In America, we have this dichotomy in that we lead the world in ground-breaking scientific research, yet we have creationists and other anti-scientists who hold sway over the government.
It’s cold comfort, I suppose, that we’re not alone. A few months ago, in Assam, a state in India, 5 people were publicly beheaded by a mob for practicing witchcraft. Amir Munda was a traditional healer at a tea plantation. He and his family were "guilty of causing a mysterious disease that claimed two plantation workers and affected many more during the past two weeks." 200 workers assembled, held a trial, and used machetes to decapitate Munda, two of his sons and two of his daughters. If you are not sufficiently outraged yet, I’ll note that his wife – his pregnant wife—managed to escape with three of their sons.
It’s incredible that something like this can still happen, more than a century after germs were discovered to cause disease. It might be easy for some listeners to want to laugh at news like this, I mean, really, beheading people for witchcraft?
But remember, India, like America, has an excellent scientific community, but also, like America, it’s brimming with people who have no clue about how science works. In this country, we have homeopathy, "natural" cures, creationism, and people who think AIDS is a government conspiracy. So don’t mock those plantation workers so quickly. How far are we from such atrocious acts?
Then I remember race riots, Matthew Shepherd, and so, so many other atrocities based on superstition, credulity, and uncritical notions — take your pick which ones — and I realize:
We’re already there.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:45 am
All around us are people who, if lived in a different place or era, would oppress or sympathize with oppressors. Imagine if Bart Sibrel or Richard Hoagland were born in Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century. How would people pushing creationist school curricula today feel about the Spanish Inquisition if they were in Europe during 15th century?
May 30th, 2006 at 4:10 am
Practicing witchcraft is illegal in Canada
although the crime is one of “false pretenses” and it’s considered fraud:
=====
365. Every one who fraudulently
(a) pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration,
(b) undertakes, for a consideration, to tell fortunes, or
(c) pretends from his skill in or knowledge of an occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner anything that is supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found,
is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
=====
That’s up to $2000 fine and 6 months as a guest of Her Majesty.
More importantly, they nail people for stuff like that. I’m pretty sure it’s actually been a long time since someone got sent away for witchcraft, but a homeopath was sent down a couple years ago near here for practicing medicine without a licence and (IIRC) criminal negligence causing death because she convinced some parents that their diabetic daughter didn’t need to take evil insulin, and a diet change and homeopathic remedies would take care of the girl. Well, they took care of her alright.
Unfortunately, homeopathy is still legal, but the homeopath is liable, so it’s just a matter of time before a few more end up in jail.
May 30th, 2006 at 4:57 am
It certainly is shocking to see the country that made it to the moon (and hopefully will do so again) can still be plagued with antiscience, pseudo-science, and hoax believers.
The same can be said of India, who is a partner with a probe to be sent in lunar orbit.
I wonder if education is the key. Start teaching what is real and not at younger ages.
I’m not familiar with the term homeopathy. What is it?
May 30th, 2006 at 5:17 am
Homeopathy is the treatment of ailments with water.
The founding idea is that “like treats like” so if you have numbness you might take an opiate…
but a homeopathic remedy wouldn’t give you a pound of opium to smoke. No, they’d take 1 ml of that opium and dissolve it in a cubic metre of water. Then they’d take 1 ml of that cubic metre and dissolve it in another cubic metre of water. Then they’d take a ml of that cubic metre and dissolve it in yet another cubic metre of water. In fact, the more dilute the solution, the more “potent” it is in homeopathy, so there might be several 1 ml to 1 m3 steps, each one making the resulting solution a million times more “potent”
In any case, you take the resulting solution and it “cures” you. That is homeopathy. The actual results of homeopathy are:
1. You figure out that you’re being scammed and go see a real doctor before you REALLY get sick;
2. You die inexplicable of your ailments and the homeopath shrugs it off (at least until they haul her butt to jail per my previous post);
3. You get better due to your body’s natural recovery mechanisms and credit it to your homeopath who really did nothing but give you distilled water to drink.
To believe in homeopathy, you have to believe in vibrations and unseen, immeasurable “energies” that can be imprinted on water.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Homeopathy:
You missed one.
4. The homeopathic consultation invokes the placebo effect, triggering natural recovery mechanisms that may not have otherwise operated.
It’s similar to #3, but there is a difference.
–
Ben Goldacre’s musings on placebo are worth digging through.
May 30th, 2006 at 7:07 am
hi all,
i am from india but this news doesnt surprise me…ours is a big country with even bigger population and gues wat we got both the extreams..the gr8 scientist to the ppl like those in this article….guess that’s y v r still a developin country and u ppl donot realise how bad the conditions are for the poor and uneducated in the developin world….
May 30th, 2006 at 8:02 am
If you’re in the mood for a good, lengthy discussion of pseudoscience, I’d recommend Alan Sokal’s “Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers?” (link points to PDF). He discusses, very cogently, several forms of bad science and anti-science: touch therapy, creationism and more. What’s more, he also provides a fascinating view on “Hindutva”, what the philosopher and sociologist Meera Nanda calls “an ultranationalist and chauvinistic movement that seeks to modernize India by recovering the supposedly pristine Vedic-Hindu roots of Indian culture”. (Sokal draws heavily from Nanda’s book Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India, which has been on my reading list for a while.)
Sokal writes (p. 34),
And on page 44,
May 30th, 2006 at 8:05 am
Where does that leave the Eucharist?
May 30th, 2006 at 8:45 am
We’re already there.
It isn’t that we’re already there, Phil. It’s that we never left.
May 30th, 2006 at 8:50 am
We’re already there.
That’s why we’re counting on people like you to develop interstellar travel, Phil: So that we can get to a planet with intelligent life.
Now get back to work! That matter/antimatter intermix chamber isn’t going to build itself, you know!
May 30th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Our newspaper has a weekly feature called “Rapid Response”. Every week they e-mail a question to people who have previously written a Letter to the Editor. Last week’s question was: “How can Indiana make science education better?”
Here are two of the more outrageous responses -
“Perhaps it is because the students realize that they are not being taught the truth that God created the world and that it was not just an accident.”
