Its called a Sollscher guitar, its the guy's own design. Believe that one's a 12 string, but he has a couple others. Amazing classical guitar player.

Oh, that's not my understanding of the deflationary position at all (which, for me, is admittedly mostly from reading Ramsey). Do you have to hand any sources you use for yours? — Isaac

Yes, "'P' is true iff P" (the classic example is "'Snow is white' is true iff snow is white") is the standard deflationary formulation. I linked the Stanford page for the deflationary theory, in that post (click on the word "deflationary").

Ah, poor Sam. Yes, I've studied logic; intro to deductive logic was a prerequisite for a major in philosophy, and having some personal interest in the philosophy and foundations of logic I also took several intermediate/advanced courses.

So yes, I know exactly what I'm saying when I point out that your conclusion does not follow. Specifically, I pointed out that your premise contained an inference which doesn't follow, and I explained why. An explanation you refused to engage or rebut (I'm noticing a pattern here, in your refusal to meaningfully engage with what I say to you), preferring instead to speculate incorrectly about my background in logic (which, given your sloppy argument, is sort of an amusing pot/kettle situation).

But I get it, you can't really argue/defend your position and so I should stop badgering you to try. Fair enough, whatever floats your boat.

But this is more or less a correspondence view of truth — Isaac

No, its the deflationary view of truth (i.e. "snow is white" is true iff snow is white), to which Wittgenstein's later views (i.e. post-Tractatus) are very sympathetic/consistent. But this is to miss the point in any case: the point is that not only are these claims/beliefs truth-apt, they are true, for all but the rarest cases (the handful of people who actually have been to the moon, and the people who don't have two hands, for whatever reason).

So, hinge propositions are propositions, they have a truth-value, and at least in the examples considered here, they are true.

The argument is invalid, its conclusion doesn't follow (as has already been pointed out to you) and the "force" of an invalid argument can't really "end the discussion", obviously. If you want to end the discussion, you could venture a reply to my post here.

"I've never been to the moon" is a meaningful assertion, we all understand what the moon is, and what I am asserting/denying when I say this. "I have two hands" is a meaningful assertion, we know what hands are, and we understand what I am asserting when I say this.

Now, either I've been to the moon or I haven't. I either have two hands, or I do not. The assertion "I've never been to the moon" is true iff I've never been to the moon, and the assertion "I have two hands" is true iff I have two hands.

I hope you'll believe me when I tell you, I've never been to the moon, and I do have two hands. Both the assertions "I've never been to the moon" and "I have two hands" are true; they have a truth-value. So, they are propositions (propositions being defined as the sort of things that have a truth-value).

Now, Moore would say I know that I've never been to the moon, and that I have two hands. Wittgenstein, however, says I do not know these propositions. And to deny that I know these propositions, W could either be saying that the propositions are not true, or that I do not have good and sufficient reasons to believe them, or both; to know a proposition, that proposition must be true, and I must have good and sufficient reasons for it (it must be justified/warranted).

As above, they are propositions. Not only are they propositions, they're both true- I assure you, I've never been to the moon ("I've never been to the moon" is true), and I have two hands ("I have two hands" is true). And W is a reasonable guy, and he never gives any explicit indications he believes these claims are not true (or are not truth-apt; he refers to them as "propositions", after all), so its not unreasonable to conclude that he isn't disputing that they are truth-apt, or even that they're true.

He does, however, seem to be saying that we don't believe these things on the basis of a process of reasoning and evidence-gathering and weighing of reasons, but rather that we take them to be true, fundamentally or axiomatically; they are the rules of the game. In other words, we do not believe them on the basis of good and sufficient reasons: they are not justified or warranted. And we do not believe them on the basis of good and sufficient reasons, since those reasons would have to involve propositions that we are even more certain about. But what could those reasons look like? What am I more certain about, than the fact that I've never been to the moon? You might say that, if anything is true, its that I haven't been to the moon. That much is certain. So we believe and indeed are certain about these propositions, but not on the basis of good and sufficient reasons: they are not justified, even though they are true. The help form the basis on which we evaluate and justify other propositions.

But since they themselves cannot be justified, we cannot say we know them, according to Wittgenstein.

It also follows from the above argument that Moorean propositions are not propositions at all, since they have no truth value — Sam26

No, it doesn't, unless one also adopts an anti-realist view that is not found in Wittgenstein. Hence ↪Seppo is correct. Conflating knowledge and truth is an error. Wittgenstein is saying that Moore's knowledge claimed are not incorrect because they are not true, but because they are unjustified. — Banno

Moreover, the claim that they are not propositions directly contradicts Wittgenstein, who refers to them as "propositions" throughout OC. Maybe Sam doesn't think they are propositions, but evidently W did.

:love: such a pretty song

You were just repeating what praxis said — Isaac

I was agreeing with praxis. I'm pretty sure agreeing with someone is allowed by the forum guidelines.

So which actual person in this thread has made those claims? — Isaac

I never said any person in this thread did. But not having posted in this thread =/= imaginary.

As I stated, I was primarily thinking about about rightwing US politicians who tend to be the most outspoken critics of "cancel culture", despite the fact that they themselves engage in "cancel culture" when its someone or something they disagree with. Praxis gave the example of Trump endorsing the cancellation of NFL athletes who protest police violence. We could give others (for instance, the right's current hobbyhorse of trying to cancel "critical race theory").

So "cancel culture" isn't a neutral descriptive term, but a normative/value-laden one, and criticism of cancel culture in the US tends to be partisan and frequently hypocritical.

Or are we just going to wave our little flags so everyone is quite sure which gang we belong to ... Sure, here goes...

Don't you just hate Nazis, with their antisemitism and warmongering? Grrr! — Isaac

:lol:

I'm not "spinning your argument", your argument was unclear. But if by "arriving at truth" you meant justification, then the argument is just nakedly invalid, since (2) cannot follow, for the reason already mentioned: from the fact that W criticizes Moore's claim to know these propositions, we cannot infer that he is attacking the truth of the claims, because he could instead be attacking the justification, since claiming to know something entails both a claim that it is true and a claim that it is justified.

Either way, the argument you presented above doesn't work.

Of course there about justification. — Sam26

Well but that shipwrecks the above argument, since you argue that since knowledge is about truth, W's attack on Moore's claim to know is an attack on the truth of the claims.

But, since a claim to know isn't just a claim about truth, but also a claim about justification, the conclusion doesn't follow: instead of attacking the truth of the claims, W could also be attacking the justification of the claims.

Which is precisely what he's doing: Moore is incorrect to say he knows these propositions (according to W), not because they are not true (or cannot be true, even in principle), but because the belief in their truth isn't justified.

(1) If knowledge claims are necessarily about the process of arriving at truth, then Moorean propositions are necessarily about truth claims. — Sam26

Or about justification claims. Truth is only one aspect of knowledge claims, there is also justification. To claim to know some P isn't only to claim that P is true, it is also to claim that one has good and sufficient reasons for believing P to be true: i.e. that the belief is justified.

(2) If Moorean propositions are about truth claims, then necessarily W.'s attack is an attack on the truth of Moorean propositions. — Sam26

Or on the justification of these propositions, as above.

Wittgenstein is saying that Moore's claim to know such propositions is incorrect, not because the claims aren't truth-apt, but because they are not justified. Because hinge propositions/beliefs/certainties are not justified. They are taken to be true, in order that we can justify propositions in general. In order that the door may swing, the hinge must hold firm.

There was also the Trump administration's gag orders on scientists at the EPA. Like, actual censorship. But then they turn around and cry "cancel culture" because someone dared to criticize them on Twitter for some racist shit they had done.

So, it seems we all enjoy a good bit of cancelling, only provided its someone we disagreed with. Its almost is if its a natural reaction, free speech/the free market at work, towards people who do or say things we find harmful or offensive or otherwise disagreeable.

