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Alincolnism

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  • Alincolnism

    This thread is inspired by tabibito's thread Biblical Criticism - Someone noticed (which deals with what happened when someone applied Higher Criticism to Winnie the Pooh), and to a lesser extent CivilDiscourse's post

    Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
    Yup. Thats why eye-witness accounts discredit the fact michael brown was shot. They can't even agree if his hands were up and he was saying "don't shoot", therefore the event obviously is in doubt.

    Given the attitude of some posters here regarding the extant contemporaneous (or near contemporaneous) documents regarding early Christianity, I expect their full throated support in exposing a hoax perpetrated on not just America but the world at large.

    And that hoax is the utter falsehood that the person named Abraham Lincoln ever lived.

    The following images successfully lay down some of the evidence against this fraud in a succinct manner:



    LINCOLN-4.jpg
    And it isn't just those two. There is also a story that claims he was born in 1805 in western North Carolina,
    the son of a gentleman farmer Abram Enloe and the servant girl Nancy Hanks who lived for a time
    in the Enloe household. These accounts send Miss Hanks and her young son to Kentucky by one means
    or another, where she is on record marrying Thomas Lincoln on June 12, 1806




    LINCOLN-7.jpg
    Lincoln is just a creation cobbled together from stories about other personages including mythical deities and "demi-gods." Before The Crash™ I wrote something showing how the story about Lincoln wrestling (supposedly he was 300-1) a guy and holding him aloft over his head was borrowed directly from the story of Hercules defeating Antaeus in a wrestling match by holding him above his head so he couldn't touch the ground (from which he got his strength). In fact the account of Lincoln's most famous bout, against the ruffian Jack Armstrong, is full of contradictions. Most say Lincoln slammed him to the ground to win while others say he shook him by his neck. Such contradictions concerning such a basic fact as how Lincoln won indicate this is nothing but fiction.




    LINCOLN-2.jpg
    Each copy of the Gettysburg Address contains substantial differences from the others which "proves" that this famous speech is nothing but fiction.
    This site shows all the differences between them as well as the AP wire copy of it. None are the same.




    The above are some of the major points, those below are a few lesser ones

    LINCOLN-1.jpgLINCOLN-5.jpg

    LINCOLN-3.jpg


    LINCOLN-LAST.jpg



    Last edited by rogue06; 07-16-2021, 07:45 AM.

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

  • #2
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    <snipped the OP for irrelevance to the OP, and not because it was simply too long and would clutter up my reply>
    I'll state for the record. I'm an Atheist. The main issue I took with HA that my post was referring to was the general bad logic. I.E. The eyewitness accounts don't agree on the details, therefore eyewitness accounts are unreliable as evidence that the event happened at all.

    I understand that the ancient world was not at tightly recorded as the modern world. So, finding evidence of an historical person's existence is difficult and can be down right near impossible if the person was of little impact during their actual lifetime.

    My overall opinion on the historical existence of Jesus is as follows:

    I don't know if he actually existed, especially as written. The tales of the NT would lead me to believe that during his life, his actual impact on the world (or even national) stage was limited. In the grand scheme of things, he would have been regarded as unimportant by his contemporaries. (Say, in the same way that the modern world sees David Karesh or Jim Jones). As such, I would not expect to find alot of records on him in the ancient world. This view that he was largely unimportant during his life is not an attack, in fact, the theme of his life being largely unimportant is carried over in many of the examples of hypothetical "what if jesus came back" scenarios, where he hypothetically comes back as a beggar, a homeless man, etc. These are people that by all expectations would not have a huge impact on the world, and would largely pass into history un-noticed. He largely appealed to the lower classes, so even there, the writings of him would be limited, as that group would have largely been illiterate.

    Alot of this goes towards why, I think, demands of "extraneous sources" to prove his existence are likely more a means of dismissing arguments than actually trying to engage in discussion.

    Comment


    • #3
      See how myths surrounding Lincoln increase

      {93434FEC-3EE0-4C08-AC25-12EB3B240460}Img100.jpgAbraham_lincoln_vampire_hunter_poster_a_p.jpg
      Zombie fighter. Vampire hunter. Freer of slaves.
      Obviously a fictitious person.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #4
        Lincolnism11.jpg

        I'm always still in trouble again

        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

        Comment


        • #5
          Our former member "Theonomy" as Professor Gleoples the premiere expert on Alincolnism



          Comment


          • #6
            Proof that Lincoln lived is the fact that Jesus quotes him in Matthew 12.
            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
              Proof that Lincoln lived is the fact that Jesus quotes him in Matthew 12.
              But they were children of Abraham!
              When I Survey....