“Stretch their scientific thinking by allowing both creation science and evolution to be taught. Let the students weigh the merits of each and then decide.”
…and these are people who want to make science education better?
Greg
May 30th, 2006 at 10:05 am
In South Africa we have all of the following measures in place to combat the very serious problem of accusations of witchcraft:
1) The Suppression of Witchcraft Act of 1957 - makes it illegal to accuse someone of witchcraft, and illegal for tribal leaders to mete out punishment to witches. Only resulted in an increase in mob justice (over 500 reported deaths between 1990 and 1995 is one number I found).
2) Police officers trained to deal with cases of reported witchcraft.
3) An entire town, Helena, designated as a home for exiled ‘witches’ from around the country - people who have been driven out of their own homes, and in some cases narrowly escaped death, because of accusations of witchcraft.
The most recent case with a conviction was December of last year, where an elderly man was killed by his own grandson for allegedly being a witch. Not all deaths are reported, nor result in convictions. Burning of houses and possessions by mobs is a monthly occurrence. All this in a country where people would rather go to a Sangoma (witchdoctor) than a western doctor - an attitude praised by our Minister of Health.
At least in the United States you don’t have the added difficulty that if you so much as hint that African traditional medicine can’t cure AIDS, or that there’s no such thing as witches, you’re immediately branded a racist. How do you argue with logic like that?
May 30th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Where does that leave the Eucharist?
I’ve often wondered that myself, however the “out” is that the Eucharist doesn’t actually conjure anythign nor purport to use sorcery, etc… At least if you’re not Catholic.
IIRC, the Catholic version of the Eucharist involves the bread actually being “transformed” into the body of Christ, and would fall dangerously close to this statute. But let’s face it, nobody is going to round up all the Catholic priests, so it’s a bit of a double standard.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Perhaps it is because the students realize that they are not being taught the truth that God created the world and that it was not just an accident.
One of the semantic issues that should be drilled into people who think that science considers the origin of hte univers to be an “accident” is that the term “accident” implies malice or at least has a negative connotation and has nothing to do with the concept of a random occurrence.
Nobody would consider it an “accident” if their ticket won the Powerball lottery… it’s just a random event (although some people would say that an IPU smiled upon them). It’d probably fair to say that every accident can be considered a random occurrence, but not every random occurrence is an accident.
Is it a random occurrence when asteroids strike the Earth? It is, in principle, a completely predictable event for any given asteroid within a fixed time window. In practice, the prediction is difficult, but it’s not impossible.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Well-prepared science teachers can fight this trend.
I used to contemptuously consider “fuzzy” academic coursework such as most “education major” courses were so much fluff that you could actually hear the “air” “quotes” when I
sneered talked about “them.”These days I wonder if they should actually be given more attention! Especially courses on science and science philosophy. Imagine teachers who are fluent in concepts such as theory and hypothesis, and comfortable in discussing how science gets done. Now imagine simple but clever classroom experiments designed to show students how using science can unravel a mystery or problem that could not be done otherwise. Or would give a misleading answer.
You wouldn’t even have to mention the E-word or the C-word or the ID-words. At least not then.
Teachers comfortable with the ways real science gets done can pass their comfort and fluency on to students every day. Kids pick up on this, you know. They pick up on it just as easily as they smell the FEAR in a rookie substitute teacher.
(Sorry, had a little flashback there. I’m fine. Let’s continue.)
Call it the gift of BS detection. I think it is just as important as facts, figures, dates, and multiplication tables.
The major drawback is that it’s not as easy to design a test for BS detection. And due to the US government’s ill-conceived “No Child Left Behind Act,” the public schools here have turned into little more than bland standardized test coaching centers.
Corry
May 30th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Two points:
First, what the doctrine of Transubstantiation actually says (and has said ever since it was defined by Thomas Aquinas in the 12th century) is that, in the Eucharist, the metaphysical breadness of the bread and the metaphysical wineness of the wine are miraculously changed to metaphysical body-of-Christ-ness and blood-of-Christ-ness.
(I’m not going to argue the point here; it’s both highly technical and off topic. But if your Sunday School teacher told you otherwise, then either your Sunday School teacher was flat-out wrong or you didn’t understand.)
Second, let us not forget that science, alas, has given birth to a few anti-rational cults of its own — consider, for example, the nauseating episode of Star Trek Enterprise in which the hero justified an act of genocide as being in accordance with the intentions (God save the mark!) of Evolution.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Let me get this straight: a second-rate space opera (sorry, trek-folks) is the benchmark for scientific thought? What part of the word “fiction” in “science fiction” don’t you understand, JWK? Is science fiction actually the metaphysical-essence-of-science for you?
May 30th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
I cited Star Trek because it’s well known. It is certainly not the only blatant example of evolution worship in contemporary Western culture — the phenomenon, in fact, antedates Darwin by a couple of generations.
And evolution worship isn’t the only perverted child of science. For example, it takes only a short time on the Internet to discover, if one has not already, the religion of free-market economics.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
“Perhaps it is because the students realize that they are not being taught the truth that God created the world and that it was not just an accident.â€
“Stretch their scientific thinking by allowing both creation science and evolution to be taught. Let the students weigh the merits of each and then decide.â€
Yes. But those are only two out of twenty-five responses to that poll published in the Lafayette area. Most of them had nothing to do with endorsing education via superstition. Most of the comments proposed re-evaluating things such as how teachers themselves are educated in scientific subjects, or even how science isn’t really taught in some schools at all, despite the title on the syllabus.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
May 30th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
> I cited Star Trek because it’s well known.
What, no Hitler? I can’t believe you forgot Hitler. If you’re going to build a straw man, you should at least try to use real straw.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
eek, my tags didn’t line up…
The above comment wasn’t meant to be in blockquote. That was meant to be directed to John W. Kennedy’s comments regarding this phrase, “the metaphysical breadness of the bread and the metaphysical wineness of the wine are miraculously changed to metaphysical body-of-Christ-ness and blood-of-Christ-ness.”
May 30th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
As I said, I’m not going to get into an argument about theology here, and I was not trying to present one in the first place. If you want that, it’s easy enough to find the Summa Theologica in English (or the original Latin).
