-------------Formulating and extensively defending the OTF is Loftus’ greatest contribution to the philosophy of religion and atheism. The basic idea is that you can only have a rational faith if you test it by the same standards you apply to all other competing faiths; yet when you do that, your religion tests as false as the others, and the same reasons you use to reject those become equally valid reasons to reject yours.
This is the greatest book Loftus has
ever produced. It's without question a must-read for believers, and atheists
who wants to debate them. Superbly argued, air tight, and endlessly useful, this
should be everyone's first stop in the god debate. Loftus meets every objection
and proves the Outsider Test for Faith is really the core of every case against
religious belief, and the one argument you can't honestly get around. It takes
religion on at its most basic presuppositions, forcing the believer into a
dilemma from which there is no escape: either abandon your faith or admit you
don't believe in being logically consistent. After reading it, and sincerely
applying its principles, anyone who really wants to be rational will be on the
road to atheism in no time.
Though this idea has been voiced
before, Loftus is the first to name it, rigorize it, and give it an extensive
philosophical defense; moreover, by doing so, he is the first to cause a concerted
apologetic to arise attempting to dodge it, to which he could then respond. The
end result is one of the most effective and powerful arguments for atheism
there is. It is, in effect, a covering argument that subsumes all other
arguments for atheism into a common framework. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2981/
-- Dr. Richard Carrier, author of Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject
the Faith.
-------------
John Loftus's Outsider Test for
Faith is well-written; it is passionate; it is important; it is engaging; and it is
surprising. It's well worth the relatively short read and a lot of
consideration. It's a silver-bullet argument on its central theme: which
religion is true? None of them! Get it; read it; and press the OTF out into the
world where it can do some good. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested
in discussions about religious faith.
For the believers this book presents
itself as a test for determining which religion is true. Specifically, it sets
out to engage readers on the question of the distribution of world faiths,
asking them to look at their faith as would an outsider. This removes the
double standard and allows believers their one shot at strengthening their
faith-based claims in an increasingly secular world. Every believer today owes
it to himself or herself, as well as to his or her faith community, to engage
Loftus's arguments openly and honestly. It is a total game-changer.
--Dr. James A. Lindsay, Author of Everybody Is Wrong About God.
-------------
John Loftus will be remembered a
century from now for his Outsider Test for Faith.
-- Frank Zindler, former president
of America Atheists and editor of American Atheist Magazine.
-------------
The Outsider Test for Faith should
earn Loftus a permanent place in the history of critiques of religion.
-- Christopher Hallquist, author of
UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus.
-------------
Without doubt one of the best books
I've ever read on faith. A masterpiece.
-- Dr. Peter Boghossian, author of A
Manual for Creating Atheists.
-------------
John Loftus has done it again! He
has produced a lucid and exhaustive explanation of the simple proposition that
individuals should examine their own faith with the same skepticism they show
toward the claims of other faiths. No significant objection is left unexamined,
and no major objector escapes unscathed. This is a potent antidote to those who
elevate faith above reason, and superstition above science. It is a bravura
performance.
-- Dr. Hector Avalos, author of The
End of Biblical Studies.
-------------
I am a big fan of John Loftus’s
“Outsider Test for Faith”-the view that because one’s religious faith is almost
completely an accident of birth, believers should be highly skeptical about
whether their own faith is correct. The wisdom of this rational and quasi-scientific approach
is unquestionable. But if it's used honestly, its outcome is inevitable.
-- Dr. Jerry A. Coyne, Professor of
Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago and author of Faith Versus
Fact: Why Science and Religions Are Incompatible.
-------------
Loftus makes a convincing case that
believers who are willing to honestly apply the outsider test cannot but fail
to see the irrationality of their faith.
-- Victor J. Stenger, author of God
and the Folly of Faith.
-------------
Over the past ten thousand years
there have been tens of thousands of religions and thousands of gods. Which one
is the right one? To believers in each one they all appear unique. To an
anthropologist from Mars they all look the same. . . . John W. Loftus’s clever
Outsider Test for Faith gives you the intellectual firepower you need when
engaging believers, pointing out, for example, that they are religious
skeptics, too—of all those other faiths. Some of us go one faith further in our
skepticism. You will, too, after reading this testament to the power of reason.
