{"id":41829,"date":"2017-09-09T06:15:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T10:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=41829"},"modified":"2017-09-09T09:37:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-09T13:37:40","slug":"terrible-review-sounds-like-terrible-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/09\/terrible-review-sounds-like-terrible-book.html","title":{"rendered":"Terrible Review of What Sounds Like a Terrible Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The quotations in the image below, which is embedded in the review<\/a> of David Fitzgerald\u2019s<\/a> latest (three<\/a>\u2013volume<\/a>!) book<\/a> of half-baked and poorly-argued nonsense that appeared on the blog Debunking Christianity<\/a>, is supposed to boil down what is positive about his books to their essence. But in fact it illustrates his inability to recognize when he doesn\u2019t have a valid point and\/or is not making a logical, reasoned argument. Here is the image:<\/p>\n

\"CCCQ<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider\u00a0each of the two points above. First, Darwin did nothing to make Deism implausible or unreasonable. Fitzgerald seems to share the same mistaken view of evolution that evolution-deniers promulgate, which is that Darwin\u2019s theory was about the question of origins, rather than the history of development of life regardless of how it originated. And indeed, plenty of people today are happy \u2013 and not unreasonable \u2013 to accept everything that science has to say about not only the history but the likely process leading to the origin of living things, and yet to think that the question of the origin of the universe \u2013 the question of why there is something rather than nothing \u2013 is of a different sort, and makes it appropriate to talk about God in the sense that Deism does.<\/p>\n

As for the second statement, these kinds of short statements are regularly made by mythicists and young-earth creationists\u00a0and various other denialists, but it doesn\u2019t take much analysis or critical thinking to recognize that there is no substance to them whatsoever. One could easily say \u201cSaying Jesus invented Christianity is like saying Kurt Vonnegut\u00a0invented the Kurt Vonnegut\u00a0Museum.\u201d There are organizations, museums, and memorials to fictional\u00a0and to historical people. Just\u00a0placing Mickey Mouse and Jesus (or Batman or anyone else) side by side in a sentence doesn\u2019t constitute a persuasive argument. Indeed, it doesn\u2019t constitute an argument of any sort.<\/p>\n

As you will see from the review on Debunking Christianity<\/a>, these issues are typical of Fitzgerald\u2019s latest work, just as they were of his earlier book\u00a0Nailed<\/a><\/em> which I reviewed here a long time back<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For an example of detailed, logical argument of the sort that one actually finds in what historians and historical scholars write about the historical Jesus, you may want to take a look at Tim O\u2019Neill\u2019s blog post about the Tacitus reference<\/a>. As with\u00a0science or any other field, the issue is not about professionals vs. amateurs but the rigorous methods and processes that make scholarly consensuses, when they exist, something that\u00a0does not\u00a0deserved to be dismissed or caricatured in the manner that mythicists and other denialists do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\" \"\"<\/a>\"\" \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quotations in the image below, which is embedded in the review of David Fitzgerald\u2019s latest (three\u2013volume!) book of half-baked and poorly-argued nonsense that appeared on the blog Debunking Christianity, is supposed to boil down what is positive about his books to their essence. But in fact it illustrates his inability to recognize when he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":41830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2482,2592,4646,4656,5677,6300,7387,12612],"class_list":["post-41829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mythicism","tag-david-fitzgerald","tag-denialism","tag-historical","tag-historicity","tag-jesus","tag-kurt-vonnegut","tag-mickey-mouse","tag-tim-oneill"],"yoast_head":"\nTerrible Review of What Sounds Like a Terrible Book<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The quotations in the image below, which is embedded in the review of David Fitzgerald's latest (three-volume!) book of half-baked and poorly-argued\" \/>\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\/2017\/09\/terrible-review-sounds-like-terrible-book.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Terrible Review of What Sounds Like a Terrible Book\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The quotations in the image below, which is embedded in the review of David Fitzgerald's latest (three-volume!) book of half-baked and poorly-argued\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2017\/09\/terrible-review-sounds-like-terrible-book.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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