In general, Holding’s review relies heavily on the following types of arguments:Then there is the case of former DC member, Matthew J. Green, who as a skeptic tried to be Holding's friend to no avail, and finally wrote him off.
1. Ad hominem argumentation
2. Ad vericundiam argumentation, an “appeal to authority” that is inadmissible in logic, especially without further explanation of why such an authority is correct.
3. Juvenile rhetorical devices usually repeated ad nauseam (“whine” “rant” etc.) that could apply equally to his complaints about my book. These devices serve to deflect attention from the lack of substance in Holding’s posts.
"Holding is nothing but a balls-to-the-walls, obnoxious prick who thinks the world of himself and exalts his views to the level of the bible which he tries to defend. To have to fight through someone's mockery and disrespect and insults to get to a good debate isn't worth it. I've debated better credentialed people than him who were openly respectful and decent. They were good exchanges -- without the bullshit! That's what we'd prefer."
"Holding has the annoying tendency of many apologists of looking up facts and presenting himself as an authority on the issues he just looked up. He fronts himself and the select group of 'scholars' he considers valid. To him, everyone else is 'stupid' and he says so specifically. No one makes as many ad hominem attacks as this guy. He'll quickly make you want to hit him in the mouth as hard as you can. No kidding."
"He is most notorious for redacting and editing his debates, misrepresenting his opponents, editing his opponents’ responses, refusing to link to his opponents’ responses because 'it gives small-minded people something to complain about,' invoking insults and other ad hominems, outright lying, appealing to authority, dodging questions he cannot answer, constructing absurd rationalizations to make biblical harmonies, and justifying cruelties if carried out in the name of God."
I want to take a moment to point out that John's most fundamental point is actually correct, viz., that Holding systematically mischaracterizes the views and arguments of his "opponents", and his argumentation is characterized by strings of ad hominems, non-sequiturs and other sorts of fallacious reasoning. This has can be shown by simply looking at the dialogues themselves in which he has engaged. See, for example, the exchange between Holding and Keith Parsons.
Now this doesn't mean that Holding is incorrigible, that he should be written off forever. If he decides later on that it would be better to listen to people's arguments and characterize them fairly and sympathetically, then we welcome discussion with him. There are plenty of Christians who are very smart, but who are also civil and honest, and who care about following a line of argument wherever it leads. Victor Reppert is an example. So are christian philosophers like John Hawthorne, Dean Zimmerman, Michael Rea, William Alston, etc. We are happy to listen to them, since they're reasonable people who recognize the importance of the free, civil, democratic exchange of ideas in the pursuit of truth. There arguments are also forceful, and worthy of consideration in their own right. But Holding, at least for some time and (apparently), is not in that camp. As long as he's not willing to engage in the civil exchange of ideas, there are principled reasons for not engaging him. For one thing, abusive language is contagious and gets everyone angry, leading to the deterioration of the pursuit of truth and serious discussion. For another, systematically misconstruing the views of others positively prevents the pursuit of truth, and stifles inquiry.
In short, there's not much point trying to engage in serious inquiry with someone who has the goal of shutting it down -- it's self-defeating. Since Holding does this (again, at least he does so now -- if he turns over a new leaf, then things will be different), the only reasonable thing to do is to ignore him. Instead, we'll happily listen to Christians who have the same basic interest of careful, civil inquiry about fundamental questions and hopefully have fun and make friends along the way).
"The consensus seemed to be that he was an arrogant, inflammatory, buffoon, not worth taking seriously. I think Matthew in particular nailed him on his ridiculous attempts to belittle the intelligence of scholars who specialize in ancient history/Biblical scholarship, when Holding only has a degree in library science." "Holding has demonstrated that he simply cannot be trusted to accurately represent his sources."
