New Atheists Come Under Fire for Bias and Misrepresentation

Historical Evidence



The New Atheists are the fundies of the atheist movement (I call them "Dawkies" or Dawkamentalists). They are so full of zealotry and so hate that they have been making making blunders. President Obama appointed a man who headed the genome project, Collins, and who is a Christian. Harris attacked him as an ID (which he is not) and tried to imply that his credentials are not good, that's he biased, even though he is world renounced for his work on the genome project. Scientists are now bombarding Harris with statements to the effect that Hariss himself is a bigot. This is recorded on a fine blog which I link to on Metacrock called: The Faithful Progressive.

The Same blog also deals with the New Atheist record on Jesus mythers.

The historical record does not support many of the assumptions behind the arguments of the new atheists. For example, they are in astonishing error about the historical evidence about whether Jesus ever existed and seem unaware of mainstream historical scholarship undertaken at non-sectarian public universities. Christopher Hitchens writes about the "highly questionable' existence of Jesus. Both Dawkins and Harris also buy into gross misrepresentation of the status of historical record on the life of Jesus.

My own view is that both the historical and the spiritual Jesus have much to offer to contemporary life. But whether one is a believer or not, there is a clear consensus that Jesus was a real historical figure.

With one or two exceptions, scholars in the fields of biblical studies and history agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, was baptized by John the Baptist, was accused of sedition against the Roman Empire, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate was sentenced to death by crucifixion. Jesus existed.

The New Testament describes Jesus’ path of preaching, his death under Pontius Pilate, and ultimately his resurrection. Skeptics often ask, however, whether Jesus’ mere existence can be confirmed by non-Biblical sources. Certainly it is irrefutable that the principle sources for describing the historical Jesus are the Canonical Gospels, as well as John and other books from the New Testament. Roman publications of Jesus’ era, however, do provide evidence of his existence.

He also links to a video on You Tube by John Dickson who takes the Mythers to talk on several points where they get it totally wrong.

First Dawkins uses G.A.Wells as an example of his statament that major scholar are still debating the existence of Jesus. Wells of course while formerly the major myther is not even credentialed in the field. Dawkins using Wells is a perfect example of the informal fallacy unnecessary appeal to Authority, his only credentials are in German, the teaching thereof. What even Dickson misses is the fact that Wells changed his mind is not longer a myther at all. This was some years ago so Dawkins is actually presenting false evidence. Dickson goes on to quote really historical scholars saying there is no debate about Jesus existence, he's accepted as historical fact.

There are a couple of other issues that Dickson goes into. The statement by Mythers that Jews weren't crucified or that if they were they were not buried in individual tombs so there would be no tomb of Jesus. Dickson quotes several examples showing that thousands of Jews were crucified in Jesus' time. What he misses is an example of Josephus who had his friends taken off the cross and buried in special tombs so they would not profane the holy day, which is exactly the situation Jesus' followers were faced with.

In part 2 Dickson quotes a classic scholar:

The documentary evidence that Jesus existed is simply overwhelming, says Prof. Graeme Clarke, who is a very well known classics scholar (and also an atheist). He knows of no qualified scholar who disputes it. Here's the full quote: "Frankly, I know of no ancient historian/biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ--the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming."

The more zeal than brains approach, which I'm sure they copied from the Christian fundies, is backfiring as more and more people are getting tired of the propaganda and the slip shod approach.

The Circular Nature of the Atheist Ideology

Atheism want to pass itself off as "scientific." So they cling to the scienistic idea that science is the only form of knowledge. They truncate the nature of truth to that which can be produced by their own methods. Anything else they reduce until they lose the phenomena. So at that point atheism can't have truth all it can have is circular reasoning.


atheist: "there is nothing beyond the materiel realm. There are no proof of the SN, No evidence for God, no nothing.

Believer--Here's some, here's a whole pile facts from which one might deduce the existence of God.

Atheist: "those can't be evidence for SN or for God."

Believer--why not?

Atheist: Because there can't be any such evidence.

Believer--how do you know that?

Atheist: because there aren't any


Beleiver--what about the stuff I just presented.

Atheist: I disproved that, it can't be evidence because there isn't any.



(1) Atheists selective rule out as 'fact' anything that doesn't match the ideology.

(2) Atheists reduce to a point of losing the phenomena any phenomena that stands against the ideology.

(3) Atheists use mockery and ridicule to shut down any discussion that is not in line with the ideology.

(4) Atheists exclude from reality any form of knowledge would give results contrary to the ideology.

(5) Atheists construct a false paradigm of knowledge based upon scientistic (not scientific but scientistic) assumptions.

(6) All thinking must be filtered through the ideology of atheistic sceintism.
__________________


Here's the rational, logical, factually oriented rebuttal of an atheist on CARM

NWRT- not worth responding to. And nothing you've written here changes that. I'll start taking you more seriously as an intellectual once you start addressing our actual arguments.

Go back and look over what you just wrote- now apply it to yourself. You do nothing but post ridiculous arguments (like your little "co-determinate" joke), insult people when they present legitimate disagreement, and present strawman versions of atheist's positions. Why on earth would anyone be interested in trying to have a genuine, serious discussion with you?

I asked him what's ridiculous about it:

I've explained it to you a million times- strong belief is not controlled for. And, true to form, you've only answered your strawman version of my argument.

Holy Irony Batman, doesn't this actually prove what I was saying? I have 300 studies he has 0. He decides this 'strong belief' which he can't define without a single study to back it up. Isn't this really a case of declaring my fact to be "no facts" because they differ form the ideology?

please help with followers list

I don't know what I did to destroy the followers list. But it was something on the only blog and it's gone. please sign up again or whatever you do.

Is Atheism Turning on Humanism?

Alan Sokal

Back in the 1990s major physicist Alan Sokal scored a major triumph by embarrassing Postmodernists. With one fell swoop he almost single-handedly took out Postmodernism as the hot new academic flavor of the decade. It's been fifteen years since he published an article in a major literary magazine. The article, consisting of a large group of ridiculous statements making a parody of Postmodern opinion, got past the editors because they wanted to a major physicist would be on their side. The Postmodern world had just rocked by the revelation that one of its major stars, Paul Demann, was a Nazi collaborator in WWII. The community had not fully overcome the stigma when Sokal's article was published. The article said things like "scientists no longer care about the existence of the external world." The article was embarrassed by Postmoderns, then Skoal came back and said "look at what fools these guys are, they can't even see when they are being played." This was probably the final blow that turned the tide from interest in Postmodernism back to scientism and left Postmoderns forever cut off as a past academic fad. Yet the tide was moving in that direction anyway. The battles of feminism raged at UTD at the time I started but even in the early days (91) people were saying "Postmodernism is only big in places like Texas, I have a friend on the East coast who says it's already old hat up there." It's real hay day was in the early 80s.

Fifteen years latter a new book tries to reprise the coup. With Postmodernism less of a threat the spin has been altered just a bit.

BEYOND THE HOAX: Science, Philosophy and Culture. Alan Sokal. xxii + 465 pp. Oxford University Press, 2008. $34.95.

In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal played an elaborate trick on some unsuspecting humanists and social scientists—namely, the editors of the leftist journal Social Text—by submitting an essay filled with at least six kinds of nonsense. The editors didn’t catch (or were willing to countenance) the nonsense and published the essay. In response, humanists and social scientists embarrassed (or outraged) by Sokal’s hoax lashed out, sometimes in ways that made them look even worse than the editors; and Sokal found himself hailed by legions of fans and supporters who credited him with finally exposing the vacuity of (a) cultural studies, (b) literary theory, (c) postmodernism, (d) obscurantist jargon, (e) science studies, (f) people who write about disciplines they don’t know much about, and (g) all of the above. Over the past 12 years, accordingly, I’ve met a number of colleagues who spit and curse at the very sound of Sokal’s name—and a much larger number of colleagues, journalists and general readers who credit Sokal with having proved once and for all that everything humanists have done since 1970 has been bunk.

