Another Review of My Magnum Opus (Which Randal Rauser Still Has Not Read)

If I must gloat I'll let others do it for me. ;-)
John W. Loftus' book has done a terrific job with investigating Christianity from every possible angle. At the very least, no one can accuse him of not doing his research and giving every claim of his former religion it's fair due and examining the evidence up front.

I appreciate that Loftus did not set up strawmen or commit ad hominem in determining his reasons for being skeptical of Christianity. He allows many of the leading Christian apologists and defenders and their arguments to speak for themselves. His chapters on the Triune god illustrates this beautifully as he illustrates how Christians clash amongst themselves since the Bible clashes amongst itself. The doctrine and the meaning of the atonement sacrifice in particular, will always be an attempt to fit a round peg in a square hole because it clashes with both moral justice and common sense. The rest of the book is no less meticulous in it's deconstruction of the Christian presuppositionalist ideology behind apologetics and how it clashes with science in almost every regard. Over and over again, Loftus demonstrates that possibility does not imply plausibility and how not understanding the difference causes irrationality to reign supreme in the mind of the believer. He knows the arguments backward but does not start off by mocking them at all, and he pulls off the impossible by actually showing respect to those he disagrees with while making sure to take issue with the arguments themselves, and not the ones using the arguments. This goes a long way with making sure he gets heard.

His chapter on "The Evidential Problem Of Evil", however, is the crowning achievement of this book and singlehandedly devastates any case for an intervening or "good" god of any kind. It's a masterpiece all by itself and can safely be said to be the very best, most articulate argument for atheism I've ever seen written. It is Ingersoll-worthy in it's power and argumentative force. No believer could read it and be unaffected by it in some way.

Well done, sir. LINK.

0 comments: