Resolved: Jesus did not exist

Great Debates
181

No, but you do need some scholarship to read and compile other sources.

His friend claimed it was a hoax that he converted to Christianity, and Kirby seems to agree. But it wasn’t his hoax, so that is not his issue. So, the point of the “hoax” is that Kirby is NOT a Christian. However, he is still a strongly avowed atheist, and thus biased.

All his cites show the most radical of the anti-Christians beliefs. I see none that support John really did write his Gospel (which is hotly contended and generally accepted, even tho DtC doesn;t think so- this is because he apparently reads nothing but sources like Infidels).

No, DtC *claims *that Kirby is a better source than those JThunder posted. I have shown that at the very least Kirby is strongly biased, thus Kirby is not a better cite than JThunder cites. It’s up to DtC to show that Kirby is a valid cite. So far, he has failed to do so. I have made no claims to personal scholarship or expertise, I have merely linked to other, better qualified sources.

So, does anyone have a Bio of Kirby?

182

When the Spirit is on you- you can really believe. Thus, it’s quite possible that a crowd really beleived that just a bite of fish and bread made them feel as if they had a meal. Or, maybe folks added to the baskets as they were passed.

183

?

Why?

Please provide a link.

I fail to see the relevance of this. Are you asserting that atheists can’t engage in honest discussion/debate/citation collection?

Should we dismiss Christians with regard to historical religious research? After all, they are biased as well.

Please provide some counter cites by scholars (non fundamentalist scholars, since appearance of bias is an issue with you).

Is wiki bias? Because the authors there seem to agree with Kirby’s quotes. Yes, there are a few modern scholars who accept some writing from John as being writings from John. From the wiki link:

“Although ancient traditions attributed to the Apostle John the Fourth Gospel, the Book of Revelation, and the three Epistles of John, modern scholars believe that he wrote none of them.”

Stephen L. Harris has the following credentials:

(I believe he’s retired)

Does his opinion not count because he’s bias?

Here’s more:

It seems that it’s a minority view that John wrote the gospel attributed to him.

Seriously, will you only accept citations from authors whom you agree with? Because, at this point, that’s what it appears. You don’t seem to want to argue what is quoted, you simply dismiss it because of an appearance of bias from the person doing the quoting.

That’s not precisely what DtC claimed. DtC has repeatedly claimed that Kirby provides a plethora of scholarly sources - which Kirby does.

Kirby’s ‘potential’ bias doesn’t detract from this. In fact, it’s a red herring. It’s hard to see exactly why would should dismiss the scholars he quoted simply because Kirby is an atheist. Show that he’s either quote mining or some how otherwise being dishonest in what he’s quoting. Please elaborate.

Right now you are simply dismissing him because he might be dishonest BECAUSE he’s an atheist.

Which is not compelling.

You are the one who made the claim that he was engaged in a hoax - please provide a cite to it.

184

Not to be a dick or anything, but I have to point out that when you write the following:

You lose credibility.

By your own standards, it seems that we can freely reject your links, since you don’t appear to have the scholarship to read or compile sources.

Does JThunder?

If not, then in order to be consistent, you’d have to reject what he writes as well.

185

Quite. If you’re human, you have a viewpoint. What matters is the strength of your argument and the evidence it is based on and how it stands up to challenge and counter-evidence.

Otherwise we can dismiss everything any Christian has ever said on the subject of religion up to and including all the writers from whom the Church picked and choosed its Bible. In fact no one could have a debate on any subject with anyone ever.

186

Provide me a link he’s a Christian, not an atheist.

No, but they are biased. So are the deeply religous.

I said nothing of the sort. What I said is that there is a hoax perpetrated by others who claimed Kirby was a Christian. Kirby never said he was a Christian, it’s not Kirby’s fault or hoax.

187

Kirby posted on his own blog, as well as other places that he’d reconverted to Catholicism (of a sort). I’d link to it, but he’s long since deleted those posts. He posted it elsewhere as well. I don’t know where you’re getting this “hoax” thing, but it was no hoax, It wasn’t long-lived, but he said it himself, it wasn’t a friend. I knew him slightly when he posted a lot on Infidels (now Freethought and Rationalism - I’m a moderator there), and this kind of thing was not out of character for him. I don’t think he made it a secret that he is bipolar, and he sometimes makes some radical choices when he is in a manic phase (at other times he can be prodigiously productive). He was also still pretty young at the time. I believe he was still a teenager when he set up ECW. I know it doesn’t look like it was set up by a kid, but I think Peter is a true genius, just unbelievably bright and precocious. I encouraged him to pursue a doctorate, and that I thought he had the makings of a great teacher. He’s extraordinarily fair minded and thorough, almost obsessively so. I assure you that you couldn’t be more off base with charging him with having an agenda. He just isn’t like that, and his ECW site is not about his own conclusions anyway, but, as I’ve repeately said, is just a resource site for texts and commentaries. I also happen to know that his site is used and respected by believers and non-believers alike, and that he is friends with believing schoalrs like Stephen Carlson (one of the few apologists I like and respect, and who doesn’t insult my intelligence).