Notice the ad first places the joke squarly on the shoulders of "humanists" and "socil scientists" not "Derridians" or Posmtoderns. It was actually one school of Postmodernism that the joke was played upon, the called "hard project" people who really questioned the epistemological basis for fact finding. But Derridians and Foucaultians and other Postmdoerns were weren't involved. Those groups had their own worries at that point. This ad mentions Postmoderns (without any specifics) but its ax is clearly grinding against a group more often associated with atheism, humanists. How social scientists got into the mix I'm sure because they really are not hard project people. Some labeling themselves as "social scisentists" in psychology can be very wavy gravy, but most hard core social scientists are right in line with Sokal in terms of being anti-religious number crunchers. The long tirade of people the book puts down reads like a wish list of Talk radio.

As the article in the book ad (It's actually a book review) goes on to insult philosophers and people who think. The bulwark of scientism must be "epistemological realism" the fantasy that our senses give us a real view of the world and there's nothing to think about, just collect the facts and believe white lab coat guy.

Since then, Sokal has teamed up with Jean Bricmont and taken aim at epistemological relativism in the philosophy of science. Sokal and Bricmont note, for example (in an essay reprinted—with revisions and updates—as chapter seven of Sokal’s new book, Beyond the Hoax), that major figures in science studies are given to making such assertions as “the validity of theoretical propositions in the sciences is in no way affected by factual evidence” (Kenneth J. Gergen) and “there is no sense attached to the idea that some standards or beliefs are really rational as distinct from merely locally accepted as such” (Barry Barnes and David Bloor, founders of the “strong programme” or “Edinburgh school” in science studies). “All this,” remark Sokal and Bricmont, “indicates the existence of a radically relativist academic Zeitgeist, which is weird.”

It's hardly inexplicable. The Scientism of the academic right is so totalizing. Everything has to be number crunching, the only thing that one can ever believe in or care about is that which white lab coat guy tells us is "scientific." Of course course lab coat guy is totally selective in his affirmations of "scientific." Feelings don't matter, you are not individual,you don't feel what you feel, i have to tell you what you feel. So Next you are unemployed just remember, vote for the guy I tell you to vote for because your feelings of total depression are totally unimportant. White lab coat guy wants unconditional control of all the universe, your soul, your heart, your mind, your vote, your labor power, everything. It must be true because science is the only definition of truth that matters. Only the priest of knowelge white lab coat guy can say what's what. The htred of social science is probalby the result of the C.Wright Mills type of critique who long ago (50s) pointed out (The Sociological Imagination) that a priesthood of knowledge had been produced from the number crunching outlook.

It is weird, but then, standards of weirdness tend to vary from discipline to discipline. Sokal, coming from a field with significantly stricter protocols for interpretation than those of literature, never seemed comfortable dealing with people who like to hypothesize imaginary gardens with real toads in them or to meditate on cold pastorals that tease us out of thought. But now that Sokal has left the terrain of literary theory, he has indeed gone beyond the hoax and into realms where the distinction between justified and unjustified belief actually matters to the world: specifically, the history and philosophy of science (which is sometimes conducted by people who are rigorously indifferent to the question of whether a scientific theory is actually true) and religion (which is practiced by people who are rigorously indifferent to the claim that beliefs should be rationally justified).

Of course we don't don't expect the readership of American Reductionist, I mean American Scientist to think about anything seriously that doesn't involve statistical tables and white lab coats. It would never occur to those people that others have different standards of what "justification" means. To them the only form of justification the only thing that could ever justified is the ideology, the all consuming ideology that encompasses all reality and justifies itself in circular fashion.


As an atheist Debunking Christianity echos the sentiments of the ideology:

I'm an engineer, I make a good living solving problems using facts and my world view. The success of my world view translates into substantive value in the form of money, reputation, awards and raises. My world view comes from the school of hard knocks, engineering and the university.

your incoherence speaks for itself.

I stopped responding to you in my IDQ articles a couple of months ago when I realized that you were just ranting incoherently and a rejoinder would have been just be a chase after a red herring.

I think I'm done responding to you now as well.

He said this to me in response to my argument that there are other forms of knowledge than science. There's a phase in witch hunts where the witch hunters tighten their grip and go after those who helped them in earlier phases. This is what we see atheism doing to itself now. They are starting to turn on the humanistic side of atheism. They are reaching for a "more scientific than thou" sort of Zealotry.

"Jesus Never Existed." An example of stage four

The original mission of this blog is to keep tabs on the aspect of atheist community that is a hate group. We want to trace the function of hate in the development of atheism in America. The CARM theists are kids, they are not the serious hate group that I'm really talking about. A good example of that is the site www.Jesusneverexisted.com.

When first I launched Atheist Watch I brought out the seven stage model of hate group development used by the FBI. Now I trun to the first four stages, and I feel this is where hate group atheism (Dawkamentalists) are today:


The seven-stage hate model: The psychopathology of hate groups
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin/March 1, 2003
By John R. Schafer, MA and Joe Navarro, MA

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

Irrational haters seldom hate alone.10 They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate asthey do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities.11 Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.
Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members' status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate. For example, skinhead groups may adopt the swastika, the iron cross, the Confederate flag, and other supremacist symbols. Group-specific symbols or clothing often differentiate hate groups. Group rituals, such as hand signals and secret greetings, further fortify members. Hate groups, especially skinhead groups, usually incorporate some form of self-sacrifice, which allows haters to willingly jeopardize their well-being for the greater good of the cause. Giving one's life to a cause provides the ultimate sense of value and worth to life.12 Skinheads often see themselves as soldiers in a race war.
Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause.13 By verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as well as their group status. In skinhead groups, racist song lyrics and hate literature provide an environment wherein hate flourishes. In fact, researchers have found that the life span of aggressive impulses increases with ideation.14 In other words, the more often a person thinks about aggression, the greater the chance for aggressive behavior to occur. Thus, after constant verbal denigration, haters progress to the next more acrimonious stage.
Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

We see the evolution of the hate group segment to the level of stage four and holding. I suspect this is because with white supremacists there's always a hope (on their part) that if push came to shove a large segment of the white population would support them, especially if there was violence between whites and blacks. But the atheists who might contemplate violence against churches, if there are any, would not really have a very strong hope. White supremacists can look back to a time when their views represented something close to a majority, that was only a little over 50 years go. Atheists have never been in a majority in any society going back to, the stone age?

That may be why they are in a holding patter, but the Jesusneverexisted.com guys are on the edge of the holding patter. Their sites is pure hate. It exists for no good reason. There's a slew of such sites, Holysmoke.com, Iron Chariots, the "rational" response squad (hysterical response squad) and God Hates Amputees, Atheist Revolution and many more. It's easy to see that these sties exist just to spout bile, just look at them. A thin pretense of ideas and argument but one need not even scratch the surface to the hate seething through.

The bottom of the homepage of Jesusneverexisted.com says:

the cost to humanity of fifteen centuries of Christian savagery – of hundreds of millions of lives brutalised and truncated, sacrificed to war, torture, pogrom, burning, pestilence and plague – is incalculable.

Christianity is the worst disaster in human history

O yea the worst disaster in history. We bult an arms race that could have destoryed the world 11 times over, we have two major wold wars that killed each over a million people, we had a Slatinist regieme along with it's comrades in China and Eastern Europe that killed 100, million people! 100 Million! Going to sunday school really hurts. I can just seem my old savage grandmother hobbling along in her walking mowing people down with her machine gun. The sheer savagery of those flannel board lessons my mother used to do in her Sunday school class!

Every single thing on that site is aimed at mockery and derision. None of the "ideas" they present are given any pretense of a fair discussion. Their writting style is at a level of a fevered propaganda pitch.

Writing about the Ship wreck of Paul:

The ripping yarn of Paul's voyage to Rome is devoid of theology but includes several curious "miracles" and a wealth of nautical detail which is a delight to those who argue for Luke's "accuracy as an historian." Below the surface, however, the author of Acts has drawn on at least two, and possibly several, incompatible sources to concoct his tale of maritime adventure and evangelical pizzazz.

