Ages ago when I first joined forces with the Christian Apologetics Bookshelf the then-Webmaster and I designed the Chicken Challenge as a response to a pseudonymous letter we received from Adnan Khan, a disciple of Skeptic X who was running around issuing vague challenges in the service of promoting himself. A few people have tried to answer this challenge, but not many. In fact, by virtue of his recent addressing of materials, Skeptic X has responded far more than any other person -- which should tell you quite a bit about the ratio of hardheadedness to willingness to answer.

Now on his opening page to the spanking new X website, Skeptic X has an "answer" to my challenge. For reference let's note what that actually is:

And so, since "Huey" has declined to answer our challenge given personally, preferring (apparently) the relative safety of his closed circle on this list of his, we'll re-issue the challenge here, and as a special bonus make it open to everyone -- and thereby express a key theme of Tekton Apologetics Ministries. The challenge is simple: Pick up any essay of mine and refute it. Contact me for terms of exchange. And if I hear nothing, I'll guess I'll just have to assume that no one can respond to my material.

Skeptic X shows himself to be a poor reader as usual, and seems to think that the challenge is the same for everyone else as it was for Huey/Adnan -- that is, if you write even a 20% successful refutation of an item, I will join your list, which was the recorded challenge to Huey/Adnan from years previous. Such, sorry Skeptic X, is not the terms of the challenge now, and even if by chance he WERE 20% successful (which he hasn't been, and that's no surprise, since he can't even read straight and thinks I asked him to pay for 90% of my website) I wouldn't get on his list at the price of indeed having my website paid for 90% or even 110% for the next 8 years. Why? Chicken? No, because I have already lined up the chickens and plucked them as it is. As one reader once commented, why should I go in and fight the trolls with my fists when I'm already plucking them off from the roof of my castle with a high-powered bazooka?

I have experimented of late with frequenting discussion forums, with decent results. The forums themselves are not at issue now that my time is more freed up for ministry. Rather, the issue is that, as I have always said, that we know darned well why X wants me on his forum -- because he likes to play his little "debate games" to an admiring crowd. And we know why X prefers his forum to the format as it stands now: because we're taking his responses to pieces with rhetorical analysis and defusing the only real weapon he has. It's like forbidding Dusty Rhodes from using his weight or his Atomic Elbow. This weakness was proven on TheologyWeb lately in the Contrived Gospels thread, where X learned firsthand what it was like to be alone supporting his point of view, and getting hassled at every turn like his sycophants on his list hassle Christians. Like a pirahna on a dead cow, as someone put it.

Skeptic X blatters on about how he "never replied" to our challenges "because [he] knew that [Holding] operated a closed forum where he preached to his choir by selectively quoting articles written by skeptics without linking his readers to the articles he was 'replying to.'" That's the operation of saving face at work, as usual; as we have repeatedly shown, the search engines remain open, and not one example of alleged "selective quoting" has worked out to anything more than Skeptic X being too googly-eyed to see that his argument we didn't quote was either already refuted or something we had no beef with in the first place (for example, about the graveclothes in the tomb being a sign that something had happened to Jesus' body). Skeptic X fantasizes that he "shamed" me into linking to his articles. Like heckola. I agreed to do it because it was time to drag the old bean out into the open and I couldn't get him to answer anything any other way.

The Xmeister spins his fantasy further, supposing that he has satisfied (to the view of "open-minded" readers!) the requirement to successfully rebut an article to the 20% level. As noted, that stricture was always intended for Huey anyway (I'd respond even if X was -20% successful, which is a more appropos estimate) and we already consider a thrashing of X to be in progress. Let him play his debate games for his little crowd of 150 or so admirers. If he has the goods he can play on the field as it is now mowed.

