We continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, considering pop-research on the issue of the historical Jesus and Jesus mythicism with regards to some Atheists who have taken to the utterly radical view that Jesus never even existed. I have been considering Michael Paulkovich and Raphael Lataster and, in this case, I got into a comment section discussion within an article written by YouTube celebrity Atheist AaronRa that was simply titled “Jesus never existed” November 3, 2015 AD.
See my article Historical Jesus – two centuries worth of citations wherein I chronicled 205 texts that reference Jesus dating from pre 70 AD to 200-250 AD.
In the meantime, someone else posted a link to an article on Raphael Lataster by historian, Atheist and polyamorous dog Richard Carrier (which, in turn, lead me to write the article Richard Carrier on Raphael Lataster’s Jesus Did Not Exist – A Debate among Atheists). Carrier thinks it “a good point” that Lataster claims that “the debate over the historicity of Jesus by focusing only on what atheist and agnostic experts are saying, and not Christian believers—regarding the latter as too biased to consider…really we should only be looking at the debate among atheists.” You cannot make this stuff up!
I decided to comment thusly:
Sadly, Lataster is a conspiracy theorist and I mean that in the most literal sense. His modus operandi is to merely assert that if a historical text references Jesus then Christians inserted Him into the text since He was absent from a portion where He should have been mentioned. Conversely, if a historical text does not reference Jesus then merely asserts that Christians deleted Jesus from the text because it must have said something unflattering about Him.
That is surely not the way to do scholarship.
Rather than stating words to the effect of “Good point, Lataster really should up his game and not reply on fantasizing about conspiracies and relying on theorizing” this person, you guessed it, decided to take aim at me:
With your first sentence you display level of ignorance beyond reproach and I mean that in the most literal sense. Now when you can back up your moronic assertion in that sentence with evidence, I’ll be less likely to treat you like a moron and might even address the remainder of your comment.
I replied thusly:
Well, friend, you seem to be replacing reasoned discourse with childish taunting. My statement was an encapsulation of Lataster’s modus operandi based on that which he has to say about the manner whereby he goes about reaching his conclusions.