The climax of the fable is a shipwreck on the island of "Melite" – first associated with Malta in the 16th century by the Knights of St John, crusaders who had been kicked out of the Levant and the island of Rhodes and had established a military despotism on the tiny but strategically placed rock. Centuries earlier, an alternative – and better – claim to the holy wreck site had been made for an island off the Dalmatian coast by Benedictine monks. They drew on the work of the the 10th century Greek emperor Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, who had identified, in his book On Administering the Empire, the island of Mljet with the castaway apostle. Like Malta, in antiquity Mljet had been called Melita.

in the left side bar is a bit of a piece on a relic of Paul's hand that was believed to have been venerated in the middle ages. The purpose of showing it is to merely mock how ignorant and stupid Christians are. Let's not terry over the idea that this was the middle ages, no education, no modern science. But hey that's because religion was there. If not for religion we would have had modern science eons ago! These are obviously such fair and even handed (no pun) criticisms.

Wonder of wonders, the Church of St Paul's Shipwreck, Valletta, Malta, claims to possess "a portion of the right wrist bone" of the apostle. What the jewelled reliquary actually contains is anybody's guess.

This dubious relic is unlikely ever to be subjected to the rigors of scientific examination. Its authenticity was vouched for by the Sacrist to His Holiness Pope Pius VII and several other early 19th century papal worthies.

Unlikely to ever be subjected to rigors. O those stupid Christians! they are so dumb they refuse to show that their medieval relic was as fake. How is that for stupid? but when do we need to? Is there any doubt? Do these guys think it might be Paul's writ bone? what if they did test it? Then would say "O what smart Christians trying to test things, Ok I guess they are not so bad." you know they wouldn't! they would say "O see it's proven they are so stupid. this is the kind of thing Christianity leads to." So damned if you do, damned if you don't. Christianity had some ignorant people in it in the middle ages! therefore it will always be Stupid and "igerant."

Hello! It was the middle ages! get it? Everyone was dumb. hello! Anyone home up there atheists?

Of course they keep harping away at the old lie about Nazerath:

Nazareth did not exist in the 1st century AD – the area was a burial ground of rock-cut tombs. Following a star would lead you in circles. The 12 disciples are as fictitious as their master, invented to legitimise the claims of the early churches. The original Mary was not a virgin. That idea was borrowed from pagan goddesses.

Of course there is ample proof that Nazareth did exist in the time of Jesus. But these types always ignore little petty things like facts. Of course the claim that Mary was a not virgin is based upon Jewish propaganda (Mary was a Jew but Jewish religious leadership of the ruling party at the time). In alluding to the facts about Mary they give away their game because the propaganda of Mary as a Prostitute (actually hair dresser but that was a stereotype) comes form first century Misha which is actually pretty solid proof that Jesus existed. Rather than say "are you kidding? there was never a Jesus of Nazareth, his enemies admitted he existed but mad up stuff about him and his mother. That is admitted to by Celsus the pagan enemy of Christianity.





In their zeal to vent their hatred against Jesus, these stumble bums actually undermine their own argument.

the Jesus myth trash has come apart at the seems. Their orignial major thinker (Wells) defected to the Jesus lived side and his place was taken by the enigmatic flak Doherty and the "don't confuse me with the facts" crowd marches on. They have been proved hoaxers of "evidence" they have been proved to lie about mythology, yet nothing slows them down. Yet most atheists remain uncommitted on the issue and still voices suspicion that some real guy Named Jesus lived and in some way inspired the idea of Christianity.



The statistical lies I presented last time, the one that played with Prison stats and misread the table is linked through the Holysmoke.com site. These are the true solders of hategroup atheism.

The Atheist Brown Shirts on the Move

You want proof atheism is a hate group. Just look at the thing athiests say. Yesterday My blog was attacked by a little know nothing who has read some or read about A.J. Ayer so thinks he knows everything. I argued with his ideas, but in return I got over four thsounand (4000+) hits on the blog because on a site called "Reddit.com" that guy and his little band of brown shirts were having a feeding frenzy mocking, ridiculing and deriding my ideaa, ideas they are so ingnorant have they have never heard of Thoams S. Kuhn and they are shocked and mortified by someone actually having the gual to express the idea that science doesn't us everything! O this hersy against their little tin god can't go unanswered.

they did plenty of mocking and calling me an idiot making fun of my spelling and so on. When I actually put up some ideas and said "put up your dukes" they ran away. But now my website cant' be opened. coincidence?

Let's look that activities of this little band brown shirts and see what a hate group does when they bad together to mock the target. Remember stage four in that FBI list? That's stage four, the hate groups bands together to mock the target.


The main instigator calls himself "Rana." here's his profile:

Matt Pearl is an Economics Graduate Student with an emphasis in Public Policy at Georgia State University, and he recently graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in Political Science and Economics.

He's had some education. One would expect him to want rational discussion. He hasn't the slightest interest in discussion. What he really wants to do is spout a bunch of pseudo intellectual garbage and hound Christians on the internet.

Here is an example of the kind of delusions of grandeur from which he suffers.

Today, I think that I did one of the most helpful things I have ever done with respect to greater acceptance of atheists in broader society, and it happened on a conservative, Republican blog. I won’t link or mention the particular blog (I don’t really want to give them the traffic), but this moment was a long time in the making to be sure.A bit of context: this blog’s comment threads are a battle ground, where liberal trolls (I guess I have been lumped with them), usually of a secular nature, combat right-wing, Christian commentators and the writers of the blog themselves. One of the conservative, particularly Evangelical was a 31 year old writing under the handle “jeremy”. He had a penchant for angry posts full of bible verses and vitriol against liberals, secularists, and other banes of his great Christian Nation.

He's so important, and his work of mocking people is so important. The whole fate western civilization is resting upon how snide he can be.

So… Why do people hate atheists so much? I legitimately want to know why, so if you dislike atheists, as a group, for any reason, leave a comment telling me why. Speculation is also welcome by people who don’t hate atheists. I will then, in a follow-up post, answer most, if not all, of the reasons given. A word of caution: Ridiculous, illogical, or inane reasons will serve as comic relief for the next post.

This isn’t about insulting people, however, it is about starting a dialogue between believers and nonbelievers. It’s about dispelling myths that theists have about atheists, and it’s about gaining more universal acceptance for atheists.

To dispel the myth that atheists are a hate group he made a cowardly attack upon my work without telling them about it and then ran away when I countered his argument with real ideas.

Most of those thousands of atheists looked at the one post that was mocked. I put a link on it to the answers, no one looked at it. They are not interested in answers, they are only interested in their little trollish nazi aswipism.

Attack of the Brain Dead Know Nothings.

I was amazed to find this morning that my hits went from about 84 over the weekend to over 400 this morning. How could that be? I look at stat counter "recent came from" and found a search engine blog sort of thing were no nothings make little comments about things they don't understand, one caleld "read it" were another illiterate atheist who knows nothing at all about science, logic, philosophy, or thought chimes in with his two cents worth of ignorance agasint a preice I posted called "the Religious A priori."


The piece they are so outraged over is saying that things fall through the cracks in science and some issues are not scientific issues. God is not a scientific issue. So what's so alarming and scary? But It must strike a never. Someone just ent a hate male saying "anyone who claims to understand this stuff is insane." So I'm just being attack by vermin who know nothing and who are outraged because I have knowledge they don't have.

Powers 1 point2 points3 points 1 hour ago[-]

The challenges are absorbed into the paradigm untl there are so many the paradigm has to shit. This may never happen in naturalism.

I spat my tea all over my laptop...

• permalink

what would you call it?

