By means of librarian's seach savvy, I have located a recent response made by Acharya S to our original article. She is apparently unaware (or more likely, ignoring) more detailed replies to her material on Mithraism and other alleged copycat saviors.

The response begins with her usual misuse of Matthew 10:34-37 and the usual skeptical misuse of Luke 14:26. It begins:

I'm going to make this short, because I don't want to give any credibility to a group of people who have no credentials and whose mental state is obviously under pressure, yet who make sinister and disparaging comments about others and attack their credentials. For example, James Patrick "JP" Holding, aka **** ****, is a prison guard somewhere in Mississippi, I'm told, and has NO credentials, other than a streetfighter's sharp mouth.

The asterisks of course represent my real name, which I have struck from the record. But Acharya is wrong on four counts here, which is not surprising, given her record of scholarship by gossip and outdated sources:

• I left prison employment over a year and a quarter ago, as was stated on this site.
• I was not a prison guard, but a librarian.
• I am not in Mississippi, but in Florida.
• I have the standard librarian's credentials, a Masters' in Library Science.

One may well ask, in light of Acharya getting these simple bits wrong, how she could possibly get anything more important right. (She has corrected these errors now, with no admission of error.) But she goes on:

(Why is it that prison guards are always shown to be so gleeful when inmates are being raped?)

I know of no such scene, other than perhaps something like it from The Shawshank Redemption. From this bit of gossip, at any rate, Acharya goes on:

The viciousness with which this gang likes to attack its "opponents," who in this case are REAL PEOPLE, as opposed to the cartoon character of the New Testament, reveals exactly what is wrong with Christianity. Those who continue to promote Holding's fallacious and foolish writings obviously are titillated by the same sadism and viciousness...If I were to stoop to their level, I'd call Holding & Gang "Gay Nazis for Christ.")

One thing I do recognize well is manipulation tactics, of the sort used by inmates. In essence, Acharya has "stooped" to this level in merely saying, "Here's what I would do." Of course in saying this I am in no way implying that Acharya (alias for D. Murdock) is in any sense a prison inmate. Nor am I attempting to spread other vile rumors, such as:

• Acharya's publisher, Adventures Unlimited Press, is a leading producer of child pornography and is planning several annotated editions of Mein Kampf.
• Acharya herself owns several Las Vegas gambling casinos where the games are rigged.
• Acharya secretly wishes she was Beverly Sills.

The diatribe goes on as follows for several sentences; I think only samples are needed:

Who else would so obsessed with an invisible giant man in the sky and his son, and who would be so fascistic as to attempt to force their bizarre obsession on others, through nastiness and threats?....Obviously, from the level of the vitriol, my work is very threatening, which means it has merit. Basically, Holding & Gang are used-religion salesmen who, when the sale of their shoddy goods falls through, must attack, ridicule and menace their targets. I'm sure the "gentle" and "loving" Jesus must be very pleased by their vulgar and hateful behavior and mentality. And why doesn't Jesus, this "superior being," set the record straight himself, instead of using low-class, monobrow Neanderthals to do it?... What Holding has done is to provide a gathering place for the most savage and malevolent Christian thugs to revel in their torment of other humans....

It's obvious this gang wouldn't know scholarship if it hit them on the heads, so they must engage in mean-spirited ad hominems, name-calling, etc... "such puerility and infantility are necessary to be a believer in the gospel fairytale in the first place...[Holding's] main tactic when presented with factual information regarding the non-historicity or erroneousness of Christianity is basically to say, "NO! That's not it!" In other words, deny, deny, deny.

And so on. None of this actually addresses any point made in any article I have written; while assurances are made that "[Holding] has not even come close to refuting the mythicists school," the only point Acharya does choose to address is a defense of her "beings" comments on the radio, to wit:

In the first place, yes, the comment was said tongue in cheek. Get over it. I had a friend in the room with me, egging me on - he was the principal "being" telling me to do what I was doing. I never said anything about "aliens," but, never mind, because Holding & Gang have never been interested in facts, just mindless sniping. Nevertheless, I have also had experiences "beyond the third dimension" - whoop de doo. Carl Sagan started his career in astronomy by distinguishing himself as a believer in life on other worlds. His credibility didn't seem to have suffered much. Millions of scientists and scholars have been believers in one religion or another, which means they believe in "beings," "afterlives" and any assortment of mystical and metaphysical concepts. Some 90% of the world supposedly believes in "God," who is a "being"; therefore, according to Holding's methodology, 90% of the world - including Holding & Gang - is to be ridiculed and dismissed as utterly lacking in credibility.

