2021-07-07

I’m interviewed on Harmonic Atheist

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

by Neil Godfrey

Thanks to Tim Mills of Harmonic Atheist

The Facebook page: Harmonic Atheist

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Neil Godfrey

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Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection - 2024-09-10 08:56:33 GMT+0000
“I am not persuaded” — valid criticism or merely posturing? - 2024-08-27 08:49:12 GMT+0000
Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul - 2024-08-25 04:09:22 GMT+0000

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4 thoughts on “I’m interviewed on Harmonic Atheist”

db says:

2021-07-08 14:21:09 GMT+0000 at 14:21

Is VRIDAR pronounced pronounced like FREE-DAR ? You could of mentioned the magnanimous CC licensing of your content. 🙂

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db says:

2021-07-08 18:06:18 GMT+0000 at 18:06

Per The Video summary:

After we briefly discussed his personal story, we went on to discuss various topics, including:
[…]
• The important contributions of Earl Doherty (author, “The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ?” and “Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus”)
• The ways that “consensus” berates and shuns those who don’t agree with them, and how their failure to address critical and relevant questions, and instead just dismiss them, leads people to more easily see the failures of the consensus and to continue on to better questions and research.
• Learning to see the Gospels as re-writes of Old Testament stories.
• How the books “The Ascension of Isaiah” and “Enoch” affected the origins of Christianity.
• How the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was a large impetus behind the creation of early Christianity.
• The question of whether ancient Rome had any part to play in the origins of Christianity.
• Trying to understand how early Christianity, where the Jesus story was a parable, got turned into a historicized story.

FYI: Doherty first published “The Jesus Puzzle: Part One: A Conspiracy of Silence”. Humanist in Canada. 114: 20–24. Autumn 1995.

Anyone that happens to have that issue certainly has a family artifact that will be valued just as much as the journal issue of Alan Turing’s “Imitation Game”.

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db says:

2021-07-09 13:02:49 GMT+0000 at 13:02

• “r/atheism”. Reddit. is fully mythicist.

Per https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/historicaljesus

Did Jesus Really Exist?

The short answer is “no”.

The slightly longer answer is “Maybe, but only if you’re willing to accept extremely loose definitions of the words ‘did’, ‘Jesus’, ‘really’, and/or ‘exist’.”

Here is an AMA they once hosted:

• “Lifelong atheist with a PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity: AMA”. reddit. 13 December 2011.

• Richard Carrier requested a moderated AMA on “/r/AcademicBiblical”, that was declined.

I have never seen anything worth engaging on Reddit. IMO, the amount of time it takes sorting through the garbage is not worth the trivial payoff the effort could even bring. If some academic group there wants to invite me into a formal, moderated engagement that will filter out trolls and amateurs and lazy readers who misrepresent what’s in my book or won’t even actually read it, I’m game. But otherwise, it looks like just a useless time suck to me.

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1. db says:
  
  2021-07-09 17:19:53 GMT+0000 at 17:19
  
  The AMA (ask me anything) is by “arquebus_x”, a lifelong atheist with a PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity, who claims: “I finished my PhD in 2008, conveniently 6 months before the economy tanked and all the potential jobs in my field disappeared.”
  
  This is an interesting snapshot of the 2008 consensus.
  
  Reply

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Neil Godfrey on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Here is the link you spoke of: https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/1st-century-buddha-statue-from-ancient-egypt-indicates-buddhists-lived-there-in-roman-times Dalrymple writes of the Berenike finds as you would expect. An earlier…” Sep 11, 06:39
Glynn Woodbury on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “I was researching Neoplatonism for a lecture at a local Philosophy Group, and noticed the rather close parallels between Plotinus’…” Sep 11, 05:09
Gordon Rouse on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Takes only a little bit of lazy research raise your plausible to a highly likely! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_the_Roman_world Some interesting stories in…” Sep 10, 23:30
Neil Godfrey on Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul: “Very true re the believer. But the same believer would not be interested in doing Bayes — would dismiss it…” Sep 10, 21:46
Neil Godfrey on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “So you are a fellow LNL Gladys/poddie? (Readers not familiar with the radio series Late Night Live will have no…” Sep 10, 20:30
Andrew Dabrowski on Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul: “Actually, I was too categorical there. There are some priors so discrepant that no amount of testing will make them…” Sep 10, 15:33
Andrew Dabrowski on Questioning the Identity/Historicity of the Apostle Paul: “Yes, if you have enough tests to run, any starting point (priors) will, with a high degree of probability, converge…” Sep 10, 14:59
Paul Trejo on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Three comments. (1) Young Lucius Annaeus Seneca (contemporary of St. Paul) was enamored with Yoga and vegetarian living (until his…” Sep 10, 14:57
Russell Gmirkin on Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection: “Michael Lockwood’s research on Buddhist influences begins with the diplomatic mission sent by Ashoka the Great (ca. 268-232 BCE), as…” Sep 10, 13:21

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