Comments for Zarathustra Speaks

Comment on Caller ID by Tiresias

Tiresias — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:01:05 +0000

It is too late for me. The only club I belonged to in Jr. high school was the “Flying Saucer Club” I started with three friends in the 1950s. We sat around discussing George Adamski’s tall tales. A Mortician Club would have proved more practical. But NOW you tell me!

Comment on Caller ID by asonge

asonge — Thu, 10 May 2012 05:40:37 +0000

This reminds me of a few things, first of some lyrics from one of my favorite songwriters, David Bazan: “Doing your best is enough if you don’t know your potential. With no expectations, you can’t go wrong.” From more of the lyrics in the song you get the picture of a struggle with your own potential, and of the competing potentials you’re expected to fulfill. To write songs that are “breaking hot girl’s hearts” and “masquerade as art” or risk writing songs no one wants to hear. If one struggles against your full potential, it’s no wonder Illusions is such a welcome thought! But I’d also like to add in another anti-hero who feels crushed by potential that I found much more meaningful: Cool Hand Luke. Destined to be a leader among men (in the beginning of the movie, he advanced quickly in the military but was busted to private on the way out), but oppressed by the role of leadership in any way. He can’t even bear the admiration of the lawless. To have these narratives around is very useful, I think, for one key reason: some people will simply have to kill potential and viable callings in order to fully pursue a single calling they think is most worthy. This kind of mini-death (the termination of a future/potential) makes me feel so anxious…I am not always ready to shut the door to one interest for another. But growing up means making a decision to kill potential out of economy and trade it for the more kinetic “true” purpose which we choose to fulfill. In the Cool Hand Luke narrative, it’s freedom that kills him. He wants to leave all potentials unrealized so that he can have full freedom. He un-fulfills his purpose in acts of rebellion, first in the military, then from the prison he was in, and finally in the eyes of his co-conspirator from whom he escapes…all so he can be free of even expectation. The film itself doesn’t seem to raised a point that you have indirectly raised for me here, namely that potential must be realized in some way in order to live a good life.

Comment on No Truth but this One? by annette

annette — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:57:47 +0000

Hello Dr Price. I have exited Facebook to meet you here. Thank you for the above, putting things so lucidly. Is this an appropriate place for a question? I would like to think that your output is very influential. Do you have any way of measuring this?
I will be reading your book about the Left Behind series. But lately I have picked up on an interesting thing. Kirk Cameron of the movie versions is said to be moving away from premillienialism and getting with the strength – the converging and evidently rapidly growing postmillienialist groups such as New Apostolic Reformation/Kingdom Now/Seven Mountains with their”apostles” and “prophets” (I ask you!). Cameron has lately made a film about the Founding Fathers I hear.

Comment on Caller ID by Ananda

Ananda — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:16:20 +0000

Gosh Bob,

“The Calling” – is this a promo for your new book or have you adopted Terence McKenna’s “Strange Attractor”, never the less this “CELL” phone eschatology where cell is a confined hell of incessant communication like the devil in…. I got to talk to somebody, I got to talk to somebody……. at the expense of good driving. A lot of people have been running into me because they are not really here but somewhere in the cell phone, kindle, ipod etc matrix. What kind of reality is that? where nobody is where they are. Who you gonna call…..lol……Buckaroo Banzi.

Comment on Are We at War with Islam? by Mikeebertz

Mikeebertz — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:06:07 +0000

Living in a Muslim country, I can say that Islamic anger and violence is all about perceived disrespect. Everything that happens that is ugly here is related to someone disrespecting another. Mohammed hated the Jews after a time because though his make-believe religion (though they all are) was styled after Judaism, the Jews scoffed at his angel-given ideas, thinking them a mockery of the Jewish laws. This is the beginning of disrespect, and after driving out the Jews in his general vicinity, and then conquering a ton of different tribes from the Caucasus to North Africa, and after the Jews were no longer a threat to the spreading of hideous Islamic ideology, the Christians were the next disrespectful ones that had to be taught a lesson. And here we are today.

