Henke 2022ca

Unreferenced Mythology?

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I said the following:

“In his second essay, Lundahl (2022b) complains that when I rank a supernatural event as ‘highly unlikely’, I’m taking my worldview ‘as a test of historic facthood.’ Actually, I’m ranking supernatural events as highly unlikely because I see absolutely no evidence of the supernatural. I think that it’s far more probable that someone just made up the supernatural story and that enough gullible people believed it, so that it was recorded for future generations. Recently, I saw TV “prophets” frequently making demonstrably false prophecies about covid disappearing in March 2020 and false claims of miraculous healings and other miracles. In recent history, Joseph Smith Jr. made numerous well-documented false prophecies. Ancient people also made up numerous far-fetched stories about gods and goddesses that few people now believe and no one should believe. I have seen no evidence that magic existed in the past any more than it does in the present. I don’t see any evidence to believe any of these present and past miraculous stories, including Genesis 3. So, Mr. Lundahl, I challenge you to refute my worldview by giving me the evidence of the Talking Snake that I’ve been asking for. In contrast, we have plenty of artifacts and videos of WWII and even a few WWII veterans are still alive. My dad experienced that war. WWII deserves a high ranking based on the evidence, the Talking Snake does not. Theology and political and personal desires have no role in judging the validity of history.” [my emphasis]

As indicated in my previous essays (Henke 2022bx through Henke 2022bz), several pages of Lundahl (2022L) is an extensive response to the single bolded statement in the above quotation from Henke (2022b). In this essay, I continue my reply to Lundahl (2022L). Here, Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022L) complains about my lack of references for the single bolded sentence in Henke (2022b):

“Now Henke likes to quizz me on my stating my sources, but he gives this sweeping statement without either source or proof. Here is how I would analyse it:

(6 a) Kevin R. Henke ‘Ancient people also made up numerous far-fetched stories about gods and goddesses…’

Correct for Ouranos and Gaia, unless the nine muses were demons, in which case "people" is the wrong word. Incorrect about Hercules, Achilles and Romulus.

(6 b) Kevin R. Henke ‘…that few people now believe…’

Fortunately true for Ouranos and Gaia, undortunately true of Hercules, Achilles and Romulus.

(6 c) Kevin R. Henke ‘…and no one should believe.’

Agreeing about Ouranos and Gaia, I disagree about Hercules, Achilles and Romulus.” [my emphasis]

Again, contrary to Mr. Lundahl’s opening statement, I’m not a mathematician looking for “proof” (see Henke 2022ad).

Considering how poorly Mr. Lundahl references his essays and how often I reference my detailed claims and include an acceptable bibliography (e.g., Henke 2022b), he really has no justification for complaining that I did not provide any specifics with this one bolded and very general sentence. As I stated in my previous essays (Henke 2022bx and Henke 2022by), I was thinking of the Hawaiian Pele myth when I wrote that sentence. Granted, perhaps, I should have discussed the Hawaiian Pele myth in some detail. However, I did not want to create yet another tangent for Mr. Lundahl, our readers and myself to deal with in future essays of this debate. With my bolded sentence, I expected Mr. Lundahl and our readers to have no problem thinking of examples of “… numerous far-fetched stories about gods and goddesses that few people now believe and no one should believe.” I shouldn’t have to provide any examples or references for this one bolded sentence.

Now, since Lundahl (2022L) insists on going into far more detail than I did in my bolded sentence, he has the responsibility to provide evidence and references to back up his detailed claims. He does not and, contrary to the title of Lundahl (2022L), he fails to refute anything that I said in my bolded general statement. Again, people would have no problem thinking of examples to my statement:

“Ancient people also made up numerous far-fetched stories about gods and goddesses that few people now believe and no one should believe.”

So, how are Achilles, Hercules, Samson or Genesis 3 not far-fetched stories? How many people today worship Mars or Thor? Very few. Unless Mr. Lundahl can produce any external evidence, is there any reason to believe that Achilles, Hercules, Romulus, the Talking Snake of Genesis 3, Samson, Mars or Thor actually lived? All of his proclamations and lecturing about “divine myths”, “heroic legends” and the “earliest known audience” in Lundahl (2022a), Lundahl (2022L) and his other essays are totally worthless if there’s no external evidence to confirm that any of these characters actually lived or if these stories ever happened.