Nevertheless, what I said is just about as accurate a description of the doctrine as can be done in a single sentence without the use of technical jargon.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
John W. Kennedy writes:
If you want that, it’s easy enough to find the Summa Theologica in English (or the original Latin).
Ha! You should read it in the original Klingon!
May 30th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Mark Martin is correct (and boy am I surprised someone else from the area reads the BA blog)! My post gave the impression all the responses were ‘outrageous’. I should have posted ‘outrageous’ instead of ‘of the more outrageous’.
That does not change (for me) the outrageousness of the 2 responses cited in a discussion of how to make science education better.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
It takes only a short time on the Internet to discover . . . the religion of free-market economics.
Mr. Kennedy, I don’t know what definition of religion you’re using, but as a libertarian, I feel compelled to point out to you that free market economics is in no way a religion.
Granted, economics isn’t a pure science either, but it does make definite predictions about the world which can be tested against empirical observation (the laws of supply and demand for example).
At no time is a deity or supper-natural force implied by free market economics. We do talk sometimes talk about “The invisible hand†guiding the economy towards equilibrium, but no one takes that metaphor literally. The forces which explain the free market have been understood for hundreds of years, and never implied the existence of a god.
In what way then do you see free market economics a religion?
May 30th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
One more thing.
While I don’t want to start up an economic debate on a theological issue, I can’t understand why you see free market economics as a “perverted child.â€
While Keynesians, Monetarists and Austrian Economists may argue over what level of government intervention is acceptable in a free market system, none of these economic theories would call the free market “perverted.â€
This country got to be one of the most productive nations on earth because of the adoption of free market ideas, to call them perverted is a disgrace to our national history.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
You can put McCarthyism and some of the drug laws in this same category.
I say some of the drug laws, not because I’m a particular advocate of changing them outright, but because I saw a documentary of the history of those laws yesterday. It was incredible. The laws were enacted after the most bizarre testimony before Congress that smoking marijuana caused black men to rape and murder white women. Anti-marijuana testimony before Congress also included claims that incited people to lynch Mexican migrants caught with pot, again, because the drug was claimed to incite murder and rape.
Congress was not interested in evidence, only in heavily biased testimony. Not much has changed since and we are again at risk of the next outrageous fear campaign stirring up frenzy against someone or some thing.
The Teri Schiavo incident made an absolute villain of the husband in some people’s eyes. People who didn’t know a thing about him except what they read or heard in the news passed judgment he was evil. It’s surprising he wasn’t lynched.
Even more important, we have heard about the “terrorism” threat to the point it has now become acceptable to kidnap, torture, and hold without trial or the right of habeas corpus citizens of other countries (and an American or two as long as they look “different”), as if being a human from any country but the US means human rights are optional.
These activities are not based on evidence that such actions save lives or uncover terrorist plots. These activities are based on fear mongering politicians who need to ensure the public continues to support their side. Even posting this, I know, will cause some readers to say the actions are justified and I am wrong.
To that I say, show me the evidence and show me the history which supports torture and jailing without trial has made anyone safer or was judged as acceptable after the fear mongering subsided.
If anyone looked at the real evidence, it would be clear, for example, a lot more lives would be saved by taking drunk drivers off the road than by all the measures we’ve taken against “terrorism”. For example, there would be fewer terrorists if there were a better economic future for many of the world’s peoples. For example, we could save more people with health insurance than war. Strictly on a return for dollars spent here, that’s what the evidence shows.
And history shows us we’re very likely in a bit of trouble going the direction we are headed right now.
May 30th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Beskeptigal,
What people like to forget is that Terri was not dead and that her husband Michael violated his & her marriage vows.
Really, why bother getting married at all if you don’t want to accept the vows?
Sadly, to deny Terri’s life is also to deny our own.
This already is a slippery slope we live on and like the victims of The Holocaust, I wonder when they will come for all of us?
Already, “they” have decided an unborn child is not real, is not a person and is not viable. With Terri, “they” have told us that even if you are breathing you are not alive.
Already “they” will stone you to death if you are a teenager and are Gay…doesn’t matter that God told us it’s not for us to kill, doesn’t matter that this poor college kid was innocent.
Already “they” have decided that it’s totally ok to end the life of an elderly person.
Already “they” have decided that severly mentally ill people who have lost the ability to reason have the right to refuse treatment even though they are incapable of reasoning and they do not have the right to get well as much as science can help them.
How much farther can this continue?
Who is next?
How long will it be until they decide any one of us
is not perfect enough to live a “meaningful life”.
As to the Holy Eucharist, Christ is there in body & soul.
Ever hear of The Miracle of the Eucharist where one day,hundreds of years ago, as one priest wondered if it was real, suddenly, the consecreated bread became real flesh and the consecreated wine became blood?
The flesh is real human heart tissue and the blood is real human blood type AB.
The same blood type found on The Shroud of Turin.
Skeptics may say that this is just a hoax…I ask why would anyone hoax it?
For those of us to believe in a lie?
Nonsense.
What would that prove?
Nothing.
It’s real…go check it out yourself by googling it.
May 30th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Well said Beskeptigal! You sound like the kind of person who has more than a fair dose of rationality
May 30th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
That last comment was directed towards Beskeptigal, not Mr. Murray.
Why would anyone fake the shroud of Turin?
The same reason hitler faked the sprear of destiny.
The same reason Jim Jones faked his divinity.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
And Elvis is still alive too!
May 30th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
It’s real…go check it out yourself by googling it.
That made me spit my coffee.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Sorry to feed a troll, but my usual one isn’t around to experiment on.
What people like to forget is that Terri was not dead…
Which definition of “dead” are we talking about? She certainly seemed dead in all the definitions I care about when it comes to sentient life.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Beskeptigal, very astute! I didn’t know the history about the marijuana laws, but I immediately believe it (and that in itself already says something about the state of the government).
