Letter to the editor of Christian Apologetics Ministries (ApologeticsMinistries.com):
You unbelievable wingnuts. You should totally fire your Professor of Apologetics, Jonathon Hold, from his position at your supposed Iowa University of Religion for being a baloneyhead. His article proposing The Null Hypothesis Project is full of vomitous flabergastery.
I searched for his cv and found nothing. He also has no papers in any peer reviewed journal anywhere. Nor any books by an academic press. What a joke.
He mocks the scientific method, of testing a theory by proving its denial false. But that is actually the most honest way to test a theory: rather than falling into a trap of confirmation bias, a classic error of logic, scientists ask what would be observed if their claim was false, and then look for that. Only when they fail to find it do they have reason to believe their theory is true. And the more they fail to find it, despite exhaustive searching, the more likely their theory is true.
Had Christians done that with their religion, the world would be a thousand years more scientifically and technologically advanced today. As I proved in the last chapter of The Christian Delusion. What a delusion indeed. And our morals would not still be perverted with bigotry, abuse gluttony, and sex phobias, but would all be sorted out by now. As I proved in the last chapter of The End of Christianity. Oh when will it end? And we’d have gotten our democracy and human rights a thousand years sooner, too. As I proved in Christianity Is Not Great. Indeed “great,” sirs and ma’ams, it is not.
If Hold knew what he was doing, he wouldn’t use a totally confirmation biased test, and then claim he was testing the null hypothesis. As even the Apostle Paul would say, “You fool!” (aphrôn su: 1 Corinthians 15:36).
Hold claims “the null hypothesis in the case of Jesus would be” the declaration “There was no Jesus,” and then claims “the evidence [to] overcome this null hypothesis” is that the Gospel according to Matthew says Jesus existed. Based, Hold incompetently asserts, on the assertion that it contains “first hand written testimony from Joseph,” the father of Jesus. Oh by the Lords of Kobol. What manner of balderdash is this?
Look. First of all, if Matthew wrote down the words of Joseph, that is by definition second hand testimony. I mean, seriously. This is gradeschool grammar shit. Must your professor repeat the third grade? Must he!?
Second of all, it’s common knowledge among experts the world over that the Gospel “according to” Matthew was not written by Matthew, but claiming to use Matthew as its source (that is what the Greek of the title means, kata plus a name in the accusative case being a reference to source, not author). So in fact, that would make this third hand testimony.
Third of all, we know that title is just poop in a chute. Instead of recording the testimony of the alleged disciple Matthew, a Palestinian Jew speaking Aramaic or Hebrew who would be relating things he saw and heard in his own words, Matthew copies the Greek of the Gospel according to Mark, verbatim. And just adds embellishments thereon. So “the book of Matthew” is not the witness of Matthew, even second hand (and thus Joseph third hand). Or the witness of any Palestinian Jew. Or anyone speaking Aramaic or Hebrew. So it’s not even third and fourth hand testimony. It’s at least fifth and sixth hand; maybe even a hundredth hand for all we know.
As sources go, that’s hardboiled bollocks.
But the point my dear fellows is this. You don’t test the theory that Jesus existed by looking for claims that he existed. Because those claims would exist even if Jesus didn’t. Look at Hercules. Or the angel Moroni. Or Elvis Redivivus. Or my imaginary childhood friend Heather the Humanoid Space Cat from Saturn. (And she was awesome.)
No, testing the null hypothesis that Jesus didn’t exist means looking for evidence that claims of his existence were fabricated. Only when you fail to find that evidence would you have reason to believe he existed after all. And that’s where the shit hits the fan. And splatters its biowaste all over your freshly made plate of once-delicious rigatoni.
What would evidence of fabrication look like?
Well, for one thing, you might see all the claims placing Jesus on earth, and as hand-picking disciples and initiating an oral tradition through them (as opposed to only communicating with apostles, not disciples, and only through postmortem dreams and visions, not in life), appearing decades after the earliest substantial documentation of the religion.
Ooops. That’s what we find. The authentic Epistles of Paul only mention Jesus being a celestial revelatory being, and only ever appearing to anyone after he died. The Gospels are the first to claim otherwise, and come decades after. The null hypothesis is not falsified after all, but confirmed! Ouch. Right in the tookus.
Or you might find extensive literary evidence within and among the Gospels confirming they are wanton fabrications. Oh. Guess what? That’s what we find, too.
And so on. It’s looking bad, pals.
Unlike your so-called “Professor” Hold, I proved all this in a peer reviewed academic press book, On the Historicity of Jesus. Suck on that, you sticky meatheads.