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Faber View Post

                But they were children of Abraham!
                Right Arm, Left Arm, Turn Around, Sit Down!
                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Faber View Post

                  But they were children of Abraham!
                  Humor him. He's trying.


                  So very, very trying.










                  I'm always still in trouble again

                  "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                  "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                  "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                    Our former member "Theonomy" as Professor Gleoples the premiere expert on Alincolnism

                    What do you mean "former"? I'm sure his room is ready and waiting should he ever return to Hotel Tweb.



                    I have no idea who wrote the following, typically when I run across it the poster is credits an anonymous source elsewhere or if there is a link it is dead. This comes from Reddit and was "Posted by u/[deleted]"


                    A Brief Introduction to Alincolnism, and Its Importance in the World



                    Today in America, a purported 99% of the population believes in a character called "Abraham Lincoln", a magical sky-president who supposedly wrestled bears, split logs, walked through the snow to return pennies, slew vampires, invented leather cleaner, freed all of the slaves, and preserved the Union during the Civil War (which, bizarrely, was his fault anyway).

                    This story comes to us from the mid-1800s, invented by superstitious Industrial Age farmers who didn't understand even a fraction of what we know about science. They did not have electric lights - they didn't even know how electricity worked. They didn't have indoor plumbing. Most of them were illiterate factory workers or farmers, without advanced education. Common beliefs at this time involved giant lumberjacks with blue oxen friends, whose enormous feet stomped out the great lakes, cowboys raised by wolves shooting down the moon, buried treasure in the hills guarded by spirits who can be found with seeing stones, and magical oils that can cure every ailment. These same people also envisioned a powerful force that they felt guided their country through the Civil War, and this force they named Abraham Lincoln.

                    The question that should immediately come to our mind: Why do so many intelligent people still believe in this absurdity?

                    The answer to this question is very simple. As the belief itself has no evidence in its support, and every evidence in its opposition, we can only explain this culturally. People believe in lincoln because they are told as children to believe in lincoln by their parents, teachers, or other trusted adults. This makes lincolnism akin to child abuse of the worst kind.

                    Because it is trusted adults telling us about him, and because we learn of him way before we are old enough to understand things like standards of evidence, logical fallacies, or cognitive biases, very rarely do we seriously question this indoctrination. In fact, even though we only came to accept the claim without evidence, when first presented with the ideas of alincolnism, most people demand that the nonexistence of lincoln is what truly requires evidence! This is the opposite of how logic works, and it is a testament to how deeply we have been brainwashed by this mind virus.

                    We were not born believing in lincoln. We were all born as alincolnists, with no opinions whatsoever on the identity of the 16th President, or even knowing what a 16th President was. Adults and society taught us to believe these things. They taught us these things because it is what they themselves believed, because it is what adults and society taught them to believe. At not point did facts, evidence, or reasoning enter this picture; this belief is passed on culturally by childhood indoctrination, and nothing else.

                    Since we were not born with beliefs in lincoln, then if we were to get rid of the brainwashing we receive as children, we would still have no beliefs about lincoln today. Since logic was not a part of the brainwashing, that means the logical neutral position to take is alincolnism. Alincolnism is not necessarily the assertion that there is no lincoln; it is merely the lack of belief in the positive claims of lincoln, until better evidence presents itself. We must begin here, at principled non-belief, suspending conclusions on lincoln, and merely ask for evidence. What does the evidence say? This is the same skepticism that we all come to take about Santa, about the tooth fairy, about the bogey man; here, we merely apply it to lincoln.

                    Now that we are going about looking for evidence, we need to talk about what kind of evidences we can actually accept. The answer is clear: if it cannot be established through the scientific method, then it has no bearing on truths about the natural world. As the brilliant alincolnist philosopher Havid Dume once said:

                    If we take in our hand any volume; of pro-Lincolnist history, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.


