it is not merely a matter of lack of info as our critic claims, for there...", thus leaving out my powerful analogy showing that there is no difference in adherence to superstition and ignorance.

JPH: He is equating ignorance with stupidity, and tarring the ancients with that brush, and then trying to fudge by separating the two and claiming he's only criticizing for one but not the other.

D: he is trying to equate "ignorance" -- i.e. not having certain information -- with something like congenital stupidity, in vain effort to justify his ad hominem attack on me as a "bigot"

JPH: That just won't work. The relationship between knowledge and critical capacity is non-severable.

D: [Holding] here contradicts himself, by noting that the ancients were credulous about people (not just Jesus) being 'trained sorcerers', and then asserting the ancients 'were no more ready to accept wild claims than we are'.

JPH: I have shown no such inconsistency; our critic has merely begged the question again -- this time against sorcery!

[Holding] does not dare let his readers see[#] my annihilation of his claim that "there is now as much superstition and ignorance as there was in ancient times."  Guard [@] related to above turn as Daffy managed to leave out what I noted about horoscopes, etc. which shows his "annihilation" to be a pompous sham. By the way, be sure and read Glenn Miller's article here on this very subject. I wrote:

D: [Holding]'s claim about ignorance and superstition can be demonstrated as false merely by citing the major phenomena that the ancients believed were supernaturally caused: And we can compose a similar list of superstitions and ignorance for today. It's just a matter of scale of application.

• the daily cycle of the Sun; the motions of the Moon and planets; Lucky socks, pre-game rituals, taping a penny to your shoe, horoscopes, psychic hotlines, Peter Popoff and Benny Hinn....
• the seasons; rivers, currents, winds, thunder, lightning, precipitation and drought; I'd ask whether Daffy thinks the ancients thought EVERY instance of these was "supernaturally caused" or just selected episodes. If so, we still have that today.
• the genesis, design, and diversity of life; Begged question against creationism/intelligent design. success in farming and hunting; Fishermen have "lucky lures" and hunters have "lucky jackets"...
• the human mind; Begged question of naturalism. evil, misfortune, disease, pestilence, war, and death. In some cases, also a begged question, and actually, not even the ancients always saw this as directly caused by supernatural means, though they did believe that nothing happened without divine permission.

Of course, [Holding] is at something of a disadvantage here, as he presumably still believes that some of the above are supernaturally caused. I believe all of them CAN be supernaturally caused, and that some (creation, for example) are, but that most by far are not beyond sovereign permission. Daffy has no answer other than the begged question of naturalism in this context.

On this topic, [Holding] runs out of steam Cheap psychological thrust [!]. and does not even respond to (or let his readers see[#])  my point that Guard [@] anyway as I have answered all of those points in other essays linked in reply to Daffy before.

D: 1) The lack of reference in Paul's letters (c. 58CE) to the gospels, and their allusions to Rome's fall in 70CE, date them to decades after the events. Paul actually does quote Luke's gospel twice in his letters, and alludes to Gospel sayings and episodes several more times. Ho ha ha [#]. 2) The gospels are generally considered anonymous, and even apologists admit that only two could have been first-hand. The Gospels are only considered anonymous by those who ignore the data. See here. Ho ha ha [#] again. 3) Unlike e.g. Caesar, Jesus himself left no known writings. Why did he need to? See here. Daffy's graphocentrism deserves a ho ha ha [#].

JPH: "describe a Jesus able to work hometown miracles" -- see above, it is not an issue of not being able to do them with reference to ability

JPH: "describe a Jesus whose family never thought him 'mad', and who were his most ardent believers instead of the object of his apparent resentment" -- well, that's what they became after the resurrection, what more does this man want?!?

JPH: "describe a Jesus more self-differentiated from the primitive tribal deity of the Hebrew Torah" -- [..] a begged question concerning, now, the Old Testament? (We are told to read the critic's book again, if we "dare" -- again, send a free copy, and we will.)

D: [Holding] mistakenly assumes that a NEW question counts as a "begged" question. No, I say no such thing; whether new, old, shiny, or grungy, it is a begged question. [..] overwhelmingly more Christians take the gospels literally than take the Torah literally. Vague turn [*] of generality. Which parts, and why? And why block off the "Torah" from the OT as a whole? The point proves nothing because of its vagueness and doesn't even answer the point I made.

JPH: (Our critic also failed to answer a reply sent to him, making the point that a person could no more be "99% sinless" that one could be "99% pregnant".)