P. Edward Murray, you preachin’ next Sunday? From your previous comments on this blog I thought you were pretty “with it”, but now you are trying to tell us that the Turin shroud is the same cloth that Veronica supposedly used to wipe Jesus’ face 2000 years ago? Either you have made a very smooth transition from rant to irony, or you have just gone off the deep end.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
P. Edward Murray may have said:
May 30th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I only put in one blockquote! What’s the deal here! Ah the mysteries of the blogosphere.
jbs
May 30th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Small note on crop circles: Some do it as anonymous art. Those typically see the woos as the hoaxers: Taking human work and marketting it under false pretenses as alien signals.
May 30th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Really interesting that those who are not religious view those who are as going off the deep end?
I’ve always wondered why those who are not religious always decide that they are never wrong but always right?
In fact, who gave you the authority to claim that I am off the deep end or about 1 Billion + other Christians are too?
Was Galileo off the deep end?
What about Brother Guy at the Vatican Observatory?
Watch out, he’s even more Catholic than I am plus he even has a PhD in Astronomy!
Touche..funny thing making big generalizations, especially when you have no idea of what you are talking about….
Just as bad as someone who says science is wrong, The Big Bang never happened and The Earth is only 6,000 years old!
May 30th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
jbs,
It wasn’t typed in the 13th Century my friend but the 20th.
May 30th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Really interesting that those who are not religious view those who are as going off the deep end?
Touche..funny thing making big generalizations, especially when you have no idea of what you are talking about….
You just cough up some verifiable evidence and verifiable, specific predictions that the Theory of God can make, and I’ll be first in line to say that you’re not “off the deep end”.
Until you can do that, you’re no different than people who believe in animal spirits, homeopathy, astrology, crop circle messages and Xenu. In fact, I am willing to wager you would be hard-pressed to come up with a sound, logical argument why Roman Catholicism must be true and Scientology must not, let alone produce evidence of the veracity and testability of the one God… because it’s not a sound argument to write LRH off as a nutbag by your own statement.
In truth, I wouldn’t say you’re off the deep end anyway. I tend to think of it as “deliberately putting a bag over one’s own head so as to be blind to the reality around them”. Not so much “off the deep end” as “head in the sand” if you prefer.
The fact that some people who’s head is mostly in the sand periodically come up for a breath (Brother Guy) doesn’t mean much.
May 30th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
“Bronze Dog says:
May 30, 2006 @ 6:10 pm
Small note on crop circles: Some do it as anonymous art. Those typically see the woos as the hoaxers: Taking human work and marketting it under false pretenses as alien signals”
I can imagine. I find it so sad that so many people can’t appreciate the wonderful talent and ingenuity of humanity - it MUST have been the work of some space alien, ghost, or god. They have so much contempt for humanity that they can’t imagine a world in which people were inventive enough to draw the art on the Nazca plains, build the pyramids or found the U.S.A. without help from some superbuddy in the sky.
May 30th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Evolving Squid,
Like I said above, it’s funny that you take mainstream Christianity and heap it along with astrology etc.
Not the same, though, understandable since you seem not to understand the difference between Religion as in one of the 3 main religions and baloney.
Now, whose head is in the sand?
Kind of hard to talk to you when you are not religious at all …no real frame of reference so any religion to you would sound bogus.
May 30th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
I would hardly call your opinions on the Schaivo fiasco, transubstantiation, or the Turin shroud “mainstream” Christianity. Far from it, in fact.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Kind of hard to talk to you when you are not religious at all …no real frame of reference so any religion to you would sound bogus.
You’re making poor assumptions.
I was confirmed in the Anglican church. But I grew to realize that mainstream religion is just jiggery-pokery that does not stand up to logic or reason.
But like a good skeptic, I’m always open to a better argument.
To the argument at hand, however, you did not explain why Scientology is baloney and 3 main religions are not. Scientology is based on the writings and teachings of a man. Islam is based on the writings and teachings of a man. Christianity is based on the teachings of a man. Judaism is based on the teachings of a few men.
Without using a circular argument, or any of the common logical fallacies, demonstrate to me that Scientology is bollocks and the other three are not.
Don’t tell me that “if you can’t see the difference you must have your head in the sand”… that’s an ad hominem attack and doesn’t answer the question. If the difference is that obvious, it should be easy for you to explain to anyone who can’t see it.
You shouldn’t need a frame of reference to explain the logic of why your chosen religion is correct and the others are not - you should simply be able to form a logical argument based on acceptable premises. In other words, whether I was, am or will be religious should have no bearing on the truth of your argument. However, you get the bonus of my having a relatively detailed knowledge of the Anglican flavour of Christianity, at least as it existed 25 years ago, and if you’re Catholic, that should be a pretty solid “frame of reference”.
I’m setting forth a simple task. All you have to do is step up to it. So far you’ve demonstrated that I was correct - you (anyone really) simply cannot do it.
I don’t really blame you as I have yet to see a religion that stands the test of logic or reason. But my mind is open, so please, educate me.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
PK sez: “…are trying to tell us that the Turin shroud is the same cloth that Veronica supposedly used to wipe Jesus’ face 2000 years ago?”
Just in the interest of theological historical accuracy, the Shroud of Turin is not the veil that supposedly Veronica used to wipe Christ’s face that left an imprint. It is supposed to be his actual burial shroud.
The most recent time the SoT was removed for viewing, a university lab was allowed to take a couple of fibers from the edge for testing. Although the material (linen) and weave were approximately correct for the period, carbon dating put the age of the cloth at somewhere around the 10th or 11th Century. IIRC, the blood stains are real, but I didn’t know you could type blood over 1,000 years old.
- Jack
May 31st, 2006 at 2:42 am
Just wondering - do those Canadian laws
apply to those psychics who run around the fringes of criminal investigations claiming to “assist the police” (yeah, Alison Dubois & Co, I’m talking about you)?
May 31st, 2006 at 2:52 am
May 31st, 2006 at 2:55 am
BA, I think there is something wrong with the XHTML instructions, or at least they seem incomplete. Some of my text was lost, here’s another go:
Of course, my mistake. But the point is that modern science has determined that the shroud has never been anywhere near Jesus. This is very well known.
So, P. Edward Murray: I do not have a problem with religious people per se, but maintaining a demonstrably false belief is what I call “going off the deep end†when critical thinking is concerned. It doesn’t matter how many PhDs you have.
