Why do people just believe in Abraham Lincoln when no one alive has ever seen the man? Not one person has seen him. No one has touched him or spoken to him. I realize that the claim is that he’s been dead for a while, but can we really trust that such a person really existed? Maybe he did, but maybe he didn’t. I suggest that for all intents and purposes, Lincoln never really existed and people have just believed in the Abraham Lincoln myth. Blind faith! That’s how people believe in this fictional character. Simply by having blind faith.
Well…maybe not. Let’s get real now. The reason why such a thing would even be proposed is that we’re now removed from the time and place of the person of Abraham Lincoln, and the time elapsed provides more leeway for people to fabricate their own reality powered by their own imaginations.
Sometimes when patience wears thin with people who not only entertain certain bad ideas, but find comfort in the most unreasonable of positions, not any kind of rejoinder is sufficient to do the job of exposing the fallacious rhetoric than that which can be accomplished through satire. Imagine, if you will, a group of friends carrying on a lighthearted discussion about the reasons for the existence of God, when one insightful person among them proposes the topic of radical historical skepticism. Now, since various bad arguments have been proposed by atheists for the non-existence of God, and since many of these same people have also claimed that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist (Jesus did exist), the perfect opportunity presented itself to the opening of this conversation. What if some of those bad atheistic arguments were parodied? And what if someone in a manner similar to the arguments that Jesus had never existed, were to make such outlandish charges against a historical figures of more recent times? What would those objections look like? What if we claimed that Abraham Lincoln never existed, and further claim that the ripples of history that followed were merely the result of a fabricated revolutionary?
Let’s see – we’ll start with a sprinkle of bad logic mixed with a dash of the sarcasm of the modern age. Mix in the tired groans of reasonable men trying to reason with unreasonable ones, and season it all with comedy, and we have the makings of a masterpiece . And such a thorough probing into the matter cannot be sufficiently carried out by a fictitious discussion merely the result of a single writer. No, the variety of comedy of this kind and of this magnitude, must be carried out by a tired group of cultural misfits, commonly called Christian apologists. It all began with the most interesting quote by one of this group’s insightful members:
“Modern historians who believe that Abraham Lincoln was President might acknowledge that, when it comes to their office mates Bob and George, Tom and William, Peter and Arthur, Mary and Amanda, they dont believe that any of these people is or ever was President. We are all President-disbelievers about most people. Some of us just go one President further.” [1. Richard Dawkins, _A Devil’s Chaplain_ (2003), p. 150]
The Conversation of the Abraham Lincoln Myth
Soon enough the conversation was ablaze. How would one apply some of the common objections to the existence of God, specifically to the truth of Christianity, to the existence of, say Abraham Lincoln? Perhaps like this:
Variant formulation: “When you understand why you disbelieve that any of your office mates has ever been President, you will understand why I disbelieve that Abraham Lincoln was ever President.” Golly, the possibilities for employing this style of argumentation are just boundless!
I’ve never met a U.S. President, so I’m skeptical that they even exist. In fact, I am fully confident you cannot empirically demonstrate to me that there are any Presidents today.
Your doubts there are reminiscent of the one stated in this headline. Strong disclaimer here: this is *not* about Obama, it’s about how not to write a headline. 😉
http://www.washingtontimes?.com/news/2011/apr/12/trum?p-poll-triumph-built-on-do?ubting-obamas-birth/
If there were ever presidents with full beards, why don’t we see them today?
Actually I came up with a “presidential” response to the “one less God” argument, too. It goes like this: “You don’t believe that Hillary Clinton or John McCain won the 2008 presidential election. I just go one step further and say that Barack Obama didn’t win either.” (I will resist the urge to say who I WISH had won).
As a weak abeist i must say If abe can be asserted without evidence the abe delusion can be denied without evidence ! How can I disprove billions and billions of imaginary presidents ?
And who created abe? That just gets us stuck in an infinite regress…
Abeism doesn’t need a cause, the 16th presidency was vacant and George Washington doesn’t need a Cause he was created by Gravity like Duh ! : )
Happens all the time. Oh, wait …
So you’re saying Abe is self-existent? Then he should still be around buster…
Maybe some of you have more patience than me. I don’t debate Jesus’ existence anymore. I tell atheists they will have to find another theist to do that. It is stupid!
No evidence of Abe is evidence of abeism
Absence of Abedence is evidence of Abeism?
Even Bart Ehrman says anyone who says Jesus didn’t exist couldn’t have had historical training!
It’s highly doubtful that Jesus existed. But if he did, we know for certain that he was gay.
Methodological non-presidentialism (that is, I treat everyone as if they were not the president) leads inescapably to metaphysical non-presidentialism; Abraham Lincoln was not president. QED>
In order to accept any testimony that anyone was the president, they would have to be the president themselves!
After all, presidential facts require presidential evidence.
The Humean Argument: It is enormously improbable that any particular individual is the President of the United States. And whatever evidence the testimony of others may provide, it is always far more likely that such testimonies are false than that a particular individual is the president. So experience tells us that there are no presidents; or at least, that nobody is justified in believing in presidents.
I have never met a president. Therefore, presidents are metaphysically impossible (side note, this is an exact parody argument of one that was given to me: we don’t see an unembodied mind, therefore it is impossible).
The side note there is important. Wow. Satire is dead.
If President Lincoln did exist, we should see more people living as though he did. OK OK that one doesn’t make sense lol.
As if most of the others do? 😉
Lincoln? Why Lincoln? Why not a slew of other so-called “presidents.” What is a president anyway? It is a nonsensical term. You’re only creating this concept of president because of your inner fears in coping with the cold and bitter world. “President” makes you feel comfortable because the concept promotes a “father in the so-called oval office” who will take care of you. Those so-called “memos” and supposed “interviews” are forgeries devised after this supposed ruler. The historians copied these so-called articles from other older mythological presidents. You can’t trust those anyway; just look at all the inconsistencies between the various accounts, and don’t get me started on the spelling and punctuation.
At what point do people just develop criteria for existence, as an alternative to insanity?
Who is President is true for you but not true for me.
You are closed minded if you think that you are right about who is in the oval office and everyone who disagrees is wrong.
See all of these mythological Presidents? They were myths, so this President is one too!
There is no President and I hate him.
If Abraham Lincoln were to appear to me and ask why I didn’t believe in him, I would say “Not enough evidence Abe, not enough evidence!”
I think it’s clear the best explanation for the minimal facts that: a) Abraham Lincoln existed, b) Abraham Lincoln resided in the White House only months after a general election, and c) held influence in the Civil War for the side of the Union is obviously *not* the hypothesis that “Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president.” That entails belief in presidents, so that to present it in a line of argument is begging the question. It seems any other hypothesis, including that Abraham Lincoln’s twin brother was involved in some of these facts, is eminently more plausible.
The President is dead. We killed him.
Look, if people want to believe in Presidents, it’s ALRIGHT. It helps people live good and moral lives.
Why would you think that we can’t be good without presidents?
My bad. Of course people can be good without Presidents. No one needs to believe in Presidents or unicorns to be good.
The President of the United States is a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindicative, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochist, capriciously malevolent bully – Richard Dawkins
?”90% of scientists don’t believe in the historicity of the presidential election of 1860; therefore, there exists a 90% probability that there is no such president.”–Lawrence Krauss
Sirs! Do you really expect me to acknowledge a glaring gap in the presidential record between Buchanan and Johnson? This… what did you call it… this… “Missing Lincoln”?
If Lincoln were a good President he would have wanted to prevent civil war, and if he really were President of the U.S. he would have had the power to prevent civil war…
The pre-Civil War President Lincoln was responsible for the largest war, proportionally, in the history of our country. I can’t imagine believing in a president who did this. The post-Civil War Lincoln was no better, since, in the narrative, he subjugated the entire South to his will! Therefore, Lincoln did not exist.
Hmmm, I knew the pre-Civil War Lincoln was a moral monster, but isn’t the post-Civil War Lincoln a President of Love? Goes to show, a Lincoln divided against itself…
I like the President. Its you president supporters that I have a problem with – Ghandi.
Have you read Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”? It seems appropriate. Some people will believe there is a President in spite of every argument or evidence you present. Their beliefs are not rational and cannot be reasoned with logically. The only think you can do is ridicule their absurd beliefs in the hope that through embarrassment they will at least be quiet, if not reconsider. But we are having an impact on the young because they aren’t entrenched in these old-fashioned superstitions and are more open-minded.
The writers of the historical accounts of Lincoln’s speeches at the time held favorable views of him. Therefore, Lincoln could not have delivered the Gettysburg Address.
