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.

Johnny Kaje's image of my little pony for Richard Carrier, named Richard Carriage, with his trademark hair and glasses, wings, and Joss Whedon tattooed on his ass under his left wing. Visit http://johnnykaje.files.wordpress.com for more.So all you bigoted Christian MRAs can bite my little pony.

Signed,

Richard “Buy My Books” Carrier, Ph.D.

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