Oh yes! This is more like a correspondence course. There is no live interaction. And no scheduled events.

You can login anytime you want, any day, day or night, as often as you want, and view or download and complete reading assignments. Then (if you want) you can answer the equivalent of test questions I pose in the class online forums (so, you just provide typed and submitted text). I will comment and advise on everyone’s answers. And you can ask questions about or discuss my comments. And so on.

At the same time, you get to ask me any questions you want about the course subject, as many and as often as you want during the course, especially as relates to each unit (there are four units, roughly one for each week), just by posting the question in the course online forums. Then I will answer in a day or two (depending on what day of the week it is), and you can ask follow up questions to my answers, and so on. Students also discuss things together in the online forums sometimes, and are welcome to as much as they like. I read those discussions as well and comment if necessary.

Is the course foreigner-friendly ? I am (hopefully) fluent enough in english to follow the course and get most of if, but I am rather worried about “attendence” time, time at which people usually interract, etc. I am French, live in France, and work full time, so I would like to be sure that it is compatible with my schedule (including time difference) before signing up…

Thanks
Adrien

No. That is covered in my other course, on naturalism as a worldview. Which I will offer again next year. It is also a subject raised in my Counter-Apologetics course, which I will also offer again sometime next year, possibly before my naturalism course.

Well, okay. 🙂

Half in jest…

First. You didn’t actually describe an argument.

Second. You referred to two arguments, and didn’t make clear which you were asking about by the end.

The first of those arguments is the only one you labeled an “argument,” and as presented it has this structure:

P1. We don’t expect contemporary mentions about Jesus to exist, because [no one] would be interested of writing about some nutjob hillbilly at the periferia of Palestine, who claims he has made miracles.
P2. ?
C1. ?

We can’t even infer what the argument is (the conclusion, or C1) without knowing what minor premise it’s to be paired with (P2).

For example, it could be either:

P2(a). If we expect no evidence to survive and no evidence survives, then Jesus existed.

Or

P2(b). If we expect no evidence to survive and no evidence survives, then whether Jesus existed cannot be determined by the absence of evidence.

(a) would be an unsound premise. (b) would be a sound premise. And it would produce the conclusion:

C1(b). Whether Jesus existed cannot be determined by the absence of evidence.

And I concur (I discuss this in OHJ, ch. 8.2 and 8.3). But of course, this only follows if P1 is true. Which requires admitting the Gospels are grossly legendary. And that has consequences, e.g. you then can’t claim legendary development can’t occur that fast, since affirming P1 entails that it did (I discuss this in OHJ, ch. 6.7). Likewise, you also then can’t claim the Gospels are reliable histories, since affirming P1 entails they are not (the lesson ofr OHJ, ch. 10, is that one must accept that the exaggerated fictions in the Gospels are not improbable on historicity, because otherwise, the Gospels become evidence against the existence of Jesus). And this does entail problems for historicity theorists (if Jesus wasn’t as famous as depicted in the Gospels, how did he earn such a fanatical exaltation and following despite his death? Cf. OHJ, pp. 574-75, n. 82 and p. 557, n. 55).

But if you are comfortable with all of that, you can use P1 to correctly argue that the absence of evidence does not reduce the probability that Jesus existed (so long as you accept “existed” in the now reduced sense).

The second argument you present is the “Fact” that the Gospel Jesus is depicted as wildly famous. This, too, can be used in a sound argument (e.g. that concludes “Therefore, the Gospels are not reliable histories but fabricate historical facts about Jesus”) or in an unsound one (e.g. that concludes “The Gospel Jesus probably didn’t exist, therefore Jesus didn’t exist at all”).

Etc.

So your question can’t be answered without a compete argument (either one, or maybe even both, if one is meant to argue against the other).

Nice.

Of course, examined with an astute critical eye, that it is built around a different textbook, supplies a clue to the answer.

Although, I could add, it has also been improved in light of feedback from students of the last version of this course I taught. (One such change is the textbook. And I might try yet another next year. I’m not happy with any. But using this one is a very different approach from the last one.)

Thanks
A

Argument: We don’t expect contemporary mentions about Jesus to exist, because who would be interested of writing about some nutjob hillbilly at the periferia of Palestine, who claims he has made miracles.

Fact: Jesus is depicted in the Gospels as a miracle worker with hundreds of followers and eyewitnesses.

– – – –

What kind of fallacy is there in the argument? Clearly argument doesn’t represent the actual claim that is made by the Gosples, that Jesus was hugely followed at his time and his miracles was witnessed by the hundreds of people combined, and therefore contemporary historians and other writers would have had a reason to mention Jesus. So the facts and argument are not in line.

So what fallacy is there? Strawman?

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*Do I pass?