Everyone who saw him there at Gettysburg believed he was there at Gettysburg. There’s obvious bias there. Those who don’t believe he was at Gettysburg are much more objective witnesses of whether he was there or not. Therefore he was never there.
Just because there is a gap in our knowledge, doesn’t mean someone presided. What kind of explanation is Abediddit??! Your Abrahamic faith is just aluminum-age ignorance! The beauty of History is that it is self-correcting. Our knowledge is always increasing, so just be patient. Historians will prove there is no missing Linc’n without resorting to your Abe-of-the-gaps nonsense…
Very nice — “Abrahamic Faith.” I love it!
Memes-R-Us. Happily, argumentum ad absurdum allows us to stand at the precipice of ridicule without taking the plunge…
If Abraham Lincoln did not exist, it would have been necessary for us to invent him.
I can prove the existence of 15 other instances of Presidents with striking parallels to the Lincoln myth. Therefore the Lincoln stories must be simply a retelling of the Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson myths.
There no President but the proletariat! Politics is merely the amphetimines for masses.
Well, in fact the Lincoln myth was completely read back into history. It’s an obvious corruption of the Kennedy story. There are just too many parallels for any other explanation to make sense: http://www.school-for-cham?pions.com/history/lincolnj?fk.htm
Well, maybe: http://www.snopes.com/hist?ory/american/lincoln-kenne?dy.asp. But why let the facts interfere with such a great explanation?
Well, I actually believe that Abe Lincoln existed. In fact, I think there were at least two different Abe Lincoln’s. Just look at his early speeches compares to the speeches he gave later in life. They are obviously the work of different people that were later stitched together to make it look like there was just one individual.
Indeed, deutero-Abe was a redactor for the original, so that any embarrassing details were weeded out, to give the impression of moral perfection. But his anger at slavery did reveal he had a temper, and that is a sin. Clearly, Abraham Lincoln could not have been president, and deutero-Abe is really behind all of it. Also, Q.
Abe Lincoln had an unknown twin brother.
Letitia – I don’t think you need to cite a twin in order for there to have been more than one Abe. Remember to apply Lincoln’s Razor (which apparently he never did).
Abe was a common name, afterall. However, could an unrelated Abe pose as Lincoln?
Letitia – that is exactly what I’m thinking. That would explain the differences in linguistics and socio-historical events that they speak about.
Look at all the wars and suffering caused at the hands of Lincolnism…
Didn’t somebody try to claim that Lincoln was gay?
The lost years of Lincoln were occupied by his teaching at the hands of the Illuminati–possibly in Egypt or India. This led him to gather a group of followers in preparation for the control of the entire world. As an aside, because his views were mirrored by the Illuminati, his views (or legendary stories of his views) are not really revolutionary. In fact, if taken literally, Lincoln’s ethic is misogynistic (all MEN are created equal). In any case, Lincoln’s followers, after his assassination, didn’t want to be disappointed in his failure, so they concocted this legend of his greatness; they all became historians.
There were originally many different, equally valid theories regarding Lincoln’s job description – from barber to fishmonger to president. Basically, the US Senate got together about 100 years after his death and voted on it. They decided that the “presidential” line would be the official one. Other versions of his life story have been suppressed. This decision has been closely protected by the FBI for political reasons. Yeah, I think the Illuminati were involved. And Opus Dei.
Abe was an Angry Man? Oh, my Abrahamic faith is shattered!
The Lincoln story is just another ‘elected/assassinated/dying president myth’. We see this same theme over and over again in the presidential history of many cultures. Every culture has their own assassinated leader myth so why should the Lincoln one be any more true than those?
The accounts of Lincoln and his role as presidency are symbolic. Lincoln is a symbol for freedom, for justice, and his actions are symbolic that we should seek freedom and justice as well. But it’s just that – symbolism. There is no reason to treat the documents of Lincoln as actual history.
We’re all apresidentialists, I just happen to believe in one less president than you do.
Right, I’m not buying it either. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary presidents.
“There is a fundamental difference between [a President], which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.” – Stephen Hawking
“I would rather live my life believing that Lincoln was the 16th president and find out after I die that I was wrong than to live my life not believing that Lincoln was the 16th president and find out after I die that I was wrong.” – (My Dad got in on the act)
Hume’s first and primary argument:
1) For anyone named Abraham Lincoln to become President is of necessity very rare and improbable.