Right. Good catch. That's the hypocrisy of some imaginary interlocutors well and truly exposed, I'm sure we can all vividly imagine them scuttling back to their imaginary holes and keeping their imaginary opinions to their imaginary selves from now on. Well played. — Isaac

"Imaginary" :lol:

I wonder if you've anything to say in response to the actual interlocutors who are actually writing posts on this actual thread? — Isaac

I was replying to praxis, who appears to be an actual person actually writing in this actual thread. So, nice try, I guess? Better luck next time?

It’s funny that many of those who whine the loudest about cancel culture believe that a capitalist society should be self-regulating. Isn’t cancel culture the ideal of this philosophy? Probably only when it works in their favor, I imagine. — praxis

Yep this is it, exactly. Its only cancel culture when you disagree with it; the right (i.e. the most vocal whiners about "cancel culture") is perfectly happy to e.g. talk hysterically about banning "critical race theory" in schools and trying to get people to lose their jobs if they criticize Israel, criticize Trump, criticize the police, or whatever, but then turn around and cry foul if someone gets publicly criticized or shamed for, say, doing or saying something racist.

So its just partisan hypocrisy, about 99% of the time from what I can tell.

I think my answer was clear. They are. — Fooloso4

We've clearly had a miscommunication or misunderstanding here, I wasn't saying it was unclear. You had said that "the question is whether all hinges should be regarded as propositional", and I pointed out that that wasn't the question I was talking about in the post you had quoted.

I also was agreeing that analyzing hinge propositions as propositions isn't necessarily a helpful way to frame the matter... except when, as in the discussion I was having with Luke (and previously Sam), the question is explicitly whether hinge propositions are propositional and therefore truth-apt.

The question is whether all hinges should be regarded as propositional. — Fooloso4

That wasn't the question I was addressing in the post you quoted, which was my point. The question was whether hinge propositions are truth-apt, to which the fact that hinge propositions are propositions (and that W refers to them as such) was directly relevant.

I mean, I think the question of whether all epistemic hinges are propositional is a good and valid question... it simply wasn't the one I was discussing.

Moyal-Sharrock uses "Hinge certainties", a small improvement over "Hinge propositions", although to my eye a certainty is propositional. — Banno

As is a belief. Which makes me wonder what motivates this denial that they are truth-apt, particularly since no one seems to be able to give a coherent argument for why we should doubt or deny that they have a truth-value, while simultaneously characterizing them as the sorts of things that are truth-apt (propositions, certainties, beliefs). I mean, where did this notion even come from?

(and again, its just absurd on its face that they are not truth-apt, as if there is no truth-value to the proposition "here is a hand"- of course there is a truth-value, and its truth or falsity depends on whether there is a hand there or not... but as hinges, they are taken to be true, not evaluated or justified in the usual manner that we evaluate propositions and form our beliefs, in order that we can evaluate, justify, doubt, believe, etc other propositions/propositions in general)

The fact that something can be stated as a proposition does not mean that all hinges are propositional, or should be analyzed in terms of propositions. — Fooloso4

Sure, in most contexts, its not necessarily the most helpful way to analyze them, and I think Banno was right when he remarked that the phrase "hinge proposition" was unfortunate in some ways. But in this context, its being asked/disputed whether they are truth-apt, and so the fact that hinge propositions are propositions, and that W refers to them as propositions, is directly relevant and hard to omit.

As stated this is misleading. It not not that they are neither true nor false, but rather that the question of their being true is not there from the beginning. When a baby takes its first steps it is either true or false that the floor or ground will support their weight, but such a consideration does not come into play. — Fooloso4

:up: Exactly, good analogy. Its absurd to think that there is no fact of the matter as to whether there is a hand here, or whether I've spent my life in close proximity to Earth. Of course there is some fact of the matter, and therefore a truth-value to the proposition that "here is a hand" or "I've spent my life in close proximity to the Earth"- either this is a hand, or it isn't, and either I have spent my life in close proximity to the Earth, or I haven't. One or the other is, necessarily, true, and the other false.

