RE: Richard Carrier - The Hero Savior Analogy
September 24, 2016 at 1:56 am
(This post was last modified: September 24, 2016 at 2:53 am by Mudhammam.)
Meh. Carrier's analogy is rather flimsy. It doesn't include the important consideration that there are in fact thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of "Hero Saviors," many who die in obscurity, a great number of whom are in a real sense, well, real, despite the ever-growing-and-fading legendary status and creepy, fan girl cult that with each passing generation proceeds some Great Leader one way or another. Like I said, many of these "Hero Saviors" tend to be authentic, physical human beings, despite the claims that surround their biography--Pythagoras, Jesus, Paul, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, even if in some cases the information for the first 100-150 years is pathetically devoted to some agenda or, as in the case of Muhammad but certainly not Jesus, almost nothing about your personal life has survived. And then there's the fact that this is all too common insofar as ancient biographies go, that 99% of individuals are no better known, not to mention throngs of contemporaries who were of much greater stature and significance as either politicians, generals, artists, authors, scientists, mathematicians, etc., unfortunately because human record keeping, until the past few hundred years, has been very unimpressive. Still, it's not as if we are talking about characters who lived 500 or 1000 years prior, as in the case of names like Abraham, Moses, David, and most of the names you find in a book like Genesis or The Iliad. Rather, until relatively recently, any "Hero Savior" or normal Joe would have unlikely been able to read or write, and when the materials were available, the means of distribution were slow, tedious, and even when successful, the duration of the final product was never outstanding, works of stone or metal aside. Aside from waning popularity, a book of the sort that "Hero Saviors" typically fill might get banned or altered, or a multitude of new frauds would inevitably try to profit off their own perpetuation of the original tale. So, the story that he is asking me to perceive as incredible is, of course, incredible, but what he suggests must follow from that is not at all established in this lengthy but ultimately pointless comparison.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza