Lundahl (2022r) Does Not Need to Remind Us that the Wizard of Oz is Fiction and His “First Known Audience” Scheme is Worthless in Identifying Fiction
Kevin R. Henke
September 26, 2022
In Lundahl (2022a), Mr. Lundahl commits the fallacy of circular reasoning. To illustrate his fallacy, I use the following example with the Wizard of Oz in Henke (2022b):
“This is a blatant example of circular reasoning where groundless speculation is used to explain groundless stories from the gospels. This is like trying to argue that the Yellow Brick Road of The Wizard of Oz must have existed. Otherwise, how could Dorothy have gotten to the Emerald City?”
Lundahl (2022i) then gives the following flippant response to my example, which indicates that he really didn’t understand how fallacious the example involving The Wizard of Oz is:
“First known audience of The Wizard of Oz took it as fiction.”
In response, I state the following in Henke (2022ab):
“Yes, of course, The Wizard of Oz is a work of fiction! That’s the whole point of the example! Because the story is fiction, it so well illustrates the folly of circular reasoning and Mr. Lundahl completely misses the point with his flippant reply. Because the yellow brick road, Dorothy and the Emerald City don’t exist, the circular reasoning fallacy involving the situations in The Wizard of Oz becomes very obvious. Mr. Lundahl doesn’t need to remind us of that. Mr. Lundahl needs to study Copi and Cohen (1994) or a similar introductory textbook on logic and logical fallacies because he’s oblivious to the Wizard of Oz example and he obviously doesn’t know how faulty and unreliable his circular reasoning is.”
Lundahl (2022r) then gives an additional response:
“The problem is, I already did that. Teach Yourself Formal Logic or Introduction to Formal Logic. It is not a circulus in demonstrando or a circulus in explicando to assume historicity to examine possibility in explanation, and given possibility, use other evidence than this possibility to establish historicty in the demonstration part.
AND by my sentence, I gave a new reason to take Gospels as not fiction, independent of what possibilities are given.
It is not just that The Wizard of Oz is in fact fiction. It is that its earliest known audience (or those within it sufficiently adult and pretty soon most children too) took it as fiction. No one is reported to have taken it is history.”
No, Mr. Lundahl, again, you don’t need to remind us of the obvious that the Wizard of Oz is a work of fiction. That’s assumed in the example I gave in Henke (2022b). To be exact, the specific example makes no sense unless one first realizes that the Wizard of Oz is a work of fiction. However, as I demonstrated with William Tell (Henke 2022ek) and St. Philomena (Henke 2022es), your “first known audience” scheme is worthless at distinguishing between history and fiction. It’s also never a good idea to assume that an account is true until demonstrated otherwise. You need to do the opposite. You assume the account is false, until it’s demonstrated to be reliable. Skepticism is the default position for all claims (see Henke 2022dv). This is approach is critical in effectively using logic, the scientific method and in investigating claims about past events.
As for the Gospels of the New Testament, Carrier (2014) and other sources overwhelmingly demonstrate that they are works of fiction. For example, the disciples are unrealistically stupid in Mark. As I pointed out in Henke (2022am), if anyone saw Jesus miraculously feed thousands of people in Mark 6:30-44, why would they ever shortly afterwards be so stupid as to ask Jesus where to get food at the second “miraculous” feeding in Mark 8:4? Yes, conservatives make up all kinds of far-fetched excuses in an effort to reconcile the two stories, but it’s simply more reasonable to think that at least one of the stories, and probably both of them, are just made up as Carrier (2014, footnote #63, p. 417) and Price (2011, pp. 93-94) further explain. Carrier (2014) presents many other examples of outright fiction in the Gospels, including the Barabbas story in Mark 15:6-15 (pp. 402-408) and how Mark’s Crucifixion account is an outright fabrication based on Psalm 22 and other Old Testament sources (pp. 408-409). Lundahl (2022r) mentions that he has criticized Richard Carrier and John Loftus in the past on other topics, such as the Kalam argument for Loftus and the views of Irenaeus, Hume and others with Carrier. But, these discussions don’t specifically deal with Carrier (2014) and its extensive criticisms of the historicity of the Gospels. I know that Mr. Lundahl prefers to use websites and Youtube videos because they are easy for him to access. That way, he doesn’t have to make any effort to use the library system of Paris to find a copy of a book. But, for once, why doesn’t Mr. Lundahl actually get a copy of Carrier (2014) and we can discuss that book like we did with his recommended reference of Lewis (1960)? He has no justification for assuming that the Gospels or other ancient stories are “history” on the basis of any bogus “first known audience” argument and Carrier (2014), Price (2017), Doherty (2005) and many other 21st century skeptics show why.
References:
Carrier, R. 2014. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press: Sheffield, UK, 696pp.
Copi, I.M. and Cohen, C. 1994. Introduction to Logic, 9th ed., MacMillan Publishing Company: New York, USA, 729 pp.
Doherty, E. 2005. The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Age of Reason Publications: Ottawa, Canada, 380pp.
Price, R.M. 2011. The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems: American Atheist Press: Cranford, NJ, USA, 427pp.
Price, R.M. 2017. Holy Fable II: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith: Mindvendor: Coppell, Texas, USA, 449pp.