What distinguishes these propositions, and our beliefs in these propositions, is that they are taken to be true, rather than evaluated to be true, and that they are not doubted, rather than somehow being immune to doubt in and of themselves.

It remains to be demonstrated that siamese cats are of the same type as cats in general. — Banno

its sad that this isn't even an exaggeration or caricature...

Only that your statements seem to be based on belief rather than fact. — Apollodorus

:lol: okay now if this isn't the Platonic Form of Pot-Calling-the-Kettle-Black. Sorry man, I didn't realize you were such a diehard religious crank, so I'm not longer interested.

That would depend on how they differ. You cannot just assume that they are the same in the respect of being the same. — Luke

Having a truth-value is an essential, characteristic trait of propositions. Just as having three sides is an essential, characteristic trait of triangles. Different types of triangles can and do differ from one another... just not in having three sides, since if they don't have three sides they aren't a triangle. And in exactly the same fashion, different types of propositions- hinge propositions, for instance- may differ from one another in various ways, but not in having a truth-value or not. If hinge propositions lack a truth-value, then they are not propositions, just as a triangle that didn't have three sides wouldn't be a triangle.

This is why this is frustrating, neither I nor anyone else should have to explicitly make such an argument.

Wittgenstein never called them "hinge propositions". — Luke

Right, he never uses the phrase "hinge propositions"... but, as I have already pointed out, and you either ignored and forgot, he does refer to them as "propositions". So, they have a truth-value. Because having a truth-value is to propositions what having three sides is to triangles.

So this is what this conversation is amounting to, me having to explicitly draw out tautologies and argue for trivialities, and re-iterate things you ignored or forgot. Not a very rewarding discussion from my perspective.

Apparently you have no interest in discussing whether or not hinge propositions are propositions, or in discussing Wittgenstein's work. — Luke

:yikes: Yikes, man, just yikes.

Now I fall back on argument from theory: theory can't be conclusively proven, but rather must ever withstand new onslaughts as they arise, as with Newtonian Physics. — ucarr

I think you'll find that most atheists (at least those of a philosophical persuasion) are perfectly fine with that, and aren't claiming anything stronger than that atheism is warranted/probable in light of the currently available evidence (few atheists will claim that theism has been conclusively disproven to a logical certainty, or any such thing)... and are willing to reconsider that evaluation if/when new relevant evidence comes to light.

Yeah... you may have noticed that I have a hard time walking away from conversations, even when they aren't productive. Time to sign off now though, I have episodes of Breaking Bad to watch. :grin:

If hinge propositions are different from "propositions in general", then hinge propositions need not bear a truth-value. — Luke

Well, no, they need to differ in some way. But if they are propositions, then having a truth-value is not where they can differ, because having a truth-value is what propositions do. If hinge propositions don't have a truth-value, then they are not propositions. Hinge propositions not being propositions is self-contradictory.

Hinge propositions are set apart from other propositions not in virtue of lacking a truth-value (else they wouldn't be propositions at all), but in their inability to be justified, seeing as they are part of the background against which we evaluate and justify propositions in general, and so cannot themselves be so evaluated and justified on pain of circularity.

Oh brother, they really did say that :gasp:

I'm genuinely embarrassed for our poor friend Apollodorus. Yikes.

If one says numbers are discovered, then such person lands somewhere in the vicinity of the objective idealism camp. — ucarr

No, not necessarily; this is either an extremely outdated categorization, or a gross oversimplification. Quine was a realist wrt abstract objects, but he was hardly an "objective idealist" in any meaningful sense: just because one grants some substantive ontological status to abstract objects doesn't really tell us about the nature of that ontological status, and there is, as in any other field or debate, a broad range of opinions among both camps, realists/platonists and anti-realists/nominalists.

