Here's a good little article written last December by a professor of ancient history.
He discusses the quackery of mythers and their cries of conspiracy.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles ... 154120.htm
Mythers are the anti vaxxers of history.
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Mythers come out. Especially in December.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
The comments following that article are telling. Maybe someday I'll have to dig in to this debate.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
Yeah. Or maybe one day you'll find out how many years of study it actually takes to become a scholar on ancient histories so you can have an appreciation for the consensus like you do for other areas of expertise like global warming.Interbane wrote:The comments following that article are telling. Maybe someday I'll have to dig in to this debate.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
Apple banana? What does your comment have to do with anything? Global warming? Years of study? Random tunafish? You make no sense. There's no connection between my post and your post.ant wrote:Yeah. Or maybe one day you'll find out how many years of study it actually takes to become a scholar on ancient histories so you can have an appreciation for the consensus like you do for other areas of expertise like global warming.
On mythers, perhaps you could help me understand. Why are they wrong? Is there a quick summary of why mythicists are rejected without thought? I'm curious.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
I agreed with some of the commenters that the writer ragged too much on his former student, but I didn't see a refutation of the mythicist claim, which is that, historically, Jesus came from Christ. The accepted (because backed by the most evidence) historical, non-devotional view is the reverse, that Christ came from Jesus. There has to be strong evidence to overturn that, and I wonder where it is. It isn't in the argument from silence, in the claim that all the historical references to Jesus are spurious, or that mythical features in Jesus/Christ prove that he was of mythical origin. There is plenty of motivation on the mythicist side, but that just makes the claims a little fishy. The motive is to revision Christianity and to support the vision with supposed historical claims to give the whole thing weight.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
I agree that some mythers are actually trying to reform Christianity and make it more compatible with the modern world. The astrotheist slant is both mystical (pseudo spiritual) and also more compatible with science than traditional religion. As such, astrotheism is an attempt to make a new religion while keeping some of the elements of the old (although the old traditions are themselves being reimagined).DWill wrote:There is plenty of motivation on the mythicist side, but that just makes the claims a little fishy. The motive is to revision Christianity and to support the vision with supposed historical claims to give the whole thing weight.
G.K. Chesterton, who is being discussed on another thread, once said that "the whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected." This is an oversimplification because sometimes the changes brought about by liberals are good. The end of slavery, for example, was the work of progressives. And once that victory was won, conservatives have embraced it.
This recent battle between mythicists, on one hand, and traditional Christians on the other, seems to fall along the same liberal-conservative divide. Conservatives want to preserve the traditional conception of Christianity while liberals want to reform Christianity. I’m pretty sure that’s part of the impetus for mythicism.
And so it goes. Liberals want go on making mistakes, and Conservatives want to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
Hi Geo, I know that you are not defending or promoting astrotheology but trying to make sense of the mythicist/historicist debate.geo wrote:I agree that some mythers are actually trying to reform Christianity and make it more compatible with the modern world. The astrotheist slant is both mystical (pseudo spiritual) and also more compatible with science than traditional religion. As such, astrotheism is an attempt to make a new religion while keeping some of the elements of the old (although the old traditions are themselves being reimagined).
Mythicism comes in a bewildering variety of theories,shapes and forms of which astrotheology is a small branch. It is pseudo spiritual but it is also pseudo science, which is ironic as it's attempting to replace supernatural explanation with claimed naturalistic and rational explanation.
It actually mangles scripture interpretively and explains all in scripture that contradicts it,( which is is just about everything) as conspiratorial redaction going on for millennia by shadowy unknown characters.
It's also a failure of approach to doing history where the conspiracy is made all encompassing to include the writings of Josephus,Tacitus,Suetonius and others.
No matter how often it's pointed out that Christians in the earlier centuries had no way of altering these accounts it falls on deaf ears.
Later interpolations in Josephus are recognised by scholars but the earlier account can still be found (e.g.in Origen's writings) and distinguished from it.
So contemporary scholars too must be conspirators not to agree with their original conspiracy theory.
The mythicist's reliance on dubious sources and discredited older "scholarship" is problematic too.
