Ehrman vs Price Debate — Did Jesus Exist?

Here is the YouTube of a debate between Bart Ehrman and the mythicist Robert Price.  It's looooong.  Here.

What's my prior? I think the mythicists are borderline loons. I have linked History for Atheists before; here is his latest on mythicists.  (The “big stick” motive fits Jerry Coyne very well! Not surprisingly I think he's irrational on the topic.)

I recommend Ehrman's book on the topic, Did Jesus Exist?

UPDATE: Oy. I have so far listened to the presentations. Price is incredibly weak. Like the stuff about Q, M, and L is dreadful. Whatever they are they are something, and independent somethings.

UPDATE: Hoo boy. At about 1:25 we get a jaw drawing bit about Zoroastrianism.  Price's main point seems to be about Clark Kent and Superman. His argument seems to be that if Superman were real surely someone would have noticed and written about him, and Clark Kent wouldn’t attract disciples. Well, maybe, although it’s a form of argument from silence, but more to the point as Ehrman says, Jesus wasn’t actually Superman, but some followers thought he was. Price's argument is hopeless.

UPDATE: Less interesting at the end, except in a grisly forensic sense. Price has to keep expanding the conspiracy. He seems to end up claiming Paul did not exist either. I wonder how long until Eusebius becomes a myth. But John the Baptist, attested in Josephus, exists ...

Trump is middling awful

I have noted several times that an important thing about Trump is that he isn’t somehow an outlier, uniquely awful. In terms of the American political class he's really about middling awful. Here is another small example.

Update: An Occasio-Cortez email.

And here is a more substantive example. (Plus note the bit about eminent domain.) There is nothing criminal here, but there's a lack of civic virtue here; reporters pretend to their audience that they are diligent and fair.

And discussion of another. Again, it's not the gravity of the case I am highlighting but the pervasiveness.

The shift

I read a lot about how the Republicans have moved right in recent decades. But I think the greater shift has been in the Democrats. Here is one important example.

Another mob

Back to Wisconsin, which has been a hotbed of the kind of nutbaggery so prevalent in American politics. This time shutting down a school board meeting.  No one injured, no burning brands, but once again the orderly conduct of business is impossible, because of the intimidation by a few. Mob rule.

UPDATE. This is from a small catholic university, Seton Hall. It isn’t the Beerhall Putsch, but it’s another example of rule by intimidation. Note that the promised video has not appeared. I can guess why not, can you?

National Cat Day

Robert Moran - Angels of Silence

More Moran.

This appears to be a recording of the world premiere, in 2017. This won’t be to all tastes, it’s very slow and minimalist, but if you like Gavin Bryars or Ingraham Marshall it might appeal.

More conventionally beautiful, and very beautiful indeed, is this arrangement of material from his opera Desert of Roses, which I am keen to hear complete. Link.

And, The Angel Stood There. The performance is in fact by Ensemble Chrismos.

A closer look at an example of drive-by fake news

Georgetown Prep was much in the news for a while. How careful and diligent were reporters in that coverage? To judge by the Washington Post, not very.  And not very even when people tried to correct errors.

True, this doesn’t rise to the level of NBC editing Zimmerman tapes, but it's still dishonest, tendentious, fake. Remember Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia.

UPDATE: Speak of the Murray and he appears!

OC

BMOP 4 Saints

Here is a link to the YouTube recordings from the BMOP recording of Four Saints in Three Acts, by Virgil Thomson. I adore this weird music.

4 Saints in 3 Acts

NBC admits to fake news

NBC knew their reporting about the Kavanaugh rape smear was wrong, but hid the fact. We know this for certain now because NBC has confessed.

Russian collusion confirmed

Michael Foot, once leader of the Labour Party, was a paid agent of the KGB.

More Graeme Koehne

I have posted music by Graeme Koehne several times. The Persistence Of Memory.

Bonus: I was the first view of this one!

And Forty Reasons to be Cheerful

Candidate arrested for trying to get radio-active material

Not the sort of headline one often sees. Here.

This is an extreme example of something I like to point out. Trump is not uniquely awful, as people in Canada or Europe seem to think. He's about middling awful for American politics.

CNN is despicable, update

When CNN doxxed one of its critics that was despicable. So too is this

“There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media. The President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that.” Jeff Zucker, President CNN Worldwide

Why? Because it jumps to conclusions, because it assumes guilt, because it exploits threats of violence. Did CNN show the desired “comprehension” when Steve Scalise was shot? Or Rand Paul was shot at? Or when he was assaulted? When a man tried to break into the White House? When ricin was sent to members of Trump's staff?

CNN is a for profit company. It dishes out criticism. It reports bogus stories and distortions with some regularity.  It can be criticized, and harshly, and it is despicable to treat such criticism as Zucker does here.

UPDATE:

I thought I was joking

I used to liken the Left's reaction to Trump as “Hitler with bad breath.”

UPDATE: Perhaps he is really that a Democrat.

This is what corroboration looks like

First, a contemporaneous 911 call. That is pretty solid corroboration isn’t it? Hard to fake a 13 year old 911 call.

Second, a doctor's note with a name, here. By itself this isn’t a lot, because of the date, but unlike some notes I was told about recently this one has a name in it.

This is vastly stronger evidence than there ever was against Kavanaugh.

2400 year old shipwreck found

In the Black Sea. From the map it looks near where Ovid was banished, and it had been there for as long before Ovid as Shakespeare is before us.