The Skeptical Review Online - Farrell Till's Been On the Losing End Too Long

It's been a few months now of giving C. Farris McTill his much-wished-for medicine, and by now the old boy is looking for some way, any way, to save face. After gaffes like that "pay for 90% of my website" deal (recounted here in detail, if McTill and fans need to know where to avoid) I'd hide in Cucamunga with the fry cooks (racist gag against fry cooks -- get it?) if I had an ego the size of McTill's inflatable to 1000 psi. At any rate, it's often said that people try to get away from troubles by trying to change their venues -- what some call a "geographic solution" to a problem. In other words, you try to solve your family problems by moving from Hoboken to Helena. Bad policy. By the same token McTill had raised the idea that maybe if he got me on a stage in person somewhere, he might be able to solve his embarrassment a bit. Indeed. Then he can say dumb stuff like "You want me to pay for 90% of your website?" rather than write it.

I don't do live debates -- with anyone. I will not debate atheists, Unitarians, open theists, or whoever, any other way but in print, where it is possible to take time to find answers to questions and where the details of an issue can be discussed in a comprehensive fashion. I consider oral debates a waste of time, as they tend to produce nothing but sound bites. Oral debates tend to be victims of what I call "60 Minutes Syndrome" -- they are efforts to cover an in-depth topic in just a few minutes or hours, with no real means to treat subjects with the in-depth scrutiny they deserve. I found this out first-hand two or so years ago when I joined Mormon apologist Richard Hopkins on his radio program. We spent about an hour with plans to discuss three different issues; we ended up covering one issue only about a third of the way. I do not begrudge this against Hopkins, but as far as I am concerned, this is hardly satisfactory.

C. Farris McTill of course thinks you become an expert in any subject just by opening one book and your mouth, so not surprisingly, he doesn't see this as a problem. He does, however, clearly see that he is getting tarred and feathered in writing, which is why he needs this distraction. He knows darned well -- as I have told him already many times -- that I will never do an oral debate. Issuing a challenge for one is therefore a distractive manipulation serving no other purpose than making his gullible thralls think that he is standing up bravely to a challenge. In fact he is standing at the mouth of a cave yelling challenges where he knows the dragon isn't home.

With this in mind, I have some comments on a recent hoist on the former-parody-now-my-
personal-trophy-room "Exposed" website where the humorless Mojo Jojo -- nearly as much a pathological literalist as McTill is, and quite nearly as much in need of medication for delusions of grandeur -- has reported McTill's challenge where all 12 of his readers can see it. Only 12? Considering that I get less than 12 referring links a month from Mojo's dreamy little site (versus hundreds from Answers in Genesis) I can't see that there'd be much more. OK, all right, maybe 14. But Mojo is 17 of them. Let's see if he can figure that out any better than McTill can.

[Holding]’s site boasts a “Chicken Challenge” by which [Holding] invites skeptics to “take on” any one of his documents in an attempt to refute it. True enough. So far maybe a dozen over the years have done so. The rest just yell from the sidelines or make counter-parody websites or answer things like my Quiz for Skeptics (that is, until I modified it with links to the answers; so far now they have ignored it). He has written, “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.” Of course, many skeptics have refuted [Holding]’s material and he simply refuses to acknowledge defeat. Translated from Mojoese, "Many Skeptics have thought they provided a response, and were counter-refuted." As of this moment every challenge has been responded to and refuted and every respondent other than Farrell Till (and aside from any new this month) have vanished. Acknowledge defeat? There is nothing to acknowledge by way of defeat. But you can't tell that to someone "incompetent and unaware of it." However, if possible, [Holding]’s arrogance has grown larger over time to the point where he thinks he is unbeatable. In [Holding]’s mind, he has never been refuted. He's right. And in the minds of the Skeptics, the opposite is true. Now where does claim and counter-claim leave us? If I or Glenn Miller are unbeatable, it is because we make use of the relevant literature, whereas the usual Till-crowd tack is to open an NIV and announce your opinion. In the following, [Holding]’s ego has outdone even itself but a “Chicken Challenge” of a different sort has been thrown at his feet: one that will determine if [Holding] can talk in public as good a game as he writes behind his closed website. No, I can't. No one can speak as well as an essay with tens of pages and documentation can -- not without hours upon hours to speak, or unless their concern is to be a showman, which is indeed where McTill's priorities lie. He wasn't a preacher for no reason. Oral debates are havens for sound bites and for judgments by appearance. They are always the former. They've been the latter since Nixon "lost" the debate to Kennedy according to people who saw it on TV, and "won" it according to those who listened on radio.