Skeptic X closes with a word of "defense" for Huey, who he acknowledges is indeed Adnan Khan (which is interesting, as this fellow for many years tried to hide his use of multiple names, and leads us to ask whether Skeptic X has as much beef with that as he does with my use of a pseudonym), noting that the list he started is still alive under another name and maintained by another person. We are told that Huey "didn't have a strong background in biblical matters" and that is probably "why he would not have accepted [Holding]'s 'Chicken Challenge.'" Well, isn't that touching. "Huey the Hot Air Balloon" sent out this challenge blindly, then? He had no idea what he was doing when he sent this out to the Christian Apologetics Bookshelf? Well, that's the typical skeptical paradigm for you -- open mouth, insert foot later. Despite his own profession of expertise, Skeptic X doesn't do it any differently.

And now an update. Still not having learned that NO means NO, Skeptic X has thrown even more feathers into the ring as a reply to the above, as a way of making his thralls think he has done something worthwhile. There's not much new to start -- just Skeptic X's usual whine about lack of "Christian love" (which he still hasn't learned the contextual meaning of); another whine about lack of links and a claim that I have been "reneging on" a promise to provide them -- we can't wait to see the proof of this, especially since if this is true, Skeptic X is therefore also "reneging on" his promise to debate me like this until I stop providing links -- then whining a bit more:

Be that as it may, [Holding] has replied, and, surprise, surprise, he has reneged on his offer. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that, because I thought that he would jump at the chance to humiliate me on my own internet list. I guess, however, that he is no longer interested in thrashing biblical skeptics "like nobody's business." I guess he prefers "the relative safety of his closed circle" on his Tektonics website. I can only assume that he knows that he cannot answer my material.

Humiliate him on his own list? Nah -- it's a lot more fun to humiliate Skeptic X before a potential audience of 50K per month than the puny 150-160 he's got dashing around under his wings. Of course I noted that the offer was not for him but for a specific man at a specific time; the real challenge -- which involves no more than writing -- is spelled out afterwards, as is clearly said, and is even now being engaged. Apparently Skeptic X doesn't get the point that to "re-issue" a challenge does not necessitate re-issuing all of the exact terms, and doesn't get that reading well: The challenge is simple: Pick up any essay of mine and refute it. Contact me for terms of exchange. No list. How could it be? D'oh, Skeptic X? If that were the case, how could I challenge anyone who didn't own a list? Then you'd whine that I was trying to "hide" by not engaging Skeptics who didn't own a list or even didn't care to participate in one. It's the same old sob story we noted here: Skeptic X is seeking a "geographic solution" to his beating problem, and issuing challenges to the mouth of a cave where the dragon isn't home. In the meantime he still wants to play dumb about a few other things, notably that "90% of my website" comment which he now claims he can't find. Heck, no surprise there. Skeptic X can't even find his own behind with a search engine; now he's also following his trained monkey Mojo into claiming that I am "doing just about everything he can to conceal my rebuttals from his readers by zipping them to discourage those who don't want to take the time to unzip them or don't have the software to do it..." Plus that links claim we're still waiting for excuses -- er, details on. Gosh life is hard for these Skeptics. They may not want to take the 5 seconds needed to unzip an essay it will take them 3 hours to read. Where did Skeptic X take courses in time management? Please don't ask them to wipe their noses; they'll assume you want them to look down into the hanky so you can get away with something.

But again, on that 90% issue, let's rehash that again so Skeptic X can stop avoiding it so cleanly, to wit:

You'll Pay for Your Insolence! I quote myself from earlier work:

I pay for this site, so correspondent with the 90% fluff ratio I demand that Skeptic X pay for 90% of the costs of hosting any item he submits -- whether he meets challenge #1 above or not. Obviously the amount would have to be determined based on going rates for server space and the length of the article written. I also want payment for 8 years in advance (about the time I have the tektonics.org name reserved). Based on Skeptic X's behavior I am not so sure he'll be around that long before giving himself a coronary, and I think the security is a good idea.

I gave this as a debate condition before I knew that Skeptic X would soon have his own website, but I'd like to bring it up again. Note the highlighted phrases. Here is what Skeptic X gets out of the above, as he reports it to his TSR readers:

One condition was that I would have to pay 90% of the cost of maintaining his website, which would be 90% of $35 per month or $378 per year...in other words, [Holding] was saying that he would debate me on my site and his if I would just agree to pay him $3024 before the debate begins.

