{"id":32938,"date":"2016-01-30T09:30:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T14:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=32938"},"modified":"2016-01-30T09:30:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T14:30:54","slug":"the-real-difference-between-creationism-and-mythicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/the-real-difference-between-creationism-and-mythicism.html","title":{"rendered":"The Real Difference Between Creationism and Mythicism"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-33341\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2016\/01\/Dissent-from-Jesus-and-Darwin.png\" alt=\"Dissent from Jesus and Darwin\" width=\"481\" height=\"270\"><\/p>\n<p>Creationists can find 3,000 academics who will sign a statement\u00a0against evolution. That\u2019s not 3,000 academics in relevant fields, just 3,000 academics, including retired ones. I\u2019ve yet to see mythicism show any sign of even coming close to that. And yet supposedly we are to believe that creationism\u2019s 3,000 are irrelevant, but the 10\u00a0or so mythicist sympathizers show that the historicity of Jesus is \u201ca theory in crisis\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>I had the idea to make the above point a while back, when <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/pharyngula\/2015\/12\/31\/bergman\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">PZ Myers mentioned on his blog<\/a>\u00a0yet another appeal to a\u00a0list of scientists who are creationists of some description, or who dissent from a particular way of describing the evolutionary process.<\/p>\n<p>Mythicists often object to the comparison between mythicism and creationism, pointing out that\u00a0the conclusions of the natural sciences are much more certain than those of historians. That is true \u2013 but it is not an argument in favor of mythicism. On the contrary,\u00a0if there is\u00a0greater room for interpretation and subjectivity in history than in biology, then it ought to be easier to find 3,000 or more academics who will dispute a historical conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Unless, of course, the evidence for that conclusion is considered so strong, and the alternative interpretations of the evidence so implausible, that there aren\u2019t that many academics who would be willing to put their name on something that is, in the end, every bit as\u00a0ridiculous as\u00a0rejecting evolution, however different the fields in question may be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Creationists can find 3,000 academics who will sign a statement\u00a0against evolution. That\u2019s not 3,000 academics in relevant fields, just 3,000 academics, including retired ones. I\u2019ve yet to see mythicism show any sign of even coming close to that. And yet supposedly we are to believe that creationism\u2019s 3,000 are irrelevant, but the 10\u00a0or so mythicist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":33341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,78,108],"tags":[319,2272,2274,2454,2732,3217,6606,7856,9578,11270,12164],"class_list":["post-32938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mythicism","category-pseudoscience","category-young-earth-creationism","tag-academics","tag-creationism","tag-creationists","tag-darwin","tag-dissent","tag-evolution-science","tag-list","tag-mythicists","tag-professors","tag-signatures","tag-sympathizers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Real Difference Between Creationism and Mythicism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Creationists can find 3,000 academics who will sign a statement\u00a0against evolution. That&#039;s not 3,000 academics in relevant fields, just 3,000 academics,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/the-real-difference-between-creationism-and-mythicism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Real Difference Between Creationism and Mythicism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Creationists can find 3,000 academics who will sign a statement\u00a0against evolution. 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McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/the-real-difference-between-creationism-and-mythicism.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/the-real-difference-between-creationism-and-mythicism.html\",\"name\":\"The Real Difference Between Creationism and Mythicism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-30T14:30:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-30T14:30:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"Creationists can find 3,000 academics who will sign a statement\u00a0against evolution. 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