rationalskepticism.org

dogsgod wrote:

Stein wrote:Illuminating piece here on how disinformation gets swallowed by cults and cranks:

"“We have an emotional relationship to information. It is not rational,” Wardle said. But people who work in the “quality information space”, Wardle’s term for journalists, scientists, researchers and factcheckers, still often act as if information-processing were fundamentally rational, rather than deeply tied to feelings and the way a person expresses their identity.

It’s crucial to understand that the way people process information is through entire narratives, not individual facts, Wardle said. Trying to combat disinformation through factchecking or debunking individual false claims just turns into an endless, fruitless game of “whack-a-mole”."

Later in this piece, we see --

"Research has also shown that disinformation and conspiracy theories are often deeply intertwined with racial prejudice and hatred"

-- as we also see among mythicists like Revilo P. Oliver, for instance, who are virulently antisemitic. I have even encountered some mythicists who are defrnsive and prickly about the Roman Empire, as a result, as if it could do no wrong!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... SApp_Other



Stein

1- Can we know that there is an historical Jesus behind the myth? and 2- What is a mythicist? 3- Carrier says there is a 30% chance of an historical Jesus behind the myth, what does that make Carrier?