-- Dr. Michael Shermer, publisher of
Skeptic magazine, and author of The Believing Brain.
-------------
The Outsider Test for Faith is an
ingenious way of helping the religious take a step back so that they can fairly
and impartially examine what they believe, which can only be a good thing.
-- Dr. Stephen Law, senior lecturer
in philosophy, University of London, and author of Believing Bullshit.
-------------
John Loftus has written a bold book
based on a simple premise: The unexamined faith is not worth believing. Of
course, every Christian apologist gives lip service to this premise and claims
to have given the tenets of faith a full and fair hearing. Loftus shows just
how cheap and hollow such talk usually is. He demands that believers examine
their own faith with all of the rigor and skepticism that they direct towards
other faiths. To those who condemn the beliefs of others while elevating their
own dogmas, Loftus’ message could come straight from the Gospel: Remove the
beam from your own eye before you seek to remove the speck from another’s.
-- Dr. Keith Parsons, PhD, Professor
of Philosophy, University of Houston-Clear Lake; author of books in the
philosophy of science, history of science, and philosophy of religion.
-------------
Perhaps the most intractable
argument against Loftus’s outsider test of faith is some version of “I can’t do
it. I can’t get far enough outside of my emotions and beliefs to examine my own
religion like I would any other.” As a psychologist I find that credible. We
all have a very imperfect and fragmentary ability to see ourselves as others
see us. But this in no way undermines Loftus’s foundational argument that the
outsider test should be the gold standard.
-- Dr. Valerie Tarico, psychologist
and author of Trusting Doubt.
--------------
When an evangelical minister can ask
tough questions about religion and leave the faith, then so can you. John
Loftus is the religious believer’s genuine friend, respecting your intelligence
enough to show you how religions really work. His new book questions every
religion with the same challenge: what reasons could it really have for
claiming to possesses the unique truth? When the façades of familiarity and
unquestionability are ripped away, exposing faith’s weaknesses to both insiders
and outsiders, can any religion pass this test?
-- Dr. John Shook, PhD, Center for
Inquiry and American Humanist Association and author of The God Debates.
-------------
This is an excellent exposition of a
relatively obvious argument. The OTF is intuitively simple. The multitude of
religions require explaining, from a theistic point of view, and until adequate
answer is given, skeptical agnosticism is the most reasonable position. That is
common-sense. Loftus takes this idea and thoroughly defends it in a fully
convincing and very readable manner.
I wasn't expecting to like this book
as much as I did because I thought that the argument was simple and obvious,
but the way Loftus drew in quotes and arguments from a plethora of different
sources meant that this book packs a really hefty punch and left me thinking,
on many, many pages, that I must remember this quote or that quote.
I think this book deserves to be
very widely read as the argument seems not to have any significant counters.
--Johnathan Pearce, an Amazon
review, author of many books including The Resurrection: A Critical Examination
of the Easter Story.
-------------
Loftus Brings the Hammer Down!
Simply one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I was stunned as on
page after page his sensibility, his logic, and his obvious way of finding out
what the real and true religion is, is literally shunned by all religions!
Loftus has very well written his very finest with this one. Profoundly
influential thinking. Detailed rebuttals of those lying Christians who love to
pretend they have taken the test and passed it. Not a chance, and Loftus
demonstrates step by step exactly why. The problem is faith, the most
problematic concept in all of religion, and Loftus absolutely demonstrates with
beautiful detail. What a powerful book! READ IT. Faith lacks the power to
discriminate between true and false, as all the various thousands of Christian
denominations demonstrate for us all to see with our own eyes. All use faith
for their own views and condemn all others, who also use faith for *their* own
views, and no one has a clue. Not a pea-pickin clue at all! Loftus shreds faith
and demonstrates that reality is never confirmed by mere possibility, but only
through probability. A most stimulating and powerful book! It was so doggone
good when I finished it, I immediately started over and re-read it again. And I
will do so yet again soon as well.
--Kerry Shirts, an Amazon review.
To say I'm excited is an
understatement of gargantuan propositions.
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