"My friends, I am sorry I defended Holding. My opinion of him now is that he is an arrogant spin-doctor of questionable honesty who enjoys insulting people and arrogantly scoffing at those who disagrees with him. I cannot believe that I even wrote a response to a blog post on here trying to defend him by asking blog members on here not to take him so seriously. I would like to offer a bit of friendly advice to people here: don't take him seriously at all. He's a sad joke!"
"Turkel has adopted a style of viciously attacking skeptics and, sometimes, even Christians who have been known to have opinions that differ from himself. I believe that the reason Turkel acts this way is because, frankly, he has a serious ego-problem. I consider his arrogance to be borderline pathological. He resorts to abusive name-calling, treats atheists and other skeptics who disagree with him with the utmost contempt, and goes out of his way to make them feel completely and utterly stupid. His favorite defense mechanism is to dodge criticism by redirecting it at those who make the criticism. Thus if someone criticizes Turkel for his behavior, Turkel will latch onto a fault of that person, no matter how minor, irrelevant, or what-not and dish it out at the person making the criticism. I am continually bothered by Turkel's alarming egoism, the abuse that he continues to dish out at skeptics, and the silly arguments that he will often prop up in support of his faith. I would hope that other Christians who are embarrassed by Turkel's behavior and his fellow Turkelites will join with me and others in denouncing Tekton, Turkel, and others as in need of humility and reform."
"Mr. Holding's interest in having an honest and open discussion is doubtful at best." And here he says, "Mr. Holding's position is one that will concede no ground and countenance no loss, no matter the evidence or logic arrayed against him, no matter how soundly he is trounced, no matter how hopeless his case is. In such circumstances he will clutch at any argument, no matter how strained, and present it with a belligerence usually inversely proportional to its strength. His repeated use of ad hominem attacks, his sneering demeanor, his contemptuous and dismissive tone, his scorn and derision of anyone who differs from him - such patterns of expression permeate his site, and are often deployed to intimidate opponents and camouflage arguments that are patently weak, faulty, or irrelevant."Earl Doherty responds to the "style" J.P. Holding, here in these words:
"The heavy sarcasm, the open derision, the sophomoric recourse to insult, the sneering tone: these are readily recognizable as the all-too-common reaction of those whose cherished beliefs are being threatened or even questioned. His lengthy critique of my site is one vast ad hominem diatribe. To perceive, much less to appreciate, the counter-arguments he offers to some of my ideas, one has to wade through a distracting and distressing overlay of insult, innuendo, scorn and ridicule, delivered with a ‘wit’ and word-play of questionable sophistication. Such heavy-handed invectives often serves to bolster what are weak, or beside-the-point, or even fallacious arguments on his part. This is not the mark of the professional scholar, and I suspect that few genuine members of that category, or even the discerning layperson who is interested in learning something on the subject of Jesus’ existence and the reliability of the New Testament record, would bother to read through much of this overblown exercise in self-indulgence."J.P. Holding's dishonesty is exposed, here. There we read,
"Robert Turkel uses a number of deceptive and dishonest rhetorical tactics in his efforts to "win" religious debates. Among other things, Turkel will make up answers off the top of his head; he will hide damaging information from his readers; he will take another person's argument, make a caricature of it, and attack the other person on the basis of his misrepresentation; he will distort and misrepresent the writings of scholars and historians to support his position, he will use insults to minimize those who disagree with him (see here); he will employ insults and bluster to dodge troublesome questions; he will respond to questions with questions; he will make unreasonable demands in exchange for answering a question or questions that he does not want to answer; he will rewrite his responses in debates after the other person has already responded; he will claim to have answered a question or to have addressed an issue when in fact he has not; and so on and so forth. Not all of these actions are blatantly dishonest-but many of them are and all of them, taken together, reveal a basic dishonesty in his approach to discussion and debate."
