My Response to Dr. David Geisler: "If your god exists at all, he literally only wants fools to believe. Wear that as a badge if you want to, but keep this foolishness to yourself."

I have had a running discussion with apologist Dr. David Geisler for about two years now (just a guess). Initially he reached out to me and said he won't quit me, that he will keep reaching out to me for as long as it takes.

We've met and have an otherwise good relationship. He is a really great guy, friendly, with a good family, good reputation, and all. But like all such discussions I get impatient and tired with delusional and obtuse people who respond with illusion and sophistry. I had sent him this link, which he responded to in part, by saying:

John you say in that article “Since there’s no good reason to believe the virgin birth myth, there’s no good reason to believe the resurrection myth, either, since the claim of Jesus’ resurrection is told in those same Gospels. If the one is to be dismissed, so should the other.[13]” John, if someone has already demonstrated good evidence for the existence of a theistic God, then you cannot rule out the truth of a virgin birth off hand. Certainly, if God can do the big miracle, He can do the little miracles. I noticed that when you attack the historical evidence for the resurrection , you do it indirectly not directly…saying if we can’t believe the miracle of the virgin birth, then we can’t believe the resurrection. But then you only accept the proof of a virgin birth that could be shown in the laboratory! Is that realistic? Can we not know some things to be true even if it’s not proven in the laboratory? I think your standard to determine truth as only those things that can be proven scientifically is too one sided! How do you prove the philosophy of scientism? Furthermore, if miracles are possible, a virgin birth is possible.

I responded as follows:

I need to offend you at this point by telling you the truth. Sorry.

You have it all backward. Since other theists believe in a god, it's demonstrably the case that believing in a god does not get you close to believing in your particular sectarian fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible, and the god you say exists. You say your god did the big miracle of the resurrection so he can do the little miracle of a virgin giving birth to the second person of the Trinity--an incarnate god--even though no rational sense can be made of a disembodied Trinity who didn't pre-exist apart from one another, or disagreed within the godhead, and supposedly now exists in heaven with the earthly body of Jesus forever attached to the second person of the Trinity, since they are one being, according to the creeds.

Nor is there any, and I mean any relevant objective evidence of that supposed miraculous resurrection. This is what reasonable people need to believe. That means only incredulous, ignorant people will believe such an ancient mythical tale. Your reasonable god doesn't care to save people who are reasonable. He only wants fools to believe. So you should stop trying to reach me with your foolish faith. Move on to someone else.

I can not change the requirements of reason and the need for objective evidence. Your alleged god should know this about me and provided what I and millions of others need to believe.

By contrast, if your god wanted to reach reasonable people, why didn't he provide good reasons and objective evidence to believe? That makes your god a duffas, a moron, a buffoon in my book. For this reason it's crystal clear the religion you believe was invented by people who did not have a clue about reasoning based on objective evidence, that which the scientific revolution brought to the world of scientifically literate reasonable people.

One must start by providing objective evidence for your sectarian miracles. Show this, and you can convince reasonable theists that your sectarian god exists. That's the reason other theists don't accept your sectarian god's existence and with it a nonsensical plan of salvation. You cannot provide any objective evidence for your Christian miracles.

I bet you believe ancient 2nd 3rd 4th 5th handed down testimonials are enough evidence, don't you? Why, you wouldn't even believe four alleged eyewitnesses that a young virgin woman gave birth to an incarnate god in today's world!

It's not my problem that your god did not provide any objective evidence for the miracle tales in the Bible. He could have done so, as I explained. So again, if your god exists at all, he literally only wants fools to believe. Wear that as a badge if you want to, but keep this foolishness to yourself.

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John W. Loftus is a philosopher and counter-apologist credited with 12 critically acclaimed books, including The Case against Miracles, God and Horrendous Suffering, and Varieties of Jesus Mythicism. Please support DC by sharing our posts, or by subscribing, donating, or buying our books at Amazon. As an Amazon Associate John earns a small amount of money from any purchases made there. Buying anything through them helps fund the work here, and is greatly appreciated!