Maybe Hermit is not "lying" per se. What do you call it to say I am "misusing statistics" when the site in question clearly just doesn't count a whole category of people who obvioulsy in the Atheist reanks?

the issue is Boyd Swift says only 2% of people in prision are atheists. Here is the data table that he used.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category: Response Number % ---------------------------- --------
Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
Muslim 5435 7.273%
American Indian 2408 3.222%
Nation 1734 2.320%
Rasta 1485 1.987%
Jewish 1325 1.773% Church of Christ 1303 1.744% Pentecostal 1093 1.463% Moorish 1066 1.426%
Buddhist 882 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
Adventist 621 0.831%
Orthodox 375 0.502%
Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%
Hindu 119 0.159%
Santeria 117 0.157%
Sikh 14 0.019% Bahai 9 0.012%
Krishna 7 0.009% ---------------------------- -------- Total Known Responses 74731 100.001% (rounding to 3 digits does this)

what do all of those have in commong? Look at them,what are they? All of them but atheist are religions arent' they? Adventist, Protestant, Santeria, Krishna. All religions. What is the colum called?

"Total of inmates per rleigion."

how do you supposes the got that statistic? do people come into prison with labels on their heads? I doubt it. I think they kind of to give them a questionnaire. Just a hunch, but since years ago on the original site that Swift got his stuff from it said that. So I just bet it's true. Now why is atheist in the column called "percentage of religions." Because some people, a small 2% marked "atheist" for their religious perfectness. Are all atheists going to do that? What about this next column:







Unknown/No Answer 18381 ---------------------------- Total Convicted 93112 80.259% (74731) prisoners' religion is known.

Held in Custody 3856 (not surveyed due to temporary custody) ---------------------------- Total In Prisons 96968 I hope that this information is helpful to you.

On the original site which appears years ago (way back sround 2001) they had a colum called "no religious preference." Boyd wisely took that out it's not here now. But it was there originally. IN that colum you had 25% "no religion."

Is it a misuse of statistics to say there must be more atheist in the "no religion colum" so there are more than 2% in prision?


someone please tell me why is hta MY misue of stattistics?"


that's crazy. Anyone who can see that is either lying or an idiot. I don't think Hermit is either one of those things, But I think he's fooled by the way Boyd dishonestly re did the table to exclude that category.

Even what is reflected above it says religion is known for only 80 something %. That means there is a potential for 20% that have no religious preference. Why would they not be listed as atheist?


Notice also they don't have one single liberal theology guy. So why doesn't that mean there's 0% chance no chance at all of liberal theology guy going to prison.

Now Hermit if you are really willing to believe that Christians are 60 times more likely to go to prison please tell me why out of the probably about 5,000 Christians I've known in my life, I know only 1 who went to prison?


Hermit your understanding of statistics is crap. there's no way I'm misusing that. you don't know how to read a study. I was in college debate and I had to attack studies and find what was wrong with them an dhow to defend the one's I used I had to that every single day of my life for six years. there's at all wrong with my thinking on those figures, you don't understand it. You should. it's obvious. but you don't.

Here's another thing. The atheists on CARM said that atheists can't be disproportionate in prision from society.If they are 2% in society they have to be 2% in prision. But here's Swift's site where hey tries that they are disproportionate.

Not unexpected as a result. Note that atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%).

why would that be? How can they be disproportionate for him and not for me?

Of course he's vastly overestimating their percentage in society. They are really less than 2% according to the Pew study not 16, and about four other studies put them between 1.5 and 3%. But studies that find them have more 3% are always including people who say "there might some kind of higher power but I hate organized religion."

When one uses the actual definition that atheist always insist upon constantly "it's just a lack of belief nothing else" then it's 3%. That's the percent that says "there is no God of any kind."


It's hilarious the double standards they will use to make an argument. The idea of honestly interpreting statistics is beyond them.

Can they really be this stupid?

typical atheist discussion




Boyd, not so swift


One attempt at this bogus atheist social sciences is a site by Boyd Swift. Swift, thought he would be a wrote the bureaus of prisons for stats, but unfortunately he doesn't know how to read a table.

His table demonstrates different percentages of religous faths among in mates. I will not reproduce the whole table, but Christians show up as:
Catholic............... 29267.......39.164%
Protestant.............26162.......35.008%

Atheist..................156...........0.209%

So based upon this statistic Boyd makes his conclusion. Now what is interesting is the sats at the bottom that are not on the table:

Total Known Responses 74731 100.001% (rounding to 3 digits does this)

Unknown/No Answer 18381

Total Convicted 93112 80.259% (74731) prisoners' religion is known.

Held in Custody 3856 (not surveyed due to temporary custody)
---------------------------- Total In Prisons 96968

What is this information actually telling us? In the table he lists "athiests" along with all the others. Its' a tiny number. But then below there's a number of those:

"Unknown, no answer."

the letter he quotef from sent to him by the Bereau of prisons says:

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category:

Obviously, this the percentage of inmates who put "atheist" in the blank asking them for their religious affiliation. this is not a record of all inmates who don't believe in God, but of those who were either smart asses and put "atheist" to the religion question as a sarcastic joke, or who are ideological enough to think of atheism as their actual religion!

you have this larger number listed below which is not even part of the table, because the table only measures those who listed atheism as their religion. The larger number is for "unknown or no answer. what is that number?

Unknown/No Answer 18381

out of:

---------------------------- Total Convicted 93112

So in other words, the actual number of atheists is about a quarter as high as the Christians. It's not this tiny 0.something percent, it's actually pretty high.
atheists have reading comprehension problems, I've noticed this for a long time! I'm always finding that atheists misread evdience. This guy cant' read a table! He either purposely distorted it or was just too stupid interpret statistics intelligently.

Atheists (at least people who no religious affliation) make up almost 20% of the whole.
That's in addition to those who check other affiliation. not all of that 93,112 are Christians, only 75% or so.
About 20% of all inmates could be atheists, but that's of the whole not counted in the 75% of those who checked affiliation. So they have to be added to Moslims, and other faiths as well.

Of course no attempt is made to measure depth of belief among those inmates who say they are Christians. No attempt is made to say weather or not these are strong believers or just people who say "I don't know what I believe, but my parents were Presbyterian, so I guess I am too."

The atheist assumption is that religion is a like a disease and if you catch it does back things to you, so they don't see any need to think deeply about what people actually believe, or even to example any kind variables that might complicate the issues.


Swift, in breaking down Christian stats says:

Now, let's just deal with the nasty Christian types, no?

"Judeo-Christian Total 62594 83.761% (of the 74731 total responses) Total Known Responses 74731

Not unexpected as a result. Note that atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%)."

Of course he's forgotten that he's not dealing with the whole population and has to as the 24% not Christian religious people to the 20% of the whole who didn't answer. that's gonna through off his circulations by a factor of several


Here is the analysis of Chris Price, a friend of mine and member of the CADRE apologetics group:


Priceless comments


CADRE Comments, Oct 16,2007

First, I note that when atheists are trying to emphasize their numbers, they include agnostics and nonbelievers and skeptics among their ranks. But when they want to deemphasize their involvement in negative social characteristics, they take a more limited approach to the data. This study only mentions atheists, not unbelievers, irreligious, unbelievers, skeptics, etc. So, you may think there are more “atheists” in the United States than the data supports. Most stats at Adherents.com, for example, puts the number of “atheists” at less than 1%.

Second, atheists tend to be more privileged than the rest of the population, especially the prison population. They are predominatly white, more educated, and middle class. These are typically the result of birth, which is not something for which their atheism can claim credit.

Third, the study tells us nothing about the timing or strength of religious identification. There is a strong motive to “clean up your act” in prison, complete with visits by prison chaplains and evangelists working to reform the inmates. Add to this the fact that religious conversion may be a good way to signal to others—such as the warden or parole board—that the inmate has reformed, there are ample reasons to find increased religious identification among inmates.

Fourth, your review of the data is oversimplistic. For example, you ignore the fact that Protestants make up a much smaller percentage of the prison population (35%) than they do the population at large (53%). Mormons make up about 2% of the population, but are a negligible portion of the prison population. Now, this may also be linked to other issues such as income, race, or education levels.