                    We must then look to abstract reasoning or mathematical truths, or else to empirical claims that can be verified through science, to establish what is real or not. If it cannot be confirmed by observation, then it isn't even worth talking about. Can lincoln be confirmed through observation? No.

                    No one has ever seen lincoln, or even claims to, apart from a few superstitious farmers from the Industrial Age. We've all seen the official iconography of lincoln (think of the penny), but never actually lincoln himself. Way more to it though, no scientific experiment can ever demonstrate his existence or presidency. Science requires repeatable, testable predictions; historical claims, by their very nature, cannot be repeated. You can't get a test tube full of emancipation. There currently exist zero academic, scientific journals that have proven lincoln, that use lincoln in their models of the world, or that even make any reference to lincoln at all, except perhaps as a passing cultural note. Science knows of no 16th president, especially not lincoln, and where science is silent, we stop speaking.

                    We might make a note here about historical evidence. Namely, that it isn't evidence at all, because it can't be validated with science. What we have in the historical "evidence" are records written by people who believed a powerful force had led them through the Civil War, and they called this force "lincoln". Their writings reflect that, but that only tells us what they believed. It doesn't tell us what was true. To find out what was true, we need science, and science does not tell us anything about lincoln.

                    This right here, really, should settle the debate. Until science turns up anything - even a single shred - of evidence of the mythical 16th president, we should remain with non-belief in the existence of abe lincoln. However, there are some rebuttals frequently trotted out by lincoln apologists that we feel we must address.
                    • "We've seen pictures of him!" How do they know those were photos of lincoln? They were photos of someone, sure. We've all seen photos of "Santa", and we recognize that what we saw was someone dressed up as Santa, posing for a picture. Many of these supposed lincoln photos we know to be forgeries, such as the John C. Calhoun photo. The others, we only know there is a person in them; that person may have been Jefferson Davis (the two look very similar), or it may have been an official model. If you look at the early iconography, the notion of what lincoln "looked like" did not settle down to a final image until very late in to his presidency. At first, it was a fluid idea, of just a tall, masculine man - the classic mythic war leader, really. Today, it is more settled, with chin-strap beard, cheekbones, and the top hat being perennial necessities.
                    • "We have his body!" How do they know his tomb isn't empty? Have they ever opened it? Even if there's a body in it, how do they know the body is lincoln's, specifically? The early lincolnists may have stuck any old body in that tomb. You would have to prove that it belonged to the 16th president, and how on earth could you do a scientific experiment to determine if something is the 16th president?
                    • "We have his DNA!" They have scraps and relics, claimed to have belonged to lincoln. We see this sort of relic-obsession in other religions; Jesus' burial shroud, Muhammad's rain spout, Aaron's staff. We have no proof that anyone by the name of lincoln ever touched those objects, nor that any of the genetic material belonged to lincoln. You would again have to prove that the DNA on those items belongs to no one other than the 16th president. No doubt many of them contain the same genetic material - but we don't need a lincoln to explain this (this is a lincoln-of-the-gaps argument). Instead, we can just say that the same person, maybe a general or a staff aide, touched those same objects, without the need for a lincoln to explain it. Science always wins out, in the end.
                    • "If lincoln wasn't the 16th President, then who was President during this time?" We simply don't know. No one knows. Science is working on it, and may one day provide us with an answer. Until then, we postpone conclusions. Just because we don't know, doesn't mean we can slap a "lincoln-did-it" on the event. The truth is simply that we don't know who was President during this trying time, and we must learn to live with that disappointment. We cannot turn to lincoln-of-the-gaps arguments.

                    Now, perhaps you have reached this point, and are convinced by the scientific argument, but still wondering, "So what? Maybe there is no lincoln, but why does it really matter if people get comfort from the idea? Why oppose it?"

                    The answer is two-fold.

                    Firstly, we must advocate alincolnism out of respect for truth, out of respect for science, and out of respect for our fellow human beings. Humanity has achieved too much in the past 100 years to be dragged back in to the past by ancient myths and legends. We need to move onward and focus on science, in particular on space exploration and medical science -- not be focused on some magical wrestleman who may or may not have lived 150 years ago. To assert that lincoln existed, when science and reason offer us no such hope, halts progress, and does insult to the technological world around us that science and reason have helped us build.