"In Turkel's response to "The Jury Is In," he criticizes me on the basis of arguments I never made, writing that I "botched" three points. I pointed out that I hadn't made those arguments, but rather a different argument that he doesn't address." Then after a response from Holding Lippard says, "He still doesn't get it. No, I don't mean he misunderstood my arguments, I mean he mistakenly attributed statements to me which I did not author and which were not attributed to me by Robby Berry--the error is Turkel's, but it's unlikely he'll ever own up to it, since he doesn't care."Keith Parsons replies to J.P Holding, here. He says,
"Apparently, attacking a straw man whenever he pleases is a convenience that Mr. Holding likes to take advantage of."
"He has a habit of either removing or revising articles after errors in them have been exposed or he has been caught with his pants down on some issue."Kyle Gerkin responds to J.P Holding, here. Gerkins writes,
"Holding starts out with ad hominem attacks, lampooning me as an author in an effort to denigrate my credibility. These are cheap rhetorical tricks, that have no bearing on the truth or falsehood of the propositions laid out in my article. This is certainly not the tone of an objective analysis."Brian Holtz responds to J.P. Holding, here. Holtz wrote:
"In our debate over the Trilemma (that Jesus was liar, lunatic, or lord), Robert Turkel's latest response to me contained no less than 137 polemical blunders, each categorized and separately identified below...."
"Most of Holding's article is devoted to appraisal of the pagan and Jewish testimony to Jesus. This is not, and never has been, my position." And he says, "Holding begins his criticisms, as do many of my critics, by questioning my qualifications to say anything on the subject at all. His final dismissal of my views as "the result of a fallen and sinful human nature, and nothing more" is just childish. His case is not improved by his accusations of "outright misrepresentation to get round the evidence", of ignoring "a great deal" of it, and of treating what is left "most unfairly". Characterization of me as "a measly professor of German spouting balderdash dug up from old books by F.C. Baur" well illustrates the abusive and vituperative material that dominates these responses. One cannot expect to find much in such writing that is worthy of serious attention..."
"Holding does not make any effort to answer these questions even vaguely. Thus, his conclusion can only be vaguely certain at best." In responding to Holdings' counter argument, Carrier says, "Most of Holding's criticisms worth responding to are not important enough to warrant emending the text of my critique. Rather than identifying actual errors of fact or critical omissions that significantly affect my arguments, or clear flaws in my reasoning or manner of expression, most responses amount to an unjustified misunderstanding of what I actually wrote, or new groundless assertions or even outright false claims."
Holding does not trust in his ability to present the facts in such a way that they are able to speak for themselves. He has to employ character assassination, prefacing all his criticisms with assurances that the object of his critique cannot be trusted. In this way, Holding is profoundly disrespectful to his readership; he displays a disdainfully low estimation of their intelligence.[Please note: I update this post periodically.]
The following was written by Dr. Avalos in response to JP Holding:
-------------------------
Over at Theologyweb, James Patrick Holding (aka Robert Turkel) has begun what he calls an “in depth” review of my book, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007).
However, it does not take long to realize that Holding offers neither depth nor competence in biblical studies. Indeed, it is not a good sign of research competence when that review begins with a patently false statement about my background. As he phrased it:
I don't know anyone who can match the High Definition clarity of John Loftus when it comes to navigating the labyrinthine world of Christian evangelical apologetics for the general public. This is a relentless and incisive critique of the pseudo-scholarship that passes for genuine intellectual inquiry under the name of Christian apologetics.He joins others who have written one. Below you can see the book cover and Contents.
--Dr. Hector Avalos, Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University and author of The End of Biblical Studies(2007), Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship
(2011), and The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics
(2015).
Fueled by scripture’s biggest mistakes
In the second chapter of Acts we find the story of Peter preaching about Jesus, with dramatic results: “So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added” (v. 41). Most New Testament scholars grant that the Book of Acts was written decades after events depicted, all but conceding that authentic history is hard to find here; sources are not mentioned, and the case for Jesus is made primarily by quoting from the Old Testament. Moreover, the fantasy factor is pretty high, e.g., an angel helps Peter escape from prison: “Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared. A light shone in the prison cell. The angel struck Peter on his side. Peter woke up. ‘Quick!’ the angel said. ‘Get up!’ The chains fell off Peter’s wrists” (Acts 12:7).
