{"id":28490,"date":"2015-02-17T06:38:25","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T11:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=28490"},"modified":"2015-02-17T06:38:25","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T11:38:25","slug":"where-the-ball-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/02\/where-the-ball-is.html","title":{"rendered":"Where The Ball Is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"Daniel Gulotta recently posted on his blog<\/a> about the need to take Richard Carrier seriously. I agree, and have begun engaging his book in what promises to be a lengthy and detailed series. I knew from the outset that if I didn\u2019t do that, mythicists would complain that I was simply painting with a broad brush and not doing justice to the details, and that if I did do that, they would complain that I was dealing with preliminaries and ignoring\u00a0core arguments.\u00a0No surprises, and as\u00a0time permits I will continue to publish review articles. But reviewing mythicist claims is not my top priority, since Carrier\u2019s book is simply not so significant or persuasive that it needs to take precedence over other things I am working on.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why I thought I would share my comment which I left on Daniel\u2019s post:<\/p>\n

As a scholar who has sought to take Carrier seriously and engage his claims, arguments, and methods, I agree with the overall point. But I disagree with the suggestion that somehow the mere fact that he has published a work \u2013 one which those experts who\u2019ve read it find unpersuasive and problematic in a very large number of respects \u2013 puts the ball in our court. I have heard that from ID proponents and others who argue for fringe ideas, and how are trying to avoid the more difficult but necessary scholarly processes of persuading the majority of scholars \u2013 to not see it for what it is, namely a rhetorical ploy at odds with how scholarship actually works. It is far more insidious, in my opinion, when it comes from someone who has studied at an advanced level, as Carrier has, and so probably knows better, but is hoping nonetheless to dupe a gullible public that may not.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Gulotta recently posted on his blog about the need to take Richard Carrier seriously. I agree, and have begun engaging his book in what promises to be a lengthy and detailed series. I knew from the outset that if I didn\u2019t do that, mythicists would complain that I was simply painting with a broad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":26926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[7853,10359],"class_list":["post-28490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mythicism","tag-mythicism","tag-richard-carrier"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere The Ball Is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Daniel Gulotta recently posted on his blog about the need to take Richard Carrier seriously. 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