[Holding] has boasted in several places on his site that he (and at least on some occasions, his wife) enjoyed tormenting “skeptical” professors with the “proof” of Christianity while a student at Florida State University. Um, no. I didn't say anything about Florida State University in that context. Notice how these goombas just assume to connect the dots: 1) I said somewhere I went to FSU. 2) I said somewhere I tormented skeptical professors in college. 3) Therefore I must have done #2 at FSU. Now with leaped conclusions like this one, what kind of quality debate can be expect from this quarter? They'll make goofy leaps like this and make you waste time correcting them rather than dealing with the issues. As it happens, both the Mrs. and I did our tormenting while at community college, and of course "torment" here is hyperbolic; neither of us carried fire and brimstone or pincers. I took no religion classes at FSU and professors of library science didn't get into religion; I had some heated exchange with one particular professor over matters of library policy, but I doubt if McTill wants to debate on that. Prior to that I spent two years at the University of Central Florida, where again I took no religion courses and no professors ever brought up religious topics, though I did do some tormenting on stuff like the Ibsen quote I provided elsewhere. At Valencia Community College we both took humanities classes where one particular professor was very aggressive in promoting a New-Agish/skeptical agenda rooted in the work of Joseph Campbell. I sent quite a few jibes in that direction, in the form of questioning the professor's foundational premisses. There was also a professor of religion who was more courteous and who I had non-hostile confrontations with, though he once became so "annoyed" by me that he "shot" me with his finger even as he laughed. So call this a leap based on a few words. That's how the Skeptics do debate, and they think they win when they do it. It's also why they don't like written debates, because they have far less opportunity to waste time with sound bites like these that you could be spending on defense. [Holding] has written:

One thing my wife and I both liked to do was torment our skeptical college professors who attacked Christianity. We'd both have a lot of fun with Stephen Harris, who brings us every liberal theory under the sun in one neat package. I found it hard to read this book, because I have little tolerance for people who bring only summary statements to the fore with qualifications like "most scholars say" -- those who use this phrase deserve a painful death by means of a Farrell Till lecture.

This was written in a book “review” in which [Holding] spits on the college textbook, Understanding the Bible by Stephen L. Harris. Never mind the fact that Dr. Harris is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Humanities and Religious Studies at the California State University in Sacramento and has more education and specialty in biblical studies having received his Ph.D. from Cornell than an amateur Christian apologist with a degree in Library Sciences from Florida State. [Holding] thinks he and his wife would have an easy time “tormenting” the likes of Dr. Harris. Funny comment from a fan of a guy who "spits on" the works of people like Richard Rohrbaugh, Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis and Clark College and author of several books, and other scholars with reams of credentials and credits in peer-reviewed journals. We would have an easy time, because we used source material from persons who had just as many (if not more) Ph. D's and sat in just as many chairs as Harris did, if not more, and had spent much more time analyzing the data and actually provided answers to the sorts of "arguments" (such as they were) writers like Harris provided. Here's another reason these Skeptical losers prefer sound bites: they like to play this pretend game of claiming I stake expertise for myself, and it's another distraction they support with paranoia like claiming citing a word in Greek and its meaning is somehow claiming to have expertise in Greek. Someone must have beat these guys up as children. I tend to doubt it Of course he does. Meanwhile Mojo is safe expressing his "doubts" since he remains in the bushes and has said he will do so for the duration. but in a moment you will find that [Holding] has been offered a chance to prove me wrong. We already have in written debate. Changing the venue won't change the reality. No geographic solution.

[Holding] also wrote,

Like many in this school, Mack is the master of the irrelevant parallel. I find him little different from other college professors with whom I have crossed swords in the past. ()