The two above choices pose a problem for the atheist because any type of idealism, being, cognitively speaking, the express lane to theism — ucarr

As I remarked already, theism and idealism have certainly been friendly towards one another, historically speaking, but idealism doesn't entail theism. One could be an atheist and an idealist, without any obvious contradiction, despite this historical affinity.

Talking specifically, this means there can be no wholesale, set-theoretical refutation of all possible theisms. — ucarr

This appears to be a strawman, as far as I can tell. Typically, atheism is the rejection of extant forms of theism... not "all possible" forms of theism.

Therefore, atheism, like theism, is an article of faith. — ucarr

This doesn't really follow, even granting all of your premises leading to this point (mostly for the sake of argument, since as above, there are several serious problems with those premises); there is middle ground between what we can deductively/logically refute as impossible and what must be accepted as an article of faith (for instance, any empirical matter of fact falls into this middle ground).

And "faith" isn't merely something that is believed in the absence of sufficient evidence, faith must also be something we hope/wish to be true- you couldn't say "I have faith I am going to die today" without doing violence to language, and I don't think most atheists want there to be no god (or an immortal soul, or an afterlife), they simply believe that is the position most consistent with the available evidence.

Sufficiency of being requires transcendence of being & transcendence of self across a spectrum that incorporates the empirical universe & the transcendent Logos of deity. — ucarr

Um, why? This came out of nowhere, its not clear what this is even supposed to follow from.

I have to say, I stopped reading at this point, we've already strung together quite the series of non-sequiturs, and we're not even halfway through the post. At the very least, you've got a few major blanks to fill in here, as you've got a few conclusions that don't appear to follow from any of your stated arguments.

This part is quite exiting: "anti-Christian activists like yourself cite other anti-Christian activists like Ehrman as their "eminent authority". You aren't fooling anyone." — Paine

Oh dear, did he really call Ehrman an "anti-Christian activist"? :lol:

I didn't realize quite the level of religious crank we were dealing with here. Suddenly things make a lot more sense.

Well, you are using scripture as "evidence" for your arguments, aren't you? :grin: — Apollodorus

Asked and answered-

Accepting that the scriptures say something obviously isn't the same thing as accepting the thing it says. — Seppo

If you can't even read the posts you're responding to, why should I waste the time extending you a courtesy you're unwilling to extend to me? Either get serious, or stop wasting my time.

1. IMO it is entirely conceivable for a peasant to become king. Joseph was a slave and became second-in-command after the Pharaoh, which after all is much higher than a Hebrew king. — Apollodorus

We're not talking about a peasant becoming king, but a peasant being the king. The anointed king. Despite not having been anointed, and not being the king. You still don't see the problem?

Clearly, not everyone thought he was a peasant. So, on what scientific basis are you accepting religious narratives claiming he was a "peasant" and rejecting religious narratives claiming he was of royal descent? — Apollodorus

Yes, everyone thought he was a peasant. A carpenter or artisan, specifically. And we accept this particular scriptural detail as probably historical because it is attested to by literally all of our sources, and because its not really the sort of thing someone would make up, if they were inventing details. If you were going to make up a story about a guy secretly being the rightful King of Israel, you wouldn't invent the detail that he was a peasant. When people lie, they tend to lie in a way that serves their interests, not in ways that harms them.

Obviously there's always the possibility that despite all that, our sources are wrong. But that's an unavoidable problem in history, since unlike the observational sciences we cannot recreate or re-test the hypothesis. So the best we can do is determine the degrees of probability or confidence in light of the relevant evidence. And we have no reason to doubt that Jesus was, as he was claimed to be, a peasant artisan from a peasant village.

The concept as a Type of deity (e.g. theism) can be shown to be empty, establishing every Token of that deity Type (e.g. Allah, YHWH, Zeus) as imaginary — 180 Proof

:up: Exactly. If we have good reasons for disbelieving in the existence of an entity with properties distinctive of theism as such/shared by many specific forms of theism, then we have good reasons for disbelieving in theism as a whole. Moreover, if we have good reasons for accepting positions which logically exclude the truth of theism- naturalism, or physicalism, for instance- then by the same token we have good reasons for rejecting the truth of theism.