Also, I would say that most sceptics know quite a lot about religion (even though I was initially wrong about the supposed function of the shroud), very often because of a religious upbringing.
May 31st, 2006 at 3:59 am
Regarding Phil’s mention about India: Blake Stacey’s reference to Meera Nanda reminded me of an article of hers I posted on BAUT in December regarding Hindu nationalists who, as Nanda asserts, are similar to the fundametalists in the US.
The article was via 3Quarks Daily here where you can read a blurb, however their link no longer works.
The full article is found here at Axess.
It’s worth a read. One can do a Google search on “fundamentalists in India” and find all sorts of cases of religious insanity, as in many countries including our own. Are we making progress? I’m not so sure–it seems we as a human race are waffling–we just can’t get beyond all this junk. Perhaps we never will.
Support space travel!! :-))
May 31st, 2006 at 4:01 am
>>>similar to the fundametalists in the US.
That should be “fundamentalists.” (Lobbying for “preview” function.)
May 31st, 2006 at 5:17 am
“What people like to forget is that Terri was not dead…”
Terri was in fact, quite dead! Her brain had died years before. She had no higher brain functions. A body without higher brain functions is just a lump of flesh, not a human being. FWIW - I speak from personal experience. My Mother died on January 14, 1974 (massive stroke), but the date on her tombstone says January 19, 1974. It took her body that long to die after her brain died. Yes, we could have kept her body alive, as a lump of flesh, indefinitely, but why? Everything that made her who she was was gone!
May 31st, 2006 at 6:15 am
Well, he may very well have been practicing witchcraft. Science tells us that ritual doesn’t have the power to commit the murders of which he was accused, but that hardly means that ritual to cause harm is not practice. On the contrary there is overwhelming evidence that it has been and is.
Don’t forget that this man was a traditional healer- exactly the kind of ‘woo-woo’ (to use your colourful phrase) that you know you’ve fantasized about beheading.
My opinion of Homeopathic medicien is no differnt than yours, but you ahve to give its founder, paracelsus, this much credit. At that time, if a Hippocratic doctor was presented with an infected wound, his treatment would most likely have been to cover it with a poltice made of fecal matter, on the theory that the corruption in the poltice would draw the corruption out of the wound and to itself. Paracelsus’ homeopathic solution was to put just a trace amount of feces into the wound.
May 31st, 2006 at 6:16 am
I just read that more people voted for the last ‘American Idol’ than in ANY presidential election. You’re correct BA, we are already there!
How sad and scary.
May 31st, 2006 at 6:27 am
Check out the West Memphis Three.
www.wm3.org
They may not have been beheaded, but three teenage boys in West Memphis Arkansas were convicted of the murders of three small children with no other evidence than that they like heavy metal music, wear black t shirts and one of them had a book about Wicca in his bedroom. There will be a presentation of the HBO movie about this case and a panel discussion at the Center for Inquiry West in Hollywood this Sunday.
www.cfiwest.org
One of the boys is sentenced to death; some people are pretty backwards in the US, and there are dire consequences.
May 31st, 2006 at 8:18 am
You can vote multiple times for American Idol, only once for President.
Also, with American Idol there is something to vote FOR!
I agree we’re already there or at least on our way to (proverbial) hell in a handbasket.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:00 am
Evolving squid,
You see, people like yourself rail against God.
Why?
Why are you always right but never wrong?
Sorry, but I maintain that some folks, like yourself, will always try to find a way to denounce Christianity.
So be it….
But, it’s really peculiar, now isn’t it, that one man has so changed the world and he died more than 2000 years ago.
No other single religion has been so able to change the world, not Judaism or Islam or anything else.
And most Americans believe themselves to be Christian so that makes you a minority.
Smoke that in your pipe!
And still, we do maintain the beleif that you have the right not to believe.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:48 am
For those of you who are of a “Randian persuasion”..
You might be intereted in what this fellow, Jeff Miller, has to say…
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0410dr.asp
May 31st, 2006 at 10:45 am
May 31st, 2006 at 10:46 am
Shoot, it happened again. We really need a “preview” button. Eveything past the first sentence is me.
May 31st, 2006 at 11:11 am
P. Edward Murray said:
And most Americans believe themselves to be Christian so that makes you [Evolving Squid] a minority.
And your point is? It sounds like you’re saying, “So there!!” Somehow you must know the above statement is ridiculous. The majority agreeing with something doesn’t mean it’s the best way or the right way, nor is it an argument for anything. Besides, under the umbrella of “Christian” there are many different sects, let alone many people consider themselves Christian yet do not practice it in any way. Then there’s all the hypocrites…
May 31st, 2006 at 11:24 am
I best end with something here that says what I think best, how can I say something better than a Saint?
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
St. Thomas Aquinas
May 31st, 2006 at 11:29 am
[…] I want to, without permission, copy here a recent entry in the “Bad Astronomer” blog, titled “The Cost of Uncritical Thinking“. I hope you have suffered through my diatribe and got this far, because Phill Plait makes a better point than I ever could: In America, we have this dichotomy in that we lead the world in ground-breaking scientific research, yet we have creationists and other anti-scientists who hold sway over the government. […]
May 31st, 2006 at 11:48 am
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.â€
That’s a cop-out because St. Thomas Aquinas couldn’t explain himself either. It’s a shorthand way of saying “I have no rational basis for my opinion, and unless you let go of reason, you won’t grasp my opinion.”
The thrust of your rebuttal to my challenge boils down to two simple summary statements:
1. You have no faith so you can’t possibly understand.
2. A billion Christians can’t be wrong.
Unfortunately, the first statement is patently false. I shouldn’t need faith to understand the veracity of something, especially if it is the ultimate truth. Such a thing should be self-evident, or at least easily explainable. I need not have faith that 1+1=2, for example, because it’s demonstrable in many ways. Appealing to faith is not making and argument, and avoiding the argument by making a premise that those without faith cannot possibly understand is simply arrogant and lazy.