...Actually, if you compare church attendance (and thus exposure to the preaching of Christian values) you get plenty of improved morality. This article by a self-styled "secular liberal" who is also an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia admits that "surveys have long shown that religious believers in the United States are happier, healthier, longer-lived, and more generous to charity and to each other than are secular people."*

The article Price sites is The Third Edge
by

JONATHAN HAIDT: who is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, where he does research on morality and emotion and how they vary across cultures. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.


Prices comments are "priceless," but its worse than he thought. He assumes the atheist is fudging by just not including unbelievers and those who have no opinon as atheist, as they usually do. I think it's that this guy didn't understand what the stat tables were telling him in the firrst place. I've seen other atheists make this very same mistake. There was, about eight years ago, someone who tried the same trick on Secular Web with British prison stats.

counter data
there's plenty of it:

* [] Sixth through twelfth graders who attend religious services once a month or more are half as likely to engage in at-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, sexual excess, truancy, vandalism, drunk driving and other trouble with police. Search Institute, "The Faith Factor," Source, Vol. 3, Feb. 1992, p.1.

Church attendance is a primary factor in preventing substance abuse and repairing damage caused by substance abuse.* Edward M. Adalf and Reginald G. Smart:* "Drug Use and Religious Affiliation, Feelings and Behavior." * British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 80, 1985, pp.163-171.* Jerald G. Bachman, Lloyd D. Johnson, and Patrick M. O'Malley:* "Explaining* the Recent Decline in Cocaine Use Among Young Adults:* Further Evidence That Perceived Risks and Disapproval Lead to Reduced Drug Use."* Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 31,* 1990, pp. 173-184.* Deborah Hasin, Jean Endicott, * and Collins Lewis:* "Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Patients With Affective Syndromes."* Comprehensive Psychiatry, Vol. 26, 1985, pp. 283-295. * The findings of this NIMH-supported study were repilcated in the Bachmen et. al. study above.

* [] Church attendance lessens the probabilities of homicide and incarceration. Nadia M. Parson and James K. Mikawa: "Incarceration of African-American Men Raised in Black Christian Churches." The Journal of Psychology, Vol. 125, 1990, pp.163-173.
*The presence of active churches, synagogues, or mosques reduces violent crime in neighborhoods. John J. Dilulio, Jr., "Building Spiritual Capital: How Religious Congregations Cut Crime and Enhance Community Well-Being," RIAL Update, Spring 1996.
*[] Church involvement is the single most important factor in enabling inner-city black males to escape the destructive cycle of the ghetto. Richard B. Freeman and Harry J. Holzer, eds., The Black Youth Employment Crisis, University of Chicago Press, 1986, p.354.


Now this discussion, on CARM and the CARM atheists start to chm in:

the issue is when we discuss how many atheists are in the world I say 3%. When we discuss the prision stats I say 2% claim fill in the data on "religious preference" as atheist but there's a 25% group that is "no religious preference." but the atheist on carm have it in their heads that if there are 2% atheists in the world there would be only 2%in jail. That's totally idiotic because we are talking different studies one a world population the other highly selective population. Two totally different sets of numbers gather in two different ways they expect them to be exactly the same.

Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
that's in terms of world population. Here we are talking about prison population. they are actually much larger as a prison population. You are comparing apples and sour krout.



sorry but you are in error. this is a fact. they misread the stats. their argument is based upon false data. they mis read the stats that's the issue.

see you are not the least bit scientific. you don't analyzie or critique anything. you don't even care about facts. your concerns is totally selective.

you have can't even understand the importance of context in dealing with statistics. that's sloppy thinking!

Donald on CARM

Oh, come one! Is that supposed to be an answer? "One is world population, the other is prison population?" Yeah- that's his point. You never justify the use of different standards for the two!

Quote: Originally Posted by Metacrock that's in terms of world population. Here we are talking about prison population. they are actually much larger as a prison population. You are comparing apples and sour krout. Nice try, nut you're plainly using two different standards to the data here. Both deal with populations of human beings, both ask the same question, but in one instance, when you want to paint atheists as a puny, weak fringe minority, you say "no religious preference" doesn;t necessarily mean "atheist" (or even "agnostic"), when you want to paint atheists as criminals you argue that the same data formulation tells us that that "no religious affiliation" means "obviously atheist." You are being inconsistent (and I have enough undergraduate sociology and research methods courses under my belt to spot this obvious error, so don't pull this "I went to school and you didn't" BS with me...) Quote: sorry but you are in error. this is a fact. they misread the stats. their argument is based upon false data. they mis read the stats that's the issue. You on the other hand are misrepresenting the facts. Is this because of ignorance or dishonesty? Quote: see you are not the least bit scientific. you don't analyzie or critique anything. you don't even care about facts. your concerns is totally selective. No, I'm being consistent; "no religious preference" means the same thing whether you're talking to prisoners or the general population. You on the other hand are making an unwarranted and arbitrary distinction to prop up your biases. That;s not very scientific. Quote: you have can't even understand the importance of context in dealing with statistics. that's sloppy thinking! God you are so human! Don't try to be funny; you and your paedophile promoting Cardinal friend are a couple of bigots, and I don't find your little attempts at humour amusing.

They think if there are more atheist in prison proportionally than in the world that shows that atheists are immoral. That in itself is quite stupid and shows a real lack of ability to think in terms of social sciences. one would have to be a fool to draw that conclusion. but they are equally foolish because the statistics are absolute. The big group of 25% who have no religion does exist and that's nothing you can do to change that's a fact. for a group of people who claim to love facts these guys are so selective about what they accept as factual.

they are so self deceived its crazy. They want to say that atheism is not a doctrine or an organized belief but just a lack of belief. You would have to expect a large portion of the uneducated masses would just have no beliefs and would fall into the atheist category. But that doesn't prove that the educated atheists, the academic atheists are so immoral they are going to be criminals. Christians at least believe that breaking the law is a sin so while it's not impossible that a lot of Christians break the law it's just start staring idiotic to think they would 60 times more likely than atheists to go prions. that's just plain beyond the pale.

Another Example of Hate Group Atheism's Vicious Attitude.

It was pointed out to me that someone on a blog had attacked my blog and my arguments about mystical exerpince and brain chemistry. This attack demonstrates a vicious attitude which was not elicited by anything I did or said. This person had never had any exchanges or dealings with me before that I know of. Note the instantly hateful tone:

The No Nothing's space:

I was scouring the internet for purely unrandom rubbish when I came across this gem of Christian paranoia. Despite my unabashed dislike of apologetics, I often find myself indulging an argument here or there, or all the time for the sake of entertainment. Some have called me a verbal masochist, because I thoroughly enjoy the stress-inducing frustration of arguing the qualities of the non-existent. You can probably get a hint as to why I latched onto this guy's blog post, already.

This guy is making a lot of totally unsupported assumptions. He knows nothing about my views but he immediately assumes I don't believe science is real or valid, he assumes so apparently just because I'm a Christian. He calls it "rubbish" but it's painfully obvious he knows almost nothing about the literature in the field.


[quote]The author is a fellow by the name of Joe Hinman, or at least that's what he calls himself. I have no reason to doubt, but I'm naturally skeptical of all things. So I'll call him Joanne for now until he can prove beyond reasonable doubt that he is in fact Joe Hinman, and not Joanne. Just kidding.

Not only this awkward joke about my name but implying some sort of sexual inadequacy as well. What a vicious little monster. I've never done done anything to this creton.

It seems to be the case that Joe is one of those Christians who thinks that any information that isn't overtly supporting his theological position is in defiance of his theological position. If you're not with him, then you're against him and he will hunt you down for your disloyalty.

Of course he draws this conclusion from the fact that I don't accept brain chemistry reductionism and give the cart blanch to make any claim they wish without analyzing it. He therefore assumes "well Christians and idiots this guy's a Christian so he must be an idiot. He must a creationist so he doesn't believe in science." Come on honestly now, do you really want to label yourself the way this guy does? Do you really want to be associated with his ideology and his world view?