Also, this is to ignore the fact that many atheistic arguments are arguments for different local atheisms- atheism wrt some particular form of theism (Christianity, for instance)- most especially against the form of theism that happens to be predominant in a particular region or culture (so, atheists in America spend a good deal of time thinking about Christianity, or Abrahamic monotheism, for instance).

The name of the group? I don't know that they had a name, or that it was anything more than a few jam sessions- his particular area of interest was the philosophy/aesthetics of improv (so, mainly jazz), and he evidently played with a lot of local musicians in that capacity, but I don't know how serious or regular any of these ensembles/jam sessions actually were.

All I remember is that he mentioned playing with some of the of the Godspeed members at the local bar that one of the Godspeed members was an owner/co-owner of (Casa Del Popolo, iirc). Very cool bar with lots of good live music, the only problem was it was a long walk/bus ride from the downtown campus area where I lived at the time.

Nice catch. It was such a naked ad hominem that I didn't even bother chasing down the quote.

And in any case, Daniel Wallace and Bart Ehrman are in agreement about many (if not most) things, certainly the basic sort of stuff that has come up in this thread, their disagreements tend to pertain to matters of degree, not of kind, and often to very specific details that aren't of much interest to non-experts. The idea that Ehrman is some renegade atheist who is out of step with the general consensus in the field is entirely fictional.

Clearly, you didn't think that question through, because "uncritically accept religious narratives" is exactly what you are doing - when it suits you: — Apollodorus

No, I never said that being hung from a tree is cursed... only that the Jewish scriptures say so. Accepting that the scriptures say something obviously isn't the same thing as accepting the thing it says.

Once again, are you even thinking this stuff through before pounding out a reply? This is the sort of thing that should go without saying, and which makes me question your seriousness.

And you seem to be oblivious to the fact that most original Christians were Jews and that they succeeded in converting other Jews, including Paul himself! — Apollodorus

Are you drunk? Quoting myself from earlier in the thread, saying the exact thing you're now saying I'm "oblivious" to (and I don't think this was the only time I said it, either)-

Jesus's closest disciples were Jews. The earliest Christians were those disciples, and their friends and family that they managed to convert... also mostly Jewish, probably. — Seppo

So, are you responding to my posts without reading what I said? Or are you deliberately misrepresenting me as saying the exact opposite of what I actually said? I'm not sure which is worse. :grimace:

1. If he was a "peasant", so were most other Jews. So, why would peasants look down on other peasants??? — Apollodorus

I didn't say other peasants "looked down on him", I said that the notion of a dead peasant (not to mention a crucified criminal) being the literal anointed King of Israel struck most Jews as absurd. Being a peasant and being the king are sort of mutually exclusive- or are you going to dispute that too?

2. In the NT Jesus is addressed or referred to by the title of "teacher" many times, so clearly not everyone considered him a "peasant"! — Apollodorus

Being a teacher and being a peasant are not contradictory. He was a peasant. All of our surviving documents say so; even the Gospels tell us he was a peasant. What's next, are you going to dispute that his name was "Jesus" or that he was from Nazareth? Again, are you even being serious here?

I don't think "some people praised this person, therefore everything this person says is right" is any better. — Apollodorus

Good thing, then, that I never said such a thing. Is this another instance of you not reading the posts you're attempting to respond to, or deliberate misrepresentation?

It looks like you not only uncritically accept religious narratives (when it suits your agenda), but also uncritically accept the dogmatic narratives of dodgy scholars .... — Apollodorus

Yikes. That's a swing and a miss there friend. But hey, at least you tried.. sort of. I think the level of effort and seriousness you're putting in here would probably be better suited to Twitter or Reddit or something, but hey whatever floats your boat I guess, right?

