Josiah Avraham Ben Morgan HaNasi II and "Was Jesus Gay"

[chris.fo...@gmail.com]

Good evening.

Readers and interested audience members have, no doubt and for months,
been amused and entertained by the obsessive behavior of Josiah
Avraham Ben Morgan HaNasi II, also known as "TurnerDiaries,"
"ExposingCondell," and another of other sock uppets, as he posts
almost-daily tirades into the comment sections of videos that have
been posted by English pundit Pat Condell. Condell's video page may
be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell

The video that seems to get the most attention is entitled, "Was Jesus
Gay," and appears here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReYfDlIa-Z8

The video has never been transcribed, but the premise is that members
of the current crop of major religions tend to react quite violently
and emotionally to the subject of homosexuality. Condell suggests
that the vehemence is so strong that modern Christians might reject
the message of the putative founder of their religion were it to be
discovered that he might be a homosexual.

Condell is quite clear that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ was
a homosexual.

(There is no evidence that the Jesus that we read about in the Gospels
existed, at all, but that's a different debate.)

Despite that, Condell suggests that there might be cause for some to
accept at least the possibility that Jesus might have been gay; and we
must keep in mind that he does so having no belief in either Jesus's
deity or existence, so his perspective is one of a fair degree of
objectivity. Condell has no dog in *that* hunt, but he sure does stir
things up for a few of the YouTube theists, including Josiah.

Since the posting of the video, Josiah has been on a bit of a crusade,
attacking the video and Condell, himself, usually showing that, in
fact, Condell is correct in his assessment of the reactions of
religious people to the very thought of homosexuality. At first, he
posted in the main channel and in the comment area of "Was Jesus Gay,"
using the name, "TurnerDiaries."

TurnerDiaries is a member of the Christian Identity movement, a small
cadre of ultra-religious bigots who believe themselves to be the
descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel (along with other Anglo
Saxons). TurnerDiaries extrapolates this and claims that only white
people are creations of God. In addition to his vitriolic claims
about the "Was Jesus Gay" video, which were loaded with mostly
personal attack on Condell and irrelevant arguments, TurnerDiaries
posted considerably on race and religion in the main channel, where a
group of well-educated atheists and skeptics countered his claims.

As this group continually exposed the poor logic and lack of evidence
for the claims being made by TurnerDiaries, his tactic became one of
constant reposts of arguments that he had already posted. This went
on for some weeks before Condell, weary of the spamming to his channel
and the complaints of his readers, banned TurnerDiaries from the
channel.

TurnerDiaries responded by creating a series of sock puppet accounts,
starting with variations of the user name, "IsPatCondellGay." These
names took on several forms, and generally posted and reposted
TurnerDiaries arguments into the "Was Jesus Gay" video.

The arguments were recognized almost instantly, as was the tactic of
constant reposts of the same arguments, and the socks were exposed.
As this occured, they were abandoned and new sock puppets emerged,
including variations of "TheCurseOfAtheism," and "ExposingCondell."
The most current known sock puppet is "ExposingCondell3."

The obvious relationship of the sock puppets is that all use the same
arguments that were used by TurnerDiaries in the main channel comment
section before he was banned. All of them advertise the TurnerDiaries
blog, his MySpace Christian Identity page, or both. The
ExposingCondell sock puppets have only recently tried to deny that
they were sock puppets of TurnerDiaries, but one user at YouTube has a
screen capture of a comment by ExposingCondell on another user's
channel page in which he states that "ExposingCondell" is "another
name for TurnerDiaries."

Further evidence that exists shows network tracings that demonstrate
that the ExposingCondell sock puppets post from the same Internet
Protocol (IP) addresses that server logs record when TurnerDiaries has
posted. I am not a network engineer, but those in the know about
such technologies call this a "smoking gun." Despite his denials,
there is no doubt that ExposingCondell is TurnerDiaries...and
TurnerDiaries is Josiah Avraham Ben Morgan HaNasi II.

There has been some speculation with regard to Josiah's motivations.
It is fairly obvious that his reaction to "Was Jesus Gay" illustrates
the point that Condell was making, and it does so quite well. So
abhorrent was the very idea that Jesus might be gay that Josiah has
engaged in tirades and rants against the video and Condell,
personally, almost constantly, for nearly 13 months. That he has done
so using poor arguments and no evidence is of no consequence. Josiah
was so put off by the idea that he cannot simply post his comments and
let it go. He must post them, every day, in multiple comment sections
- even those that have nothing to do with the subject matter - so he
can lay to rest even the very idea that Jesus might have been a
homosexual.

