Critics of the TBK website are more than likely to get a plenty heaping of hostility from TBK's very own webmaster. In fact, almost every single one of TBK's critics are confronted with frequent ad-hominen bashing and an apparent offensive defense from the "renowned scholar" in the midst of a debate or challenge. This article will provide a list of links and quotes of Acharya S' critics and the dialouge that takes place between them. (NOTE: We urge readers to look into specific ideal points made in this essay directly quoted from Acharya's words, and that you make your own conclusions based on fair observation of the links provided to the quoted sources.)

Tektonics.org - JP Holding

James Patrick Holding is an actively engaged Christian apologist and is the webmaster of the widely known http://www.tektonics.org a site highly despised and ridiculed by atheists who subscribe to the Jesus-myth and or other related topics discussed in Holding's articles. JP Holding addresses Acharya S in several different articles on his site, most of them featured in his "copycat" article series.

The article where the Holding/Acharya conflict begins is in Holding's review of The Christ Conspiracy titled "S is for Stench": http://web.archive.org/web/20050217203851/www.tektonics.org/af/achy01.html (I have taken only bits and pieces that I thought were most important from this essay in a brief summary as I will do with the others due to their extensive lengths.)

"The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S is published by "Adventures Unlimited," (1999) not exactly Harper and Row, or Yale University Press, but at least they know where to buy ink; and when you are done with this book, you can buy the ones listed in the back on time travel and Atlantis. It is written by one who piles on the professed credentials like they would disappear if not referred to in a hurry: "...archaeologist, historian, mythologist, and linguist." Did they forget con artist, amateur logician, angry and irrational person? We didn't."

At first this may seem harsh towards Acharya, but looking closely at Acharya's style will tell you quickly that she definitely meets the characteristics of an "angry and irrational person", as we will show readers later on and reasons to exactly why.

"Achy doesn't bother with much showing a cause-and-effect or logical relationship between religion and disaster. One may ask, what about the fact that atheistic communism has caused more deaths than all religious crusades of any sort combined? Achy has an answer, but it only demonstrates her inability to think rationally: "...(F)ew realize or acknowledge that the originators of Communism were Jewish (Marx, Lenin, Hess, Trotsky) and that the most overtly violent leaders were Roman Catholic (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco) or Eastern Orthodox Christian (Stalin), despotic and intolerant ideologies that breed fascistic dictators. In other words, these movements were not 'atheistic,' as religionists maintain." That none of the named heroes of Communism/Catholicism practiced their Judaism/Catholicism is not mentioned and/or proved (much less is it shown that Judaism provided the support for their ideologies and actions); that Stalin was merely a seminary student, hardly a professing believer in Orthodox religion, is not mentioned. Merely trying to establish "guilt by association" doesn't do the job."

Also there's the question of asking "where did atheism originate from"? Acharya has apparently missed this minor but very important detail: where atheism started. It must be, however, if you have a religious background, you are obviously religious. Isn't theism older than atheism anyways? Didn't atheism evolve later? And, with that point made, it cannot be said for any atheist that they have no religious background (by a matter of regression, a religious background wouldbecome part of a family geneology to the point where any proclaimations of atheism and infidelity would have eventually popped up). In the second part of this paper, we will see exactly what Acharya thinks of those with a "bizarre background."

"Achy's first chapter closes with the usual litanies about forced conversions, tortures, and the Dark Ages. Perhaps this material is true and perhaps not--it is really a matter of indifference. As we have said, abuses of a given system of thought do not constitute disproof of that system."

When it comes to the topic of religion, Acharya needs to focus mainly on doctrine and see if it influences and agrees with an religious adherence's actions. In which case Acharya does attempt this, but she seems to only want to look for excuses for saying that religion is an evil destructive thing. Yet two characteristics of religious doctrine should be taken into consideration if one is to nitpick and criticize that belief system. First, taking a journey thousands of years into the past would show that the language and style of writing is almost entirely alien to modern day English and literalism. Second, not all religious wars and conflicts are fought over original doctrine but instead political perspective, such as with the Sunni and Shitte Muslims, their conflict lies with who should take up rightful leadership of the inner-Muslim community, not over disagreements within the Koran. Just the same, Protestanism is a response to the abuses of indulgences passed on by Catholic Church law, and although some interperations of Biblical doctrine influenced and motivated Protestants to create reforms, doctrine was used as a model to help withstand some of the abuses from Catholicism. Religious division is almost always political, and any disagreement in doctrine that may come up is used for political motivation, in other words, you find what you set out to search for in order to find support for your political views. In a way Acharya works very familiar to this style, and would rather spend her time "pointing fingers", in a game which she so sorely loses.

"Noting Ian Wilson's Jesus: The Evidence, Achy calls it "(a)n attempt to repudiate Wells," "an entire (slim) volume written to establish that Jesus did exist." From this Achy says, "It should be noted that no such book would be needed if the existence of Jesus Christ as a historical figure were a proven fact accepted by all."

It only makes sense to write a book here and there especially due to frequent Jesus-myther publications. Should evolutionists respond to creationists or stand by and just let creationists tell laypeople that the evolutionists are wrong? In the same sense, should historians just ignore Jesus-mythers without writing anything in response? Are we just to believe that Jesus was just a myth without analyzing the credibility of such a bold position and without seeing the argument from both perspectives in a fair analysis?

"And so, Achy goes on to divide belief about the Christ-myth into three camps. The first group, she says, are "the believers," people who "take the Judeo-Christian bible as the literal 'Word of God,' 'accepting on faith' that everything contained within it is historical fact infallibly written by scribes 'inspired by God.'" Achy's second category she calls the "evemerists"--people who are not believers, but do believe in a historical Jesus; although we are told that this is an opinion based on the fact that it is commonly held, not because its proponents have studied the matter or seen "clear evidence to that effect." It is all, Achy tells us, the result of "mental programming." Indeed: I should like to see our "archaeologist, historian..." etc. get up before the annual meeting of whatever passes for an international society of professional ancient historians and tell them how they have all been "mentally programmed" to believe in Jesus as a person who existed. I am sure that they would appreciate being told that they are victims of a conspiracy and brainwashing and that all of their objective historical work and training is meaningless."

Well, no one should have to challenge Acharya because she obviously goes unmatched by any sort of scholar and or "expert" in her field. You see it's her work that is going to change the way society works within the next couple hundreds of years, you'll see, her goals will eventually rid society of the religious lie and everyone will come to accept the fact that Jesus never lived. Yay!

"No sooner is C. Dennis McKinsey polishing it again when I must pass off the "Worst Treatment of Secular References" Award to someone else...and Achy gets it on her mantlepiece this time. I spent almost 60 pages on this topic; Achy spends: 5 and a quarter. And that 5 1/4 is packed with all of the usual mistakes, and some outrightly shameful nonsense, as well. The Roman Livy had 142 books of history, of which we now have very few; this is because, we are told, the other volumes were destroyed "by the conspirators trying to cover their tracks." Really, now, what conspirators were these? And how do we know what they destroyed was relevant? Chances are that Livy's histories disappeared for the same reason that millions of Roman military pay-slips disappeared: No one bothered to keep them."

Great, she goes about as far as she can when it comes to this "conspiracy" talk. No this isn't some exaggeration of Acharya's words, this is what she truly writes and truly believes in. Thus we find that her titled work "The Christ Conspiracy" is to demonstrate that the early Christians intentionally invented a new religious movement by copying old ideas in order to pervert the recording of time and history (long after these people are dead I might add) and to enforce brainwashing upon the masses (i.e., mankind's worst tragedy and the root of all evil!). For whatever unexplained reason, somehow the early Christians did not want the people of the future to know of Virgil's existence, unless Acharya is implying that Virgil had some vital secrets that would damage the foundations of Christianity, but of course this is no way of Acharya knowing this, especially if the documents were "suppressed" and confidential.

Acharya's rebuttal to JP Holding: http://www.truthbeknown.com/holding.htm

"Since they have no champion other than Holding and his flaccid attacks, fanatics must rely on his work to discredit the Christ mythicists, who logically and rationally contend that Jesus Christ is a mythical character (and a very evident one, at that)."

This is not true and simply false, she already has acknowledged that the great majority of scholars reject the Jesus-myth theory. Why would Holding be the only one available to "discredit mythicists"? The majority of scholars are under this conspiracy too and would rather live a lie so they become afraid of debunking Jesus-mythers. Right. Or it could be that scholars have better things to do, like their job, being historians, reconstructing ancient documents. And this means not just simply concerning the Jesus of the New Testament. Holding isn't an historian and his work is too simply gather and research information as his credentials will permit, but apparenlty Acharya hasn't thought on this and makes the assumption that Holding is the ONLY reference against the Christ-myth for those good ol' "religious fanatics" to use at their dispersal.

"Obviously, from the level of the vitriol and continued assaults over a period of years, my work is very threatening, which means it has merit."

OR it could be highly erroneous work spewed with venom and sacreligiously offensive remarks that offend people who want to correct you erroneous disasters, perhaps? Maybe you could consider that you have left quite a mess that gullible people have been duped into taking you seriously for? I'm sure people have been attacking you over your religious ranting, but then what about the shooting at Columbine? What about the Christian students who had guns held to their heads and when they asked if they were Christian or not and gave their reply a "yes" they had their brains blown out? Then again, the world is after Acharya S, a fighting "freethinker" who is fighting the good fight and isn't afraid to let down, who must make her way through trial and devastation so that one day everyone will someday know the "truth." As if the "truth" hasn't been perpetuating for the last two or more centuries.

"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. "S is for Stench?" (To my amazement, Holding has changed the original title of his "refutation.")"

If she is referring to the link where the article used to be, then yes, a new article has replaced it. However, the old article can still be found in the available archive, and Holding has yet to rid of it permanently. Above all, it's more than the title thats been replaced, it's a completely different article with a completely different list of arguments (although still based on the same topic concerning her book). This is probably why Holding would make a much more reliable source than Acharya any day based that Holding can do the research and Acharya would rather take the word of psychics and New-Agers uncritically on topics they aren't even expertised in.

"(Holding has been caught making countless inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and outright lies, including in my case that I "believe the Jews of the first century worshipped the moon." I have never said such a thing.)"

What a wonderful lie! IT'S RIGHT THERE IN HER BOOK! It isn't just Holding who quotes her saying this, she also has another Christian apologist, Mike Licona (see further below), oh, but I guess he's a Christian and he's not to be trusted eh? He's lying too, he made it up, of course. Ah, but she had no problem stating that the Muslim god Allah was an "ancient moon goddess". (See: http://www.truthbeknown.com/islam.htm) I guess Holding and Licona met together for coffee one day at Starbucks to arrange this forged quote of yours by reading that article and putting these words in your mouth which you have obviously "never said such a thing", HMMMM?

"Here is an example that demonstrates Holding's inaccuracy and lack of knowledge. First of all, he's got a very suspicious mind, which is appropriate for someone who works in the prison industry, who thinks everyone's guilty of something (except for himself, of course)."

However Acharya happens to be a "conspiracy theorist", and her book The Christ Conspiracy says enough. She criticizes Holding for having a "suspicious mind" whenever he is challenged but seems to think that believing in her "Christ conspiracy" that she isn't a bit of suspicion? Starting to sound like a Da Vinci Code fantasy: "I must reveal the long kept secret to the world before it's too late!" She probably has an albino monk from the 'Opus Die' sect who "kills in the name of God" after her as well. "A secret so powerful that, if revealed, it could devastate the very foundations of Christianity!"

"I have read so many absurd and inaccurate statements of his I am beginning to wonder if he's a joke, hired by some millionaire philanthropist out to destroy Christianity by making its representatives look idiotic. Not that they need any help."

See? Look how nice and respectful she is of her opponents, she makes a sweeping generalization that all Christians are basically, well, stupid! But what about academic Christian intellectuals? Those that are physicists, biologists (and no not strictly intelligent design proponents), philosophers, and historians? What about Isaac Newton? Galileo? Where would science be without these stupid people? *Chris Farley voice* "Hmm.....very interesting!"

"What Holding has done is to provide a gathering place for hateful Christian thugs to revel in their torment of other humans. As they say, like attracts like."

In case no one recognizes this is junk from the New Age spiritualist fad that has been sweeping across the US known as "The Secret", which is probably some of the most retarded garbage out there for its "law of attraction." I am strictly familiar only with "opposites attract" which is a more universally accepted opinion based on observational and scientific laws. This is supposed to apply to the "spiritual realm" and according to believers, is to be taken metaphorically (even though they use such examples as magnetism for such a law!), but how can this be scientific when nature operates in an opposite fashion when all things like repel? Pseudoscience!

Holding, as smug and wrong as ever, believes he has somehow refuted this scholarly essay. He hasn't, and he is clearly wasting everyone's time with his insistent foolishness. Again, he has in no way refuted the Christ mythicist position. And again, show me the evidence that this superhuman Son of God walked the earth 2,000 years ago? Before I too suspend my scientific rationality, I want see proof!

Whatever "scientific rationality" Acharya is referring too is lacking or rather nonexistant (see quote above).

"P.P.S.  To reiterate, Holding has presented himself as an "expert" on me, revealing personal information and libelous material received by him through a violent fugitive wanted for three felonies, including child abduction.  This is the type of person upon whom Christian fanatics rely for their debunking of the Christ myth."

Nooo.....that sounds more like you, Acharya. Holding says he has a Master's Degree in Library Science, he never said he was an "expert" really at anything, besides gathering sources and citing scholars. What does it take to be an "expert" about a modern day person anyways? Maybe if you attend the American School of Classical Greek Studies for four years you will become a great fantastic "expert." If you don't, well quite frankly, that qualifies you to be a dumbass and or malicious conspirator. 

JP Holding's second article, titled "S is for Squiggle": http://www.tektonics.org/af/achyresp.html (This article only addresses the errors that Acharya made in her response won't be quoting this article as it is basically irrelevant to the topic. Although Holding points out in many areas where Acharya makes erroenous assumptions regarding his very own credentials.)

Answering Infidels.com - Mike Licona

Mike Licona, a Christian apologist/historian and owner of both http://www.risenjesus.com and http://www.answeringinfidels.com , offered a thorough critical analysis of Acharya S's book "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold." The following article by Mike Licona was taken from his Answering Infidels.com website although most people familiar with this article have linked it to Risen Jesus.com, however the link has now been removed from that site and is currently placed with Answering Infidels instead. The title of this article is called "A Refutation of Acharya S.'s book, The Christ Conspiracy", here Licona refers to Acharya S by her real name (Dorothy Murdock, "Ms. Murdock"):

"She also claims that "[t]he Hebrews were ‘moon-worshippers,’ since many of their feasts and holidays revolved around the movements and phases of the moon. Such moon-worship is found repeatedly in the Old Testament (Ps. 8:13 [sic], 104:19; Is. 66:23), and to this day Jews celebrate holidays based on the lunar calendar. At Isaiah 47, these moon-worshippers are equated with astrologers, i.e., ‘. . . those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons predict what shall befall you.’" This seems unlikely for a couple of reasons: (A) Just because the Jews operated under a lunar calendar, does not mean that they were moon worshippers. (B) When you look at the three biblical  references she provides to support her claim that moon worship is found repeatedly in the Old Testament, it is readily seen that these has been taken out of context."

Anyone notice that Licona is quoting directly from Acharya's book? Yet earlier, as we have quoted her saying, "I've never said such a thing" regarding the Jews as "moon-worshippers." Maybe what she was trying to say was that she never said anything about first century Jews worshipping the moon, but nonetheless, these are her very own words highlighted in red. Acharya will have to clarify what she is saying, or, she is simply lying.

Acharya responds to Licona: http://www.truthbeknown.com/licona.htm

Firstly, Licona spends his time trying to prove a most preposterous premise: To wit, that Jesus Christ did in fact rise from the dead, which should in itself cast doubt on his own credibility.

About just as preposterous as saying Jesus never existed and being absolutely positively assured that no such man lived?

Secondly, I am not a "skeptic with an interest in mythology." I am an expert in comparative religion and mythology who is sensibly skeptical of the silly stories and bogus claims foisted upon the masses by priestly hucksters such as Licona, e.g., that a Jewish man is the God of the cosmos and rose from the dead 2,000 years ago."