Shall we correct this little episode of adult attention deficit disorder? Or is it obvious enough? The whole website? Did I say that? Skeptic X is verbose and wastes a lot of space with fluff, but I suspect the cost would have been no more than $5 over 8 years for even the longest, fluffiest item he could produce, which would never occupy my entire website.

Skeptic X knows he's about to get gigged in a corner on this one, because I'm including the full text of the above in just about every article I use against him now, and his avoidance of the articles seems to match the ratio of how prominent this material is. But he still has time to play dumb for a bit and save face before the thralls, and maybe even has a secret plan to weasel out of trouble. This time he says:

As for his umpteenth reference to the issue of whether he had once stipulated that he would debate me on the condition that I would pay for 90% of his website for eight years in advance, I will refer readers to my latest reply to this in which I quoted directly from his own website to show that this was a condition that he had stipulated. I would ask readers to verify the accuracy of my quotation of this website article, but I can no longer access it. [Holding] has apparently removed it. He has a habit of either removing or revising articles after errors in them have been exposed or he has been caught with his pants down on some issue.

Yeah, right. More like, Skeptic X has removed his brain and his eyes and ears. The article has been and still is right darned here -- it's still active, still fat and happy, never has been anywhere else, so unless Skeptic X can't read, can't type, can't blow his nose, has mysterious electrical storms all over Canton that make items with the codename "tillstill2" inaccessible, it's there, it's been there, and he's out of excuses. My stats show that this "inaccessible" article was accessed by 47 people in December, and 39 in November, so the only person having this wah-wah problem with "accessibility" am Skeptic X, who no doubt will continue to play the "duh huh" game of claiming it's not on the website after all, and failing that, go on to say that I changed it to fool him. That's really all you can do when you're at the end of your rope and the loop is around your neck. Next we'll be sure and accuse Skeptic X of hiring his thralls to change stuff on the X website, and then we'll see what happens.

And so, after stretching as hard as he can to say that my challenge was exactly the same to everyone else as it was to Huey, we still don't have an explanation anyway of why Skeptic X's La La List is any better a place than anywhere else. He wants to put a debate on his list? D'oh -- how about Skeptic X posts the URLs for all the articles on there? Meanwhile here's that paranoia at work again. Against my point that I have already defeated these wretches and see no need to visit their slum, Skeptic X whines:

Well, if [Holding] really believes this, I have to wonder why he makes his website so complicated to navigate, why he zips his articles that I have ripped to pieces, and why he is not putting the links to my articles that he promised to provide before the debate began. I want as many people as possible to see the shallowness and absurdity of his articles and his constant resorts to far-fetched how-it-could-have-beens, so that is why readers of my rebuttals will always find links to what he has written. Obviously, he doesn't feel as secure as he pretends when he is preaching to his choir from the roof of his castle.

"Complicated to navigate" -- oy, this is like a blind man complaining that a Hawaiian shirt is "not colorful enough". This from a man who can't even do a simple title search and would obviously never think to use the PicoSearch function to look for the unique phrase "fluff ratio". Zipped article -- that's just one, actually, and if we want to whine about links, Skeptic X's dewd at the TSR website still hasn't linked to my replies to Skeptic X's rip-roarin' gas attack on the Land Promise (part 3). Not that I care myself. If I were trying to hide it, why would I send Skeptic X a copy on request and offer to do the same for anyone? (I know, I know! They might not want to take the 10 seconds to type an email so they can read a 3-hour article!) And if it were such a conspiracy, why has there not been one such request for it since? Maybe Skeptic X really is the only one in the world who doesn't know how to use an unzip utility. (Psst -- how about asking one of your thralls to do it for you?) And we're still waiting for that fantasy about "missing links" to accompany Skeptic X's other delusions of competence; he hints that it's about preterism, but I suspect he's forgotten where I told him to look. We'll wait.