As to the second statement, that is very likely false, and I base that condemnation on the following premises:
1. There are 5 billion people in the world who are not Christians, the bulk of whom believe that Christians are wrong. Although it is a logical fallacy that “a billion Christians can’t be wrong”, a person who would accept that premise must accept that “5 billion non-Christians can’t be wrong” and at least concede that Christianity is on very weak ground.
2. Historically, large groups of people have been completely wrong many times: belief that the Earth was flat, belief that the Earth was the centre of the universe, belief that the world was composed of 4 elements, belief that the moon was made of cheese, and so on. I have yet to see evidence that all religions are not just another instantiation of this group error.
Other related arguments, such as “nobody has changed the world like the guy who died 2000 years ago” are species, and debatably false. The Romans ruled the world for longer than Christians have, if it can be said that Christians rule the world at all. The Chinese have never been Christian in significant numbers and they changed the world more through history that Christians have.
You have also completely missed (deliberately avoided?) the original challenge: provide a reasoned argument that Christianity is true and Scientology is not. Surely if Christianity is as true as you say, and Scientology is obvious bollocks as you say, it should be grade-school easy to make this argument. Yes, I am sure you know that I’m going to take your argument and put Christianity to the same test to which you put Scientology.
May 31st, 2006 at 11:49 am
species = specious… gotta take my mittens off when I type.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Since this (the US voting system) is a pet peeve of mine I’ll point out that the last time my girlfriend voted for American idol she did so wearing nothing but a robe and it took 30 seconds. When I last voted for president I spent 30 minutes on the phone finding out where to vote, drove several miles, waited in line for over 2 hours, and had to fight with clueless election officials to get my vote counted.
If AI voting was that inaccessible, or presidential voting could be done (easily) online, I think you’d see the opposite trend. So that’s not a particularly meaningful statistic.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:17 pm
My Economics professor felt that the low voter turnout was a good thing. If people did not feel it was worth their time to vote, it indicates that overall they are happy with the government. Although they may not be completely satisfied, they were not dissatisfied enough that the percieved benefits gained by voting was worth the cost of time lost from actually voting. He considered this a good sign, that people are at least reasonably happy. If the US sociopolitcal system was not working to their percieved benefits, it would increase the cost of not voting a lot and voter turnout would increase.
In other words, low voter turnout means happy voters.
I personally find it kind of scary that people can really think the benefits of voting were so low that they felt it was not worth the relatively low cost of voting during non-working hours, or even jus sending in an absentee ballot (which is significantly easier and less complicated). However, I personally have a significant financial incentive to oppose the current administration so the cost of me not voting is significantly higher than most.
It makes me kind of uncomfortable, I don’t like biased sources and I particularly don’t like being one.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Amazing! I thought my comments on the 3,000+ accused terrorists being jailed and TORTURED by the US government, (including a few who have died from their treatment), without trial, without lawyers, without oversight, without contact with the outside world because some leaders in this country have created a culture of fear which benefits them financially and politically, would have been the issue that sparked discussion. Instead, Ed P went off on the Teri Schaivo comment.
Ed, have you met Michael Schaivo? Do you know anything about him other than the news media and other filtered information? Is it possible Mr Schaivo wanted his wife to have a peaceful natural death rather than merely having her body kept alive, atrophied and riddled with contractures?
I put that case in my comment to illustrate the uncritical thinking that went into accusing Michael Schaivo of all the things you proved my point by continuing to accuse him of. Many loving family members all over the world have faced the choice of letting a loved one die a peaceful death or keeping their bodies alive. Whether you would make the same choice or not, by far the vast majority of family members making the choice to withdraw all treatment including feeding do so because they love that family member and believe they are doing the right thing for that person.
Clearly the cruelty being perpetrated on human beings in the name of a “war on terrorism” matters not to you. Hatred of someone you perceive as going against your belief of “God’s” rules of conduct has a vastly higher significance if we are to judge by the things you’ve chosen to comment on.
A comment on the religious contribution to uncritical thinking would seem warranted here.
First I must protest the uncritical claim that because some persons use religious beliefs to justify their uncritical thinking all religious persons do the same. Of course that isn’t true. In fact, it is a small minority of believers who do so.
That minority includes believers of many different faiths from the uncritically thinking Islamic suicide bombers to the uncritically thinking Muslims and Hindus who have slaughtered each other in India and elsewhere from time to time. It includes people who would kill an author or publisher of a few political cartoons, (or kill randomly in a fit of rioting as was the recent case), and those who would bomb an abortion clinic or beat and leave to die the Matthew Sheperds of the world.
Fear, hatred, revenge, and combinations of these emotions combine with ignorance and lack of critical thinking in the cases being discussed here. If you add in the uncritical belief held by some self righteous persons that they know the moral certainties the rest of the people in the world should abide by, the results are all too often quite sickening.
Behead someone you fear has harmed you with witchcraft, or someone you believe is an “infidel” or sinner. The combination of beliefs and emotions may vary a bit. But combined with uncritical thinking, the results are the same. And the world as a whole is a worse place for it.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:35 pm
May 31st, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Maybe this is the same fantasy that a person has when they climb the same hill in hopes of seeing a repeat of a marvelous sunset…(it won’t necessarily happen)but I think if only PBS would replay the Cosmos series it would enlighten a new generation of people. I know it’s been on the science channel and you can get it on DVD, and it wouldn’t have the fanfare it got 25 years ago, but I would like to look for that marvelous sunset again.
May 31st, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Black Cat says: “This isn’t a matter of what Michael wanted, this is a matter of what Terri wanted….Luckily the law and Terri’s wishes ultimately prevailed, but it was a long and silly battle…What Terri wanted was what was important, not what Michael or her parents wanted.
Considering Teri had no more brain function that could recognize if she were alive or dead, I can’t find any rational reason that would be true. The law has to designate someone to decide. The husband was the legal next of kin in this case. The parents were in great pain that they were not designated and had no control in the matter and for that I have empathy. Beyond that, it is not my beliefs, my morals, my religion, or anyone else’s other than the family members’ which the matter can be judged by.