Here we go again, notice it? More of the same self-proclaimed acheiver garbage, "I'm an expert", "I'm a scientist", "I'm a mythologist, linguist", etc. Break out the badges and golden medals folks, Acharya gets an "A" for effort in her Brownie achievement award!

Licona answers Acharya in this paper: http://www.answeringinfidels.com/answering-skeptics/answering-acharya-s/a-refutation-of-acharya-ss-book-the-christ-conspiracy-pt-2.html

"I am sorry that you interpret my paper as an attempt to attack your credibility." 

Did you read that Acharya? The author of the article apologized for upsetting you. This "evil hateful intolerant used-religion saleman" said he was sorry for making you upset! Would you like to criticize him some more for being hateful and intolerant or can you correctly translate this sentence? (Please for the love of god do not try doing so in any language aside from English.)

"In your attempts to show that Judaism was strongly influenced by astrology (e.g., the 12 tribes of Israel represent the 12 signs of the zodiac), you endeavor to establish that the zodiac goes back much earlier than accepted by the majority of scholars.You state that “the Babylonians and the priestly caste of Chaldeans were expert astrologers centuries to millennia prior to the Christian era--denying that fact is beyond ridiculous! [ital. mine]  But it does reveal the depth of dishonesty needed in order to shore up fables.” In my initial paper, I stated that “the Babylonians made the divisions in the fifth century B.C. If this dating is correct, reading astrology into the twelve tribes is anachronistic, since Genesis was written approximately 1,000 B.C. and contains the story of the 12 tribes of Israel which would have occurred even earlier.” Please show us where is “the dishonesty needed in order to shore up fables” of which you accuse me.  Ms. Murdock, throwing unfounded accusations against others who disagree with you is an easy task.  Research integrity is much more difficult and respected by others." 

Perhaps the greatest thing that was written in this paper is this:

 Lighten Up

“I admonished you at the beginning of this reply that, in academia, you must be prepared for criticisms that challenge your views.  In your rebuttal, you write of me and those whom I quote,  “Their knee-jerk reactions without inquiring of me or my research--even recommending a snooty, sophomoric and obnoxious response of ignoring me at all costs--are a sign of a personality problem, not of their cleverness or erudition.” Spiteful rock-throwing at those who disagree with you does not change a thing.  On the one hand, you constantly boast of how well you have documented your points by how many endnotes are contained in your book.  Yet on the other hand you desire us to ask you where your information comes from.  We see where it is coming from, Ms. Murdock, and we are saying to you that we find it unconvincing and lacking in academic quality."

The Refiners Fire.org - "Carmen"

The Refiners Fire.org website is a Messianic Jew organization that writes articles on cults that are considered heretic and on issues having to do with the Bible and Jesus. One of the webmasters of Refiners Fire.org, "Carmen", made an article directed at Acharya calling her a "Christ-hater" and summarizing certain parts of the TBK site with her own added responses.

The first article can be found here: http://www.therefinersfire.org/acharya_s.htm

Commentary - - Acharya S

The Crucifixion on the Intelligence

"I haven't seen Mel Gibson's bloody movie, "The Passion of The Christ," and I don't plan to anytime soon. Since I'm an expert on Christian mythology, however, I'm qualified anyway to speak against the grotesque slop that keeps coming out of Hollyweird and passing itself off as "history."

The Refiner's Fire Comment: Notice the self-aggrandizing? An "expert" on Christian mythology? Murdock can call herself "an expert" from now till Doomsday but, the fact remains, she does NOT understand the Bible, as Mike Licona's scholarly refutation aptly reveals.

"Get over it. Time to create a better story that centers on life instead of death. Especially the hideous and cruel torture and death of the Almighty God Hisself! Truly, I say unto you, the story is despicable.

The Refiner's Fire Comment: This paragraph proves she doesn't know the Bible from a hole in the ground! The story of Christ IS about life!"