The early Christians were a small breakaway Jewish sect, but there’s an attempt here to exaggerate its success: three thousand were baptized when they heard Peter speak. How would an author writing decades after the “event” have been able to verify that figure? And are modern readers supposed to be impressed that three thousand people signed up because they heard the words of a preacher? Throughout the ages many cults have gathered the gullible in exactly this way.
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| W. L. Craig |
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| Dr. Robert Myles |
This post is a continuation of the DC Challenge. This will be brief...
Christians do NOT claim to affirm the grammatical-historical interpretation of the historic Christian creeds based upon reason. That is, they do not reason to their specific beliefs. Deists claim to reason to their beliefs, but Christians who affirm these historic creeds do not. The Christian affirms these creeds based upon accepting revelation from the Christian God, whether they find it in the Bible, or in church tradition. Christians will simply argue that it’s reasonable for them to accept God’s revelation, regardless of where they claim to find it.
However, if what I argue here at DC is true that the Bible is a collection of unwarranted superstitious beliefs, then it's likewise not reasonable for them to accept church tradition as authoritative. For if the Bible is shown to be a false revelation, then the historic church was wrong to proclaim it, and if that’s the case we have no assurance the church isn’t wrong in whatever it proclaims today. If church tradition isn't authoritative, then neither can we trust their selection of the books that go into the canon, since the church created the canonical Bible in the first place. [Protestants, especially evangelicals, claim the Bible created the church, but I cannot make any sense of this claim of theirs].
My point here is simple. In the area of the Philosophy of Religion religious beliefs are scrutinized according to reason to see if said beliefs are consistent and reasonable to believe. It is not a branch of Apologetics where the sum total case for Christianity is examined, nor is it a branch of Theology, where a believer isn't defending his faith so much as explicating it.
For the Christian, all of these areas are important and can be considered on some kind of continuum for defending and understanding their beliefs. But the source of their beliefs comes from the Bible, in one fashion or another. That's why I focus on Biblical studies and Biblical scholarship, because I think with Hector Avalos that Biblical studies should end. The Bible is irrelevant to the needs of modern people. The focus of Biblical studies should henceforth be on debunking them, according to Avalos. I agree.
Those Christians who focus on the Philosophy of Religion must first do the dirty work of investigating the results of Biblical scholarship, since that forms the basis of what they believe, and here is where their arguments cannot get off the ground. What these philosophers have succeeded in doing is to take certain beliefs, as if those beliefs can be defended in the Bible itself, and they try to work out why it's reasonable to believe them. But that gets the cart before the horse. Many smart people can defend stupid and ignorant beliefs that have little or no evidence to them. There are some pretty intelligent Holocaust deniers, Mormon scholars, and militant Muslim scholars, so we all know that people can defend beliefs which have little or no actual evidence for them.
What is the source of your beliefs and what's the evidence for them? That's where these philosophical scholars must start. But since they are in a highly specialized field of learning, they just assume (outside of their specialization) the results of Conservative Biblical scholars to begin with. But they themselves have not done the prerequisite Biblical study.
So my debate challenge is to get down and dirty inside the area of Biblical studies. I think the Bible itself debunks Christianity more than effectively.
Cheers.
"The role of science in bringing – or not bringing – us to the threshold of religious belief is discussed in The Future of Atheism (SPCK) and other new books such as John Loftus’s Why I Became an Atheist (Prometheus Books) and David Ramsay Steele’s Atheism Explained (Open Court). Watch out, too, for a different kind of work – I Don’t Believe in Atheists (Continuum) by Chris Hedges, a journalist on the New York Times. Though himself an unbeliever, Hedges has harsh things to say about some of religion’s contemporary despisers. He warns that the science-religion debate is far from resolved, and that fundamentalism does not infect one side of the argument alone. The TLS will carry reviews of all these books in the near future."Here's the Link.