I also proved all the methods, of trying to rescue your precious little baby Jesus from the historicity dustbin, totally suck balls, in Proving History. And I mowed down all the evidence for Jesus outside the Bible in Hitler Homer Bible Christ. (That’s right. Hitler. Christ. Godwin rocks!)
That’s the null hypothesis. Proved. Not refuted. Your Schroedinger’s Jesus has just sniffed the cyanide.
Everything else Hold argues just degenerates from there, with Hold just repeating the same mistake over and over again, only even worse and worse, like a caveman endlessly thudding a dead horse with his wheezy medicine stick. I call lame.
Let’s not forget I decisively refuted your stupid religion in Why I Am Not a Christian, and sophisticatedly demolished your resurrection blather in The Empty Tomb, and spankingly pwned one of your most hoity toity Christian apologist fellows in Not the Impossible Faith, and proved the world is just swell without your silly God thingy in Sense and Goodness without God.
So all you bigoted Christian MRAs can bite my little pony.
Signed,
Richard “Buy My Books” Carrier, Ph.D.
Don’t you know how long it takes to detect Poe Law? Johnny Joe Hold was the mayor of Freehold where Landover Baptist Church is supposedly located.
I stand agape at your erudition. “Totally suck balls,” indeed.
CPP would be proude.
Sorry Richard, but I’m having difficulty with this:
I thought the null hypothesis was about disproving the given hypothesis but here it seems to me you are looking for evidence to “prove” the hypothesis that Jesus didn’t exist. What am I missing. (Please go easy – I need stuff like this explained at the level one might give it to a two year old.)
ApologeticsMinistries.com is clearly a parody site 🙂
The actual article is a joke, right?
Sir, do you still respond to comments?
Sir, I just wanna recommend you books and youtube channels that I think will be of great help to your future encounters with apologists. Its Understanding Arguments by Walter Sinnott Armstrong. It talks about purposes of arguments namely: persuasion, justification, explanation. It also talks about basic linguistics like speech acts and conversational acts, conversational implications and logical implications. YouTube channels, may I suggest the ff: KnowNoMore ( for reformulating arguments ), AnticitizenX, Martymer81, TheMessianicManic. Those youtube channels I just suggested, their videos are really good. Don’t take my for it. Whenever you get the time to spare ( which I believe you have very little 🙂 ), just check em out. Tnk you.
I think this may be the most entertaining blog post I’ve read to date.
Signed,
Peter “I’ve bought your books” Bollwerk, no Ph.D.
=)
Both barrels blazing!
All four barrels, actually.
lolwut?
Did you just want to have some fun and rage? Lol. I can appreciate that.
The secret (which was kind of obvious, IMO, so not really a secret) is that this is a pitch for my books, in fulfillment of an advertising contract with ApologeticsMinistries. They are a comedy site looking for readers. I’m an author looking for ad space. Perfect marriage. Plus they paid me. (I’ll write up anything I believe in when adequately paid to. Hence this joke letter is actually totally correct…at the same time as it’s totally a joke. My favorite kind of humor.)
Are you sure this is a serious website?
Whois tells it’s only up since 2014-09-09.
It’s a little too Poe for me. Funny though.
Oh, yes, definitely a Poe.
That’s the joke.
After exploring the website a little more I’m convinced it is a spoof.
For example their promoting of http://stopmasturbationnow.org/.
That university doesn’t exist and “Cornelius Oldman” has a facebook page showing support for Landover Baptist (and shows a Danish flag when he writes an article about stupid Fins and his comments are mostly quite hilarious)
Oh Levi Jones, contact person. His email: levijoneslbc@gmail.com. QED
Pretty funny they tricked you.
What’s funny is that you didn’t notice my letter was tagged “humor.”
The only one tricked was you.
(I suppose people who know my work better would be better positioned to recognize that I wouldn’t use a phrase like “vomitous flabergastery” in anything but a joke letter.)
But isn’t “vomitous flabergastery” how you described Bart Ehrman’s “Did Jesus Exist”? …lol
Iowan here…
For the record, there is no “Iowa University of Religion” — Google can find those words together only on this “Christian Apologetics Ministries” website, and blogs referencing it. Having had a look around the website, I think it’s more likely that it’s supposed to be satire, what with thoughtful essays like “The Economics of Martyring Christians” (the theory being that when Islamic terrorists kidnap Christians, those from rich families will pay the ransom, and those from poor families will be unable to pay and will be killed, therefore the proportion of rich Christians will increase, and that’s a good thing).
It seems to me that someone is going to way more effort than necessary to make fundamentalist Christianity look ridiculous.
It’s a humor site. Employing a modern form of humor called the Poe.
My article is specifically designed for it (and is likewise a joke, albeit kidding on the square).