The misconceptions around propositions are odd, and appear to be becoming more common — Banno

yeah, and silly me for thinking that posting the SEP article on propositions would help clarify things... :yikes:

not what I expected, but live and learn I guess...

What's wrong with the argument? — Luke

Its sort of a trainwreck of non-sequiturs, and in this post you've simply reiterated things that I already addressed in my last post, as if you didn't read what I said. So, I think the conversation is a lost cause. Maybe Banno has more patience/spare time.

Heh, this explains a lot. Should probably have saved myself the trouble. Oh well, maybe someone else will take something from this conversation even if Apollodorus is unable to.

Well, it's a well-known fact that Ehrman woz there. And with eye-witnesses like him, who needs scholars, right? — Apollodorus

Who needs critical scholarship when we can just uncritically accept religious narratives? Because critical scholars weren't there, we should just trust uncritical religious narratives that also came from people who weren't there? :lol:

Clearly, you didn't think this response through before posting it.

And in any case you're still missing the point. Suppose Jesus did receive a proper burial (he very probably didn't, but suppose he did, for the sake of argument). He was still crucified as criminal by the Romans, and still died on a wooden cross (a curse, for Jews). Calling a dead person, let alone a crucified criminal, the anointed king of Israel would have been an evident absurdity to most Jews. And dying on a wooden cross was still considered a curse by the Jewish scriptures.

All things confirmed by Paul, when he tells us how they had difficulty converting Jews because the notion of a crucified messiah was a contradiction in terms from a Jewish perspective.

So, Jews were not common in Roman Palestine? — Apollodorus

Um... What?

Sorry, but I don't think Ehrman is "relevant scholarship" at all. The truth of the matter is that his theories have been widely criticized by Christians and scholars in general: — Apollodorus

Of course he is, he's a New Testament scholar. And I'm not only referring to Ehrman, or to arguments Ehrman has made that are controversial. All the things we've been talking about here are uncontroversial among most Biblical scholars and historians- crucifiction was a disgraceful way to die, the Jewish scriptures claim that dying on a tree is a curse, Jesus was a peasant, Christians had trouble converting Jews in any large numbers, and so on.

And btw, "some people criticized this person, therefore everything this person says is wrong" isn't a particularly good argument. You're sort of bringing a plastic butterknife to a gunfight here, so unless you have something serious to argue I think we can conclude this conversation.

Yeah, reading Luke's latest post, I'm afraid this is a bit of a lost cause (and it goes without saying that talking to MU about Wittgenstein is an exercise in futility).

He wasn't "left to rot and thrown into an unmarked mass grave" at all. — Apollodorus

He very probably was, as scholars like Ehrman have persuasively argued. The Joseph of Arimathea story is very probably a later- and non-historical- addition to the narrative. Victims of crucifiction were thrown in mass graves, and there's no reason why Jesus would have been different.

But even if that weren't the case, it was still a disgraceful way to die, and particularly for a Jew, in light of the Biblical curse against being hung from a tree, and the notion of a crucified criminal being the anointed king of Israel would still have been an absurdity for most Jews.

If Jesus had disciples among the Sanhedrin who did not consider him as "cursed", there is no logical reason why he couldn't have had disciples among the common people. — Apollodorus

Who said he didn't have disciples among the common people? As I've said already, his disciples were both Jewish and common people/peasants. The point is that Christianity's great explosion was due to their success converting pagans, because they had a tough time converting Jews in any great numbers.

Plus, there is no evidence that he was a "peasant". — Apollodorus

You're joking, right? He was, according to all our records including/especially the Gospels, a peasant born of a peasant family living in a small peasant village- a carpenter/artisan, which, in the social order at the time, was about as low as one could get.

So, I don't think it is quite the way you are describing it — Apollodorus

Yes, it was very much the way I'm describing, and nothing that I've said here is particularly controversial as far as the relevant scholarship goes.