Richard Carrier - The Hero Savior Analogy

[The Grand Nudger]

The "same reasons"...? ...As what?  ...the IDers?... That makes no sense.  

If pagan roman criticisms of crucifixion are a proper application of the criteria of embarassment.. then so, too, are atheist criticisms of id'ers creation claims.  The fact of the matter, ofc, in both cases is that it isn't a proper use of the criterion of embarrassment.  That pagan romans or jews would be embarassed by x (as atheists would be embarrassed by y) does not suggest that christians would be embarrassed.  The only crucifixion narratives the criterion of embarrassment would apply to are christian narratives (the gospels).  Christians, however, unlike roman pagans or jews might have been....do not seem to be embarrassed to worship their god as they see it. 

Lol... I don't think I'm "smart enough" to follow your "logic."

It's not mine, it's yours.  You've misunderstood and misapplied the criterion of embarrassment.  

I might just leave it at Wittgenstein, who said in the context of the question, "How do I know I have hands?" "What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it."  Learning to separate the myth from the historical narrative, the answer that I've arrived at is no.

What is it you think cannot be doubted...specifically?

 When I see reason and evidence for the alternative theories, i.e. that there was no man born of a woman just as there was no god born of a virgin, but simply some other dude(s?) -- or was he/were they made up by made-up dudes of further dudes? -- whom conspired to start a new religion based on this irrelevant character, perhaps I'll be persuaded of the grounds for mythicism.

That isn't the mythicist position..why would it persuade you to it? Why do you think that there's any onus to provide an alternative in the first place?  

Thus far, as it would seem to share with ID some incredible and in my view preposterously unsupportable and improbable suggestions, I'm not.

Perhaps you should elaborate.  So far we've seen that you don't understand the only criteria which you've referred to...and I don't have confidence that you actually know the mythicist position in the first place. It's not, for example..as you opined upon above...the idea that people conspired to create a dude. There was no christianity to conspire upon until there were a body of stories to choose from. The people who "made the religion" did not write these stories or invent the beliefs. They chose, from amongst what was available, what best suited their own beliefs. How else would or should they have chosen? Is that conspiring to make up some dudes by further dudes? I'm wondering, beyond why you think this is the mythicist postion....why you think this is relevant at all?

@Vicki

Exactly. The documents, the community, the worldview never existed because the events never happened. That's where Carrier's approach, and his theories on the early Xians go all wrong.

..............................?

The Early Church existed, and the Gospels are there to explain the reasons why. Paul writes to these people about events which he, and they, are convinced actually happened.

The early church must have, by definition, existed, lol. When, well...that;s a bit stickier. Which church? Which gospels? Which Paul?