Never mind that Condell says straight out that there's no evidence
that he was and that Jesus actually being a homosexual is not the
point of the video.

(Part of the irony of Josiah's constant attention to the video is
this: More than likely, were it not for that attention, very few
would see or bother with this year-old video. The fact that it keeps
getting hits and comments from theists, especially Josiah, keeps its
numbers up, and makes it more likely to be offered as a recommended or
featured video when a person logs in.)

Others have suggested - and not without good cause - that Josiah may
be gay, himself, or may harbor doubts about his heterosexuality. It
is not uncommon for gays closeted by their religious beliefs and their
cultures to react violently to the topic and engage in over-the-top
behavior and rhetoric when confronted with the subject. At least one
scholarly journal article was cited as a reference in the video
comment section, and there are others. See, for example, "Is
Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal," in the Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 105(3):440, in which, among other things, the
authors observed that "homophobic men showed an increase in penile
erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in
aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual
arousal that the homophobic
individual is either unaware of or denies."

Whatever his motivation, Josiah does seem very obsessed with the video
and with Pat Condell, and it is not a heathy obsession, by any
means.

Josiah has been challenged to debate some of the points of fact that
have come up over the past year. Several of the claims that he makes
so firmly are subject to evaluation and correction, but he has no
interest in debating anything. He has made it clear that he targets
Pat Condell and cannot be disuaded, but I suggest that Josiah is
afraid to debate. He is a young (early 20s) theist with no formal
education. His commentary is a mishmash of religious dogma, myth,
irrationality, and ranting. Occasionally, he'll drop a name or two,
but never is more specific than that. When his resources, such as
they are, are challenged, he goes off on tangents and tries to obscure
the issues with irrelevent comparisons and analogies.

Since Josiah has refused to debate, I will be taking his arguments and
breaking them apart in this thread. I will take single paragraphs and
expose the flaws and lack of support, using individual messages.
Here, we will see that there really is nothing to the arguments of
Josiah Avraham Ben Morgan HaNasi II.

C

[chris.fo...@gmail.com]

Josiah, I find it very entertaining that you continue to rant against
this video, in particular, from an entirely incorrect perspective.
When doing so, you exhibit the straw man fallacy. You wrote, "The
entire premise of your rant is ludicrous! You use an utterly
discredited, forged version of a Gospel and then proceed to make wild
and unfounded claims about Rabbi Yah'shua Ha'Nazaret (Jesus)."

But he doesn't really do that, Josiah, as anyone who can parse simple
English would understand.

We've explained this to you before, Josiah, but you never seem to get
it. In fact, you refuse to listen.

How very odd that this refusal to listen is he very thing you accuse
Pat Condell of in another set of your frequently-reposted comments.

The premise of the video has to do with the manner in which some
religious people view homosexuality, that the reaction to his videos
often results in no substantive rebuttal but, instead, he is
"insulted" by being called "gay."

Pat Condell makes no "wild and unfounded claims" about Jesus, at all.
In fact, we're not too long into the video when he makes it clear that
there is no evidence that Jesus was gay. This is an unequivocal
statement.

The remainder of the video is a "what if," and it might have been
better to name the video, "What if Jesus Had Been Gay," but that ship
has sailed. Anyone actually paying attention to the video comments and
not bearing a chip on his or her shoulder would understand that Pat
Condell is not saying that Jesus was gay.

Instead, he effectively asks a rhetorical question. Having been called
"gay," as if it is an insult, the premise of the video has to do with
a commentary on ad hominem. Even if it were so that Pat Condell is
gay, would it matter to the actual *messages* that are found in his
videos?

By extrapolation, Pat Condell asks whether or not the message of Jesus
would be as effective and powerful to Christians if it were to come
out that Jesus was gay - or would Christians, with their often-violent
and unreasoning hatred of gays, actually reject the message of Jesus?

You never seem to quite get this, but it does render your entire
argument moot - and a waste of time for you. I guess we'll just have
to keep correcting you, since you won't debate the issue.

Still, we can now record it here, and refer to it, as needed.

C

[chris.fo...@gmail.com]

What I will be looking to do, now, is take the channel description for
ExposingCondell2, and analyze the claims that are contained within it,
since it contains the arguments that Josiah has been posting under
that sock puppet name.