With that we'll now move onto Carmen's second article:

NOTE FROM THE RABBIS @ THE REFINER'S FIRE: Below is an article written by one of the The Refiner's Fire's teachers, Carmen, who has several times challenged "Acharya S". Judge for yourself what type of person this "Acharya" is....

Quoted from: http://www.therefinersfire.org/truth_be_known.htm

"I immediately realized that, despite the fact that I had made her aware of my, by now "old" challenge to her, Acharya, who apparently loves controversy and the focus of the entire world on herself - as can clearly be seen on her website, Truth Be Known - apparently wanted everyone to think that people are constantly thinking about, and attacking her, or trying to "hurt her feelings" in some way. And so I tried to leave a message in her chatroom to that effect - which she refused to post. Long story short, I registered in the chatroom, and when the hate mail started coming in from some of her supporters, I began responding, which FINALLY got her attention - and, just as I had suspected, spurred her onto a warpath! In her rage, in order to show the world that she thinks I (along with all other believers in Christ!) am a mean, hateful, vindictive, "anti-human" person, she immediately copied my 2004 article and "mirrored" it on her own site under the heading, Challenging "Carmen" and her anti-Human Ravings."

The link under the underlined heading can be found here: http://loonies.50megs.com/carmen.html

And let us quote this document, shall we?

"To the self-righteous egotists who believe they are better than everyone else, the rest of us are all swine. (These self-righteous and megalomaniacal egotists who believe they speak for God also tend to criticize everyone else for supposed vanity.)"

"Supposed vanity"? The whole purpose of the original article was to critique what Acharya was saying on her website:

"One of "Acharya's" latest antics that proves her unmitigated hatred toward Christ and believers in Christ, is the endorsement of a "Photoshopped" picture of herself as the Madonna, carrying a gray-skinned baby resembling a space alien that is presenting its middle finger to the world in apparent defiance. In her chatroom thread entitled 'Hail Mary, Mother of God!'"

Here is the link on Acharya's Yahoo! chat room: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christ_Conspiracy/message/8981 , the link to the Photoshop document however, is outdated and the file has been removed.

She just also happens to feature a HTML web icon on TBK of a picture of Jesus with the headlines "He's Watching You!" with the changing captions:"Jesus is watching you smoke that weed!","Jesus is watching you fornicate!", "Jesus is watching you bust a nut!", "Jesus is watching you download porn!"

Don't believe it? Then you may want to take a second look at Acharya's website, and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the index page: http://www.truthbeknown.com/index.html Or, you may even want to visit the "Landover Baptist Church" website and check out their merchandise section, which Acharya freely advertises: http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist/1372131 

Well, so much for Acharya's assertion of non-existant "supposed vanity" coming from her side of the table, she's so whacked she doesn't even realize the consequences of her anti-religious site content!

Given that case, is it unreasonable to expect that someone might decide to write an article based on Acharya's whacky claims and false misinformation?

Turns out that Acharya S seems to have connections with other people in other professions, enough to say that she can make an educated medical diagnosis:

"She's a badly abused child, which as our resident psychologist Zoe can explain, is the cause of much religious fanaticism."

So apparently she is diagnosing Carmen as psychotic, a clear indication backed up by her usual rants (see: http://www.truthbeknown.com/mental.htm )

"RELIGION IS MENTAL ILLNESS
GOD IS A PSYCHOPATH"

"For a particularly deranged ad hominem attack on me by a "loving Christian," please see "The Refiner's Fire." Be warned, however, that psychosis may be communicable."

Of course as we may note, Acharya herself admits to having her own psychological problems:

"There is a reek of bipolar--I'm unfortunately familiar with the condition."

If Carmen is bipolar/schizophrenic and therefore is "mentally ill" while Murdock admits to having these same conditions then Acharya herself is a psychotic whacko! This certaintly explains allot, why Acharya can attack anyone she pleases, but if anyone has anything to say about what she writes, then all hell breaks loose. Talk about a double standard, not to mention outright blatant contradiction.

"As I was reading this slop, an 8-year-old child came up behind me and started reading this site. Without any prompting, he said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be the exact opposite of this person."

Some minutes later, he said, "She's possessed."

