New Reply to James Patrick Holding's unconvincing backpeddling

Since I began showing the world in 2008 what a piece of shit scumbag James Patrick Holding really is by reason of his absurd Harsh Language article, and other similar online screeds, he has changed the wording in that article several times.  I respond to it point-by-point below:

Printed from http://tektonics.org/madmad.php

As of 9/2/2017, Barry Jones, aka turchisrong, owes me $24,074.35. When is he going to pay his bills?

I'm never going to pay that bill.  You will simply a) update the amount each year, and b) suffer from incessant questions as to why Licona and other legitimately credentialed Christian apologists started wanting nothing to do with you soon after my libel lawsuits against you became public knowledge.  Jesus would never agree with you that because a secular judge awarded you fees, you must have deserved those fees.  Yet you hold up this granting of fees as if lower court judges are incapable of getting things wrong.  If you supplied to your followers ALL of the briefing that I filed and you filed which led up to that court judgment, they would notice that the judge ignored mandatory precedent numerous times.

But no, I'm sure that your drooling followers, so quick to presume you innocent and me guilty, find it more important to remain ignorant and thus comfortable, rather than educate themselves on what really went down, and thus take the risk of finding out this court judgment was immoral and unlawful.

The Christian and Harsh Language

There’s a particularly moronic notion that some people might come up with in response to what is below. They might ask if the Context Group (whose work I cite below) agrees with what I’m saying here, and think that actually is a meaningful question. It’s not.

Yeah right. Asking whether the scholar whose work you use, drew the same conclusion from his work that you did, this is a "moronic" question that is not "meaningful".  Are you drunk?  Dr. Rohrbaugh certainly thought it significant that you draw a different conclusion from his work than he did.  He said your article (the one I'm refuting right now) was a perversion of the New Testament, ALL Context Group work, and particularly a perversion of his own work.  The issue is why Rohrbaugh finds it so "obvious" that you have "perverted" Context Group scholarship, if in fact all you doing is drawing a different conclusion from it than he does.

The Context Group certainly agrees that riposte was the norm in Biblical times, which is the single and sole point that I derive from them.

 Which is to your disgrace, since you take what you 'derive' from them and use it to justify the type of slanderous talk that most mature Christian scholars quickly classify as sinful.  Rohrbaugh even said this article of yours was so bad, it didn't even merit a response, he said it would be a waste of his time.

And once again, it doesn't matter that riposte was normal in biblical times.  YOUR particular brand of riposte often involves sexually inappropriate slurs and is otherwise sufficiently extreme as to qualify as "slander", a thing the bible repeatedly prohibits (Mark 7:22-23, Ephesians 4:31), and lets not forget that Michael the Archangel did not bring a railing accusation against even the devil, 

  7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
 8 Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.
 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
 10 But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. (Jude 1:7-10 NAU)

 ...despite the availability of arguments that the devil so often publicly slanders Christianity that publicly slandering him back might constitute justified "riposte".

What they may not agree with me on is whether it is appropriate today. I don't disagree with their interpretations. I disagree with their applications. I don't draw conclusions about those applications from their research. I do that on my own. And if they think what I argue is a perversion of their work, then it's likely they've been grossly misinformed by a tendentious source that is giving them leading information to draw out a desired opinion.

No, there you are lying again.  You know perfectly well that the reason Rohrbaugh steamrolled you in 2008 was because I had emailed him a cut and paste from one of our debates where you were gratuitously insulting me in ways that mature Christian scholars find to be a shocking violation of basic NT ethics. 

For those interested, my 2008 correspondence with Rohrbaugh, including Rohrbaugh's comments to the effect that James Patrick Holding gives Christianity a bad name and is just a boor with no manners who doesn't deserve to be given the time of day, is publicly documented here.

Furthermore, in 2015, I emailed to Rohrbaugh a link to your "Harsh Language" article, and his reply email is the one where he said your "harsh language"  article was a perversion of the New Testament, Context Group work in general, and his own scholarship in particular.  This and more is all documented here.

Holding continues: 

But that said, so what if they don't like my applications? I would say in reply: That’s their problem, not mine.

So apparently, if a skeptic uses a "that's your problem not mine" excuse, you approve.

Last I checked, Rohrbaugh, for example, thinks the book of Nahum is too nasty and should be removed from the canon. That’s obviously a position I don’t agree with, and it's not a matter of intellectual deficiency for Rohrbaugh to hold that view since the key facts (such as that Nahum has harsh language) are not in dispute. Rohrbaugh's view on Nahum is a moral decision he makes based on his own preferences.