Of course this is a bale of apples and a crate of oranges -- proof of a "being" in the sense of God is attended by philosophical arguments and proofs the likes of which Acharya makes no effort to touch (i.e., cosmological, design, etc.), whereas proof of Acharya's sort of lesser "beings" is not. But we have noted Acharya's inability to discern items from the fruit stand before. (And I don't think part of Sagan's m.o. was being able to communicate with those beings over stellar distances -- much less claiming that they provided information overturning accepted scolarship!)

This lesser point is a little stronger:

Indeed, any Christian who has a problem with an offhand remark about "beings" really needs to be reminded that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In the first place, Christians insist that there is an invisible Father, Son and Holy Ghost somewhere "out there," who are directing everything, like giant puppetmasters. In fact, Christianity is FULL OF BEINGS, from start to finish.

The point is granted, and I personally make no statements (and never have) about solid proof of "beings" lower than deity in the sense described. Such knowledge obviously comes only via revelation, and it then becomes a test (as prescribed indeed in Deuteronomy) of whose revelation might be able to withstand scrutiny -- and that leads next into specifics to be defended, which Acharya provides almost none of at all, but I have been doing on this page for years.

Sometime recently some points were added about Robert Taylor's abuse of Tacitus' Annals. Here is how it is put: "Taylor had the audacity to point out that the affair seemed fraudulent and that the Annals themselves, along with their Christ 'reference' were also fraudulent. Following him, a Latin scholar named Ross wrote a book essentially proving that the Annals were indeed forged. In any case, fast forward and we find the inadequately informed Holding stating that 'Taylor believed Tacitus's writings to be forgeries!' No, that's inaccurate. Taylor investigated and discovered that the ANNALS were forged." I'd like to know what the difference is between statements A and B here. If anyone knows, please inform me. One might argue that i.e., Agricola is excluded, but I doubt if Taylor considered it if he even know about it. Our assistant Punkish adds: And Taylor's supposed discovery was that the *passage* was interpolated (though he does stress de Spire's involvement as a bit fishy). It can't be claimed Taylor viewed the whole of the Annals were forged because he puts the manuscript evidence at the eighth century, while Ross (published anonymously) puts it at the fifteenth, omitting mention of earlier manuscripts and citations of the work existing at Monte Cassino prior to Poggio Bracciolini's finding (the supposed forger - wow, Ross was some scholar to omit that!). Her sources disagree. Here's the relevant quote, since I've access to the Diegesis: "The first publication of any part of the Annals of Tacitus, was by Johannes de Spire, at Venice, in the year 1468. His imprint being made from a single manuscript, in his own power and possession only, and purporting to have been written in the eighth century." and, "Eusebius had christianized Josephus ; it remained for shrewder masters of criticism, and the more accomplished scholars and infidels of a later age to perform a similar regeneration upon the text of Tacitus" (Diegesis, p393, having discussed Josephus as an interpolation) We are also treated to a discussion from a scholarly source, "The United Church of God"'s Good News Magazine, on how lots of religions believed in a happy afterlife. Given the alternatives available (no afterlife, bad afterlife) that is certainly a revelation worth noting. Punkish adds: The source of one of the afterlife examples in the Good News mag on Osiris originates in the work of a radio commentator, L Browne, writing in 1930. Strike up another non-authority for Acharya.

But again, nothing else data-oriented of mine is addressed. Acharya merely says she will "leave it up to the reader's intelligence to see who has scholarship on her side." (I.e., "I have no actual answers, so I will pretend that I do.") She also refers the good folks to her new material in Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled, of which, I have already refuted/responded to relevant portions from the issue of Mithraism and the Gospels. Acharya also begs off her inadequacy on the secular references to Jesus by claiming:

Although I'm sure it was too far over the heads of Holding & Gang to figure out, I didn't go into any great detail regarding these "references" in The Christ Conspiracy because they had already been thoroughy discredited over the last two to three centuries, as anyone would know who has actually studied the issue.

To which we will only say, we will wait and see what else Acharya offers to embarrass herself. The Gang and I are waiting eagerly, because we could use a few laughs after a hard day or torturing inmates...by reading them selections from The Christ Conspiracy.