Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Debunking Christianity: An Interview With Richard Carrier About His Book, "Proving History"

Dr Richard Carrier has a new book coming out, "Proving History". Apparently Bayes Theorem plays a major role in his arguments. John Loftus posted an interview with Dr Carrier in which he posed some questions about the book. There were a couple of things in the interview that caught my attention, but I will only bring up one now. .

At one point, Dr Carrier said:


That Matthew is deliberately contradicting Mark because he is arguing against Mark is vastly more probable than that Matthew and Mark are correctly describing exactly the same events.


I've got to ask "Why is it more probable that Matthew deliberately contradicts Mark?" Carrier accuses Christians of the mistake


...in fundamentalist “harmonizations” of Gospel contradictions: they think they have “rebutted” the conclusion that the Gospels are contradicting each other if they can think of “any” possible way to harmonize the accounts, developing a fanciful “just so” story that makes everything fit, by assuming a hundred things not in evidence. But that ignores the fact that that account is actually extremely improbable.


Yet Carrier does the exactly this if he can't explain why Matthew deliberately contradicting Mark is more plausible than other Christian interpretations. Biases can go both ways. Read the whole interview at the following link.

Debunking Christianity: An Interview With Richard Carrier About His Book, "Proving History"

Who Wrote the Gospels? Audio and Video by Tim McGrew - Apologetics 315

Brian Auten posted everything you need to reach a lecture by Dr Tim McGrew on what we can know about the authors of the canonical Gospels and why we can trust them. Follow the link at the end of the post to get the audio.





Who Wrote the Gospels? Audio and Video by Tim McGrew - Apologetics 315
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James Sturm Boycotts 'The Avengers' Film over Marvel's Treatment of Jack Kirby - ComicsAlliance | Comic book culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

I realize that many people don't see how comic books affect our culture but today Comics Alliance posted a truly great article about how James Sturm is calling a boycott of the Avengers Film because of how Marvel/Disney refuses to share some of the profits with Jack Kirby's heirs derived from characters either created or co-created (the bulk of the Avengers) by Kirby. Last summer a judge sided with Marvel/DC and it's clear that what Marvel has done is not illegal but I agree with Sturm that it's not quite as ethical. I mean would Captain America not share the profits with Kirby's heirs if he ran Disney? I think he would.

Sturm again:
"What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel's media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility."
This also comes right in long with the controversy between Alan Moore and DC Comics over the right to tell and profit more stories based on the Watchmen characters.
To be completely honest, I'm still gonna see the movie when it drops in May.

James Sturm Boycotts 'The Avengers' Film over Marvel's Treatment of Jack Kirby - ComicsAlliance | Comic book culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews
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