In this disrespectful piece, [Holding] the amateur apologist is dismissing the qualifications of Burton Mack, "Dismissing the qualifications?" I said zero about Mack's "qualifications" (which he actually earned, quite properly, not for his "Cynic sage" thesis but for his excellent work on Greco-Roman rhetoric) and all of my material against him comes from devastating critiques of his work written by professors such as Ben Witherington, Professor of NT Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary (who Mojo also hates, but hasn't the wherewithal to address himself, preferring to listen instead to crybaby Robert Miller's disjointed representations of Witherington's work, in which he can't even get Witherington's arguments stated correctly) and most recently Philip Jenkins (Hidden Gospels), a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State who lists Mack's thesis as an example of the "extreme lengths" [65] the "Jesus as sage" model can go to. I get my ammo for a Mack Attack from others. Now if Mojo or any of the thralls think they can match arguments for arguments, let them get out of their corner and do it. Let them find counters for Witherington and Jenkins, et al. and show us what they've got. Will they? No, it's much safer to yell from the corner for a debate that they have already been told 7,837 times will never happen.recently retired as Professor of New Testament at the Claremont School of Theology in California. Again, it is doubtful [Holding] could hold his own in any theological or historical discussion with a man of Prof. Mack’s caliber Imaginative doubts is all Mojo has to offer. I have plenty of questions for Mack taken from the literature critical of him, such as: How do you respond to Meyers' criticism showing that Hellenization actually intensified Jewish religious sentiments rather than infiltrating them? Mack's thesis posits a significantly Hellenized Galilee, but the social and archaeological evidence points in the opposite direction. but, again, as readers will learn, [Holding] has been given an opportunity to make me eat crow. Do I care what Mojo eats for dinner? Not in the least. I've been giving readers the Exposed website URL for cheap laughs for the past few months.

Finally, [Holding] has boasted,

Poor McTill. If only he knew how much I loved giving certain professors headaches in college. I did the same thing when they preached Ibsen's screed, "The majority is always wrong." As I asked my prof, "So does that mean that when 51% agree with Ibsen, he becomes wrong? If so, why did he try to convince anyone? That would seem counter-productive." And like McTill, their answer was to dodge and evade the fact that their subjective pearls of wisdom had been tested and found plastic. Or, the wiser ones than McTill changed the subject.

Here, [Holding] takes a shot at Farrell Till, a retired professor of English and skeptic of biblical inerrancy claims who has become a thorn in [Holding]’s side Make that a fly in my soup. recently due to a series of on-line debates. [Holding] equates Till’s debate tactics to one who dodges and evades the sterling wisdom of an amateur Christian apologist who doesn’t have a lick of professional training in the relevant fields. And never claimed to. McTill dodges and evades the findings of scholarship as he tried to do with Rohrbaugh, where he ended up being hammered. Funny how Mojo has kept his mouth shut on that one, though he may be smarter than Stevie Carr is. Funny also how he has zip to say from the linked article about McTill's confusion over who challenged who on preterism, his confusion over my hyperbole of the number of pages of blather he writes, the "90% of the website" gaffe, and on Barker's finances. Here's how it looks now: McTill is like the uncle who embarrasses everyone at the Thanksgiving table with stupid remarks, but who has lots of dough and prestige, so that everyone is afraid to offend or correct him and not be left out of his will. Maybe all those fans of his are vying to be his "heir apparent". [Holding] claims that he “loved” giving such “professors headaches in college.”

Such arrogance has reached the desktop of Farrell Till. I wonder how it fit with his own parked there. Sensing [Holding]’s overconfidence, Till is calling [Holding] out for a LIVE debate LIVE in caps! What's so special about that? in which [Holding] can put up or shut up. We've been putting up for months now. McTill's "geographic solution" is a non-challenge. Farrell has offered I don't care if he offers six figures, a suite at the Hilton, and ten minutes of him doing the hokey pokey in front of the White House while wearing nothing but a large band-aid:

We will see how adept [Holding] really is at confounding skeptical professors. I will travel to Florida State University and rent a location on campus all at my own expense to give [Holding] an opportunity to come there and expose my incompetence in a public debate. Let's see if his confidence is as big as his mouth. Wow, big spender. Maybe he should rent a space next to the home ec courses so he can learn about how to be a good steward of his resources. He could also use a class in linguistics so that he can figure out that NO means NO. Then he can spend that time he'd have used trying to find a Greco-Roman scholar who will agree with him that oikoumene meant the whole globe.

Farrell Till is not Stephen L. Harris. Farrell Till is not Burton Mack. Farrell Till does not have the degreed experience of these men who have dedicated their lives to the study of religion and the Bible. Don't tell McTill that! He'll admit he doesn't, but then argue as though he does! Farrell Till, to the caliber of [J. P.] [Holding]’s opinion of himself as a hot shot Christian apologist ready to fire from the hip at any “skeptical professor” who stands in the way of biblical inerrancy, Actually that topic never came up. should be easy pickings. He is. And a LIVE debate isn't needed to prove it. To quote McTill, "If not, why not?" Till has offered [Holding] an opportunity to return to his college days of embarrassing ignorant, skeptical professors in front of young, impressionable students. McTill put his foot in his mouth in doing so, since he picked the U. where I didn't do that. If such a debate would happen anywhere, it would be Valencia CC. But: Only this time, [Holding] can return to the scene of the crime as a master apologist, For what purpose would that be? The professors I dealt with are retired by now, and possibly even deceased. The students who were present are likely scattered all over the world doing jobs and earning money to feed their families and wouldn't be likely to remember any of this. The "challenge" in other words serves absolutely no purpose other than to give McTill the ability to claim he is doing something, and to distract from his inadequacies and relieve his frustration. a full-time dedicated champion of biblical inerrancy that has polished his skills in the intervening years and has proved himself (at least to himself) an unbeatable defender of Christianity and all that is good with the world. He could win countless souls to the faith by defeating this most stubborn foe. Was that supposed to be a motivator? It isn't. The name of this game is seldom getting people on the side of a fence; it's knocking them off the fence, whichever way they are already leaning.

