Bradley Dalton reviews the book "God or Godless"

LINK.He says of it that it's "Good for getting the conversation started!"

Bradley Dalton Reviews "Christianity is Not Great"

Here's a nice book review on my anthology, "Christianity is Not Great", if you were thinking of getting it.

"A Must Read for ALL Truth Seekers!" by Bradley Dalton, who says, "This is one of my favorite books. It’s the go to book regarding the pragmatism of Christianity."

Regarding my chapter 8 on Christianity and the Savagery of Slavery, the reviewer writes:

"This is my favorite chapter in the book. In it Loftus discusses the topic of slavery in the Bible. I recommend referring Christians to this chapter if they try to say that the slavery in the Bible wasn’t that bad. Loftus goes through the Bible passages and debunks the common apologetics used to defend biblical slavery. He also shows how the Bible was interpreted to justify slavery in the United States."

Biology Defeats Theology

…and it’s not even close

I was born just about fifteen years after Edwin Hubble determined that Andromeda is a galaxy outside the Milky Way; this disproved the argument of some astronomers that our galaxy was the extent of the universe. What a gift this was for our understanding of who and where we are! For the first time humans had insight into the inconceivable vastness of the Cosmos.

Baseball Research Journal: Tom Loftus is the American League’s Forgotten Founding Father.

Here is the link to the long awaited article: Tom Loftus: The American League’s Forgotten Founding Father. This is my Great Grandfather Tom Loftus! I've written about him before. He's finally getting the recognition he deserves. He was widely hailed in his day as important to Major League Baseball, especially his role in helping to start the American League and in navigating through the baseball wars of 1899-1903. I'm so thankful to have lived long enough to see this day! Here are a few snippets:

Calls For Ending the Philosophy of Religion Are Doing Nothing More Than Advocating For the Secularization Of Our Secular Universities

Recently Jerry Coyne wrote about the Philosophy of Religion:

Insofar as "theology" includes courses that presuppose the existence of the divine, take seriously the existence of God or Jesus, or prepare people for the ministry or to promulgate religious beliefs, then those courses not only have no place in a University, but are exercises in delusion. Now I think the higher-class divinity schools, like Chicago's and Harvard's, have very few of those courses, but there are some. They should not be part of a secular university. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that Hitchens's razor is correct: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." That applies to any form of theology that takes gods or superstitions as real. Universities should not be in the business of taking seriously those myths that have no evidence behind them. They can, of course, teach myths, but at no point should they imply that there is evidence for their truth. LINK

I've written on this topic several times before, collected here. But I don't think I've articulated my viewpoint in any single post better than I do in this one. I'm not surprised there is still a lot of misunderstanding about what I'm talking about. So here's another attempt--a book may need to be written on it.

My position seems to be the same as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay when it comes to ending the Philosophy of Religion (PoR) discipline in the secular universities. The classes covered could be taught under the umbrella of the Philosophy discipline itself (with no need for a subdivision of PoR) or in the Comparative Religion departments, and especially science classes. Just think of it this way. We don't have PoR classes on Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Mithraism, Norse theology, Haitian Voodoo, Paganism etc., in any secular university that I know about. We don't see this for good reasons. Now think real hard about why, okay? The main purpose of the PoR discipline is to examine the evidence and the arguments for religion. Evidence. Arguments. Its main purpose is not merely to get students to understand religion. Rather, it seeks to assess the claims of religion by looking at the evidence (if there is any) and the arguments (if there are any good ones based on the evidence). By contrast, the main purpose of classes in Comparative Religions departments is to understand religion.

Matthew Enhances the Cult Playbook

His disservice to Christianity

What does devotion to the Ancient Jesus Mystery Cult look like today? As is clear from comments made on this blog a few days ago by one of the cult devotees, it still embraces magical thinking in its refusal to accept death:

An Angel with a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

Pushing Christian theology into fantasy land

Not too long ago I read the claim by a Christian apologist that Luke was a first-rate historian. Such confidence is no doubt based on the first four verses of that gospel:

“Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”

I'm Skyping into the Apologetics class of Dr. Gary Habermas

This Wednesday I'll be Skyping into a class of PhD students majoring in Apologetics under Dr. Gary Habermas. I'll be interacting with the students who were assigned to read my new anthology, "The Case against Miracles." These are the future apologists! It's a good opportunity! What points would you make if you were me?

A Final Sermon in a Time of Pandemic

What does disease tell us about God?

I gave up on Christianity because it claims too much and explains too little. We know so little about the Cosmos we’re floating in—our home is one solar system among trillions—yet theologians brag and posture about God, as if they had some way of knowing: they claim too much. And when they brag about how good the Christian God is, they can’t tell us—in any even remotely convincing way—why there is colossal human and animal suffering: they explain too little. Even as I served two parishes in the Methodist Church, and plodded along on my PhD program in Biblical Studies, these deficiencies kept haunting me. Finally, I walked away.

I Unequivocally Without Qualification Condemn Systematic Institutional Racism!

My wife and I protested peacefully in Fort Wayne, Indiana, over the murder of George Floyd. I unequivocally without qualification condemn systematic institutional racism! That being said, I neither condone nor condemn the violence of a few people who protested across the country. There's a lot of anger from decades and decades of systematic institutional racism that have not been adequately solved. The black community and those who seek justice are fed up. If you were born black you would feel this injustice. You might conclude property owners and society itself are to blame. We are all complicit to some degree as this situation continues to exist. Peaceful protests don't work, you might conclude. So you too might consider burning it all down. No worries here since it's all covered by insurance anyway. I understand this sentiment. You should too. While I understand the need for law and order. I also understand the outrage, and I'm on the side of the outrage right now. We might simply ask ourselves what level of priority is systematic institutional racism on the agenda. From my perspective it hasn't been high on my list of priorities, I'm so sorry to say. To be silent is to be complicit.

Discuss. I know good people disagree. WATCH THESE TWO EXCELLENT VIDEOS FIRST!!