[Holding] also doesn't dare let his readers see[#] my point Ineffecutal guard [@] as no one cares about Daffy's emotional tirade, which is answered in principle already by ThinkTank articles showing that Daffy's estimation of Yahweh is a strawman (on the Canaanites, Amalekites, etc). that "the gospel accounts could portray a Jesus/Yahweh/El who is not so petulantly defensive about his anemic inability to provide convincing evidence of his existence," Ho ha ha [#] as Daffy can't provide an actual cite from the Bible where this actually happens. Yahweh/El never does such a thing. Also: When did, and why would, Jesus ever have to provide evidence of his existence to any person and get defensive about it? Did Daffy compose this objection at 4 AM? and goes on to write:

JPH: Our critic points to "supernatural patterns [in cosmological or quantum phenomena] or ongoing miracles [such as prophecy or communication with a spirit world]" -- apparently he is unaware of the existence of people who would more readily attribute such signs to aliens than to Jesus

JPH: conceptually, this entire argument is refuted in detail here.

JPH: others around the world have time to fill the omen with their own meaning which they may be hard-pressed to give up when missionaries arrive to fill in the details.

JPH: What of blind people? Why should they believe such a message is written on the moon [..]? Turn [*] of dishonesty as Daffy omits another powerful descriptive phrase, "..., unless they can, as Broken Vector himself might say, '...see [it], directly, here and now, with [their] own eyes'?"

JPH: how would one convert in turn the man who thinks that "Jesus Lives" because he was raised by space aliens?

JPH: the complaint is misplaced to begin with, under the paradigm that being a member of the body of Christ is not merely a process that starts and stops at conversion but continues throughout life with the process of discipleship and fellowship

JPH: these suggestions would compel a "forced" choice rather than one made freely

The Divine Shyness argument is refuted by Christianity's own texts. El/Yahweh had no compunction about "forcing" belief with all his Old Testament miracles (that were so petulantly primitive and so obviously constrained by ancient pre-scientific imagination). Jesus similarly had no compunction about "forcing" belief with his New Testament miracles (which, happening during a time with far better historical records, were not coincidentally much more modest than the OT's miracles).

Apologists cannot have it both ways. Either first-hand witness of miracles is a "forcing" of belief, or it is a non-forcing level of evidence whose denial to the rest of us is immoral (given the punishment for non-belief). Once again looking past the hype [!] and spin [$], this amounts to noting that God "forced" such miraculous acts on .0005% of all people who have ever lived throughout history, over a period that amounts to .0005% of all recorded time. Does such minimal interaction refute the idea of a Divine Prime Directive? If you think so, Farrell Till has a calculator to sell you, and it runs on spuds.

JPH: We are also repeatedly told from skeptical circles that one could not possibly worship a "monster" like the Biblical God of the OT. Now if that is so, are Blue Fairies any help at all?

JPH: The Christian paradigm does have a "Blue Fairy" -- the Holy Spirit. [The] "best case" scenario is fulfilled already. We are left with that non-believers must simply deny that the Spirit is convicting them

JPH: One may as well suggest that there would have been no concern had there been infertility suffered by the parents of Martin Luther King, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Karl Marx. (The matter here is not an issue of appealing to the vanity of a local tribal deity, but of instigating an event whose effects play out on a vaster scale, something our critic still can't comprehend...

JPH: and is unlikely to, as he is too ingrained in bigotry [i.e., male circumcision, a rite of passage in many cultures who consider it important, is no more than "a cynical appeal to the sick fetish of the local tribal deity"] to do so.)

JPH: the evidence is more than sufficient as it stands [..] the problem is not just one of the head, but also the heart -- and that is why more people aren't believers, and some fewer are inerrantists!

D: The point [Holding] misses here is that the gospels shouldn't need convoluted essays to try to obfuscate or explain away their internal prima facie inconsistencies.

JPH: The Gospels don't need the essays; it is the uninformed and bigoted critic that needs them to cure themselves of reading the Bible like it was a newspaper.

JPH: Central and simple facts like Jesus dying at Jerusalem offer no margin of viable expression, unlike a complex chain of events such as involved the resurrection narratives, which are also, unlike a simple fact-statement, subject to the limitations of such constraints as writing space, audience interest, and authoroial purpose; our critic is comparing apples and oranges yet again!

End of story. End of Daffy, indeed. We already answered Carrier's footnotes, but as an amsuing side note, Daffy culled for advice by cc'ing not only Carrier, but also Dan Barker and Farrell Till. I can understand polling Carrier, a degree in history, but Barker and McTill? Daffy has his head in a bucket and has never drawn it out.