                    Secondly, and more troubling, it is important to reject lincoln because of the evil associated with this belief.

                    Exactly 100% of violent criminals in this country are lincolnists. 100% of them. That isn't an accident. Lincoln himself loved war, allegedly starting a good and noble war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans - more than in any other war, ever - all because some people refused to call him "President." And for this he is routinely praised.

                    To this day, when the leaders of our country plan to go to war and kill other human beings, they turn to the example of lincoln to justify their actions. Sarah Palin was caught quoting him before the Iraqi War, about the war being the will of God. Barack Obama is a very devout lincolnist, who cites lincoln as one of the biggest influences of his politics, and he regularly authorizes drone strikes and air force raids that kill thousands of civilians. These are just two recent examples, though history bears witness to dozens more.

                    Lincolnism is also intolerant. There is no way an alincolnist could be elected to public office in this country, because lincolnists are prejudiced and hate having their dogmas questioned. They inherit this from lincoln, who taught it was worth starting a war over a denial of his presidency - that's how serious an issue alincolnism is to them. This belief absolutely cannot handle criticism, or else war is the only option.

                    For all of this, I would like to invite you to join me in the alincolnist revolution we are starting here. It may not be easy going. Your parents and society will call you crazy - you are rejecting their dogmas, after all. But it will certainly be a rewarding experience, offering intellectual stimulation, and culminating in the liberation of humanity from this pernicious mind virus that has been with us for far too long.


                    And who, I ask, could possibly argue with that?


                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post

                      I'll state for the record. I'm an Atheist. The main issue I took with HA that my post was referring to was the general bad logic. I.E. The eyewitness accounts don't agree on the details, therefore eyewitness accounts are unreliable as evidence that the event happened at all.

                      I understand that the ancient world was not at tightly recorded as the modern world. So, finding evidence of an historical person's existence is difficult and can be down right near impossible if the person was of little impact during their actual lifetime.

                      My overall opinion on the historical existence of Jesus is as follows:

                      I don't know if he actually existed, especially as written. The tales of the NT would lead me to believe that during his life, his actual impact on the world (or even national) stage was limited. In the grand scheme of things, he would have been regarded as unimportant by his contemporaries. (Say, in the same way that the modern world sees David Karesh or Jim Jones). As such, I would not expect to find alot of records on him in the ancient world. This view that he was largely unimportant during his life is not an attack, in fact, the theme of his life being largely unimportant is carried over in many of the examples of hypothetical "what if jesus came back" scenarios, where he hypothetically comes back as a beggar, a homeless man, etc. These are people that by all expectations would not have a huge impact on the world, and would largely pass into history un-noticed. He largely appealed to the lower classes, so even there, the writings of him would be limited, as that group would have largely been illiterate.

                      Alot of this goes towards why, I think, demands of "extraneous sources" to prove his existence are likely more a means of dismissing arguments than actually trying to engage in discussion.
                      The entire demand for more "extraneous corroborative evidence" for the activities not of just Jesus but for Peter and Paul is puzzling -- especially if those demanding them cannot or will not say just what sort of additional "extraneous corroborative evidence" should there be that we don't already have.

                      And then when those who make these types of demands are made, they often come with some mighty odd stipulations. For instance, I've repeatedly run across demands for someone recording any of the miracles attributed to Jesus and who accepts them as real -- but isn't a Christian.



                      That is a blatant Catch-22 since it is inconceivable that someone who thought they happened wouldn't become a Christian. I mean who would say that they thought that Jesus was in fact resurrected, did a few miracles and then ascended into heaven, and then finish with that they're still a pagan or an atheist?

                      Moreover, what we do have is far more than what we do for virtually everyone from that era. The Bible itself is often dismissed as being but a single source but in fact it contains works from a number of different authors meaning, for example, the four gospels count as four separate sources. And of course, it isn't just the Bible.

                      And all that in spite of the fact that any writings from the ancient world are extremely rare, something I noted previously

                      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                      That at least is an honest answer instead of trying to bounce around and covering all bases.

                      The fact that Jesus did exist (whether or not you accept that He's divine is a separate issue) and that existence is well attested to.

                      Look at the New Testament for instance. It is a collection of separate documented sources composed by a number of different authors. The fact that they weren't written during his life time is hardly a cause for doubt in that it is extraordinarily rare to have contemporary accounts for anyone from ancient times.