Critical thinking means recognizing the limits of “morals” and judgments of “right and wrong.” There are some universal rules of fairness and right and wrong. But the edges of those rules blur fairly quickly. Murder is wrong. The death penalty and abortion get blurry. Stealing is wrong, profiting from deceptive marketing gets blurry. Is it OK to kill a child unintentionally while fighting a war but not OK to intentionally kill an embryo to create stem cells that might save a life, as if intent matters but outcome doesn’t? Maybe someone has that backward.
The person who believes only their judgment, their morals, their beliefs matter is the same person who might feel justified acting on those beliefs. Is the sociopath who feels no inhibition to murder that much different from the religious fundamentalist who feels justified committing a murder? Neither has feeling for the victim. Both have a distorted view of the importance of self. Perhaps one doesn’t think and the other doesn’t think critically. Both make the world a worse place to be.
June 1st, 2006 at 12:27 am
P. Edward Murray says:
May 31, 2006 @ 9:00 am
Mr. Murray - that person would be Siddhartha Gautama, a.k.a. The Buddha (”the awakened”).
Jesus allegedly died less than 2000 years ago.
Any one who has bothered to study Hinduism and Buddhism recognise the mythical elements “borrowed” from them to create the myth of Christ.
June 1st, 2006 at 9:52 am
You can add any number of people to that list. Confucius, Einstein, Joseph Smith, Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Da Vinci are just the first few that come to my mind.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:39 am
In your own way I am sorry to say that I think some of you are just as intolerant as those folks that you love to rail against.
June 1st, 2006 at 11:51 am
Shahryar says:
Jesus allegedly died less than 2000 years ago.
I’ll let P. Edward Murray answer his own assertion of the gist of his comment above, but I do take some exception to the word ‘allegedly”, specially in the context that he has been making throughout this blog. (Phil, you stirred up a hornet’s nest with this topic!). Jesus and Buddha and other leaders did die, must have, as they all lived, they were historical characters. I do not recall anyone living past about 120 years, so it is a moot point whether just more than, or just less than 2000 years is anything to base an argument upon.
Though I now consider basic religion as an echo of our distant past as wondering neo humans, our present organised churches, of whatever faith, are still perpetuating these basic fears and interpretations, and have developed into multi-million dollar organisations, and have far too much influence. This I think is true of all religions. I read the link to Jeff Miller (in post 22650), and though I do not doubt his sincerity, it is not for me; I have philosophical objections.
But having been bought up in one such faith, (Christian- Methodist), I can still see that they did have a good sense of Right and Wrong. This is not to say that what some call Right is absolutely Right to everybody. As in any large organisation, large enough to be a viable sample, there will be a wide range of opinions, varying as the usual excuses and reasons available. I’m sure others will say the same thing about their chosen faith, or non-faith.
I debate the ‘total’ numbers of the world Christians, Buddhists, and all the others, are really anything like the numbers quoted, ie America (USA)-280 million; Australia-20 million; Italy… Brasil…India….China, etc, their total populations being the accepted numbers. I’d say only 5% would be closer to the truth, and of these we throw in all the variations of (world) beliefs, and what actually entices them to commit anyway. A good meal, companionship, social standing, service to humanity, or service to other believers, even fear of political, military or religious authorities are some reasons to belong. To each his own.
There are probably more fine people who ‘don’t go to church’, than do, and these must have learnt decent principles, either by observing others or have been taught somehow, or even worked it out, just as one learns not to put one’s hand in the fire, at least after the first time.
Gotta get off my hobby horse now.
Ivan
June 1st, 2006 at 2:18 pm
P. Edward Murray says:
You voice a strong opinion (including beliefs that defy the findings of modern science) and you get the strong response that you undoubtedly expected, and perhaps even hoped. Our differences on this matter are probably insurmountable, but to call us intolerant is a blatant attempt to undermine the force of our arguments by trying to discredit our characters (a bit like Bush vs. Kerry, in that respect).
I do not deny anyone the right to form opinions or practise their religion (as long as it is within the law). Likewise, I claim the right to tell them where they are wrong, especially when I have scientific evidence to back up my arguments. How can that be intolerant?
June 2nd, 2006 at 12:46 am
P ED Murray, you need to be more specific if you want your comment on lack of tolerance to make any sense. Otherwise it appears to be a typical response heard when there is nothing of substance to say.
I doubt many here being critical of religion do so purely on the basis of not believing the same. Except for someone else’s religious beliefs there are no legitimate reasons to discriminate against gay people. Except for someone else’s religious beliefs there are no legitimate reasons to ban stem cell research. Except for someone else’s religious beliefs there are no legitimate reasons to push for inclusion of unscientific materials in science classes. So no, I am not going to be tolerant of everything every person with irrational beliefs claims I should be tolerant of.
On the other hand, while persons of one religion have certainly persecuted those of another religion (and Christianity is as big an offender as a victim) I doubt you could find a single scientist that beat a Christian to death just because the Christian didn’t fit the profile of a good scientist.
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:18 am
John W. Kennedy said:
John, the “metaphysical body of Christ-ness” is entirely incomprehensible. I read through this page:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm
After digging through all that, what I get is that the bread retains the outward appearance of bread while becoming flesh, and the wine retains the outward appearance of wine while becoming blood. The “Real Presence” metaphysicalness not-withstanding, the wine really is blood and the bread really is flesh.
Seems like a weak strain of logic relying on his choice of wording to suggest that he couldn’t have been speaking metaphorically because he didn’t state, “I’m speaking metaphorically”. But it’s gibberish to suggest the implication is anything other than the belief is in real flesh and real blood, magically masquerading as bread and wine.
P. Edward Murray said:
That’s from an avowed Catholic. Maybe he’s wrong about his own religious dogma, but if so it’s a common error within his religion.
John W. Kennedy said:
I don’t recall that episode.
idlemind said:
Star Trek isn’t a benchmark of science, but it is a vehicle of common culture, and thus demonstrates a misconception that is common in our culture.
June 3rd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
P. Edward Murray said:
You have a really warped view. You appear to be thinking of the vow “in sickness and in health” or something. But the fundamental difference of opinion here is determination of what makes someone dead. Rating death based upon heart beating and breathing is sloppy. Hearts stop and can be restarted, breathing can stop and be restarted, and the person continue to live. The real determinant of “living” is brain activity. With no brain activity, the heart and lungs can function perfectly and the person won’t be alive by any sense of the word. They won’t be experiencing anything. There’s not even a “they” there. Even if you subscribe to the soul concept it is difficult to see how the soul can be in the body and the brain not functioning.