He argues from the start that "the point of the article is to destroy faith in religion by reducing religious experiences to brain chemistry." The only problem with this presupposition is that nowhere in the NPR article can one find any such intention. Joe is, in effect, tilting at windmills. But let's pretend for a moment that he is correct and that the intention of the author is to discourage religious faith by providing naturalistic explanations for its accompanying phenomena. And hopefully we can ignore the fact that the intention of an author is immaterial to the actual argument, or lack thereof.

The assertion the argument I'm dealing with exits only in one article is idiotic and everyone knows that atheists on message boards all over the world and in thousands of publications make the assertion that brain chemistry disproves the notion that RE is connected to the divine. We all know that there's no reason to pretend that's not the real issue.

His first contention is that the study authors can't show that they are actually testing "real mystical experiences". Well, Joe, neither can anyone show that there is such a thing as a mystical experience to begin with, or that these experiences are not biochemical. Relying on current neurological ignorance won't get anyone anywhere in the long run, because neurologists will eventually find out what's going on in our heads while we are experiencing these "mystical experiences". And I don't know how many people can distinguish between "real mystical experiences" and "unreal mystical experiences", as if there is some coherently meaningful division between the two that everyone magically knows.

The real irony is this bozo got it totally wrong. That is not what I argued, it's not what the article was about, and it's actually the opposite of what I said. He doesn't understand the argument because he has read absolutely nothing about the scientific data on religious experience so he has no idea about the issues.

The point I'm making is with not provocation and no good reason he just begins wtih hate, angry, lies and makes wild eyed derogatory assumptions that can only come from the basic assumptions of hate in the first place. I don't see how a rational thinking person can deny that atheism, at least the "new atheism" breeds hatred.


To see my full answer to history entire areticle and to understand how badly his attacks miss the mark see Metacorck's Blog.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail Batman, Same old Athist Hype in New Package.

ST. Mark's Basillica



In The Real Messiah Stephen Huller Bring sup some old attacks on Jesus' Messianic standing but with some new packaging.

According to the prophecies, �[t]he intended [Jewish] Messiah had to be a king�not simply in a spiritual sense, but also in a political sense, [whose] arrival would alter Judaism forever. It would mean an abandonment of the Laws of Moses and a completely new Covenant with God that would be so all-encompassing that the very Temple of Jerusalem would be abolished and ultimately destroyed.� With that beginning to his story, Huller lays the groundwork and details the life and times of The Real Messiah, Marcus Julius Agrippa, last king of the Jews, a contemporary of Jesus, and the author of the four gospels of the new testament, also known as St. Mark. The proof begins with a small throne carved in one piece from alabaster in Alexandria in Egypt and now housed in Venice. (Ibid)

the New Covenant was predicted by Jeremiahs. There did not need to be a New Coveant to make a new king. Jesus was an actual King, it's possible that he was in line for the throne and that has been shown many times. The Genealogy in Matthew shows him descending from the kings of Judah. There is nothing new about attacking Jesus' Messianic standing through the Royal line.

the New Wrinkle is the absurd claim Huller makes that the throne



Huller in a promotional Interview
with His publisher
Stephan:

Thanks, Norm. The Real Messiah is a book which details a major discovery I made in Venice a few years ago. I saw a chair called the throne of St. Mark in the Basilica di San Marco . Everyone knew it had a strange inscription chiseled across its front in reverse Hebrew mirror letters. Scholars think, ‘oh that’s odd’ and go on to study other things.

I looked at it for the first time and realized these aren’t just regular Hebrew letters but a special kind only made by the Samaritan sect in Israel; the Samaritans are the oldest religious sect in the world. I happened to be very friendly with them. I snapped photos of the inscription and the throne as a whole and sent them to world-wide experts on Samaritans. I pieced together the code and find something which proves that Jesus wasn’t the messiah of Christianity. Jesus was just the guy who came to announce someone else as the one predicted by Moses and the prophets. of Mark was stolen and it bears upon it marks that indicate Jesus was a fake.

This is the new wrinkle but is it new? We have seen this before. This is just another version of Holy Blood, Holy Grail which was itself a knock off of a previous book, and it also has shades of The Devinci Code. The idea of finding the secret clue that disproves Christianity is as old as Christianity. It goes back to Celsus in the second century who claimed that the Jews gave him secret historical inifo that showed Jesus true history. None of this stuff has ever amounted to a hill of beans. This want either. in a couple of years will be crowding the used book stands.

Like most of these characters with amazing disproofs to sell,Huller has another twist. Jesus wasn't really cliaming to be the Messiah, he was really saying that someone else was. Non other than:Marcus Julius Agrippa

Anthony Sacramone on the Strange Herring Blog.

As for this book by Stephan Huller, apparently the REALLY real messiah was Marcus Julius Agrippa, to whom Jesus was supposedly pointing because — among other reasons — when Jesus refers to “the son of man” and “the messiah” in the Gospel of Mark, he does so in the third person.

Tell that to the pizzo family supporters? Does not know there's already a conspiracy theory that says a Roman family called the Pizzo's started Christianity as a joke.
Sacramone has a huge running battle with Huller on this blog (see link above) it is worth reading, worth a chuckle.

Let's notice some things about this:

(1) there is really one piece of evidence and it can't be connected to the theory he's trying to prove.

Joseph Faltas writing a review "The St.Mark Code" in Daily News of Egypt:

While the book’s introduction doesn’t promise to present conclusive evidence to support Huller’s wild claim, the rest of the pages eliminate the hope of a real connection between the pieces of “evidence” the researcher presents.

Did I say pieces? I really meant “one piece,” which is the throne of St. Mark displayed in the Basilica San Marco in Venice. There are, however, many loose and disjointed connections Huller makes between the different inscriptions and pictures on the throne, without referencing them to similar symbols anywhere else.

So appreanlty all he really has is an interesting old throne that can't be connected to anything else. He apparenlty has no scholarly evidence about it's dating.



(2) It depends upon secret knowledge of a forgotten language and a code that only the author has understood. This is just what Holy Blood, Holy Grail was based upon. Things that revolve around secret language that only the author gets are usually crap. This does not bode well for Huller.

(3) It depends upon this secret code in an innocuous place where no one but the author could find it. Again, secret knowledge = conspiracy = sillness.

(4) In 829 the remains of St Mark were supposedly transferred to the basilica of St. Mark in Venice. In 976 the Basilica was totally destroyed by fire. Any furniture there today would post date that era and thus can't be authentic.

(5) Huller's reasoning is quite absurd. He says that one of the emperors was influenced by his Christian mistress to foster Christianity and bring it in line with Paganism by forcing December 25th as Jesus birth day (emperor Cammodus).

His Christian mistress Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias is universally acknowledged to have 'rescue' at least one future Roman Pope. Her father, Marcus Aurelius Sabinianus Euhodus was a freedman under the joint rule of Commodus father Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. A man with the very same last name Q Tineius Demetrius was established in 189 CE as the prefect of Egypt.

Demetrius certainly had 'keeping an eye' on the Church of St. Mark in Alexandria as one of his main duties. Interestingly enough Church history tells us that a figure by the name of 'Demetrius' oversaw the activities of the community in that very same year. He scandalized the community by being married (Egyptian Christianity was notoriously ascetic), ignorant and illiterate (a strange way for a bishop to be described as when the community was so learned (think Clement, Origen etc.). This Demetrius is interestingly remembered as assuming office in the very same year as Q Tineius Demetrius - i.e. 189 CE.

Again is all of this supposed to be mere 'coincidences'? I am not so sure.

that was centuries after the Gospels were written. Christianity was already well established. It has nothing to do with the validity of Christianity. But it is an amusing tid bit to bring reproach upon the RCC. Its true function not proof but bad mouthing.


(6) why should this pile of garbage be any more serious then the already voluminous lies of the Jesus mythers?