2) It is much more probable that the historical testimony is false than that anyone named Abraham Lincoln was ever elected President.
3) Therefore a wise man will not believe the historical testimony that Abraham Lincoln was President since no testimony is sufficient to establish such a miracle.
Believing that Abraham Lincoln was president is something that white people want you to be believe.
You only believe that Abraham Lincoln was president because you were born in the US. If you were born in some other country, you’d believe Mao Zedong was president or maybe you wouldn’t believe in a president at all.
“You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness. Since you must necessarily choose, your reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other. That is one point cleared up. But your happiness? Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that Abe exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist.” ~ Abe’s Wager (a la Peter Kreeft)
Actually, my happiness would be negligibly affected, if at all, if Lincoln did not exist.
(Nothing against Abe, lest anyone think otherwise. Just saying that’s where the analogy falls apart. :-P)
You’ll have to take that up with Pascal.
None of that matters. Alincolnism is based on logic AND reason.
Yes, why posit an unlikely Lincolnist explanation when there are much more reasonable explanations – like the Multipresident, and Panpresidentia?
I’m a panlincolnist. Abe is everything and everywhere. You’re Abe, I’m Abe, we’re all Abe…we just need to wake up to our Abeconsciousness and realize. That is what was so wonderful about the Great Bearded One. He showed us how to get in touch with our own Abeconsciousness and to wake up from our slumber.
I’m going to wake up my inner Abe this morning and go fire cannon at my neighbor to the south…
“I have no explanation for the 16th president. All I know is that Lincoln isn’t a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.” – Richard Dawkins
Oh. no. It’s going to be a very Abey Christmas…
Merry Abemas to you, sir. And Abe Bless us, one and all.
Is Abe willing to prevent civil war but unable? Then he is impotent. Is he able but unwilling? Then he is malevolent. Is he able and willing? Then whence cometh civil war? Is he unable and unwilling? Then why call him President?
When I was a kid, I was told Santa existed…then I got older and was introduced to the Easter Bunny– Then Abe! People just created the Abe Lincoln myth to give people hope that they can trust government. People that believe in Abraham Lincoln are weak because they can’t handle that life doesn’t give us good presidents. C’mon folks, wake up and take off your delusional glasses..next thing you’re going to tell me is Dawkins exists…
Well, this just explains the Vampire Hunter part of his life to a tee.
“The trouble with quotes on the internet is that its difficult to discern whether or not they are genuine.” Abraham Lincoln
False attribution. That quote is from Albert Einstein.
“When I meet somebody who claims to be a Presidentialist, my first impulse is, don’t believe you, I don’t believe you, until you tell me, do you really believe, for example, if they say they are Lincolnists, do you really believe that Lincoln actually gave the Gettysburg address in 1863? Are you seriously telling me you believe that?!! Are you seriously saying that the civil war happened and that some 3.5 million slaves were freed? Mock them! Ridicule them! In public.” – Dawkins
I don’t disbelieve in Lincoln, I just have a non-belief in him. It’s the default position.
“Ether Lincoln can do nothing to stop slavery, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. Lincoln is ether impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.” – Sam Harris
“1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause
4. We understand that cause to be Lincoln.” ~ Dr. William Lane Craig
And if there were a Lincoln, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. Bertrand Russell
Wait a minute: Bertrand Russell is a myth created by a bunch of leftitst mathematicians to have a rallying point, albeit an imaginary one …
If I were ever to meet Bertrand Russell, and if he were to ask me, “Why didn’t you believe my book (Why I am Not a Christian)?”, I would answer, “Not enough evidence, Bert. Not enough evidence.”
Actually, using the logical resources of the post-modernists, it should be possible to prove that no one has ever been president of the United States and maybe that it is not clear that the United States exists.
This thread doesn’t exist. Any claim that it does comes from someone who believes that it does, and you simply can’t trust believers.
Lincoln – the eternal president. It just occurred to me that both Lincoln and Frosty the Snowman wear a stove pipe hat AND you never see the two in the same place together.
And, assuming that there ever was a United States or a President of any such, isn’t it on the whole more likely that it was Frosty? Frosty is at least as well known and more widely celebrated. Some forms of Biblical exegesis provide a useful analogy here.
“I gave in, and admitted that Lincoln was president..perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all America.”
And of course, due to the striking similarities between Kennedy and Lincoln, it is obvious that Kennedy did not actually exist.