It's also a moral decision he makes as a person who has been a Christian for many decades.  Sorry, Holding, but you are going to have to say Rohrbaugh went for decades as a Christian without ever noticing that the bible justifies modern-day Christians to use sexually inappropriate slurs the way you do.  Rohrbaugh's long experience with and scholarly-level knowledge of the bible are also part of the reason he finds your slurs to be so devilish.

Or have you stopped slandering people now that your dark side was brought into light through the Courts, and you can no longer get away with posting filthy language online?   I have to wonder how many of your former mentally comatose followers started obsessing in Googling your name and mine, after I fucked up  your image over at theologyweb.

I do think those preferences are absurd, narrow-minded and out of touch.

What we learn from the world's foremost Christian apologist, then, is that even if we skeptics get our Ph.d's in some area of study associated with the sociology of the biblical world, and even if we also become Christians sufficiently that we end up writing scholarly tomes on the bible that are well-respected among bible scholars, we can still end up drawing conclusions that are absurd, narrow-minded, and out of touch.

Sounds to me like biblical issues are fatally ambiguous, thus justifying refusal to bother with that stupid bullshit, unless one does it solely as a personal intellectual hobby, like me.

I would even go so far as to say that such views about the canon are a perversion, and that Rohrbaugh is guilty of perverting the truth to that extent.

 That phrase wasn't included in your earlier editions of this article. But your late choice to say "perversion" appears to be biting back at Rohrbaugh, who himself was the first to use that word in this controversy, using it to characterize YOUR article. 

And there you are, the old J.P. Holding, returning insult for insult, doing exactly what the Context Group says constitutes a perversion of the bible and their own work.

What we further learn is that even if we skeptics accept Jesus, become educated in apologetics and then for 20 years thereafter operate a website that answers skeptical objections to Christianity, boasting of how scholarly we are the whole time,  we might still end up getting an "F" in Basic New Testament Ethics 101.

And the reason that often happens is because there is no Holy Spirit to effect spiritual growth in anybody in the first place. THAT is how you can be intensely involved in Christian defense for 20 years and yet miss the forest for the trees the entire time.

But the bottom line is: I agree with their findings, and I don't think they misinterpret the New Testament.

Well they sure said you "pervert" the New Testament.

However, I also don’t agree with all of their applications of those findings. There’s a huge difference, and very simple minds may not grasp that difference.

Then stop presenting biblical issues in the format of YouTube cartoons catering toward 40-year old adolescents, and maybe the juvenile delinquents who think you died for their sins will discover how the Holy Spirit kept Christians interested in his work for 2,000 years without needing internet bells and whistles and cartoon sound effects to overcome their inherent lazines, you stupid cocksucker. 

They also fail to grasp that it is quite possible for someone like Rohrbaugh to be judiciously informed on one matter while being profoundly ignorant on other matters. (This in contrast to fundy atheists, who are profoundly ignorant about just about everything.)

You weren't leaving room for Rohrbaugh to be "profoundly ignorant" on other matters back in 2008, when you were lauding his bible expertise and using some things he said to justify your slandering of other people.  Now that you've been steamrolled by the scholar you quoted the most for this stupid childish bullshit, suddenly, you remind the world that Rohrbaugh isn't perfect.  

Ha Ha, you are ANYTHING but a threat to bible critics.  And nothing spells "Emergency! Clam up! Emergency!" quite like your blocking my ISP from being able to access your website.  You are like the child during a fight saying "I'm not scared of you" while running away from the attacker.  You cannot escape the fact that talk is cheap; your actions speak louder than your words.

However, if any of the Context Group ever wished to argue that such language is inappropriate today, my reply is that they need to mind their own business and look past the rarified confines of academia.

And according to you that would also require that they abandon the basic morals they learned as children, and become willing to libel others in spite of the bible's many prohibitions against "slander".

Scholars like Malina and Rohrbaugh don’t spend any time confronting atheist idiots like DarkMatter2525 or NonStampcollector.

Probably because these well-qualified bible scholars have never seen any justification in the bible for spending their time confronting atheist "idiots".  So if you see such justification in the bible for this activity, the reader has to decide who is more likely to have gotten the biblical message correctly, qualified bible scholars, or one lone ranger on the internet who lost the support of his own favorite scholars when truth was brought to light in two libel lawsuits. Gee, that's a hard one.

They’ve never engaged in forum debate with lunatic fundy atheists who keep quoting Thomas Paine as an authority on the formation of the canon, or who have some sort of personality disorder and keep posting mile-long blog entries no one ever reads, or who have never done anything with their lives except work as day laborers or truck drivers and sit around collecting government checks and don’t have a job while they otherwise rack up huge six-figure debts they can’t pay off.