You just couldn’t be more off base with peter. I don’t know what to tell you, but he’s one of the least agenda driven people you’ll find on the web involved with religious discussions.

188

Why?

It’s not central to any claims that I’ve made about him. It’s central to your attempt to prove bias and slander his character. So YOU provide the links. I’m happy enough to disregard any character attacks on him, you on the other hand do not seem to be, so it is incumbent upon YOU to support your character attacks (even though they aren’t relevant to the discussion).

Okay, so then we should disregard anyone who has any beliefs regarding religion what-so-ever.

Fair enough.

Now there’s no scholarship left on which to make a determination.

You seem to be changing your story - but it is irrelevant. You are the one who is making an issue of his character. Support it or retract it.

Dio is a moderator on the board that Kirby frequents. His testimony is good enough for me. So it’s your turn to pony up some evidence.

189

From the comments section of John Loftus’s blog …

It looks much more as if Kirby simply can’t decide which world view is correct, and does not wish to take sides. Note that Kirby does not contradict Trader T; no one claims this was a hoax (including Loftus, who would have a reason to); and the comments take place over a long range of time. I see absolutely no reason to believe that this was a “hoax” or that we should assume that Kirby has an untrustworthy level of bias (quite the contrary!).

190

Two posters seems to think his being a Christian was germane. Maybe you don’t, but it’s not really all about you.

Nor was I slandering his character. He’s a dedicated atheist. How is that slander? Being a dedicated athiest or a dedicated beleiver both shows bias. Nor am I changing my story.

Here’s a cite

where someone posted "Believe that and you’ll believe anything. It’s all wet, wet, wet! Someone, somewhere is having you on. It’s like the fictitious conversion of the fictitious Saul of Tarsus."

Dio is completely biased and has no biographical info about Kirby whatsoever, as far as DtC knows, Kirby might as well be a made up posting personae.

Nor have I said anything at all about Kirby’s character. I said he was a atheist, and thus biased. I could say that same about many posters here.

191

What exactly is a “dedicated atheits,” and cite that Peter Kirby is one?

I don’t understand your cite. It references, as I did, Peter’s blogging about his brief conversion back to Catholicims. You quoted a comment from someone who said they didn’t believe it, them Peter himself commented right below that saying (as he did on the other blog quoted by Meatros above) that the information was “accurate but now obsolete.” What exactly are you trying to present a disbelieving comment on a blog as evidence of, especially since Kirby refuted the comment himself?

He posted about his conversion on his own blog, and on several other message boards and blogs that I know of. Personal friends of his confirmed it on the site I am most familiar with. You have posted no evdience at all of a hoax.

Could he be a fake person? Well, if he is then he’s got other fake personas posting that they know him and have met him in real life, and I’m not really sure what difference it would make anyway.

I’m biased? In what direction? I have no biographical information? Well, all I’ve done is describe what he himself has posted, and to some degree, my evaluation of him.

You’re responding very oddly here, especially since Peter Kirby’s own opinions have nothing to do with the validity of his sources.

192

By the way, the possibly imaginary Peter Kirby also published an article in a book along with Richard Carrier and Robert Price (among others). That would make it a pretty big conspiracy to pass off a fake person.

193

Sorry, but I have to agree with others that this isn’t a credible indictment. Surely it can’t be that only Christians who dispute Jesus’ historicity have standing on the issue. And I say this as an atheist who accepts the historicist position (in the without-magic form).

As for the question of authorship, it seems to me Kirby, Dio and others give a fair summary. Yes, there are a few authorities who accept the traditional attributions, but most (especially critical ones) do not. This can be seen in the materials Kirby quotes and also in the Wiki articles on each Gospel (see Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). None of which are authoritative, of course, but they are strongly suggestive of the majority view and consistent with my own reading on the subject.

What I would appreciate, as an atheist, is citation to a page or two on the Internet (collecting authorities, like Kirby), or a good book or two (ditto), which develop the Christian point of view without heavy-handed resort to faith and tradition. It’s been a few years since I spent much time on this topic - which I did out of historical rather than theological interest - but I was terribly frustrated by the dearth of non-faith-based material on the theist side. Unlike DrDeth, I don’t rule the theists out of bounds on the ground of bias. But I would love to see some content. As it is, I tend to the historicist view mainly on the grounds of parsimony, which is a pretty slim reed.