Comment on Freethought Is Free but not Cheap by David

David — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:34:45 +0000

DBawdwen says I fell into the trap of appealing to the masses. Well DBawdwen read my post again. I’m not saying that Ehrman is right any more than you are saying that Price is right. That opposite of Argumentum ad populum is just as fallacious. If you hold that all propositions believed by the masses are false and only those the tiny minority believe are true than that is just as absurd as Argumentum ad populum? Yours is a reductio ad absurdum and laughable. And by the way your Ad Hominum (Grow up!) reveals more about you than me.

Comment on Freethought Is Free but not Cheap by Tiresias

Tiresias — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:11:32 +0000

I wish to plead guilty as being the actual author of the “sorry ass attempt at a little parody and humor with the lame book cover above” – as commented on here. I posted it on the Facebook group, “The Bible Geek Listeners”, as a parody based on my disappointment in Dr. Ehrman’s book, Did Jesus Exist?,even though he has been one of my favorite scholars on the Bible, as well as Dr. Price.

I was pleased my little graphic apparently gave Dr. Price and others a chuckle on Facebook . Was it in bad taste for him to include it here (with my permission)? I guess it depends on one’s point of view. Meanwhile, I was tickled and honored that he did.

I admit I am no expert on biblical scholarship by any stretch of the imagination. However Ehrman’s latest book seems to be one in which he has stretched his own, in my humble opinion, by using hypothetical and secondary evidence to emphatically assert Jesus definitely existed. Had Dr. Ehrman concluded that anhistorocal Jesus most probably existed based on the evidence available and conjecctured, I might be willing to find his position more plausible for a historian. Meanwhile, I have a foot in both camps and look forward to hearing from the mythicists in coming months.

I respect Dr Price because he has often stated that if a historical Jesus existed he is lost to us behind a stained glass curtain of holy myth. Meanwhile, Dr. Ehrman and most mainstream scholars seem to consider their fancied hypothetical constructs of possible earlier writings as solid proofs. I just cannot personally buy into it when mythicists the calibre of Dr. Price present counter arguments equally and often more plausible.

Hopefully, this debate will be taken more seriously and rigorously in academia in the future. This is by no means the open and shut case that mainstreamers would appear to believe.

Comment on Freethought Is Free but not Cheap by l j crumpler

l j crumpler — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:25:22 +0000

As an Original Free Will Baptist minister I will admit to being conservative on some issues, moderate on others, and having been accused of being a “liberal” by the “protectors” (for want of a better word) of their particular brand of orthodoxy on more than one occasion. At our (the OFWB church) core is the belief that man is a free moral agent to accept (by profession of faith) the gift of grace given by God to all men through the atonement of Christ, or by their own decision to reject this gift. This gift is often refered to as “general atonement.” Our forefathers in England were known as General Baptists. Later, when our people came to America
“free willers” was a derogatory term given to us by Calvinists, which we later embraced. There is also the National Association of Free Will Baptists, our more fundamentalist brethren (roots in the Benjamin Randall movement)from which our convention withdrew from in 1962.
Our cousins in the faith located in the midwest(who have since taken the doctrinal position of biblical inerrancy)kept the name “General Baptists.” Some of our number also believe this doctrine as well, but our convention (OFWB)has never taken an official position on this matter.
Now that you know where I am coming from you can hear me out. Bob Price is my friend. I know him to be a man of integrity. He gives serious thought to everything he writes and everything he says…publicly and privately. We obviously disagree on issues of faith, but I have a great deal of respect for his scholarship and his opinion. I really ejoyed this article.

Joe Crumpler

Comment on Freethought Is Free but not Cheap by DBawden

DBawden — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:58:44 +0000

I’m sort of shocked, but also amused, by a certain poster’s childish comments. Argumentum ad populum and genetic fallacy in one post? I’m impressed!

Grow up, and then come up with an actual argument.

Comment on Freethought Is Free but not Cheap by David

David — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:41:09 +0000

The Jesus Guild – LOL.

So all those people for the past 2000 years and the couple billion Christians living today along with a billion or so Muslims who believe what the Koran says about Jesus – they’re all mistaken. But only Doherty, some fringe myth-makers, the Jesus seminar and a handful of others are the trustees of truth. The Price is Right??

BTW Price teaches at the uncredited Johnny Coleman theology school while Ehrman is Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – an accredited university. Who has the better credentials on this topic – the Colossal ego of Price or the Erhman – the scholar? Just askin’!