Are we honestly supposed to believe that her eight year old child actually made a comprehensive judgement based on her opponent's writings? Anyone with a brain can clearly see that this was made up just to rile up more of her deluded mindless fans. "She's possessed"? I thought Acharya made it clear that belief in devils and evil spirits is schizophrenic? "The belief in God and Satan, as two separate but equally powerful (Satan actually seems MORE powerful, according to this psychosis), creates schizophrenia, and I'm willing to bet that's what we're dealing with here." First she says that Carmen is mentally ill, next she concludes (by putting words in her son's mouth) that Carmen is "possessed", so thats a very nice way of getting the point across. Exactly what is the enviroment of Acharya's household life for her son to come up with the conclusion that Carmen is "possessed"? Isn't she raising this person as she sees fit? Why would her kid base a conclusive statement that initially is "a dangerous delusion" a part of the religious propaganda "psychosis"? Acharya would rather speak through the opening of her posterior than use her head, but then again, we realize, of course, she is schizophrenic bipolar psychotic.

Here is a small dialouge taken from Acharya's Yahoo group named after her book "The Christ Conspiracy":

--- In Christ_Conspiracy@yahoogroups.com, Joseph <josip@v...> wrote:

Dear Acharya,

Give the lady a bar of gold from Fort Knox! You asked: "Perhaps we need a discussion as to what constitutes mental illness" First, I am not ignoring what you wrote. When medical personnel speak of mental illness they mean a psychiatric disorder. The criteria for diagnosing mental illnesses is listed in: DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is huge expensive book that is used worldwide.

Some religious people are just pain in the a** jerks but are not people suffering from untreated psychiatric disorders. Example the Morman who rang my door bell at 1 AM to give me his holy book because the light was on is a pain in the a**.

Encarta rightly states:

No universally accepted definition of mental illness exists. In general, the definition of mental illness depends on a society's norms, or rules of behavior. Behaviors that violate these norms are considered signs of deviance or, in some cases, of mental illness.

Because norms vary between cultures, behaviors considered signs of mental illness in one culture may be considered normal in other cultures. For example, in the United States, a person who experiences trance and possession states (altered http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566888_2//encyclopedia_761572420/Conscio\
usness.html states of consciousness) is usually diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness. Yet, in many non-Western countries, people consider such
states an essential part of human experience. In Native American culture, it is common for people to hear the voices of recently deceased loved ones. In contrast, most mental health professionals in Western cultures would consider such behavior a possible symptom of schizophrenia or pychosis.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566888_2//encyclopedia_761562671/Psychos\
is.html 

The BIG difference in normal versus abnormal is: Can the person carry out their daily activities and responsibilities to earn a living and care for those they are accountable for, yet believing Jesus Christ is real or anything else? Normal? Yes they are!!!! The nuns I endured in parochial school were well adjusted, smart dedicated people that gave me an education that was second to none. The bum talking to himself wearing a winter coat in July may very well be schizophrenia. The Church of Christ preacher next door who wants me to get baptized in his tank is barking up the wrong tree when he approaches me. His dress and Camrey in the driveway tells me he is earning a living and not mentally ill.

The paranormal experiences, altered states of reality that my Blackfoot Indian relatives had in communicating with spirits were real and essential to the well being of the tribe. These people were not mentally ill or psychotic. Yet today the exploration of spiritual realities can cause a person to be mistakenly labeled
mentally ill.

For me mental illness is much more than just a person who I disagree
with.

Josip

This was Acharya's reply:

Re: A question of mental illness

Briefly, again, Josip, this is an entirely incorrect assessment of my
work and my criticisms of religious fanaticism: "For me mental
illness is much more than just a person who I disagree with."

Frankly, that's just dismissive horseshit.

See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christ_Conspiracy/message/6452

This comment is utterly baffling, such that an "expert scholar" would use the word "horseshit" in dialogue without offering any sort of reasons for why she did not simply use an unwarranted diagnosis on someone elses' behalf due to arugmental disagreements. It also seems that the majority of what was written by Josip has gone ignored! Her best rebuttal was to say it was "dismissive horseshit", some professional "scholar."

This is part one of Acharya's responses to her critics, to view the second part to this essay, click on the link below: