First of all, this is my first post and I don't mean to offend, but I must
strongly take issue with "Acharya." I found her to be quite annoying frankly.
She started with the premise that Jesus did not exist historically, and right
there she's in intellectual quicksand. She tossed about so many red herrings
and off the wall tangential wanderings that the whole thing fell apart. No
scholar contests that the dying god archetype exists, but to then state that
that means Jesus did not exist is very shaky. Many, many non sequiturs ran
through her interview. Yes, yes, I know, I'm entering that big taboo of ad
hominem attacks, but again, very annoying lady (or is that ad feminam?). I
do want to offer nevertheless my rave reviews for The Paracast. It's my
favorite bar none and I tend to be a Carl Sagan rationalist, but even he
had his "paranormal" views. A very good read is George Basalla's Civilized
Life in the Universe, Scientists on Intelligent Extraterrestrials. He has some
info on Sagan's views that surprised me, who thought that Sagan put the nix
on any visitation at all. Published by Oxford University Press. A last comment
about "Acharya": not even the Jesus Seminar contests the existence of Jesus!
Two very good books by this group are The Five Gospels, What Did Jesus Really
Say? and The Acts of Jesus, What Did Jesus Really Do? The scholarship of these
two are really quite good, and the voting system described is very fascinating.
And have you heard that old saw that if you can find in the midst of some dense
thesis a telling inaccuracy that that just MAY put the lie to the whole thing?
"Acharya's" mention of Justin Martyr to buttress her argument is totally bogus
and inaccurate. Ok, enough from me, and keep up the great work, Gene and
David! No argument from me on their performance, that's for sure. Kim Cupples