RE: Question: How accurate is the information on this graphic?
June 22, 2012 at 1:01 pm
(This post was last modified: June 22, 2012 at 1:01 pm by Minimalist.)
(June 22, 2012 at 12:17 pm)Ziploc Surprise Wrote:(June 22, 2012 at 11:45 am)Minimalist Wrote: Xtians always think they win - no matter how fucking stupid they look.
Yeah I experienced this about two weekends ago when one of my fundy friends thought he won a debate because I couldn't produce an experiment that proved evolution (I couldn't find any link to any experiment that produced a separate species, the process by which was completely manipulated by the experimenter). Everything else we said (I had another atheist debating with me) was irrelevant. He was hunting for an admission. When he thought he got this, he stopped debating. I don't think he noticed or cared that the throughout the whole debate he made himself look like a complete dunce.
As for Ehrman, is as narrow minded and as cherry picking as he is accused of being? Or even close to this?
Those experiments are detailed in Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth. Of course, even if you had cited them the jesus freak would have simply ignored them. They ignore anything that does not have their sky-daddy in a starring role.
As for Ehrman, what he has done for textual criticism is what Finkelstein and Silbermann have done for archaeology. Neatly summarized for the layman recent research ( or in Ehrman's case not so recent - the fuck ups in the bible have been known for 300 years) and put it out so that non specialists can understand it. In the course of it Ehrman has let it be known that he used to be a fundie and is now an agnostic because of his research. This is treason to jesus freaks and they will never forgive him.
My only complaint with Ehrman is that he seems unable to take the next step. Having shown that the new testament is a heavily edited pile of shit he still insists on seeking a historical "core" to it instead of facing the reality that it was a concoction meant to fill a specific niche.
And things got out of hand.
BTW, Finkelstein also goes off the track a bit at the end because he abandons his own metholdology. There is no more archaeological evidence for "Josiah" than there is for "Solomon" yet he insists upon treating this story as real rather than as more fiction. It becomes a bit like someone citing King Arthur as real.