When higher brain function fails, the autonomous brain can last. This will drive body function for some time before organs start to fail. There are different amounts of brain failure after higher brain function ends. It seems like a gray area when the autonomous system is running by higher brain is non-functional. The higher brain is anything associated to thought and experience. The lower brain is driving heart, lungs, kidneys, organs, etc. There’s no experience occurring.
It’s called the growth of knowledge. We understand better what it means to be alive, where life resides. Life is in the ability to think, perceive, and experience. Without that, what’s the difference between a corpse on life support and a potato plant?
Now you’re being deceptive and duplicitous. You just equated the “they” of defining life as being brain activity with “they” who brutally slaughter gays for being gay. It’s called “bait and switch”.
Who is this “they”? I don’t think I know enough about the situation to which you are referring. Who is doing this?
Again, I’m not certain to what you refer. The situations I’ve seen is mentally ill people who are on treatment declaring that they don’t like the treatment and don’t want it, thus getting taken off the treatment and becoming ill again. I think you’re talking about legal cases where people are having medical treatments forced on them. True, the treatments may help them, but the side effects can also be bad, and who are you to say they’re better off sane and depressed and impotent?
I don’t know, how many situations can you misconstrue?
Strawman time.
You’re very credulous of the Shroud. The truth is it’s a fake.
See, even the Catholic Church investigated it and determine it was a fake, including the testimony of the artist who painted it.
Carbon dating confirms the age as a 14th Century origin. The stains that are supposed to be blood are paint.
DNA was recovered from the Shroud - not blood, but DNA. Guess what, DNA can come from many sources, including skin cells and tears. The Shroud was not protected and kept away from the public until late in it’s history. When first displayed, it was handled, cried on, touched, and fondled by anyone who could cough up the right “donation” to the church.
As for why someone would fake it, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries were ripe with pious frauds. There are over a dozen shrouds out there claiming to be the “true shroud” of Jesus. In fact, there are enough “pieces of the true cross” to build a ship. Heck, there’s more than one item claimed to be Jesus’ foreskin. That time period people were strongly encouraged to believe in miracles, especially miracles by touching sacred objects. Thus any church worth a thing had some sacred relic or object. Bones of saints were particularly common. Nevermind that most of these are pig or chicken bones. People wanted to believe in them.
Why were frauds done? Because the clergy were paid by the petitioners who wanted forgiveness, who wanted a shot at healing. It was a common occurrence in the Middle Ages. The better your relic, the more you could charge and the more people would come. Thus items related to Jesus were more important than those of saints. Ergo, pieces of the cross, shrouds, etc.
Why would people believe this stuff? Well, why do people believe in the miracle of the stain on the underpass wall? The stain on the window? The face of Mary on a tortilla, a treestump, a grilled cheese sandwich? People want to believe, to justify their religious belief and to provide a sense of connection. So they pick any stimulus vaguely suggestive and interpret it to support their need. It’s sad, really, to see these people so weak in faith that they’ll accept anything to justify their belief.
Going off the deep end…. like believing a piece of cloth painted in 1300’s is a sacred image of Jesus from his resurrection in the year 32ish? Like believing Mary reveals herself to the faithful in a burn pattern on a grilled cheese sandwich?
I certainly don’t claim to never be wrong and always be right. I merely wish to see the evidence. Show me I’m wrong. Vague notions of random wishful thinking don’t cut it.
Reality.
I don’t know, did Galileo belief in the sacredness of a piece of cloth? Did he believe bread and wine magically became flesh and blood that looks, feels, and tastes like bread and wine but has the “real” quality of being bread and wine?
Having a PhD in Astronomy doesn’t prove your rational in all aspects of your thought. Many people are able to separate their realms of thinking from professional and personal.
So what is the difference? How long it’s been around? The number of people deluded by it? The fact we can name the author? Because the ridicuousness of the story certainly is equivalent.
You tell me, why do “the 3 main religions” outrank Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism? What’s the difference between those three and Roman Mythology, Greek Mythology, Norse Mythology? Other than the details of the belief, of course.
June 3rd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Black Cat said:
beskeptical said:
The practical matter was deciding who got to decide. Micheal claimed he was fulfilling her wishes, as previously expressed years before. So it was Terri’s wishes, according the Michael.
icemith said:
That’s the point, was Jesus really a historical character, or was he a convenient invention? I’m actually of the opinion there might have been a man named Jesus who stirred up some trouble with his itenerant preaching of the end times, but much of the remaining stories about him are corrupted interpretations and mythological projections onto him.
June 5th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Just to clarify a point,
Irishman said: “Micheal claimed he was fulfilling her wishes, as previously expressed years before. So it was Terri’s wishes, according the Michael.”
I realize that was the reason Michael gave for the decision, my point was it didn’t matter what reason he gave.
Such a statement might have made it more difficult for the parents to sue for guardianship to control the decision. A court would have to deal with a matter of deciding best interest for a person who could not decide for themselves, as they did in this case. “Teri’s wishes” might matter to a judge, but they certainly didn’t matter to Teri.
June 6th, 2006 at 6:57 am
Hi Irishman, got your comment, but I too was referring to the end days. It can be safely assumed that there is a lot of interpolation re the early days. Fairy tales and childish stories. That whole industries have grown up around these tales is in itself frightening. Of course nowdays, with Madison Avenue’s latest moves, it’s packaged like American Idol or McDonalds. Very slick. And there are some who will always be influenced. We’ve just got to convince them otherwise.
Ivan.
June 6th, 2006 at 9:24 am
icemith, the question of his existence at all is the point. Nothing was written until many years after his supposed death, and what was written was manipulated and adjusted to make political and religious points more than convey history. Heck, one of the main proponents of Christianty (Paul) never met him at all. Study of Paul’s writings shows Paul doesn’t appear to be writing of him as if he’s a real person.
I’m willing to accept that there could have been a man, but the evidence is rather slim.