(7) Another dead give away there is no scholarly support for this at all. There are no scholarly recognizing the find as the true throne of St. Mark or endorsing the bs about a secret Hebrew code.


(8) Here is a description of the items in the treaurie of St Mark's. Notice what is not mentioned--a throne.

Section dedicated to the Treasure of St. Mark's



The church's Treasure is kept in the ancient rooms between the church and the ducal palace, accessed by means of a door in the south transept embellished with a 13th century mosaic which, in memory of the fire of 1231, depicts two angels bearing the reliquary of the Cross, miraculously left intact.
The small vestibule leads, on the left, to the sanctuary and, on the right, to the actual Treasure. In eight niches in the sanctuary walls there are numerous precious reliquaries containing the relics of saints that were gathered from Constantinople to the Holy Land and from places outside the eastern Mediterranean basin. The Treasure consists of an overall 283 pieces in gold, silver, glass and other precious materials.

The oldest nucleus is a part of the booty brought to Venice from Constantinople between 1204 and 1261 after the Venetian conquest. For the most part they are liturgical chalices, bowls and patens in semi-precious stone mounted on Byzantine enamelled gold-work. It also includes two icons of the Archangel Michael with enamelled frames. To these may be added late-antique vases in glass and semi-precious stone and bowls of Islamic origin, all of great interest. Lastly there is a nucleus of western objects, some of them Venetian filigree.
Other pieces - gifts from popes, European princes or the doges themselves - were added subsequently.
When the Republic fell in 1797 part of the Treasure was pillaged. What was saved was returned to the church in 1798, but between 1815 and 1819 precious stones and pearls were sold to pay for restorations.



The Treasure is divided into four sections:
- Objects from Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, including two beautiful lamps in rock crystal sculpted in the form of fish and two amphorae with handles in the form of animals, each one obtained from a single block of precious oriental agate;
- Objects by Byzantine goldsmiths dating to the centuries around the year 1000: chalices and patens in semi-precious stone with mountings in gold and silver ornamented with cloisonné enamels, also present in the two portable icons with the image of the Archangel Michael.

(9)Huller's real Messiah is a man of mystery. Like Superman he has a secret identity but unlike Superman he has multiple identities and keeps popping up here and there, like the Scarlet pimpernel.

According to review Joseph Faltas

Huller claims that Marcus Julius Agrippa was “the last King of the Jews, true heir to the royal title mockingly bestowed on Jesus of Nazareth.” This as well as being “the author of St. Mark’s gospel, and the true Messiah.” Plus some more.

Marcus is also Barabas, the man Pilate released into the Jews in place of Jesus. Oops, forgot another of the man’s manifestations. He is also Marqe, son of Titus, an important Samaritan theologian.

(10) Hullers arguments are so week they amount to saying "Jesus referred to 'the son of man' in third person so he wasn't talking about himself." Of closure that doesn't prove anything. The figure son of man was a Messianic reference in the Book of Daniel and Jesus refers to it as third person to indicate that he's it. He couldn't come out and say "I am the son of man" that would be a cancellation of other prophetic statements: ("he will not raise his voice in the streets"). It's a signature fulfillment. He's placing himself in positional to be seen as the fulfillment like a signature.


(11) Huller asserts that the leader of the Coptic chruch knows the true identity of the Messiah.

Faltas again:

Huller’s real Messiah is one that can be easily scrapped off both the history books and his followers’ hearts. A Messiah who — save for in one secret gospel — has left the basics of his message nowhere to be seen. A Messiah/client of Rome whose sister/wife was the acknowledged mistress of his countrymen’s archenemy, the Roman emperor himself. Yet it’s repeatedly claimed that he is the one responsible for the Christian faith.

It also turns out that Pope Shenouda III, the current leader of the Coptic Orthodox church, is not only “aware of the connection between Mark and Marcus” but also “comes very close to revealing the true identity of St. Mark.” How does he do that? Huller quotes Pope Shenouda’s “The Evangelist Mark” where he speaks of a theology school St. Mark built which was managed by a man called Justus. It turns out that Marcus, according to Huller, had a secretary also named Justus. Does any sane person need to look for any further evidence?

If that's the case why doesn't he say it? What a cheap way to try and gain credibility where he has none. This guy supports me but he wont admit it?


(12) The major logical contradiction at the heart of the theory seems pretty absolute. This also is pointed out by Faltas. Huller wants us to believe that the real messiah was a Roman who served the Roman state but the Roman emperor took over the church and used it to erase the real Messiah and instead backed as Messiah this Jewish guy who had no connection with Rome but was a Jewish Rabbi. why?How could the real messiah be so easily forgotten? Where are his teachings? what happened to his followers?

How many of these absurd gimmicks have we seen?

HolyBlood, Holy Grail
The Di Venchi Code
Jesus survived the crucifixion and went to France
Jesus survived the crucifixion and went to Cashir
Jesus survived the crucifixion and went to Japan.
The Passover plot

A sucker born every minute.

Atheists Are Afraid of Being Human

A thread on CARM designed to mock the idea of feeling that God loves one, demonstrates the extreme of fear of their own feelings that many atheists exhibit. It think this shows more than anything that the atheist craving for "science" and "Hard data" and their protestations about theology being made up is just a maks for the fact that they are being convicted by the Holy Spirit so they are scared to death of feelings.

Dr. Pepper Begins the thread by demonstrated a disdain for personal feelings dealing with God's love:

It appears that theists see God’s love as specific for themselves as individuals or for their group. This strikes me as extremely ego centric and petty. How many times have you heard God has saved ME from some destructive behavior or accident even though others are not as fortunate? God cares about ME. Isn’t he on the side of MY country, state, town, team, family, or religion? If something horrible should happen it is his will. He still LOVES me. What is it that convinces you this is true? What objective evidence do you see that others do not and why should God care more for you and those you know?

All their brave talk about proof and hard data is just a facade, a screen to hide behind so we don't see that they are scared to death to confront feelings because they are hiding form God's conviction. But this fear of the subjective masks something else. There is an issue that ties atheists to their dread of the subjective and it is related to their resentment of God: They hate themselves. I know this is doesn't apply to all. I need to state point blank for the literal minded I'm not saying this is true in every single case. But I do think it's true in many cases. Because they hate themselves they are not willing to believe that God could love them without their having to earn it. This also explains their desire to feel Superior which I have commented upon many times.. Often when people hate themselves the project that hate outwardly, so they target as their group for hating and feeling superior to the group that is most comfortable with God's love. They hate the people who can accept their inner feelings and feel good about being loved by God.

According to Nicholas Rescher:

Atheists are not infrequently people on whose innmost nature The vice of self contempt has it's strongest hold. Pretensions to the contrary not withstanding, the atheist's actual posture is not a self confident independence of spirit but a fear of being judged.

I chide them for mocking people's most sacred feeings and another one, "super Genyus" (did that name) says:

You'll get over it. I don't see anything wrong with criticizing someone's feelings when they are egotistical, petty, and just plain ridiculous.

this is coming from a guy who calls himself "super genyus"

DP says:

Should be careful here I think. There are people who are not stable or do not think like normal folk. (whatever that means). Remember the girl that committed suicide because somebody insulted her. You get all sorts of nut cases in these forums. I could name a few. It seems the more religious you are the worse the situation too.

So personal private deep seated feelings are just instabilities that have to managed with a rigidity.

Do Atheists Want to be Human?

Emuse is one of the people I admire form the CARM board (yes there are a few CARM atheists I like). He is bright and I like his personality. We have had a falling though over this issue. It's about my Thomas Reid argument. He says somethings that have a bearing on my discussions with Hermit about atheists being fully Human. Remember the big stink Hermit raised alleging that the Bishop said atheists are not fully human? But it seems to be that Emuse is willing to deny the basis of human experience in terms of private feelings just to deny a God argument. That raises several issues upon which I find atheists chucking the concept of being fully human. It me wonder if they sell humanity short and if they really want to be human.