Looking at a couple of other entries it’s clear the entire website is a deliberate joke, much like the Landover Baptist Church site, only a lot more juvenile and a lot less coherent.
Maybe you’re actually taking it that way. It’s not always easy to tell.
Well, if you had looked at my subject tags and noticed I labeled it “humor”, you might then say it was easy to tell. Just saying.
Ouch!
I get the impression you are a little annoyed.
Keep up the good work in your books.
It’s a joke. Just FYI.
(Although like most humor, there is truth in there. But the annoyance is of humorous origin.)
Boom. *mic drop*
It’s hard not to think that site is a parody or summat. But for the life of me, I can’t find the reveal.
Of course it is. So is mine (hence the “humor” subject tag).
But they are really good at it!
Not to my taste, they’re not.
Your post works as humour if it addresses a serious argument by exposing its ridiculousness.
The argument presented as satire falls flat, and then your reply loses its edge.
Meh.
Only later I noticed the tag and realized I was probably tricked…
For a couple of years I’ve been following your work and for me “vomitous flabergastery” was just one of your snarky remarks, so it didn’t warn me.
However, thank you for bringing the site under my attention, but especially thanks for your efforts on the origins of christianity, please keep on spreading the good message.
This is hilarious. Thank you! A perfect early present!
There are no subject tags on the article itself when viewed from a mobile device. That might explain some of our cluelessness.
Dr. Carrier,
While it’s fine to respond to a parody with a humorous plug for yourself, when are you going to respond to actual critics of your past work? You wrote chapters for the Loftus trilogy books *The Christian Delusion* and *The End of Christianity* but you haven’t responded to Christians like Steve Hays, Paul Manata, and Jason Engwer. These folks have taken apart your nonsense bit by bit. Do people like Hays and Engwer have to take you out to dinner and pay you to respond to them in greater detail? There is a reason why you’re a fringe scholar, dude. All you have done is describe their critiques using logical arguments and haven’t replied in depth to their points. I loved Hays rebuttal of your chapter on the spiritual body and the empty tomb legend that you wrote for that dirt poor book The Empty Tomb. You have quite a lot of catch up work to do. When are you going to grow a pair and do some actual in depth rebuttals?
That was epic!
Hahaha, even though it was a joke I still laughed really hard. Wait, maybe that was part of the null hypothesis to get me to laugh. Oh God.
I am glad to see that so many people were able to recognize the satirical nature of that website. I am disappointed that so many of us, myself included, did not realize that Dr. Carrier was in on the joke.
Speaking of satire, Reza Aslan and and some other “experts” are scheduled to appear on Huff Post Live on Monday, 12/22 at approximately 11:30 am EST to discuss “The Life of Jesus: What Was Jesus Really Like?”
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/who-is-jesus-christ–/5488b2392b8c2a8ac4000151
“Heather the Humanoid Space Cat from Saturn. (And she was awesome.)”
Are you a furry? No judgement, just wondering.
If you want people to buy your books, you should fix the link in “buy my books”.
A similar incompetent refutation I received recently was this:
”Check whether the names of following Emperor, dukes, High priests were ever lived in history. They are related to the birth of Jesus. I am just giving one example of the historical authenticity of Bible. Request you no to blanket out facts with your half knowledge, bro. Luke 2:1 Now it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled.”
Ah so Luke mentions the names of some people who are believed to have lived. Therefore Jesus is a real person!
I pointed out that the references would have to flow the other way, external sources confirming Jesus, not the other way round. After all Jesus appears in Ben Hur and nobody claims the latter is historical. Putting real people in fictional accounts has been going on forever.
Whether or not Jesus is accepted as a historical figure, the nativity is an absurd tale. Matthew and Luke are obviously telling completely different stories and for their own ends. If the Q-source existed and had an account of the nativity then Mathew and Luke would agree. But they don’t remotely agree. Matthew is trying to append an allegorical account of exodus onto his gospel only the holy family is fleeing to Egypt rather than the reverse. And he is showing Jesus as being born into high status. Luke is constructing the exact reverse putting Jesus right at the bottom of the pile as a rejected outcast at birth.
Now the idea that people would be going on long hikes with their pregnant wife for something as utilitarian as a census is rather ridiculous. We would surely have other accounts of the weird requirement to be enrolled in the census at their place of birth.
I think the “buy my books” nickname was a tip-off, a little self-deprecating humor.
Vomitous flabergastry. I read that and I was immediately hooked. I take my hat off to you sir. All I could think was ‘too bad its all tomfoolery, because this is genius.’ Sorry im a bit late to commenting on this, but im just now seeing it.
Doesn’t anyone read the posts before they comment?