Hamblin and his crew get what they deserve?

[_MrStakhanovite]

Mortal Man needs to stop using Wikipedia as a source for anything.

[_Kishkumen]

Mortal Man needs to stop using Wikipedia as a source for anything.

Yeah, that scores negative points with academics.

[_Kishkumen]

For the record, I am not a big fan of apologists.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Well, he did finish his degree in South Africa, where Reformed theology is pretty popular.

That’s a common route for a lot of Theology and Biblical Studies folks. From what I understand, a lot of European Seminaries allow for PhDs to be done via correspondence, so it is purely a research venture with no classes or teaching.

[_MrStakhanovite]

On this siter thread, started by our own Honorentheos, Rob had this to say:

No one is submitting the Resurrection story to Ripley's Believe It or Not. The claim is not that this weird thing happened once upon a time. Granted that people do not naturally or spontaneously rise from the dead, the claim is that God raised Jesus from the dead so as to conquer death on our behalf and to vindicate Jesus as the Messiah and divine Son of God. The Resurrection is fantastic outside a biblical, theistic worldview, but this extraordinary event fits perfectly into that worldview, one that has inspired a disproportionate number of the world's greatest scientists, philosophers, philanthropists, and artists. And this faith has, as I have summarized here, surprisingly strong evidence that unbelievers have great difficulty explaining away.

I'm a little disappointed in this line of argumentation.

[_Kishkumen]

That’s a common route for a lot of Theology and Biblical Studies folks. From what I understand, a lot of European Seminaries allow for PhDs to be done via correspondence, so it is purely a research venture with no classes or teaching.

Interesting. You see more of that these days in the US, but still not much. At least in my field a distance PhD degree in classical philology is not something I have heard of.

[_Kishkumen]

I'm a little disappointed in this line of argumentation.

To quote the late President Hinckley, "Isn't it marvelous?"

[_Hoops]

I think his theology is reformed. I'm almost certain he is a Calvinist.

That explains why he's ordered his black cape and hood. Next meeting he's bringing the krispy treats.

[_cksalmon]

Moreover, from other statements he's made, I assume he rejects the idea of libertarian free will.

I think his theology is reformed. I'm almost certain he is a Calvinist.

He is. I was being circumspect because I couldn't recall whether he admitted the truth of this heinous charge on the old MADBoard or via private correspondence. So, I looked: It was a public admission.

Vile, vile creature.

[_Milesius]

[

Sorry, but no.

Uh, yes. They have absolutely no traction outside of phil of religion where it is generally viewed as a sectarian hobby that one either actively finds distasteful or feels awkward about. No college level physics textbook would ever treat cosmological arguments as a fruitful area of scholarship without immediately regulating itself to being generally viewed as kinda batty. Jesus mythers, like Mormon apologists, benefit from a little more obscurity and therefore inspire less reaction.

EA, there is what you think you know and what you actually know; the two are quite different. First of all, your claim that "[Cosmological arguments] have absolutely no traction outside of phil of religion where it is generally viewed as a sectarian hobby that one either actively finds distasteful or feels awkward about" is pure flatulence. But more to the point:

Example the first that EA is speaking out of his arse:

http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/59/4/675.full

Example the second:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZQh8QJ ... st&f=false

J. Brian Pitts takes Craig's Kalam argument seriously while dismantling it. Jordan Howard Sobel does the same in his book Logic and Theism. Jesus Mythicism does not get that sort of attention.

(For the record, I do not accept WLC's Kalam Cosmological Argument.)

Also, I think it is safe to say that physicists usually do not know the first thing re: contingent vs. necessary. A fine example of this can be observed in the WLC-Krauss debate (the one that lead to Krauss' foot-stomping at Dawkins' fan club and Pharyngula).

If you are referring to resurrection arguments, it's true that both are so thoroughly dismissed by historians that it's hard to call one status worse than the other. But, on the other hand, resurrection arguments are in a much weaker position than mythical construction arguments given the inherent weakness of antiquity evidence and the extraordinary nature of rising from the dead. Perhaps a better comparison there would be worse than those who think that aliens built the pyramids.

I think it is safe to say that historians typically lack the background to follow Bayesian arguments.