Anyone who cares whether they're right or wrong would do research into it themselves once they were told that so much is still based on the work of Hislop. In fact, the vast majority of those who quote Hislop directly and indirectly know full well he's wrong but enjoy having lengthy arguments over what academics have shown to be Hislop lies and flaws in order to have that much more opportunity to spew their BS. Nothing helps sell books and BS like tapping into the conspiracy mindset so common these days, the more ancient the conspiracy the better, and Hislop has a proven track record of massaging the conspiracy gland so many people have.
Anyone can use a search engine and weed out the load of crap that's based on him and lauding him in order to sell their latest book, then dig down through the well padded search results aimed as selling those books and find the honest, impartial, academic critiques, of what Hislop wrote. Once they know that much, they'll see how almost all anti-Catholic works launder references to Hislop through references to others and so on. If they care whether or not works based on Hislop are the truth and whether they may be believing those who quote lies as fact, I feel sure anyone reading here is capable of finding out the truth.
Arguing against a well known lie in those cases where someone quotes lies and didn't bother to research before quoting the lie is a waste of time. Those interested in truth will find the facts and those who aren't will believe what they want to believe or what is convenient for their agenda. Telling people who want the truth that the whole bookshelf anti-Catholic stuff now popular is based on Hislop is sufficient. Those interested in the truth will look into it and see what the facts are. Each person who does so will be one less person who believes the lies. That's far better than helping someone who doesn't care about the truth generate more opportunities to repeat those lies as well as others.
“The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors (or Christianity before Christ)”
“FRIENDS and brethren — teachers of the Christian faith: Will you believe us when we tell you the divine claims of your religion are gone — all swept away by the “logic of history,” and nullified by the demonstrations of science?”...
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/kersey_graves/16/
This guy “proves” that ALL of Christianity itself is pagan. I’d be interested to get your feedback on it.
Are you a Hislop apologist?