Some of us may be interested in a somewhat objective attempt to measure the tone of the discussion on the question of Mythicist-Agnosticism as raised on the Religion Prof’s blogsite:
Current Debate Jesus Agnosticism/Mythicism – Raphael Lataster and James McGrath
The measure is from a text analysis program, the LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). From the How It Works site:
Basically, it reads a given text and counts the percentage of words that reflect different emotions, thinking styles, social concerns, and even parts of speech. Because LIWC was developed by researchers with interests in social, clinical, health, and cognitive psychology, the language categories were created to capture people’s social and psychological states.
See the site for more details and Interpreting LIWC Output for a description of the areas measured.
I don’t include any commenters who posted fewer than 700 words. I would be especially cautious about the two I have included that posted fewer than 1000 words.
|
Name of blog commenter and number of words used (quotations of the words of others are not included) |
Analytic thinking
— the degree to which people use words that suggest formal, logical, and hierarchical thinking patterns |
Authenticity — when people reveal themselves in an authentic or honest way |
Clout
— the relative social status, confidence, or leadership that people display through their writing |
Tone
— the higher the number, the more positive the tone |
| JM’s Original Post on B&I (3043 words) |
74.07% | 28.08% | 55.08% | 39.90% |
| James McGrath’s Discussion (1116 words) | 56.82% | 55.72% | 48.92% | 43.75% |
| Tim O’Neill’s Discussion (1155 words) | 51.18% | 47.37% | 71.04% | 20.52% |
| Leigh Sutherland’s Discussion (1046 words) | 72.07% | 48.3% | 44.3% | 72.33% |
| David (778 words) | 65.19% | 30.06% | 59.65% | 39.56% |
| Gary (708 words) | 51.67% | 68.37% | 61.68% | 19.45% |
Congratulations to Leigh for his positive contribution to the overall level and especially the tone of the discussion.