It’s illogical to claim one beard and three persons. You’re all nothing more than a bunch of poly-presidentialists.
As an agnostic abeist, I believe that there is no solid evidence either in favor of or against your president’s existence. However, I prefer to believe that he didn’t exist.
Seeing that the supposed Lincoln was more recent then the supposed Adams,Washington ,Paine and such it is highly unlikely they existed as well and the documents they forged are obviously penned by men to enslave and oppress the population at the time, bah constitution , bill of rights! All fairy tales!
All those photos… Doctored with Photoshop. Extant historical documents of the civil war… Fabricated by ppl who WANT there to have been a war. Window of time… Doesn’t exist. All I know is what I see now, and that just passed into history, so…
Well, he may have existed–and even been President, but he did not give the Gettysburg address or sign the Emancipation Proclamation, nor was he assassinated at Ford’s Theater. These are all legendary stories embellished by abolitionists. He actually died a natural death as a plantation owner in India.
Careful with “evidence”; we must be careful about believing in a “Lincoln-of-the-gaps.”
Right. The only reason to believe in a Lincoln is to full in gaps in knowledge we can’t explain any other way. So what happens when science fills those gaps? Poof! No more Lincoln
(Written at the risk of repeating something already said.)
For the intellectual enlightenment of the general populace of this page, I present to you the central argument of Dawkins’ new book “The Lincoln Delusion”: (sorry this is a bit late!)
1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been explaining how the emancipation of 19th century American slaves occurred.
2. The natural tendency is of course to attribute this emancipation to Abraham Lincoln.
3. This tendency is false, as it necessarily raises the problem of who emancipated the emancipator.
4. The most ingenious and powerful explanation for this emancipation is the Marxist Dialectic.
5. We don’t have an equivalent explanation for who occupied “Lincoln’s” Presidency at this time.
6. We should not give up hope for an explanation arising in the theory of who occupied the Presidency at this time. Something as ingenious and powerful as the Marxist Dialectic.
Therefore, Abraham Lincoln almost certainly does not exist.
Listen y’all I’ve been to the empty Fords theatre, I took a trip to Washinton years back and our tour guide showed us the spot where he was shot… There is no body of Lincoln, they then took us across the street to the house he died in and I saw the shroud of Lincoln, it was a blood soaked sheet that I could clearly make out the form of a beard and top hat… I think there may be good (albeit circumstantial) evidence of Lincoln.
I’m now a believer in Linclon… But you could never convince me that Monroe or Garfield ever existed those are just absurdities written by Gnostic historians trying to prove themselves.
Yes, but it could just as easily have been someone else’s top hat and beard. To prevent grave robbery, it was a practice in some ancient cultures to substitute another body, found somewhere.
A man can no more diminish the image Lincoln by refusing to acknowledge his existence than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.
There have been so many presidents claimed to exist throughout History. Besides… who are we to decide which presidents actually exist?
Presidents are beyond complete human understanding, so we can know nothing about them.
There are many terms that prove Lincoln is an anachronistic projection of the later proto-orthodox Republican community in Antioch (Illinois). The term “Lincoln Continental” suggests a period after the automobile had been invented. The term “Lincoln Log” suggests a time after the computer was invented. It seems probable that Abraham Lincoln (Abraham being an obviously invented moniker referencing the mythical origination of the proto-orthodox Republican community) was invented whole cloth as the necessary father figure to explain such things as automobiles and computers, as well as provide themselves with a mythical lineage-chief, by superstitious peasants along the shore of Lake Michigan.
I’m going to use my unparalleled authority as an evolutionary biologist to insist that there isn’t a *shred* of evidence that Lincoln existed. The USA looks precisely the way it should if there was no individual responsible for the emancipation of slaves in the 19th century. Of course, I won’t waste my time debating with historians on the issue, as they are clearly unreasonable and all have an agenda. After all, history is becoming less and less relevant as science continues to progress. I certainly won’t debate [insert prominent american historian here], since he is an endorser of genocide and this is obviously of absolute relevance to the issue at hand.
Some prominent thinkers may wish not to abandon the idea that there must be some sort of leader. Even if you can get yourself to that position, which unbelievers maintain is always subject to better and more elegant explanations, all your work is still ahead of you.