It appears you haven't learned your lesson perfectly, but you've certainly learned some of it.   Your subtle reserved language about me, and refusal to specifically mention my name, is in sharp contradiction to the demon-possessed three year old who was operating your website in 2015, and who slandered me hundreds of times over because of his psychotically narcissistic inability to recognize his own stupidity.  I was correct:  You are such an obstinate fuck, it really does take the extreme measure of kicking your head in, and causing you to associate pain with your stupid choices, to get you to calm down, since trying to convince you on a purely intellectual level is like trying to convince an alligator to repent and believe the gospel.  Your brain simply doesn't have the hard-wiring necessary to enable to you give a fuck about being wrong.  You missed your calling, Holding, you should have been a lawyer.  They too give a shit far more about how to trifle this and that, than about actual truth.

They also, not shockingly, never appeal to the Bible as authoritative justification for their views about modern behavior (because as the Nahum example shows, the Bible isn't their chief defining authority).

What skeptics learn here is that even if we became Christians and became as smart as Rohrbaugh, there is no guarantee we'd adopt the view of the bible God wants Christians to adopt...thus justifying the average unbeliever to say "fuck you" to any Christian challenge to learn biblical things.

They don't think Nahum is a good example for us. So of course the Bible isn't their final word as a moral guide.

And with all of your unbiblical slandering of other people, the bible apparently isn't your final word as a moral guide either.

It's also relevant that they aren't out there like the fundy atheists peddling their views deceptively and in gross ignorance.

Preaching to the choir.  You are scared blind of challenging me with any of your apologetics dogshit, you know you'll get steamrolled.  Most Christian apologists do not intentionally configure their website to make it inaccessible to certain people.  But you sure do.

If any Context Group member doesn’t think there’s a place for hard language today, good for them – they need to get out more.

If any internet apologist thinks there IS a place for hard language today, good for them --  they need to get out more.  Isn't  it funny that your excuses always sound stupid when anybody else use them? 

They are far from being my favorite Bible scholars, nor have I ever worshiped the ground they walk on; nor do I quote them the most on this website.

That's irrelevant, you weren't expressing or implying any of this backtracking in 2008 before you found out Rohrbaugh thinks you give Christianity a bad name.   I'm happy to infer from your constantly modifying this article that behind the scenes your followers have serious problems with you, sufficient to get you to constantly update this article. 

I respect their expertise and use it, but I can use the research of the Context Group even if they disapprove of my views and the way I apply that research.

The issue is not what you are "allowed" to do with somebody else's research.  

The issue is why the authors of that research complain that your use of their research constitutes an "obvious perversion" of it.  You cannot get rid of Rohrbaugh's Christian moral view by simply noting that somebody can be smart in one area and judiciously ignorant in another.  Rohrbaugh clearly thought your slanders were a violation of basic NT ethics, it was the equivalent of him feeling compelled to say that another Christian doesn't recognize that stealing is unbiblical.  One of you is not just in the wrong, but in the wrong so deep that it can only be explained by brick-level stupidity, or willingness to violate clear NT ethics.  I let the reader judge which extreme you are.

For the record, no Context Group member has ever written to me about any of this.

Because Rohrbaugh said a reply to your article wasn't worth his time.

The better question is whether you did the scholarly thing, and contacted Rohrbaugh to clarify his views about you.  In 2008, you pretended that you'd never contact him because he was too busy to worry about other people's personal problems, but on the contrary, Rohrbaugh's views of you are so low, he was effectively asserting that you sinned against him by "obviously perverting" his scholarship... just a modern way of making a claim that you are a false witness.  So unless you wish to go all the way into the liberal toilet and claim that even if you sin against somebody, there's no need to discuss it with them personally...then you don't have a choice, you have a biblical obligation to personally communicate with and seek forgiveness of, those who charge you with being a false witness.

And we all know that the real reason you didn't attempt any such contact is because you were genuinely fearful that Rohrbaugh would simply castigate you more and confirm that what I was putting out on the internet was accurate.

And if they ever did, I'd invite them to spend a few hours on YouTube and get some eye-openers.

That's rather stupid given that you've been made aware they think such conduct is wasteful.

But I don't expect they'd waste their time anyway. Rohrbaugh is in his 90s, and it is absurd to think that he or any of the other distinguished academics that are part of the Context Group spend any time trolling YouTube channels.

Good call.  It's more reasonable to assume only dumbfuck assholes who think of themselves as the center of the universe, would go around trolling YouTube channels looking for skeptics to refute.  Did you ever look in a mirror, or did your therapist insist that you need to start spending less time gloating over yourself?