Meanwhile Skeptic X's pride is apparently stung, as he quotes a reader of his own who thinks he is winning the Abiathar debate (this in spite of making stupid mistakes like "guilt existed in Biblical times" in the process), claiming it was an "unsolicited opinion" not from any of his thralls at all. I rather doubt that. Of course Skeptic X's fans are about as credible as Slick Louie, as they tend to endorse goofy stuff like the Christ myth and all, but I would doubt that such comments were unsolicited anyway, and beyond that I'd also have some doubts about all the other claims Skeptic X has been making about not being able to find stuff, etc. Why? well, you see, Skeptic X has a long history of fibbing and fabricating to save his bacon, and he even 'fesses up to this, as this account shows. After noting his conversion to skepticism in 1961, Skeptic X says:

These were extremely difficult times for my family, both economically and emotionally. We were a family of five, so, needless to say, it wasn't easy to provide our needs and pay tuition too while I was an unemployed student, to say nothing about the psychological stress from the religious upheaval in my life that I was trying to cope with. Guilt and shame had forced me to be secretive about my plans for the future with everyone but my wife. When people asked why I was back in college studying English, I told them that raising funds for foreign missionary work was difficult to do, so I was qualifying myself for teaching credentials so that I could support myself in a mission area within the United States. Yes, I lied, but at the time that seemed a better alternative to me than openly confessing my skepticism.

So then, why not now is fibbing by Skeptic X not seeming a "better alternative" these days than confessing he was wrong about things like the 90% of the website comment, etc.? By Skeptic X's own goofy standards -- "You had that one error in grammar, so how can we trust a word you say on this unrelated subject, blah blah blah" -- this admission renders every word of his suspect any time he might have a little guilt or shame to worry about. The years make no difference; if it did, he could not be hauling up that 7-year-old CCBE quote (which he doesn't "get" the point of anyway). And more:

As a missionary "home from the field," I had the opportunity to fill vacant pulpits on the weekend in churches within driving distance of the Bible college I was attending. This would provide a source of income that I desperately needed, so, to my discredit again, I took advantage of it. By this time, I had become a skilled rationalizer. Although I no longer accepted the biblical inerrancy doctrine, I believed--and still do believe--that some excellent moral principles are taught in the New Testament, so I rationalized that it would be all right to accept these weekend preaching assignments if I related all of my sermons to biblical principles that I could personally accept.

Skeptic X relates further that he was fired, and that's the price he paid; I'll leave it for the reader to decide whether or not Skeptic X's self-described actions are those of an honest and admirable man. I don't come to praise Skeptic X or to bury him. Whether he is culpable or not, however, we say that Skeptic X is STILL a "skilled rationalizer" and is still engaged in the same practice today. If not, let him explain how it is that a puny list of 150-160 members is more of a "public forum" than a website that gets 50K visitors a month. Let him explain why he has problems finding articles that no one else seems to have problems finding. Let him explain why he wastes time with diversions over pseudonym use (we still want to know why he doesn't use his real first name, the J.), over literary practices, and solicitations for support that are no different from that of thousands of other ideological-advocacy organizations, including Barker's Freedom from Religion group. It's obvious that Skeptic X is a skilled rationalizer, all right -- and that he hasn't lost his edge at all over the years.

Back to one of those distractions, Skeptic X tells us he still has "all correspondence that I exchanged with [Holding] before and after our debates began, so he knows that I can prove that he promised to link his readers to all of my articles in the debates, but he is no longer doing that." I'll still have to wait to see what exactly Skeptic X is whining about. There are links to all his articles, exactly as promised -- I should add here, only debate articles, as I did not agree to link to any of his personal slam pieces against me, like the one replied to here -- and if he can't find them, just like he can't find anything on the Web or apparently can't even think to do a title search, maybe the problem is in the mirror. After repeating the same gorgonzola as before about my experiences at college, and a debate challenge (once again, see here, which he apparently still has not got to), and including an offer to pay for my gas (I suppose all I have to do is hold up the gas tank to his lips and let him talk for an hour), also reiterating some of his trained monkey's comments, Skeptic X proposes a debate topic: "Resolved: The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is a verifiable historical event." Oh, that's a fine topic to deal with in just a few hours; it's only had, what? 100 or more books written on it? If he wants to debate that subject, here are the two top articles I have: