Freethought Nation

Thanks, interesting discussion. The disdain and censorship shown by atheists towards Acharya clearly involves a psychological complex. I suspect that this complex involves deeply seated cultural assumptions that people struggle to articulate or own, but which prove decisive in determining prejudiced emotional reactions such as rejection and derision.

The case of Richard Dawkins is interesting. I have read most of his books and have learned a lot from him. However, he is very arrogant, seemingly holding a dismissive attitude towards all ancient thought. He assumes the truth of the linear hypothesis of cultural and scientific progress from primitive superstition to modern enlightenment. All thought from before Descartes etc is dismissed by this prejudice as benighted by superstition. This is the general attitude of atheism, that religious thought including all mythology is false consciousness.

So, when Acharya S comes along and says that ancient mythology has a rational basis in empirical observation of the stars, atheists naturally react with emotional fury. Their agenda is to say mythology is worthless except as children's fables, but Acharya is saying, as I read her work, that the cyclic model of time in ancient thought is highly informative.

Tat:
I have mentioned this before on other forums and will state it again here now. I have been an admirer of some of Richard Carrier's work, but

1) Dr. Carrier is a pedantic academic snob.

2) Carrier embraces a highly questionable methodology in what has been an emerging schism in the academic field of history and its underlying applications of historiography, unknown to the large majority of his followers I am sure. Unlike myself, most atheists have never taken a college level class in history (including Dr Dawkins?) The "new" history, in part, has been an attempt in some quarters to cast a neo-Hegelian structure to research the past in a "scientific" framework, revising historical study as a new social science. Pardon me for being old-fashioned, but competent history is, and always has been a humanity, and as such has allowed for a rich panoply of styles of evidence: cultural, artistic, styles and use of language and rhetoric, literary, documentary, and of course anthropological and archeological in inducting both conclusions and interpretations. Carrier is rigorously and obstinately opposed to the older methods and, as such, this could account for his animus toward Murdoch.

3) Carrier only came to be persuaded to a mythicist position after reading some arguments of Earl Doherty, someone who has positively affirmed Acharya's work on more than one occasion. If he is going to be so arrogantly insistent that others refuse to reference the work of Achyara, then he has a professional obligation to get on with it. He has to get his book published immediately or he stands to lose all his credibility with his appeal to enjoin someone else's publications, regardless as to the source.

"A nicely compact and efficient mini-book demonstrating how little we
can trust the Gospels to provide us with an historical picture of
Christian beginnings, let alone a reliable biography of its reputed
founder. The clear contradictions between the Gospels, the wholesale
changes and editorializing performed by later evangelists (each one
following his own theology and interests) in reworking earlier ones,
the pervasive use of the Old Testament to construct the Gospel story,
all of it renders the foundations of Christianity a thing of smoke and
quicksand. Together with her recent tour de force, 'Suns of God,'
Acharya S has joined the growing number of pallbearers to the
Historical Jesus, providing a few more nails in the coffin."

Earl Doherty

Earl's homepage - http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/home.htm

I have seen Kagin's list before, and have always assumed he just picked it up somewhere unreferenced and repeated it, because it seemed so plausible to him. Kagin is the KY state director for AA and the legal counsel for the whole shebang. It would surprise me if he engages in willful deliberate plagiarism.

Robert Tulip wrote:
Thanks, interesting discussion. The disdain and censorship shown by atheists towards Acharya clearly involves a psychological complex. I suspect that this complex involves deeply seated cultural assumptions that people struggle to articulate or own, but which prove decisive in determining prejudiced emotional reactions such as rejection and derision.

The case of Richard Dawkins is interesting. I have read most of his books and have learned a lot from him. However, he is very arrogant, seemingly holding a dismissive attitude towards all ancient thought. He assumes the truth of the linear hypothesis of cultural and scientific progress from primitive superstition to modern enlightenment. All thought from before Descartes etc is dismissed by this prejudice as benighted by superstition. This is the general attitude of atheism, that religious thought including all mythology is false consciousness.

So, when Acharya S comes along and says that ancient mythology has a rational basis in empirical observation of the stars, atheists naturally react with emotional fury. Their agenda is to say mythology is worthless except as children's fables, but Acharya is saying, as I read her work, that the cyclic model of time in ancient thought is highly informative.

This is a good point, although I dispute a generality among atheists in this matter, and raises some serious questions about modern education. Outside of a tip of the hat maybe to Democritus, the library at Alexandria, and some of Aristotle, many atheists are immersed in the advancing sciences since 1600 and Descartes and the building sophistication of the scientific method. They are dazzled by that narrative as they should be and as I am. But it so defines their sense of order and semblance of optimal human existential reality, that they resort to assumptions that prior to this modern age going back to the inception of homo sapiens 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, the human condition floundered in a chronic chaotic ocean of superstition and social darkness, only worthy of occasional points of study.

People like Acharya and others advance scholarship that there is a thread of continuity in the ingenious way people observed the natural world in a pre-scientific setting, and set about to create fictions and metaphors that artistically express the profundity of the world around them with its nurturing or devastating natural cycles. My favorite example is the obvious influence of the Hermetic tradition on nascent Christianity in the opening of the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
As Hermes Trismegetus states and many other before no doubt, "as above, so below". It expresses the ages-old yearning that the perceived perfection of the heavens come to be completely mirrored on terra firma.

When confronted with even mountain ranges of evidence of the syncretic thread that confirms the hypothesis of astrotheology, some atheists and many others are almost convulsive in approbation. They will either burst with accusations of denial of the validity of the evidence (desperate arguments about the applicability of secondary evidence or contorted interpretations of primary evidence of their own), or rabid red herrings and straw men. The hypothesis runs contrary to their world views in any historical setting and must be derided, ad hominems galore, at all costs.

Among all too many of us, even those of us with advanced education, atheist and theist alike, we have not been sufficiently grounded in the liberal arts, or at an early enough age, to be able to sufficiently critically evaluate new information about culture and history. The same could be said for the physical sciences. Incomplete education and an over-emphasis on "specialty based" education leads to subjectivity and bias.

I was almost never an above average student. But perhaps I was fortunate enough to select a field of study that was a fulcrum for both the physical sciences and the humanities that it expanded my horizons of curiosity across a broad spectrum. I was one of the lucky ones. We need more luck like that in a society where so many of the best resourced among us find advantage in exploiting our ignorance and narrow opinion.

. . . the cultural invisibility and taboos that surround proponents of change in religion.

. . . .like Acharya who honestly seeks to build a bridge between faith and reason.

A delicious irony in this case is that scientific minded atheists tend to interpret the continuity between Christianity and mythology as evidence that the different claims are equally false, . . . .

Neophyte "I have never read anything by her that suggests she is trying to build a bridge to anything except maybe a bridge to understanding"

The Value of Mythicism

"Mythicism has much to offer to those who find it difficult to believe in the gospel story as "history" but who wish to know the deeper meaning behind the story. Indeed, the mythicist position importantly serves as a bridge between theism and atheism, as it does not seek to discount or denigrate the long and exalted history of thought concerning religion and mythology, dating back many thousands of years, as manifested in the religious and spiritual practices of man beginning millennia ago and continuing since then. The pinnacle of mythicist cultures—more specifically those based on astrotheology—can be seen in the massive and mysterious civilization of Egypt, for example. Rather than being ignored and dismissed, such wondrous creations should be explored and treasured as unique and glorious contributions to the overall human accomplishment...."

"The mythicist position serves as a bridge between theism and atheism, while also taking us beyond the eternal theist vs. atheist debate. Mythicists seek to understand the meaning and substance behind the mythology, based on sound evidence and scientific endeavors...."

Pardon me, but I have never read anything by her that suggests she is trying to build a bridge to anything except maybe a bridge to understanding ~ (perhaps in the Gospel According to Acharya, which I have not read). From what I have read, what she has sought to do is provide an explanation for faith, something she has done very ably, with very commendable scholarship, communication skills, and courage.