2014-12-22

Some Christmas Holiday Reading

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Here is a list of some of the posts I have read and starred for future reference over this past week or two.

From Valerie Tarico:

The Slut Shaming, Sex-Negative Message in the Virgin Birth—It’s Worth a Family Conversation

Religious Trauma Syndrome: How Some Organized Religion Leads to Mental Health Problems

From Heather Hastie:

Seven (More) Things Theists Get Wrong About Atheists

America Hates its Best Citizens: The Atheists

Repeated by Ophelia Benson, originally a comment by Dave Ricks:

What we mean when we talk about accommodationism

From Steve Wiggins:

Moral Animals

From Salon.com

Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith

The creation of William Shakespeare: How the Bard really became a legend

I have not included here those relating to studies of early Christianity or the bible. Maybe in another post….

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Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

Is Everything a Question of Probability? - 2024-12-15 03:04:03 GMT+0000
The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History” - 2024-12-13 05:51:46 GMT+0000
Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 4: Did Jesus Exist? - 2024-11-27 08:20:47 GMT+0000

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It is worth saying another word of appreciation here for Neil Godfrey's effort to make Bruno Bauer accessible in English.

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. . . . .Thank you for your historic effort.

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Editor, An English Edition of Bruno Bauer’s 1843 Christianity Exposed
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"Neil, in my mature judgement (I am now an old man), this fine 4-part study is a brilliant reworking, an instructive restatement of Hayden White’s Metahistory (and his subsequent writings). Your critique of certain historiographic representations as imbedded in the case study of the “scientistic”, “empirical” Richard Carrier provides a solid starting point for the more honest “fictive” reading of the New Testament that you encourage. Your last paragraph is a very intelligent call to sensitive readers of these texts. I suspect a whole generation of biblical students has been educated without the insights provided by the incomparable White. Bravo!"

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— James McGrath, – June 2009
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
Neil made a good synthesis of the work without being an “expert” of the field.

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-- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014)
"These reviews of yours are so bloody weird!"

— James Crossley, – April 2010

Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “A troll is someone who ignores what is being said and continues their own agenda without engaging with the logic…” Dec 21, 03:26
Petr Jancar on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “I am still once more responding, so that you do not think that I am impolite or that I am…” Dec 20, 07:22
Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “I re-read my earlier reply and can see how you took it as “emotional” — but I can assure you…” Dec 18, 02:43
Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “I simply asked you to tell me what it is that you think I misunderstand or what, specifically, I am…” Dec 17, 20:26
Petr Jancar on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “Neil, I have no interest to engage in an emotional discussion. I felt indebted to you, since I read many…” Dec 17, 19:21
Neil Godfrey on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “Why do you ask? What are you trying to argue? I agree and acknowledge that Bayes theorem is a valid…” Dec 16, 09:22
Petr Jancar on The Folly of Bayesian Probability in “Doing History”: “My sentence “I voice several assumptions, testing if we all agree on them:” was meant as a yes/no question; let…” Dec 16, 08:57
Clarke W Owens on Is Everything a Question of Probability?: “Well, the distinction between “public knowledge” and the knowledge of professional researchers is not always crystal clear. For example, western…” Dec 15, 22:34
Neil Godfrey on Is Everything a Question of Probability?: “I spoke of public knowledge but afterwards wondered if I missed your point. You may have been thinking of knowledge…” Dec 15, 22:05

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