According to Farrell, however, the offer has been sent to [Holding]’s attention but as of 12/07/02, Mr. Till has not heard back from “J.P. Holding” about his acceptance of participation in the debate or his excuse for rejecting the offer. McTill had his answer months ago, he just hasn't gotten around to looking up "NO" in the dictionary. Some members of Farrell Till’s II Errancy Internet Discussion List have offered money to help foot the cost of this debate so that [Holding] will not be out anything but his time in participating in this event. More big spenders and excellent stewards! My time is my most valuable resource and I wouldn't take their dirty money if it ran 18 figures. Two hours of debate is better spent in a library, reading a resource item, or writing an article. Seeing as how [Holding] no longer has a job and is devoting his life to becoming a full-time Christian apologist, it would be hard to imagine [Holding] passing up this opportunity Mojo's imagination is of course notoriously limited. It took him days to realize he couldn't come up with a more creative opening for his Exposed site. not only to display his skills as an apologist, Already doing that, why would I care about the geography? but to embarrass yet another skeptical college professor over the matter of biblical inerrancy. Already doing that too, though I am not particular about professors. [Holding]’s fans would surely like to see their hero lay to waste this most persistent of Bible skeptics. They're already watching it and enjoying it, according to the responses I have, though we would note that McTill already thinks that such opinions are worthless. Was this supposed to be another motivator? It wasn't. My readers don't slather like dirty dogs at the feet of their master like McTill's fans do. But they do enjoy sending Mojo poems to make his literalistically-damaged mind think they do. [Holding] hardly has an excuse to say “no” and owes it to his fans to put on display his talents for defending the Bible in a public forum. Duh ah, what is a website? After all, he is asking them for donations to help his fledgling enterprise so I would think any wise investor would want to see if his or her money is being put to good use. Ironic comment given the notable lack of stewardship McTill's fans are apparently showing. Good use, he says? Good use here means staying by my terminal and in my library writing articles. In fact, there is an offer to have the debate videotaped from one of the subscribers to Farrell Till’s Skeptical Review. Joe Reinhardt, owner of a video production company, Access Media Group, in Clearwater, Florida, has offered to produce such a video if the debate comes to fruition. Mr. Reinhardt has stated, I'll leave out what Mr. Reinhardt stated, which is just an offer to film the proceedings. Save your film for McTill's trip to Cucamunga.

With a video taped record of [Holding] embarrassing a skeptical college professor, he has the perfect opportunity to sell copies of the debate on his site to help raise money for his cause. Is this supposed to be another motivator? It isn't. Mojo truly hasn't left childhood if he thinks this kind of wheedling manipulation tactic has any affect on me. Beyond bemusement. I think maybe 10 people would donate for such a tape over 5 years, based on the stats for articles on McTill. If [Holding] is so confident in his abilities, he has a golden opportunity! Is this too supposed to be a motivator? What more "golden" do I need than the 50K per month who already log in to the site? If [Holding]’s position is indeed as sound as he boasts, he has little to lose but an hour or two out of his otherwise open schedule Only an hour or two? Travel time, 7 hours. 9 hours wasted. Even if it's where I live, that's a waste of at least 4 hours. Better spent reading books like Rohrbaugh's social-science commentary on the Gospels. to give one more skeptical college professor the kind of “headache” he so loved to give them in his student days. And again, that headache is already being delivered in writing. No geographic solution or change of venue is needed.

Check this page for updates as to the progress of this challenge. Yes, all 3 of you. Will [Holding] accept or will he turn out to be just another “chicken challenged?” Funny words in the context of reams of material having already been written. Put it simple: McTill is trying to waste time and distract from the beating he's getting. It will work for the 150 or so gullible thralls he has, we're sure, who would think him brilliant if he answered the question, "What are three hallmarks of an honor-shame society?" by saying, "McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell."

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