If you advance from mere leader to an actual president, you must believe this president cares about you, knows who people are, minds what you do, answers your petitions, cares what you do with your body, minds who you marry, minds what holidays you observe, minds what you consume, all your work is still ahead of you and lots of luck.
“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient presidents.”
Those of you who believe that Abraham Lincoln existed are just foolishly applying what you think to be reason, but in reality… it is nothing more than the presidents-of-the-gaps fallacy.
We simply do not know who the president was between 1861 and 1865. History will figure it out sooner or later.
But to assert your precious abraham lincoln is intellectually lazy, devoid of reason, and shows that you’re not interested in anything but confirmation bias.
There’s as much evidence for Abraham Lincoln as there is for the Flying Spaghetti President.
The myth of Lincoln may also have been inspired by Abe Simpson, “Grandpa” in “The Simpsons.” Abe is the father of Homer. This is a subtle hint that the story of a much older Abraham is actually just a myth like those told by the ancient Greek story-teller, also, ahem, named Homer. “Marge” is a reference to the margin, or boundary, between North and South, which is why her role is often peacemaker. “Bart Lincoln” is an anagram for “Brat Lincoln,” a reference to Lincoln’s inner child that reenacts the military conflict by various juvenile antics.
We also have to consider this.
The word “Lincoln” came from an English city, county town of Lincolnshire (Old English: Lindcylene) from Latin “Lindum Colonia” from a Latinized form of British *lindo: “pool, lake”.
Now this is particularly interesting when considering the etymology of the name of the mythical figure William Wilberforce. Wilberforce comes from the Old English name Wilburh: wil (“will”) + burh (“fortress”) – quite literally, “the will to take down a fortress, with force”. Obviously the fortress here is represented by the fortress of institutionalized slavery. Now, what were well guarded fortresses of old surrounded by? A pool, or body of water; i.e, Lincoln.
Hence the OBVIOUS connection between Lincoln and Wilberforce, constituting strong evidence that they are both myths.
LOL! Wait a minute! And wasn’t Robert Grosseteste, the “famous Oxford scientist” who experimented on optics, also named Bishop of Lincoln? Which is to say, Robert’s “big test” would be to “pool” the light of truth in the diocese and “guard” it carefully (he famously fired many “incompetent” priests), having accomplished which (with Leonardo Da Vinci’s help, obviously), his official fame as an “enlightened scientist” was assured. The calamy runs even deeper than I imagined — it apparently runs all the way to the Vatican!
“I knew Lincoln was popular among elementary schoolkids, but I had no idea they would mobilize into a ‘Save Abe’ campaign. I now have a drawer full of hate letters from hundreds of elementary schoolchildren (with supportive cover letters from their science teachers) pleading with me to reverse my stance on Lincoln. The file includes a photograph of the entire third grade of a school posing on their front steps and holding up a banner proclaiming, ‘Dr. TysonLincoln is a President!'” – Neil Degrasse Tyson
“Abe is dead. Abe remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was tallest and most epic bearded of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of freedom, what history months shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become presidents simply to appear worthy of it?”
I was explaining US politics to someone. They asked me where Abraham Lincoln was in all of that, since they found no mention of that name in my explanation. I explained to them: “I have no need of that hypothesis.”
Lincolnist Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an incredibly tall man, with insanely good beard growing genes, spanning the time between James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, who is deeply and personally concerned with the freedom of all men.
While it does sound great, I must say, as an alincolnist, that man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates presidents by the dozen.
So Arthur wants to commit this tradition to written form. That’s all fine for now, but scholarship will have its say. The pericopes within the tradition will of course be subjected to the proper form criticism. The claimed “eyewitnesses” to the tale told here will be relegated to the dust of legend, as is of course proper.
For in time it will become the assured results of modern scholarship that there never was an Arthur, merely a beleaguered faith community making up a tale to support their place in the world, compiling legends, and attaching an obviously fictional Arthur’s author’s name to it all.
Disclaimer: This is satire! These comments were not intended to be real arguments to prove that Abraham Lincoln did not really exist. They were meant to parody the common erroneous atheistic arguments against the existence of God, and especially the real historical person, Jesus of Nazareth.
For an alternative of the mythicist’ssatirical narrative check out the Abe myth conspiracy theory.
For more, you may visit the Facebook page, Did Abe Lincoln really exist?
Very well done reducto ad absurdium. It seemed that you had way too much fun on this post. My personal favorite was the etymology of Lincoln and Wilberforce.