194

Germane how, though? I’ve asked you several time to actually show that he’s somehow being dishonest or taking quotes out of context.

Right now, it’s not clear at all why reasonable people should reject Kirby’s website. It seems to be that you don’t like the conclusions on the site and Kirby’s an atheist, therefore you can dismiss the conclusions.

Which doesn’t follow.

So please, clear up this bad perception of mine.

What is a ‘dedicated atheist’?

Further, I was referring to the hoax claim - are you now dropping that?

In any event, if we can dismiss scholarly work based on dedicated religious people then we don’t have any work to go on.

Should we just ignore the new testament entirely? After all, presumably, the gospels were written by dedicated believers.

This doesn’t show that Kirby was engaged in a hoax.

What exactly do you think you are demonstrating here? How does this quote actually undermine the credibility of his website?

Seems like another non sequitur.

I can say horrible things about religion - that doesn’t mean that if I say that a famous math scholar agrees with me that 1 + 1 = 2, that reasonable people can dismiss it.

You need to actually show how the material is false or corrupted, not just hand wave it away.

Your position is further damaged by the fact that I’ve cited other sources that support the scholars that Kirby quotes.

Maybe so - same would go for you and your accusation that Kirby was engaged in a hoax.

Whatever the case - NONE of this is actually germane to the discussion since I’m not quoting Kirby as a scholar or a source - I’m quoting scholars that are quoted on his website.

So atheists cannot contribute rationally to discussions? Atheists cannot quote scholars without being dishonest?

What are you actually saying here?
Your position doesn’t seem reasonable at all.

195

How can I reply to your request that “actually show that he’s somehow being dishonest” when I have never claimed that? That’s your statement, not mine.

Someone who has dedicated his writings to a atheist point of view.

I never claimed Kirby was attempting to hoax anyone- why do you keep bringing that up? Why not ask this a 100o times? I never said it, and I have said “I said nothing of the sort. What I said is that there is a hoax perpetrated by others who claimed Kirby was a Christian. Kirby never said he was a Christian, it’s not Kirby’s fault or hoax.”

More or less, every poster here has done exactly that-dismiss the NT as it was written by beleivers, thus it’s worthless as testimony. I mean, look at the posters fighting over possible testimony of Josephus or Tactitcus, while they ignore the direct eyewitness testimony of John, Peter, etc.:rolleyes:

Again, Not only have I not said “that Kirby was engaged in a hoax” I have said repeatedly that he was not so engaged. There apparently was a hoax perpetrated *upon *him. Clearly, either you are not reading what I am writing, OR you are constructing a strawman, OR you are putting words in my mouth. In any of three, clearly you (and this thread) are no longer worth my time.:dubious:

kthxbye.

196

… except there wasn’t. Seriously. Multiple individuals have provided links to indicate there was no hoax – that Kirby really did, really, truly, if briefly, reconvert to Catholicism. If you’re going to base your arguments partially on “Kirby is a dedicated atheist and therefore we can expect some level of bias”, you’re gonna have to do better than simply repeating that his reconversion was a hoax.

Or you could pout and leave, I guess.

197

Fair enough - you are correct, but that leads to the question:

Why should we just reject the site? Even you seem to admit that he’s not being dishonest.

Even if correct - so what?

Again, my mistake - if this is the case, then why are you using this to undermine Kirby’s credibility? It seems irrelevant, so why’d you bring it up?

It’s one thing to argue about the sources and to argue who wrote them, what scholars believe, etc. It’s another to simply dismiss an argument because of the religious leanings of the person writing it - which is what you are doing.

You make the statement - that John, Peter, etc are eyewitness, but this begs the question we are discussing. Please provide some support for this claim - I promise you that I won’t just dismiss it because the support comes from a believer.

The support for the opposite contention has been posted - there are arguments that I’ve linked to (beyond Kirby’s site, I might add) and you’ve ignored them or brushed them off.

Again, my mistake - I just fail to see the relevance of bringing up a hoax played on him. First, did it happen at all? You haven’t supported it. Second, if it happened, so what?

This entire line of reasoning is a red herring. You are concentrating on it because you know I’ve made an error - which is fine - but you are ignoring the rest of the stuff I’ve written - which is not fine.

In fact, my guess is that you are going to attempt to dismiss me for making this mistake - you are already trying to with your implications that I’m either dishonest (strawman/words in mouth) or I’m not reading what you are writing. How about you concentrate one what I’ve written that is germane to the discussion?