Do My Research Assistants Do All My Work For Me?
April 20, 2012
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As a person who values careful, critical, skeptical thinking, it is always disappointing to me when my fellow non-believers will just swallow and perpetuate certain ideas with such credulity… not bothering to check the facts or show a little skepticism. It reminds me of the creationists who latch onto ANYTHING that they think might help their argument, regardless of how accurate it may be.
Over the years, I have had several run in’s with mythicists on skeptic and atheist websites, and it really broke my heart to see how many people that I assumed to be careful, critical thinkers, were so set on a certain idea, and would continue to use such bad arguments in the face of being shown to have unreasonable ideas.
Just as I didn’t like to call myself a Christian (back in the day), because I was embarrassed by so many things Christians did and stood for, I often don’t like to be called a skeptic or atheist, out of fear of being lumped in with mythicists.
lol, How do you add a profile picture? Thanks.
As a general rule, it is worthless to talk to people who are convinced of Mythicism. They just don’t care about proper historiography and will latch onto any thing, no matter how absurd, to support their beliefs. Mythicism is Creationism for atheists/freethinkers/skeptics, and that is very sad.
Agreed. The more I interact with them, the more I see them as being just like creationists. It’s quite sad… since I don’t want “atheist” becoming synonymous with “mythicist.”
I hear you!
Bart, thanks for the explanation, but don’t worry. I never questioned your integrity and had a hard time believing these mythicists’ claims even before your explanation, and I think many to most people would agree with me. We got your back!
Oh, and yeah, unfortunately, the internet can be an awfully BRUTAL place! You definitely need to be ready to put up your electronic dukes! But I don’t think that will be a problem for you, considering the way you regularly kick the asses of evangelical/fundamentalist Christian apologists in debates.
If you want to hire me to be your internet pit bull, I’d be happy to oblige! Ha!!!
In my experience, people that are not good enough to be successful at something and end up as critics tend to be the most viscious. On the other hand, I did book reviews for a computer magazine for several years, and having written a couple myself, I know how much work and soul go into it, even if it doesn’t end up as good as you had hoped. In a couple of cases, I simply didn’t publish the review because the book was just so bad. (I guess I’m not cut out to be a critic)
Unfortunately, the Internet provides a level of protection through which such critics feel safe in attacking without fear of (physical) reprisals. They often forget there is a real person on the other end and their tone is certainly far less polite and respectful than if they were talking face-to-face. Then you have the fact that any bozo can post whatever they want and pretend they are just as successful and knowledgeable as the person they are attacking.
Like Mikail78 said, I appreciate the explanation and I also never questioned your integrity. In fact, just the opposite is true, considering how quickly you admit your mistakes, as we see in other posts here. When you’re wrong, we learn three things: what is correct, what is not correct, and that you can be trusted to seek the truth. As I said in another post, you don’t allow us to be ostriches and that is worth far more than a crappy review.
A couple things…
How do I know this is Bart D. Ehrman writing the blog and not a research assistant? 😉
The other night I was scouring the internet for Ehrman social media and was shocked to see that you did not have a twitter (yet there is an Ehrman debunker on twitter…go figure) and finally stumbled on your FB. Thank you and welcome to the 21st century. But I really appreciate your activity.
So I have started your newest book and I am enjoying it thus far…I have tried reading some of the various mythicist books and the ones I have tried to read were are god-awful. I have not finished one. You MUST have had a miserable summer…I feel your pain. Question for you…if you HAD to (I mean really really HAD to) recommend/suggest one of these mythicist books, which one would you suggest?
Thanks! Love the blog.
So, If I had to recommend a mythicist book. Well, I thnk it’s good to read a couple, just to get the flavor. One of the really bad ones i Acharya S, The Christ Conspiracy. That can show what the non-scholar conspiracy theorist version looks like. For the scholarly works, I’d try Robert Price. Smart guy with interesting points, though dead-wrong where it matters, imho. For a middle of the roader who will tell you far more than you probably care to know, Earl Doherty.
Thank you for the explanation, Bart. I wanted to just echo what others have said. Anyone who knows of your work and has taken the time to listen to you, see attacks on your integrity for what they are, a misrepresentation, an illusion cast by a magician’s apprentice at best. I hope to buy your book soon . . . have always admired your work and hope to take a class one day at UNC, just because.
Frank B
Mebane, NC
Bless you, my son! 🙂
For heavens sake! Do these guys have anything worthwhile to do? You can tell unquestionably by the content of your book that you’ve read what these guys had to say. Wow! Jealousy! I trust your integrity implicitly and would gladly work as an unpaid researcher for you if I had the qualifications. I so admire your scholarship and knowledge and am so grateful for people like you that are so honest. I’d say ignore those naysayers.
Thanks so much!
Prof, I have read, with great humor at times, the reviews of your recent works by so your so called critics and some works on the mythicists in general. Not to take away from the many scholarly comments by subscribers on this blog. But your critics at times sound like school children on a play ground in what boils down to “I know you are but what am I?” or the classic “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo.” Please forgive me for dumbing down your critics’ comments. They just tend to point out why you are indeed wrong but the dribble that they write actually doesn’t say much else. And I will never understand why people that have some very advanced degrees (as you have pointed out) need to resort to personal atacks. Again, much like the actions of children on a play ground when they do not get their way.
It is not surprising that conspiracy theorists think you are being deceptive considering they don’t seem to trust many people, generally.
Yeah, welcome to the jungle. Creationists, truthers, and trolls, oh my! And they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
If I were your researchers, I’d be pretty damn pleased that some of your critics (at least, those who seem to be remarkably free of the shackles of integrity or decency) think your work is theirs!
Many of the more disingenuous of your critics obviously feel that just aiming at you puts them on the same intellectual level as you. Unfortunately, they’re rarely (if ever) able to argue coherently – let alone courteously. So when you respond with anything resembling a legitimate argument, they’re instantly out of ammo – and they always, always fall back on the ad-hominem attack. They have no chance in Hades of meeting you at the same level of technical competence, so they have to make you seem more like them. And that means throwing poo. So they throw poo.
What I loathe are the followers of these troglodytes. Some of them (not many, to be sure, judging by some of their blog commenters) are smart, rational people – so they must know that there’s a huge amount of intellectual dishonesty at work there – not to mention outright lies. But they seem to be able to keep that dissonance in check.
However, it’s disconcerting (to say the least) to see other scholars and researchers falling into the same mindset. That I do not understand. Unless they have such a shallow grip on their beliefs that they can’t stand to have their beliefs called into question? Of course, we’ve all seen the “desperate bolsterers” who’ll grab any straw for support. But then they tend to turn those straws into straw men, and they’re back to trolling and being literary hacks again.
In any case, thanks for taking the time to explain how desperately, tragically, nonsensically wrong those attackers are. Mind you, you’re preaching to the choir (regardless of which side of the aisle your followers may be standing)!