Talk:J. P. Holding

Facts and citations badly needed
this article really does not make much sense or tell us much about him. This paragraph in particular is about as vague as me saying "my dad was a minster but got kicked out". I cleaned up the grammar a bit, but someone who knows this guy really needs to address the stuff.

"Even though he is a Christian, he claims he does not set out to convert people. Instead, he claims, he is presenting facts (about what?) clearing up misunderstandings (about what) and explaining the history of Christianity (in what context?). And he claims he doesn't have to resort to pseudohistory or logical fallacies, although he might stretch the truth a bit."

--En attendant Godot 05:15, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Tectonics ministries?
Are you sure it's not Tekton? as far as i can google, tecktonics is some kind of very youth driven electronic music, and this guy is an old fart. En attendant Godot 05:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems right to me, though I also get drum 'n bass. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Problem
This is unsupported and makes little sense without more than bald conclusions: "however it is unclear when reading his articles, what this context is, since it is not mainstream academic, nor mainstream revisionist Christian. He claims he doesn't have to resort to pseudohistory or logical fallacies, but again, this is not borne out in the articles from his website. His answers are his own, and they may or may not be useful for someone who is questioning his or her Christianity, but they do not resolve any of the known conflicts in the Bible any better than other apologetic writers have done." Has anyone read enough of Holding's essays to address this coherently? Faraday Cage (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I have and he misrepresents stuff like crazy. His book Shattering the Christ Myth case in point.  He dismisses Philo of Alexandria showing that he has NO idea of WHY the man non mention of Jesus is so important.   Also as one can see from his comments on negative reviews J. P. Holding is not the most pleasant of people.  Anyone that disagrees with him get some some really disturbing vitriol. --BruceGrubb (talk) 04:18, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

's edit
http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=J._P._Holding&curid=125721&diff=1599041&oldid=1580219&rcid=2067035

20:29, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Drive-by addition from 199.250.57.231
The below was allegedly, quote "filed by Plaintiff Christian Doscher". Moved to talkpage by me. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 07:50, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The Libel Lawsuit against Holding
The following is written by Christian Doscher, the person suing Holdingfor libel/defamation: On August 5, 2015, Doscher filed suit against Holding in a Washington State Court, and after Holding spent $21,000 in legal fees, that suit was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. Holding had boasted at theologweb back in 2015 that he did not need a lawyer to get this suit dismissed, due to his 7 years having run a prison law library and becoming intimately familiar with frivolous lawsuits filed by inmates there. So it remains a mystery why Holding, who is not rich, decided to spend such a large amount of money on the very type of help that he so loudly boasted he did not need, but an immature form of self-delusion is a reasonable explanation for talking so confidently about a matter before one knows what is really going on. On August 16, 2016, Doscher filed a libel lawsuit against Holding in a federal Court in Florida, the state where Holding lives. The two main sources for this lawsuit as listed in the Complaint (an Internet Predator Alert at Holding's website, and a thread at theologyweb.com dedicated to libeling Doscher)were, along with Holding's own "Tektonics" sub-forum at theologyweb, removed from public access shortly after the lawsuit was commenced. A person with Holding's infamously defiant, obstinate and arrogant personality would never have removed (or approved of the removal) of such sources had he seriously believed they were legitimate non-libelous exercises of his free speech right. So the jury is more than likely to interpret his removal of those libels as an admission that he finally discovered the obvious: that they were indeed actionably libelous, therefore he could do nothing better for himself than to remove them and hope this would mitigate the level of damages the jury might award against him. The lawsuit alleges that Holding falsely told multiple third parties on multiple occasions that Doscher was clinically diagnosed as being a sick delusional mentally unstable person, who was a danger to the safety of others, who had an unhealthy preference for sexual perversions, who is no different than prison inmates in a psyche ward who are forcibly medicated. Holding also asserted multiple times that Doscher was guilty of various crimes, including spousal abuse and other immoral behavior such as, plagiarism and stalking, that Doscher was a pedophile, and explicitly sought with these false allegations to cause Doscher to be viewed by others with hatred, distrust, ridicule, contempt and/or disgrace. On September 18, 2015, Holding filed a criminal complaint against Doscher with the Ocoee Florida police department, charging Doscher with the crime of impersonation/fraud. But the detective in charge of the case refused Doscher's offer to make a statement and otherwise assist, and promptly closed the case thereafter. Doscher alleges that all of Holding's accusations are demonstrably false, and has sought compensatory, presumed and punitive damages thereto, for libel per se (jury can award presumed damages even if they think no actual damages have been proved). Inexplicably, in an under-oath answer Holding gave to an interrogatory propounded to him during the discovery phase of the Washington state lawsuit, he specifically denied ever attempting to convince third parties to view Doscher with hatred, distrust, ridicule, contempt and/or disgrace. A jury will have to decide whether this is consistent with the mountain of highly offensive misrepresentations that Holding, who has a master's degree in library science and has for 20 years shown his masterful ability to communicate his intentions in a clear way, has published to others. Most of the sources for these libels came to light when Doscher forced Holding's lawyer to disclose private emails Holding had sent third-parties in 2015. In the Washington State lawsuit, Doscher also forced Holding to reveal the real-life identities and contact information of many of his anonymous theologyweb followers. Suspiciously, after this it became difficult to find any theologyweb discussions about Doscher or the lawsuit. Apparently even jackass juvenile delinquents are capable of getting the message after their teeth have been kicked out the back of their skull. Holding has recently admitted to having purchased "libel insurance". It remains unknown whether the insurance company gave him the high-risk rate.