I will use newsgroup convention, that is, I will quote the description
and respond to each point. Quoted comments are prepended with a
"greater than" symbol, that is ">"

The channel description is rather long, so I will take specific
points, one by one, and address them in separate group articles.

> There exists only two ways to debunk an argument:
>
> 1. Show that it is logically invalid
>
> 2. Show that at least one of the premises is false.

In fact, there are several ways to debunk an argument. Demonstrating
logical fallacy in an argument is one way, certainly, as is the
demonstration of a false or flawed premise.

But one can also debunk an argument by showing it to be based on
incorrect data, refuted "evidence," or a complete lack of evidence.
So Josiah is wrong, and there are at least three ways to refute an
argument.

The irony in Josiah's short list, above, is that he claims that he can
both demonstrate logical fallacy and that Pat Condell's premise for
"Was Jesus Gay" is false.

With regard to the second, that is, demonstrating a premise is false,
Josiah engages in the first of his two mechanisms of demonstrating an
argument debunked, that is, he invokes a logical fallacy. By
misstating Condell's premise, he creates a straw man against which he
can argue, and by taking the reader down an irrelevant path, that is,
the alleged false nature of The Secret Gospel of Mark, he also tosses
out a red herring.

Let's watch:

> I shall try Condell's video in accordance with point '1.' and point '2.', and see if it holds-up.
> I assert that it is possible to cite at least FOUR case in points- each point complying with '2.',
> as required for a valid rebuttal.

With this, Josiah launches into a discussion (of sorts) of the Secret
Gospel of Mark, as we can see, below. From here, he will argue
against the alleged premise of the Condell video with regard to the
nakedness of the youth mentioned in Mark.

But that isn't the premise of the video. The first two articles in
this thread clearly demonstrate that the premise has to do with
whether or not the sexual orientation of a messenger has anything to
do with a certain kind of message.

> 1.The Secret Gospel of Mark is numbered among the so-called "Gnostic Gospels", and is universally
> discredited by reputable Scholars as a forgery.

If we say that The Secret Gospel of Mark is "universally
discredited...as a forgery," that implies that no reputable scholars
or, at least, exceptionally few, consider the work to be genuine.

The claim that The Secret Gospel of Mark is univerally held to be a
forgery - even by "reputable Scholars" (which, to Josiah's
intellectually immature mind, almost certainly means, "scholars who
agree with me") is simply false. It is true that there is significant
controversy about it, which, alone, should indicate that not all
scholars believe it to be a hoax. There are many who doubt its
authenticity, to be sure. But universal opinion that it is a
forgery?

Consider that Josiah makes no reference to any scholarly work that
supports his claim. He doesn't even bother to cite a scholar who
claims that Secret Mark is a hoax. They are out there, to be sure,
and they are easy to find.

Obviously, Josiah doesn't like The Secret Gospel or the Gnostic
Gospels because he disagrees with much of what is in them. But that
is never good, intellectual cause to dismiss a source.

The Secret Gospel is controversial, but it is not universally
considered a forgery. As recently as March of this year, a panel
discussion involving scholars with opposing views was held at
Claremont Graduate University. Readers can check out some detail of
this rather interesting discussion at this URL:

http://iac.cgu.edu/deslecspr08.html

Scott Brown, a very competentNew Testament scholar wrote an excellent
work on the subject in 2005, in which he makes a convincing case for
authenticity. Certainly, he is better qualified than Josiah to make
that determination. The book is called Mark’s Other Gospel:
Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery." It is still in
print. Brown's doctoral dissertation (1999, University of Toronto)
was on the subject of the Secret Gospel (referred to in scholarly
circles as "Secret Mark") and his responses to critics and claims that
Secret Mark is a hoax are steady and reasoned.

Readers wishing to delve more into the controversy and get a dose of
scholarly discourse from all aspects are invited to check out these
references:

Brown, S.G. (2003). On the composition history of the longer
("secret") Gospel of Mark.
Journal of Biblical Literature 122(1):89.
Hedrick, C.W. (2003). The Secret Gospel of Mark: Stalemate in the
Academy.
Journal of Early Christian Studies 11(2):133.
Meyer, M.W., ed. (2003). Secret Gospels: Essays on Thomas and the
Secret Gospel of Mark.

I can cite many more scholarly references from the literature, but the
point is made. Josiah's claim that Secret Mark is considered a hoax
by all "reputable Scholars [sic]" is simply false.

Tomorrow, I will continue to deconstruct the arguments of
ExposingCondell (Josiah), refute his claims, and expose him as a
fraud.

C