                      In fact, most works from that time have been lost, including works that were very famous and repeatedly copied.

                      For instance we only have 6 out of at least 90 of Aeschylus' (regarded as the Father of Tragedies) plays. Similarly only 7 of Sophocles' 123 plays still exist. They are and were so well-regarded that both of their works are still being performed today. Then you have folks like Aristarchus of Tegea, a contemporary of Sophocles and Euripides, who composed 70 plays, of which only the titles of three of them (Achilles, Asclepius, and Tantalus), along with only a single line of the text, have survived. And of the over 700 works by the Greek Stoic philosopher Chrysippus of Soli, none have survived except for few fragments embedded in the works of later authors.

                      It is thought that today we only have roughly a third of Aristotle's works. Probably most famously his Poetics (dealing with comedy) which is the missing work at the center of Umberto Eco' excellent novel, The Name of the Rose. Considering how highly regarded Aristotle was by medieval and Renaissance Christians (especially in the West) the fact that so much has been lost can hardly be blamed on Christians seeking to destroy pagan works.

                      Even many of the works written by Emperors and the like have been lost and you can bet that these were repeatedly copied and shipped all over the Roman Empire. For instance, Augustus' Rescript to Brutus Respecting Cato, Exhortations to Philosophy, History of His Own Life, Epigrams, and Sicily (a work in verse) have all been lost. Works by his immediate predecessor, Julius Caesar, such as De astris liber, Dicta collectanea, Laudes Herculis, Libri auspiciorum (a.k.a., Auguralia), and Oedipus (among others) are lost while several others are known only by scattered fragments.

                      For the few that are still extant, nearly all of the earliest copies come from several centuries later. For instance, the earliest copy of Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ("The Gallic Wars") date from something like nearly 800 years after the original was written.

                      And then there is the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which annihilated several Roman cities including Pompeii and Herculaneum, and was witnessed by the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses in and around Naples but is only mentioned by one near contemporary account -- that of Pliny the Younger[1]. Keep in mind that Naples had a reputation during Greco-Roman times as being an area with a highly literate population so we should have a slew of eyewitness reports in our hands not just the one. And, IIRC, Pliny's account, written some 30 years later, was spurred on in reaction to Tacitus' Histories, and if not for that we would have no account of it whatsoever. In fact, it's not even until the time of Cassius Dio, over a century later, that we learn that a second major city was destroyed in the eruption.



                      1. And his uncle, Pliny the Elder, many of his works have been lost including Dubii sermonis (8 books/volumes), History of his Times (31 books, which he deliberately reserved for publication after his death), Studiosus, De jaculatione equestri, and most famously Bella Germaniae (History of the German Wars -- consisting of 20 books). The latter was his first published work and all that remains are a handful of quotations in the Roman historian Tacitus' Annals and Germania (Pliny the Younger wrote of Tacitus' reliance upon his uncle's book).


                      I'll add that losing literary works to history isn't something that only happened long ago. Works such as Melville's The Isle of the Cross and Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady are both lost.

                      So, as Scott Chandler observed in his A Defense of the Resurrection of Christ Against the Liberal Revisionism of John Dominic Crossan

                      "If we apply to the Bible the credence we would to other literary documents, Scripture is a slam dunk. Conversely, if you discount Scripture, then all of ancient history is a sham. Professor and philosopher John Warwick Montgomery was right: “to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to let all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no other documents of the ancient periods are as well attested as the New Testament."


                      And this from Habermas and Licona's The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus illustrates that for the most part there is far more "extraneous corroborative evidence" for Jesus that what we typically find for folks who were far more famous in their lifetime:

                      "Let's look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus' ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus' forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That's more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each"


                      And here is another comparison to chew on


                      So what exactly do those who keep demanding more "extraneous corroborative evidence" want? What do they think we should have that we don't?

                      I'm always still in trouble again

                      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        What do you mean "former"? I'm sure his room is ready and waiting should he ever return to Hotel Tweb.