In the Thomas Reid argument I propose a criteria by which humans make epistemic judgments about reality. we have to make judgments because we can have no ultimate proof.I then argue that Religious Experience meets the criteria we use for judgment and thus we should think of RE as trustworthy. The problem is there a distinction between what I mean by "shared" as part of the Criteria and what Emuse is willing to advance as his notion of shared. Now he says shared is objective experience that can agree upon and if any can't perceive it then the lack of such perceptions is an obvious problem: the example he gives is a chair, a concrete solid object that all can see. Obviously religious experience does not yield up solid objects as the presence of God. We are clearly talking about a subjective experience.

There we raise the old atheist dread of the subjective. Just calling it subjective is enough to convince any atheist that's its wrong and must dismissed at once. I argue that it's a shared experience but not to the extent that people are sharing the exact same experience. I say that mystics have the same kinds of experience when they feel the presence of God, not that they the exact same experience but the same kinds of experiences.

That means nothing to Emuse. He dismisses it immediately as "subjective." I say it's Inter-subjective. It's subjective but others can experience the same or something very similar. that is still a form of confirmation. But of course atheists completely deny anything subjective it's not even worth thinking about.

Here's how the argument went:

Quote:Meta:

It's what I mean by shared, it's my argument. I'm the one who introduced it. you are the clumsy thinker. you are trying to shift the meaning of the argument and it's not your argument.

Quote:Emuse:

Seriously Meta, this sounds so childish.

Meta

what does? because you never listened to the argument? I can prove it, I can' show my website.

Quote:Emuse:

I am responding to your arguments in the opening post that were lacking in some aspects. The reasons you gave in the opening post are not the only basis on which we determine something is real. We consider something to be real when a group of people all with the same faculties and in proximity to the object all experience it collectively whether they want to or not.

Meta:

not everything has to fit that same criteria. you are making red herring argument now because you expect that to cross over to the other meaning and mean the same thing there. you can it names al lyou want to you are not obeying the rules of logic! talking at cross purpsoes! not responding to my argument.

Quote:Emuse
If someone in a group saw a chair but no-one else present did then we would assume a problem. If someone heard a voice but no-one else present did then we would assume a problem. Why should we make a special case for religious claims?

Meta:

but if millions of other peole heard the same voice saying the same thing under the same kind of circumtances then we would think it's nto such a problem it' something else. it might be real its not insane or hallucination. how can people have the same kinds of experiences? that's insane that doesn't' happen. you have rationalized it by saying 'they all have human brain structured" you never did show me one single example other than this where that happens. you can't do it.

Emuse:

why would two people together at the same time have to experience God is the same way?

This has nothing to do with people having identical experiences. We don't know that our experiences are identical and it appears to me that you are trying to defend your position by resorting to some form of solipsism. We don't know that all experiences are identical but that is moot. If there is a chair in a room then everyone in proximity to it will experience it, irrespective of whether their experiences are identical and irrespective of whether they want to or not. That is the point. It is an important factor by which we determine something is real.

Meta

It sure as hell does! just think what you are saying man. you are trying to reduce all human experience to objective agreement on reality. But you damn well no two people ever experience everything exactly alike. God is not given in the sense God is not a chair. he's not an land mark he's not a point in the physical land scape. obviously we are dealing with another kind of experience.

you are totally dishonest in your reductionism here. you are screwing the oriognal argue all to hell make this point that doesn't apply! it does not apply! you are just trying to reduce the kind of experience I"m talking about to seeing a land mark on the street.

Emuse:

Many things are not given directly to sense data and can only be detected indirectly using other equipment. But anyone (even a group) could all still detect the phenomena using that equipment.

Meta

but that proves my point don't' you see that! that's just addmiting that there are other kinds of "shared" experience than just seeing objective landmark.

you are so dishonest in the way you are arguing. you can't even play fair long enough to have a real discussion.

Hey I admit I came unglued there. But look at what he's saying. He's saying that privet feelings and personal experiences are not valid and they really don't exist. He had to be saying that because he just he constantly comes back to the tangible object as the sum of all good criteria and he clearly dismisses personal expedience and inner feelings as any sort of guide to anything.


Quote:Emuse
But it is something of a moot point. Even if God is experienced in some other way we would still have to possess faculties to experience and interpret this event.

Meta

that's irrelevant because its not the case. we are experiencing this way and you are being dishonest about it. because its inter-subjective and you are not paying attention. you are trying to reduce it to some phsyical thing that can objectively viewed by all or nothing..

He has to pull two bait and switches. First where the replaces what I meant by the argument with his own view that reduces private feelings to non existence, then another one where he replaces private feelings with perceptions rather than feelings.

this is just the height of dishionest.

I start quoting a bunch of studies that say that peole who have religious experiences have identical kinds of experiences, this is true the world over:

rom Lukoff and lu's study

Quote:

The two major exceptions to the lack of shared instrumentation are the mysticism scale by Hood (1975) which has been used in quite a number of studies by Hood and others, and the repeated use of certain questions in survey research by Greeley and the Gallop Organization over a sixteen year period.

Holm (1982) “mysticism and intense experiences” demonstrates another level of cross-cultural validation.

Quote:

Method: The author translated into Swedish several Hood scales designed to measure mystical experiences. The items describing religious experiences drawn from William James, on Hood’s (1970) Religious Episode Experience Measure (REEM) with narratives taken from Nordic anthologies. Eighteen teachers of religion and psychology each administered the scales to 6-9 persons. Findings: The study replicated most of Hood’s findings with the same instruments. “The results of our empirical study of mysticism in a Finnish-Swedish environment largely coincide with Hood’s results in an American environment…The cross-cultural testing that some of Hood’s methods have received as a result of our research on another continuant and in another linguistic area means that the results have received a wider range of applications.

The M scale has been validated with Iranian Muslims.
In a mostly Christian American sample (N = 1,379), confirmatory factor analysis of Hood's (1975) Mysticism Scale verified the existence of Stace's (1960) introvertive and extrovertive dimensions of mystical phenomenology along with a separate interpretation factor. A second study confirmed the presence of these three factors in not only another group of Americans (N = 188), but also a sample of Iranian Muslims (N = 185). Relationships of the introvertive and extrovertive factors with the interpretation factor were essentially identical across these two cultures, but the Americans displayed a stronger association between the two


here are his answers:

That is how they are diagnosed. I'm not saying that religious belief is a mental illness ... I'm merely saying that this is not enough in itself. This the problem you have by merely pointing to the content of the experience as a deference.

But a colour blind person can still detect the chair in other ways that are not determined by will and in ways that other members in a group could also. That is the point. Even a blind person could experience the chair through touch along with other members of a group. They would experience the chair at the same place and at the same time as everyone else in the group. That is one basis on which we determine that the chair (the cause of the experience) is objectively real. It isn't purely individualistic.

What gives him the right to assume that only tangible objects are valid experience? I understand that they are more verifiable than personal feelings. But when people have the same kinds of feelings and the descriptions are so alike they they they are talking about the same thing, and the result is a changed life, indicating the experience is real why does that not verify the experience in the say that corroboration of objective land marks does for a group of people?

atheists used to argue that experiences are all different. then I find the studies that say mystics have the same kinds of experience. But that doesn't amaze them or meaning anything because its subjective so it' still false we have to disregard it. But look at the inconstancy, we have to disregard because they must be different, then when it's proved their the same that doesn't mean anything!

To be sure he has atheist's disease, he can't evaluate arguments or evidence fairly. But more importantly look what the has to deny to make that argument work. He has to deny that he has feelings that matte. I argued that no one knows what it's like to be you. That's a unique fleeing, but it doesn't mean it's not real, you are real aren't you? His answered implied that no private feelings are not real because they are subjective.

I think this is one of the ways in which atheists want to deny their humanity. They don't understand what it means to be human. Doesn't mean they are not fully human, bu they don't want it. they reject the experience of humanity. They want to control. They want to be in charge of nature. They can never be in charge with God Around so they have to deny God.