[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andrew Skegg and Nigel Honey, godlessbiz. godlessbiz said: "2.1 – AronRa & so much more" -> http://bit.ly/aWuM0R [...]

Hey, loved the new porno music, fits Oli nicely. And it's fine when you get off topic, I love hearing you blokes bullshit just as much as I love the rest of the podcast. Now if I could just find the paypal donate button I've got $5 you can have to help with the bills. (I know it's not much, but I'm unemployed at the moment and poor, but I thought I could give back a little something.)
Cheers
–Godless paladin

That was fast. It takes us weeks to get together and record, then it's consumed with blinding speed.

I have not yet created the Paypal link, but will do so today. Thank you so much for your support. We love doing the show and would not like to see it disappear over something as trivial as money.

I was recently unemployed and it's not a nice feeling. Hope things change direction for you soon.

Hey GP, thanks heaps mate for the donation.

Hopefully you had as much of a laugh as we did when we recorded it. Especially the 12 facts of jesus!

I am still cacking myself thinking about it.

Ollie :)

Do you have a link for the "12 facts"? I'm still working my way through the podcast to and from work, so I haven't gotten to that part just yet, but those lists are always entertaining, frustrating, or both.

I have supplied links to some of the stories in the post. I will also be working on the enhanced version of the podcast today.

Points for quoting "Better Off Dead". They may translate into dollars if a PayPal link shows up around here.

The satanist who's name you were struggling to remember is probably Anton Szandor LaVey. While he didn't create the satanism those kids were practicing, he found the Church of Satan and, oddly enough, sanitized satanism enough that people can publicly declare themselves satanists. Having read his Satanic Bible I can say it is pretty much humanism with a layer of religious shellac, invented mainly to piss off and upset the christians.

And to apologize, I meant to say LaVey founded the Church of Satan, not found. One day I will learn to proofread things. Forgive me.

Oh, and should Ollie decide to go ahead and declare himself god on FaceBook, I'll sign up. I am an ordained minister through Universal Life Church, so he'll get at least one church leader with the papers to prove it.

LaVey, that's the guy! I knew it started with an "L".

Made you a Millenium Falcon flying out of the sinkhole pic: http://wp.me/pQule-6c

Oh, I did not notice this until now. LMAO!

It's quite a shame you didn't tell me about this – I would have been more than happy to actually talk with you, and perhaps stopped you from going off tilting at windmills.

In regards to 'facts' – it is worth remembering that we are talking about 'historical "facts"' – there is much of history that is considered an historical fact, that is, it most likely happened, which cannot be repeated and tested as you seem to want to do for it to be considered 'fact' – we are not talking scientific facts, but historical facts. And remember with twitter there's limited space, it's easier to say 'facts' then have to elaborate every time with 'what most likely happened'.

But to windmills.. for example, you are confused: you seem to think that I'm arguing that

(5) the disciples had real experiences which they thought were literal appearances of the risen Jesus.

means that the historians accept that the disciples saw the risen Jesus, but I am emphatically not arguing that. What it means is that historians agree that the disciples had some kind of experience which they claimed was an appearance of the risen Jesus. The historians agree they experienced something – not that is was necessarily Jesus, but they agree that whatever it was, the disciples claimed it was Jesus. Surely you can see the distinction there. Now that experience was not necessarily supernatural, which was the point I was arguing – if you were to argue that they were hallucinating, then that is not supernatural (whether that is a sufficient explanation is a different matter). Therefore, the event that historians agree most likely happened (i.e. what I shorthanded as historical 'fact') is not itself supernatural, even if one explanation might be. This is a distinction you have failed to make. Further, the 'minimal facts' (using Habermas' term) are those accepted not just by scholars who accept 'magic' (as you put it) but also by those who definitely reject the historicity of the resurrection itself. At no point did I say that the historians I referred to thought Jesus was 'magical'.

Seems strange that you ridicule me for my reference to Argument to Best Explanation and then go on to describe that process positively (and yes, I agree that we cannot say for certain, a point which I'm sure I had previously made with reference to 'most likely' for example) yet fail to actually apply to the historical data in this instance, instead just calling me names.. I suppose that's why you'd rather talk about me than too me, right?
It is not just a matter of saying 'it says it, ergo it happened' – it's a matter of looking at it, seeing that it is "most likely the case" that there was an empty tomb, people experiencing something they thought was an appearance, unlikely change of character, unlikely conversions, and the unlikely birth and growth of the church and asking how does one explain all of this with an explanation with enough scope and power as per AtBE. Any explanation of the empty tomb, for example, must also account for the alleged appearance and unlikely conversions. The 'swoon theory' for example is well out of fashion now, for the very reason that it fails to account for the known data about Jesus' execution and burial – it requires too much other ad hoc. Now you might very well find another explanation more persuasive and encompassing, but I'm yet to see one that to my mind fulfils the AtBE criteria sufficiently, let alone as well as the very earliest claim that Jesus was raised from the dead. Probably the real issue is that this explanation conflicts with philosophical assumptions of philsophical naturalism – that's the heart of the issue right there, and you know you'll get ready laughs from all those who not only share this assumption but assume that it's the only valid assumption.

Look, I don't expect you to find the argument persuasive, you've obviously got too much philosophical antagonism and personal baggage for that, and that's fine, no argument is ever going to be persuasive to everyone regardless of philosophical assumptions. If you're happy enough to just accept that all the things the historical consensus agree most likely took place are just made up, that's fine. If you want to be like N.T. Wright's Oxford tutor, who after reading Wright's magisterial book on the historical evidence said "I simply choose to believe that there must be some other explanation even though I don't know what it was." then that's really fine.. just please don't misrepresent what I'm actually saying in order to get a few cheap laughs. And if name-calling is all you've got to say to people who disagree with you (and that's no fallacy btw), then that's just very sad.

The summary can be found here: http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Hist...

Habermas describes his literature review in more detail here: http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/J_Study_Hist...

My post that is referenced in the podcast is: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/1khv47

[...] in episode 2.1 I spoke about Andrew Finden’s (Findo) 12 facts of Jesus and largely dismissed them out of [...]

I loved AronRa's story about the emu, they scare the shit out of me too. And the question "do you have them in Tasmania or are they just in Australia?" ha ha ha! That would make some Tasmanians very happy!

Aron has some great stories. You should hear about the lizard and his previous job as a tattooist :)

I am sorry the interview was cut short, but we had no end of technical issues that day. I might try and get him back on in the future sometime.

That would be awesome, he's a great interviewee. I love his videos and I would love to hear more about the man behind them :)