Context Group disowns J.P. Holding, twice
For the better part of the last 20 years, Holding has consistently defended his use of juvenile slurs, insults and vitriol toward his critics, by arguing, with citation to Context Group work, that the bible teaches that when Christians are confronted with a critic who is publicly criticizing the faith, Christians should "attack" in the sense of heaping scorn and shame on such critic. See his magnum opus to that effect at http://www.tektonics.org/lp/madmad.php. Holding is also unique among apologists in how hard he pushes the legitimacy of the social science approach to the bible in general, and his pushing of the legitimacy of Context Group scholarship on the bible in particular.

Context Group co-founder Richard Rohrbaugh in 2008, after reviewing a sample of Holding's insulting language, concluded that Holding gives Christianity a bad name, needs serious help, is a boor with no manners, does not deserve to be given the time of day, and neither Rohrbaugh himself, nor any other bible scholar he could think of, wish to be associated in any way with Holding. These comments from Rohrbaugh are permanently archived at http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/showthreadc69e-2.html?t=253929

Dr. Rohrbaugh also asserted in a private 2015 email to Doscher, after reviewing Holding's article at www.tektonics.org/lp/madmad.php, that such article was an "obvious perversion of both the NT and ALL Context scholarship, including mine. But... respond?  Not worth my time.  RLR". Since Holding has a master's degree in library science, and clearly wishes the world to view him as capable of competing on the same high academic level as legitimately credentialed bible scholars, it remains unknown how Holding could have missed the forest for the trees for so long a time on such a specific issue. However, a juvenile form of arrogant self-delusion wouldn't be too off the mark to explain how it is that somebody with such alleged research capabilities, could remain blind to obvious truth for such a long stretch of time. Another clue might be Holding's infamous attitude that he doesn't care at all that he cannot cite a single published bible scholar to support his belief that the bible approves of modern-day Christians using insulting invective toward their opponents.

Holding does not care whether the bible is inspired by God
One would naturally figure that a professing Christian who writes hundreds of articles in defense of "biblical inerrancy", like Holding, does so because they care whether the bible is the inspired word of God or not. But in a 2008 debate between Doscher and Holding at theologyweb (only available through wayback machine) Doscher said Holding was known in the past for saying he did not care whether the bible was the 'inspired word of god', and advised Holding to come up with some creative excuse like "sarcasm" to "explain" this revealing admission. Holding responded that he wasn't being sarcastic, but genuine, in the 20 or so times in the past when he made a statement like that:

Holding's homosexuality
Holding is not just infamous for his many attempts in the past to characterize his argument-victories with homosexual innuendo, he has caused even other Christian apologists to chastise him for an excessive interest in men's buttocks:

Holding's other website contains his attempt to make sure that the already-homosexual context he is addressing, will not fail to cause the reader to envision homosexual intercourse:

If there is any truth to "ye shall know them by their fruits..." (Matthew 7:16, NAU)...

...if there is any truth to "his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart" (Luke 6:45 NAU)

...then it is not unreasonable in the least to conclude that the reason so much homosexuality oozes from Holding's mouth is because, as the bible says, his mouth speaks only that which fills his heart. The bible does not permit him the option to say his heart is against homosexuality, but he just talks gay all the time as a "style". The gayness either originates in his heart, or the bible has an error in it. Holding would appear to be happy with either choice.

The readers who hate Holding will be happy to know that the lawsuit places at issue much of the disgusting language Holding has posted to the internet in the last 20 years, and Holding will be giving his under-oath explanations for it in Court.

End of material allegedly contributed by Doscher
Comments? Questions? in the U.S. or Canada, dial barryjoneswhat@yahoo.com.

Relevance to pseudoscience?
I personally talk with the guy on a regular basis. Why the heck is he featured under the pseudoscience category now? What do you guys know that I don't?134.129.56.235 (talk) 21:30, 2 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Update: It's been nearly four months and I have yet to receive an answer. Removing pseudoscience tag.Skadooshbag (talk) 16:47, 29 June 2018 (UTC)