Sunday, September 21, 2014

Exceptioanlly weak Apologetics or Mental Diarrhea?

The overwhelming majority of apologists seem to share the same penchant for willful ignorance, self-delusion, and logical fallacies. Yet another example of this intellectual bankruptcy is clearly demonstrated by Brandon Jones in his recent piece at The Global Dispatch, "Evidence of Jesus Christ’s life, resurrection and how atheists are foolish." Jones lobs numerous definitive statements without the slightest reference or support. It is hard to summarize the massive doses of bigotry, bias, and plain stupidity contained in this rather short piece but I'll give it a shot.

"Jesus is on ancient Roman records to have been crucified in 28 AD.  Even Orthodox Jews, who still hate Him, acknowledge His existence and death, but have trouble with his birth and resurrection....The tomb of Jesus, which can still be seen today in the Garden Tomb area (not the Catholic traditional site), still has the metal spikes which were sheared off when the angel rolled the stone away....The tomb of Jesus, which can still be seen today in the Garden Tomb area (not the Catholic traditional site), still has the metal spikes which were sheared off when the angel rolled the stone away....Why was the body of Jesus never found…, at least by unbelievers?  How is it that God managed to have the Ark of the Covenant hidden for 600 years, right under the place where Yeshua was crucified, so that His blood would flow down the earthquake crack of the hill of rock, and drip 24 feet down upon the West end of the Ark?"

All of that came from the first page of his two page rant. The first thing I noticed was that unlike many other apologists he makes no attempt at citing anything. Usually, they try to make some bogus claim that this historian or that stated something about Christ in one of their works. In each instance it is either a completely fabricated "source" or the source actually refers to what Christians said about their beliefs, which the historian was simply conveying. The historian makes no value judgement on the beliefs themselves. It's pretty pathetic that this asshole is as lazy as he is deluded. There are no Roman records related to Jesus Christ. In point of fact, Roman records discredit most aspects of the Jesus narratives. The supposed court case against Christ, for example, never would have proceeded the way it is described in the Gospels. There are certainly no accounts of such a noticeable event as an earthquake of the magnitude and consequence that he recites.

Then, of course there are all the other ridiculous things he manages to cram into such a short space. The Jews knew/know Christs existence and hate him. Really?! Jones knows this, how? Even if another group of theists accepted something as true what makes that factual? There is a lot of blind bigotry that Jones conflates with historical fact. The Garden Tomb, as he implies, is one of a handful of sites theists have speculated is the site of Jesus resurrection. There is no archeological evidence for this assertion. There isn't even any remotely objective reason to favor his preferred site over the various other proposed one. Also as Jones implies, many Christians refute this as a legitimate holy site. A fact about the Garden Tomb that can be easily confirmed is that it is a highly profitable tourist trap. Just follow the link to it's official website to check it out.

And, what the fuck is with his reference to the Ark? The supposed Ark of the Covenant, if it were real, would have pre-dated Christ and has no direct connection to any aspect of the Jesus narratives. Referencing multiple mythical events and figure does not provided reinforcement to any of them being historical. Its almost as if he contracted some type of mental diarrhea that he was then compelled to put down in writing. And remember the excerpts above are from just a handful of paragraphs on the first page. It doesn't get any better. You really have to read it to fathom the level of stupidity it contains. There is far more to ridicule than just what little I've pointed out.

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