More Racist Rambling in Lundahl (2022u). Evidence and Not Cataloging is Needed to Determine if a Story is True
Kevin R. Henke
November 1, 2022
The end of Lundahl (2022u) has additional responses to statements in Henke (2022b) and Henke (2022bg). However, Lundahl (2022u) also contains a number of rambling paragraphs that say absolutely nothing worthwhile and again include racist terms that are not worth quoting and discussing.
Now, in Henke (2022b), I stated the following:
“Now, the title of Lundahl (2022a) is “Several Types of ‘Supernatural’ Featured in Stories Believed to be True.” However, when his essay is carefully studied there’s absolutely no reason to believe any of the stories that he thinks are true. These stories range from just quoting the Bible to absurd suggestions that demons might assist David Copperfield in his stage shows.” [my emphasis]
Lundahl (2022u) then replies to my bolded statement:
“Already answered. My point is not : these varieties occur in stories you should believe to be true, but these variaties occur in stories that some in fact do or did believe to be true.”
No, Mr. Lundahl, you did not appropriately answer my objections. I don’t care that some people “in fact do or did believe” stories that contain supernatural accounts. You can always find some people that will believe almost anything. The really important issue is: Do any of these stories actually have good evidence to indicate that the supernatural accounts in them are true? From the total lack of evidence in Lundahl (2022a), the answer is obviously no. Unless there’s good evidence, there’s no good reason for anyone to believe these stories.
Lundahl (2022u) further states:
“Henke has more than once implied (if not directly claimed) that fiction could undergo a process making it mistaken for history, like that process would refute my "first known audience" claim for historicuty, but he mistakenly thinks of this as synonym to lies having been taken as fact (including historic fact).”
No, I did not imply anything. Instead, I was quite clear with Hypothesis #3 in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b) that people sometimes mistakenly believe that a work of fiction actually happened. Hypothesis #3 states:
“The Talking Snake of Genesis 3 was part of a made-up campfire story, a parable or based on a pagan myth that eventually was taken as fact by the ancient Israelites, like how President Reagan and his fans mistook fictional stories from World War 2 as real. William Tell (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-search-of-william-tell-2198511/ ) and a number of Roman Catholic saints (https://listverse.com/2014/05/17/10-beloved-saints-with-fictitious-biographies/ ) are probably also myths. Of course, in the United States, pro-abortionists regularly use fictional TV shows to convince Americans that abortion is a good thing. Even though they are fiction, many people believe the propaganda. Right now, a lot of Russians are believing the fictional propaganda their government is inventing about Ukraine. People also often pick and choose parts of fictional stories that they want to believe and ignore the rest, such as individuals believing in the existence of “The Force” from the Star Wars movies, while recognizing that the rest of the movies are fiction. A lot of people are gullible and believe fictions are real.”
As discussed in Henke (2022ek), the story of William Tell is another prime example of a work of fiction being widely misinterpreted as history.
Hypothesis #4 in Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b) is also different from Hypothesis #3. Rather than people mistakenly interpreting a work of fiction as history, in Hypothesis #4, people are deliberately deceived by lies. Henke (2022a) and Henke (2022b) describe the situation:
“’Prophets’ or others claimed to have visions from God about events that supposedly happened thousands of years earlier. These visions were delusions or outright lies, but a lot of people came to believe them. Joseph Smith also did this and Kat Kerr continues with this nonsense in the US.”
The St. Philomena Hoax (Henke 2022es) is a prime example of Hypothesis #4. In this case, a nun created a false biography about “St. Philomena.” After these stories were endorsed by authorities in the 19th century Vatican, they rapidly spread and became widely believed in the Roman Catholic Church.
The case of William Tell, the St. Philomena hoax, Russian propaganda denying their aggression against Ukraine, and Trump falsely claiming to have won the 2020 US Presidential election (Henke 2022cc) all demonstrate that Mr. Lundahl’s “first known audience” scheme is not a trustworthy indicator of what is true or not. Large numbers of people can be fooled by lies and misinterpretations.
Lundahl (2022u) also cites an example of a possibly true story that became the basis for the fictional story “Beauty and the Beast.” This is very possible. Certainly, authors will often extensively fictionalize historical accounts to make them more exciting and interesting for books and television.
Certainly, both fictional and true stories may sound plausible and may not contain anything supernatural or otherwise difficult to believe. However, each story must be individually evaluated for accuracy based on its available evidence. Any “cataloguing system” from Mr. Lundahl that would ignore the need for good evidence and would possibly identify the baseless stories in Genesis 3 and Numbers 22 as “history” is not a reliable system for separating fictional stories from history.