Henke 2022cb

Claims for “Evidence” of Demons in Lundahl (2022L) Demonstrates that Mr. Lundahl has a Poor Understanding of What is Good Evidence

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 2022x through Henke 2022ac), several sections of Lundahl (2022L) are extensive responses to the single bolded sentence in the above quotation from Henke (2022b). The following statements from Lundahl (2022L) make very little sense:

“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.”

When it comes to their "divine parents" no Atheist or Christian should believe these, but I can't force Hindus and Shintoists into that mold. They are usually very marginal to the story anyway. Most relevant when Theseus asks "his father Poseidon" to kill his son, whom he considers an incestuously adulterous mind, having tried a horrible crime, and "his father Poseidon" grants it. An Atheist will shake his head and be at a loss, I am reminded of diabolical contracts. Of "all the gods of the gentiles are demons" - also very true of Apollon in the Iliad song one and in much of the Greek Tragedy. When it comes to Oedipus, I'm afraid an Atheist will take it as pure coincidence that a young girl in an alpha state said words which, when believed, triggered their own fulfilment, while I take it, a demon controlled her imagination in that occasion (not because of the alpha state as such, but because she had deliberately invoked Apollo or whatever deity it was they actually consulted back in Oedipus' days). We'll agree to disagree. But if Henke asks me for references to demons existing, Iliad I, Aeneid VI, most of Greek Tragedy are clear extra-biblical references to me.

This is the point of the distinction I made between "divine myths" and "heroic legends" - that heroic legends are handed down as history, divine myths as prophecy, guesswork or reconstruction (the latter being also the case for Evolutionism).

And this is very pertinent to the case about Alexander, more on whom later, since I take it, Maccabees author, Arrian and a few more had more or less equal access to Alexander's life as Homer to Achilles' or Ulysses'.” [my emphasis]

Now, as I explained before in Henke (2022ca), the single bolded sentence from Henke (2022b) really does not need any references. It is making a general statement and readers should immediately be able to think of examples of “… far-fetched stories about gods and goddesses that few people now believe and no one should believe” without me having to cite any examples or references. In contrast, the endless and nonsensical rambling about numerous mythical characters in this section of Lundahl (2022L) definitely requires a lot of good references to make any sense of what he’s actually saying and if it’s an accurate summary. Furthermore, Mr. Lundahl definitely needs better writing skills to demonstrate that he really knows what he is talking about. Anyone can summarize a long list of myths from Wikipedia articles and believe that they contain history. Mr. Lundahl actually needs to clearly explain with good references, a useful bibliography and evidence which of the characters mentioned in Lundahl (2022L) are possibly historical and which are not. He has failed to do so. Instead of accomplishing any of the boasting in the title of Lundahl (2022L) about refuting the arguments in Henke (2022b) without having to use any references (i.e., “The Philosophy of History of Henke: Given without References, Refuted without References”), the incoherent nonsense in Lundahl (2022L) fails to refute anything.

The only statements that I found worth commenting on in this rambling mess in Lundahl (2022L) were the bolded sentences on the Oedipus myth and Mr. Lundahl’s claims about “references” to demons existing. Now, I’m an agnostic and not an atheist by the traditional definitions of the terms. Nevertheless, instead of labelling the little girl’s story in Oedipus as a “pure coincidence” as Lundahl (2022L) thinks atheists would, I would identify it as nothing but a made-up story until if or when someone presents evidence that anything in this story actually happened. Here, Lundahl (2022L) is engaging in superstitious nonsense by taking old Greek myths far too seriously, just like some people mistakenly believe that The DaVinci Code is history. Works of fiction don’t need to be labelled “coincidences” because made-up stories can claim anything. So, where is there any actual evidence of demons in the stories of Oedipus, Iliad I, Aeneid VI, and the Greek tragedies when they probably contain very little, if any, history in them? As I clearly stated in Henke (2022b), the only way to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural, which would also include the existence of demons, is with current and strictly controlled laboratory experiments (i.e., the resurrecting of a dead cat experiment). A demon would have to voluntarily come into a laboratory for a thorough examination. I recognize that if demons exist, they probably won’t do that. That’s too bad for people that want to us to believe in demons. The references to Oedipus, Iliad I, Aeneid VI, and the other ancient works mentioned in Lundahl (2022L), in all probability, are either largely or entirely made-up stories. They are not references that provide any evidence for the existence of demons.

Rather than just accepting the groundless myths in Genesis and worthless creationist propaganda about “Evolutionism”, Mr. Lundahl should be learning about biological evolution and why it is a legitimate science. He can start with Strahler (1999) and then proceed with the more recent biology literature.

Reference:

Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2^nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.