So ultimately it's anti-rational and anti-scholarship.
Not every naturalist sinks into the history as conspiracy swamp and of course O' Neill whose article features is a prime example.
The real dividing line I think is between theism and naturalism.geo wrote:This recent battle between mythicists, on one hand, and traditional Christians on the other, seems to fall along the same liberal-conservative divide. Conservatives want to preserve the traditional conception of Christianity while liberals want to reform Christianity. I’m pretty sure that’s part of the impetus for mythicism.
And so it goes. Liberals want go on making mistakes, and Conservatives want to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
Some naturalists take it as having an historical base later embellished from mythology to supernatural religion. He existed and was crucified by Pilate but did no miracles.
The hardcore mythicists simply reject all evidence pointing to an historical Jesus and surmise various and strange explanations for Christianity's origins.
The orthodox who are theists, see it as an historical account with miraculous elements as integral to it.
Conservatives actually have to correct the mistakes of the mythicists.
The further ignominy for the hardcore mythicists is when atheists reject their abuse of history.
And the final straw is when hardcore mythicists of conflicting branches expose the folly of each other's theories.
For example Robert Tulip would shred Atwill's conspiracy theory if required, and rightly so.
I linked this article by R.G.Price in the myth thread, but it's worth repeating to underscore the unscientific and un-scholarly foundations of astrotheology.
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/temp/SunsofGod.pdf
Last edited by Flann 5 on Wed Apr 01, 2015 11:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
Thanks, Flann. I always appreciate your comments.Flann 5 wrote:Hi Geo, I know that you are not defending or promoting astrotheology but trying to make sense of the mythicist/historicist debate.
Mythicism comes in a bewildering variety of theories,shapes and forms of which astrotheology is a small branch. It is pseudo spiritual but it is also pseudo science, which is ironic as it's attempting to replace supernatural explanation with claimed naturalistic and rational explanation.
From my perspective, Christianity also comes in a bewildering array of theories, shapes and forms. One thing that I appreciate about you is that you're very open and honest about where you're coming from. Many Christians don't really care that much about the supernatural claims either way. They understand the historical context of the Bible and they can take the good parts and ignore the bad parts.
I can also appreciate where mythers are coming from. I think they're just looking for spiritual comfort as you are, or some of them at least. And if they can be faulted for reimagining Christianity's history, you can argue that orthodoxers are doing the same thing, using a supposed historic basis to lend credibility to their own irrational beliefs—Jesus as son of god, saviour of mankind and all that. If a historical scholar is truly objective, he or she will not address miracles or the alleged divinity of the Jesus except to treat them as antiquated historical beliefs. On one end of the myther spectrum at least, Jesus is accepted as a historical person. All the mythical elements were later grafted on to him, or so they say. Maybe this position is more in accord with historical scholarship than your own?
To that same extent, science doesn't really address the existence of God. There's no evidence to look at.
The question comes up inevitably, does Christianity need reformation? Certainly a lot of people are forced to do without religion because they can't get past all the mumbo jumbo. They are told to have faith, but faith in what? Faith in faith? Back in the old days, people didn't know much and so they guessed a lot of stuff. Those guesses became entrenched in religious belief and today what we have is a religion that is arguably out of step with the modern world. Because today we actually do know a lot about how things work, thanks to science. So does Christianity need reformation? Can it be reformed?
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
i would say the strong evidence you look for is the text itself.DWill wrote:There has to be strong evidence to overturn that, and I wonder where it is.
the story of Jesus is an obvious rewrite of the story of moses in many places
the strong resemblance to mystery religions
the weird stuff like josephus having a story about three old mates crucified and one surviving
the common mythological motifs sprinkled throughout
and many other fascinating things like platonism, stoicism etc etc
even if there were a guy called jesus in there back in history somewhere he would be able to claim very little credit, as the majority of the text comes from places like i mention above.
Last edited by youkrst on Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mythers come out. Especially in December.
i think it just has to be seen as what it is, mythology.geo wrote:So does Christianity need reformation? Can it be reformed?
as Santiago says in that great quote you shared, about how to profit from it.
Campbell makes the same point.
as do many others.