                        I have no idea who wrote the following, typically when I run across it the poster is credits an anonymous source elsewhere or if there is a link it is dead. This comes from Reddit and was "Posted by u/[deleted]"


                        A Brief Introduction to Alincolnism, and Its Importance in the World



                        Today in America, a purported 99% of the population believes in a character called "Abraham Lincoln", a magical sky-president who supposedly wrestled bears, split logs, walked through the snow to return pennies, slew vampires, invented leather cleaner, freed all of the slaves, and preserved the Union during the Civil War (which, bizarrely, was his fault anyway).

                        This story comes to us from the mid-1800s, invented by superstitious Industrial Age farmers who didn't understand even a fraction of what we know about science. They did not have electric lights - they didn't even know how electricity worked. They didn't have indoor plumbing. Most of them were illiterate factory workers or farmers, without advanced education. Common beliefs at this time involved giant lumberjacks with blue oxen friends, whose enormous feet stomped out the great lakes, cowboys raised by wolves shooting down the moon, buried treasure in the hills guarded by spirits who can be found with seeing stones, and magical oils that can cure every ailment. These same people also envisioned a powerful force that they felt guided their country through the Civil War, and this force they named Abraham Lincoln.

                        The question that should immediately come to our mind: Why do so many intelligent people still believe in this absurdity?

                        The answer to this question is very simple. As the belief itself has no evidence in its support, and every evidence in its opposition, we can only explain this culturally. People believe in lincoln because they are told as children to believe in lincoln by their parents, teachers, or other trusted adults. This makes lincolnism akin to child abuse of the worst kind.

                        Because it is trusted adults telling us about him, and because we learn of him way before we are old enough to understand things like standards of evidence, logical fallacies, or cognitive biases, very rarely do we seriously question this indoctrination. In fact, even though we only came to accept the claim without evidence, when first presented with the ideas of alincolnism, most people demand that the nonexistence of lincoln is what truly requires evidence! This is the opposite of how logic works, and it is a testament to how deeply we have been brainwashed by this mind virus.

                        We were not born believing in lincoln. We were all born as alincolnists, with no opinions whatsoever on the identity of the 16th President, or even knowing what a 16th President was. Adults and society taught us to believe these things. They taught us these things because it is what they themselves believed, because it is what adults and society taught them to believe. At not point did facts, evidence, or reasoning enter this picture; this belief is passed on culturally by childhood indoctrination, and nothing else.

                        Since we were not born with beliefs in lincoln, then if we were to get rid of the brainwashing we receive as children, we would still have no beliefs about lincoln today. Since logic was not a part of the brainwashing, that means the logical neutral position to take is alincolnism. Alincolnism is not necessarily the assertion that there is no lincoln; it is merely the lack of belief in the positive claims of lincoln, until better evidence presents itself. We must begin here, at principled non-belief, suspending conclusions on lincoln, and merely ask for evidence. What does the evidence say? This is the same skepticism that we all come to take about Santa, about the tooth fairy, about the bogey man; here, we merely apply it to lincoln.

                        Now that we are going about looking for evidence, we need to talk about what kind of evidences we can actually accept. The answer is clear: if it cannot be established through the scientific method, then it has no bearing on truths about the natural world. As the brilliant alincolnist philosopher Havid Dume once said:

                        If we take in our hand any volume; of pro-Lincolnist history, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.


                        We must then look to abstract reasoning or mathematical truths, or else to empirical claims that can be verified through science, to establish what is real or not. If it cannot be confirmed by observation, then it isn't even worth talking about. Can lincoln be confirmed through observation? No.

                        No one has ever seen lincoln, or even claims to, apart from a few superstitious farmers from the Industrial Age. We've all seen the official iconography of lincoln (think of the penny), but never actually lincoln himself. Way more to it though, no scientific experiment can ever demonstrate his existence or presidency. Science requires repeatable, testable predictions; historical claims, by their very nature, cannot be repeated. You can't get a test tube full of emancipation. There currently exist zero academic, scientific journals that have proven lincoln, that use lincoln in their models of the world, or that even make any reference to lincoln at all, except perhaps as a passing cultural note. Science knows of no 16th president, especially not lincoln, and where science is silent, we stop speaking.

                        We might make a note here about historical evidence. Namely, that it isn't evidence at all, because it can't be validated with science. What we have in the historical "evidence" are records written by people who believed a powerful force had led them through the Civil War, and they called this force "lincoln". Their writings reflect that, but that only tells us what they believed. It doesn't tell us what was true. To find out what was true, we need science, and science does not tell us anything about lincoln.

                        This right here, really, should settle the debate. Until science turns up anything - even a single shred - of evidence of the mythical 16th president, we should remain with non-belief in the existence of abe lincoln. However, there are some rebuttals frequently trotted out by lincoln apologists that we feel we must address.
                        • "We've seen pictures of him!" How do they know those were photos of lincoln? They were photos of someone, sure. We've all seen photos of "Santa", and we recognize that what we saw was someone dressed up as Santa, posing for a picture. Many of these supposed lincoln photos we know to be forgeries, such as the John C. Calhoun photo. The others, we only know there is a person in them; that person may have been Jefferson Davis (the two look very similar), or it may have been an official model. If you look at the early iconography, the notion of what lincoln "looked like" did not settle down to a final image until very late in to his presidency. At first, it was a fluid idea, of just a tall, masculine man - the classic mythic war leader, really. Today, it is more settled, with chin-strap beard, cheekbones, and the top hat being perennial necessities.
                        • "We have his body!" How do they know his tomb isn't empty? Have they ever opened it? Even if there's a body in it, how do they know the body is lincoln's, specifically? The early lincolnists may have stuck any old body in that tomb. You would have to prove that it belonged to the 16th president, and how on earth could you do a scientific experiment to determine if something is the 16th president?
                        • "We have his DNA!" They have scraps and relics, claimed to have belonged to lincoln. We see this sort of relic-obsession in other religions; Jesus' burial shroud, Muhammad's rain spout, Aaron's staff. We have no proof that anyone by the name of lincoln ever touched those objects, nor that any of the genetic material belonged to lincoln. You would again have to prove that the DNA on those items belongs to no one other than the 16th president. No doubt many of them contain the same genetic material - but we don't need a lincoln to explain this (this is a lincoln-of-the-gaps argument). Instead, we can just say that the same person, maybe a general or a staff aide, touched those same objects, without the need for a lincoln to explain it. Science always wins out, in the end.
                        • "If lincoln wasn't the 16th President, then who was President during this time?" We simply don't know. No one knows. Science is working on it, and may one day provide us with an answer. Until then, we postpone conclusions. Just because we don't know, doesn't mean we can slap a "lincoln-did-it" on the event. The truth is simply that we don't know who was President during this trying time, and we must learn to live with that disappointment. We cannot turn to lincoln-of-the-gaps arguments.

                        Now, perhaps you have reached this point, and are convinced by the scientific argument, but still wondering, "So what? Maybe there is no lincoln, but why does it really matter if people get comfort from the idea? Why oppose it?"

                        The answer is two-fold.

                        Firstly, we must advocate alincolnism out of respect for truth, out of respect for science, and out of respect for our fellow human beings. Humanity has achieved too much in the past 100 years to be dragged back in to the past by ancient myths and legends. We need to move onward and focus on science, in particular on space exploration and medical science -- not be focused on some magical wrestleman who may or may not have lived 150 years ago. To assert that lincoln existed, when science and reason offer us no such hope, halts progress, and does insult to the technological world around us that science and reason have helped us build.

                        Secondly, and more troubling, it is important to reject lincoln because of the evil associated with this belief.

                        Exactly 100% of violent criminals in this country are lincolnists. 100% of them. That isn't an accident. Lincoln himself loved war, allegedly starting a good and noble war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans - more than in any other war, ever - all because some people refused to call him "President." And for this he is routinely praised.

                        To this day, when the leaders of our country plan to go to war and kill other human beings, they turn to the example of lincoln to justify their actions. Sarah Palin was caught quoting him before the Iraqi War, about the war being the will of God. Barack Obama is a very devout lincolnist, who cites lincoln as one of the biggest influences of his politics, and he regularly authorizes drone strikes and air force raids that kill thousands of civilians. These are just two recent examples, though history bears witness to dozens more.

                        Lincolnism is also intolerant. There is no way an alincolnist could be elected to public office in this country, because lincolnists are prejudiced and hate having their dogmas questioned. They inherit this from lincoln, who taught it was worth starting a war over a denial of his presidency - that's how serious an issue alincolnism is to them. This belief absolutely cannot handle criticism, or else war is the only option.

                        For all of this, I would like to invite you to join me in the alincolnist revolution we are starting here. It may not be easy going. Your parents and society will call you crazy - you are rejecting their dogmas, after all. But it will certainly be a rewarding experience, offering intellectual stimulation, and culminating in the liberation of humanity from this pernicious mind virus that has been with us for far too long.


                        And who, I ask, could possibly argue with that?
                        I will.

                        Obviously this Alincolnism nonsense (notice your article comes from someone who does not even exist named [deleted]) comes from New Zealand, which much like the mythical lands of Atlantis or Australia, does not actually exist either. Therefore Alincolnism doesn't exist. Ipso Facto. Mic Drop.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

                          The entire demand for more "extraneous corroborative evidence" for the activities not of just Jesus but for Peter and Paul is puzzling -- especially if those demanding them cannot or will not say just what sort of additional "extraneous corroborative evidence" should there be that we don't already have.

                          And then when those who make these types of demands are made, they often come with some mighty odd stipulations. For instance, I've repeatedly run across demands for someone recording any of the miracles attributed to Jesus and who accepts them as real -- but isn't a Christian.



                          That is a blatant Catch-22 since it is inconceivable that someone who thought they happened wouldn't become a Christian. I mean who would say that they thought that Jesus was in fact resurrected, did a few miracles and then ascended into heaven, and then finish with that they're still a pagan or an atheist?

                          Moreover, what we do have is far more than what we do for virtually everyone from that era. The Bible itself is often dismissed as being but a single source but in fact it contains works from a number of different authors meaning, for example, the four gospels count as four separate sources. And of course, it isn't just the Bible.

                          And all that in spite of the fact that any writings from the ancient world are extremely rare, something I noted previously



                          I'll add that losing literary works to history isn't something that only happened long ago. Works such as Melville's The Isle of the Cross and Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady are both lost.

                          So, as Scott Chandler observed in his A Defense of the Resurrection of Christ Against the Liberal Revisionism of John Dominic Crossan

                          "If we apply to the Bible the credence we would to other literary documents, Scripture is a slam dunk. Conversely, if you discount Scripture, then all of ancient history is a sham. Professor and philosopher John Warwick Montgomery was right: “to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to let all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no other documents of the ancient periods are as well attested as the New Testament."


                          And this from Habermas and Licona's The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus illustrates that for the most part there is far more "extraneous corroborative evidence" for Jesus that what we typically find for folks who were far more famous in their lifetime:

                          "Let's look at an even better example, a contemporary of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus' ministry and execution. Tiberius is mentioned by ten sources within 150 years of his death: Tacitus, Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Seneca, Valerius Maximus, Josephus, and Luke. Compare that to Jesus' forty-two total sources in the same length of time. That's more than four times the number of total sources who mention the Roman emperor during roughly the same period. If we only considered the number of secular non-Christian sources who mention Jesus and Tiberius within 150 years of their lives, we arrive at a tie of nine each"


                          And here is another comparison to chew on


                          So what exactly do those who keep demanding more "extraneous corroborative evidence" want? What do they think we should have that we don't?
                          I often find it's a mixture of motives, and you have to use your judgement of the person asking.

                          I would keep in mind that the bible's books were assembled ~400 AD. The assembly process would not have been a neutral historical collection, but one to "clean up" the various differing sources so that they DID agree with each other, (and likely to solidify any church politics they had at the time).

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            I will.

                            Obviously this Alincolnism nonsense (notice your article comes from someone who does not even exist named [deleted]) comes from New Zealand, which much like the mythical lands of Atlantis or Australia, does not actually exist either. Therefore Alincolnism doesn't exist. Ipso Facto. Mic Drop.
                            post #4

                            I'm always still in trouble again

                            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              See how myths surrounding Lincoln increase

                              {93434FEC-3EE0-4C08-AC25-12EB3B240460}Img100.jpgAbraham_lincoln_vampire_hunter_poster_a_p.jpg
                              Zombie fighter. Vampire hunter. Freer of slaves.
                              Obviously a fictitious person.
                              I don't have a problem with the idea that there was a person who fit the description in the bible, for the most part. It's the attribution of miracles that I find (literally) incredible.

                              It would be as easy to believe that Lincoln really was a zombie fighter or vampire hunter.

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