Freethought Nation

I don't see how it will affect anything Acharya has said. They have supposedly added a 13th character to the zodiac, which Acharya allowed for in her books when she mentioned that some zodiacs have 13 and when Xianity came along they dropped one. It is still the same thing and I don't see it changing anything that she has stated.

Tom, why are you even linking Zeitgeist: The Movie as an analysis of the Ancient Alien Theory? That film doesn't even mention or hint at it, it gives a naturalistic link to the theory of religion, i.e. nature/star worship.

“A few months ago I posted about the lack of credibility concerning the claims of aliens building/guiding construction of the pyramids. The reason it is filed under this page is simple: the same sorts of claims being made by the Zeitgeist mythicists are made by the people who propose the fictional correlation between aliens and the pyramids and other ancient civilizations.”

This is absurd for a number of reasons, the sources being used are not the same ones being shown to have posited some kind of link between aliens and the building of the pyramids. Acharya S, Robert M. Price, Earl Doherty and many other of the same sources do not endorse this idea. I wonder what even made you think that? Can you name a source that the film uses that says the pyramids were built by aliens? Because unless you can, this amounts to nothing more than a simple falsehood, one that is deliberate no doubt.

Rook: “1. The Zeitgeist movement and the ‘ancient alien’ movement are of the same ilk because they both do the exact same thing; you don’t have to like it.”

Me: That does not all at all what the link you gave says, it says, “the same sorts of claims being made by the Zeitgeist mythicists are made by the people who propose the fictional correlation between aliens and the pyramids and other ancient civilizations.”

This amounts to saying that Acharya, Price, Doherty and every source used by the Zeitgeist film, by linking them to a fringe idea. This is nothing more than a red herring.

Rook: “2. Both fabricate data to create links between two points”

Me: What data are you talking about? Are you referring to all the references given by the sources that indicate Isis had the epithet Meri/Mery? Are you talking about the references that indicate she was a virgin, such as the inscription at the Temple Seti I, which has Isis declaring, “I am the Great Virgin”? Are you talking about the coins which feature three kings, bringing visiting an infant Horus with a star in the background? How are these fabricated data? Because you have never touched any of these, all you have ever done is simply say, “this myth corroborate with what they are saying,” when all you’re just doing is simply pointing to myths that aren’t the same instead of addressing what it is they we do point to.

Rook: “3. Zeitgeisters fail to recognize the sorts of archaeological evidence they would need to prove their positions and links and often misuse archaeology, like the crucified horse-headed figure).”

Me: I’m sorry but what the heck is a Zeitgeister? Are you saying that comparative mythologists are “zeitgeisters”? Creating a derogatory word which can be used interchangeably with people from the movement and people who promote the Christ Myth Theory (which by the way are not the same thing). Also, never in any of your articles or any other rebuttals that I have seen have made a reference to archaeological critiques. Their is usually an abundance in themes of rationalizing, “the differences outweigh the similarities, so the similarities don’t count” to “that isn’t evidence (without giving a reason why)” to “the worship of that particular is too late to have influenced Christianity.” So could you be more specific rather than very vague?

Rook: “4. Both have nonexperts who are leading the movement, who fail to publish anything academically, and make their living duping people into accepting their false claims.”

Me: First of all, you don’t have to have an “expert” only give information in order for it to be valid. Secondly, what the hell do you mean by expert? If we were to follow that line of reasoning then every single critique you have given is not valid because “you’re not an expert” in comparative mythology. Hell, we would be unable to accept any claim because its never done by “an expert.” Third, you actually have something called sources, which you can weigh and even check to see whether or not the work has anything valid to it. Fourth, you can actually check to see who endorses their work and what degrees they have to see if the person is worth looking into. Considering Acharya has been endorsed by Price, Doherty, Feder, Eisenman, Schoch, etc… and these are all established academics in their field and respected professors in some we can say that even if Acharya is a nonexpert, we have experts endorsing her work thus at least making the claim that “because she is a nonexpert I don’t accept her work” a moot point. Finally, its an appeal to credentialism, it doesn’t really engage in the argument given.

Rook: “5. Both movements attack or criticize actual academics and the academy itself for not taking them seriously (for which there are legitimate reasons for dismissing the claims of the cranks in charge).”

Me: What are you talking about? It’s very well known that the field of Biblical Scholarship is known for it’s biases and the people who claim to be academic are Christian Apologists and these seem to be the only critiquing the film and have an offset of religious bias from the start. Let’s Mike Licona, he is a well known Christian Apologists and while have a degree in history he is also a YEC (young earth creationist).

Chris Forbes is another interesting case since he was asked by his daughter who was having a hard time converting those who follow the Eastern Religions because they reference the film. He even admits as much on the interview, so his entire critique is colored with bias.

Also, to say that academics do not have an axe to grind because of their reputation being overshadowed, then apparently you do not understand how humans in the current system. If one is getting more praise than the other and he is an established academic, their are times for when they will critique the others work on the ground of jealousy. Now whether or not that is your case, the case of Callahan’s or others is irrelevant, it does happen and to pretend it doesn’t is ludicrous.

Rook: “6. Both movements claim conspiracy to silence or dismiss the positions of the nonexperts at the head of the movement.”

Me: What the hell are you talking about? Acharya has only ever claimed conspiracy with regards to the massive amount of destruction done by Christians with regards to pagan sources, in other words she basically says that, “Christianity would not have gone on it’s widespread rampage of destruction of primary sources, defaced religious temples and inscriptions if it did not have something to hide.” What conspiracy are you talking about regarding the mythacist position or that of Acharya? Because using that to claim she makes or her supporters make some kind of conspiracy claim is a dishonest broad brush painting.

I do not allow anonymous comments. I need to know who you are. If I don’t know you, or if you post under a pseudonym, your comment will be deleted.

“Deception, fraud, misrepresentation, criminal behavior, sock puppetery, geoff hudson, heck you name it and anonymity is a literal pandoras box of stupidity and wickedness.”

I have to agree. If you don’t have the wherewithal to post under your real name, that tells me something about you.

You don’t wish to take responsibility for your own words, you are going to flame someone on the blog (myself or a commenter), you are dishonest, and/or you probably don’t have anything useful to say anyway.

"First he makes no real distinction between the types of mythicist arguments and instead lumps them all together, creating a ‘guilt by association’ effect that is neither appropriate nor reasonable.12

"For example, Carrier’s arguments which are often sound and methodical are lumped in with the claims made by Acharya S whose arguments are usually poorly researched and lack in contextual understanding. So the mistakes of one are stretched across the spectrum, as if Carrier were making the same claims Acharya S does, which is just not true.13"

"However, in "skimming" Brunner's text, as he puts it, Carrier has mistakenly dealt with the substantially different Hatshepsut text (Brunner's "IV D"), demonstrating an egregious error in garbling the cycles, when in fact we are specifically interested in the Luxor narrative (IV L)."

- Luxor

So I wrote "Congratulations Tom on the publication of your book. I've been following Neil Godfrey's discussion of it with interest. Just a shame it seems you did not cover astrotheology - stone the builder refused, etc..."

But somehow the "Post Comments" button is greyed out for me on Tom's erudite (his term) blog. Must just be my computer...