Why Isn’t Membership in the Catholic Church Down to ZERO by Now?

Because the clergy have mastered the art of fooling most of the people most of the time

To be fair, we could ask the same question regarding many other denominations, but the Catholic church maintains a high profile for its sin, corruption, and deception. Let’s review some of the damage it has caused.  

Clergy Abuse of Children

I did some probing on Google, and it would appear that the Catholic church worldwide has paid out 3 to 4 billion dollars (yes, that’s billion with a B) in settlement of suits filed against priests for child rape/abuse. Are rank and file Catholics blind to this reality? Why would anyone still attend—be members of, give money to—a church with that deplorable record?

Introduction To Why I Became an Atheist, by John W. Loftus

As I announced earlier I've decided to publish whole chapters from my books. I may eventually publish them all, certainly a bunch of them. The goal will be to publish one chapter every Monday. I may not leave them up for more than a few weeks, so be sure to subscribe or check in weekly for them (and for that matter, check in every Friday when Dr. David Madison posts some brilliant and hard-hitting stuff like his most recent one).

 

          This book is effectively the third edition derived from my self-published book, Why I Rejected Christianity, which was published late in 2006 and has now been discontinued. The first edition of this work published by Prometheus Books cried out for yet another revision. While it was received very well by both skeptics and Christian readers and was used in both secular and Christian college classes on “atheism” and “apologetics,” there were corrections to make and more than a few chapters that needed to be updated with better arguments and references. I also wanted to answer some of the criticisms made of the first edition. In a few cases I have changed my mind. So I am grateful that the publisher has granted me permission to revise it. 

Would Alien Visitors Assume that Humans Are Gullible and Superstitious?

If they listen to the clergy they certainly would!

I have this fantasy about aliens arriving on earth, looking around carefully, and being baffled by so many buildings with steeples or domes, with colored glass windows, filled with images of a man nailed to a cross. “What’s that all about?”  they may ask. The devout would respond: “Aren’t those buildings magnificent—especially the grand cathedrals? We go there every Sunday to worship and praise the god who created the cosmos, and who cares about each one of us, and answers our prayers. The man on the cross is actually our god’s son, whose sacrifice enables our god to forgive us. We have awesome ceremonies, with bejeweled cups and plates, during which we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the divine son—to ensure that we will have eternal life.” 

The aliens are stumped—totally. But they rise to the occasion, to the challenge:

Edward Babinski's Foreword To "Why I Became An Atheist"

I've decided to publish whole chapters from my books. I may eventually publish them all, certainly a bunch of them. The goal will be to publish one chapter every Monday. [Consider my first post in this series to be one week ago titled, The Strange and Superstitious World of The Bible.] I may not leave them up for more than a few weeks, so be sure to subscribe or check in weekly for them (and for that matter, check in every Friday when Dr. David Madison posts some brilliant and hard-hitting stuff like his most recent one.)

Today I'm posting Ed Babinski's Foreword. Enjoy & Please Share!

        John W. Loftus is a former conservative Christian apologist who at some point admitted that he could no longer honestly use the term “Christian” to describe his present beliefs or state of mind since he now doubts many Christian doctrines, beliefs, and biblical interpretations he once formerly accepted as rock-solid truths. His book is a clear, honest, and concise summary of some of the questions he encountered along his spiritual, theological, and philosophical journey. Neither is it as isolated and fearful a journey as some conservative evangelicals may think, because many of today’s top biblical archeologists and biblical scholars from William Dever to Bart Ehrman and Hector Avalos (including many professors in the Jesus Seminar) all began their own journeys as conservative Christians with few doubts, only to discover more questions and uncertainties. 

Michael Licona's Criticism of ECREE Debunked

ECREE stands for "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence." On X Michael Licona said ECREE is illogical.

This argument is criticized as illogical because the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" does not clearly define what qualifies as extraordinary evidence and can become circular if it assumes a claim is false simply because it is unusual. Instead of evaluating the evidence on its own merits, this approach may impose an undefined standard that is impossible to satisfy. Critics argue that the proper question is whether the available evidence is sufficient to justify belief, regardless of whether the claim is ordinary or extraordinary.

So I responded by saying: "The more initially improbable and unlikely a claim is, the more that reasonable people should require sufficient evidence (in terms of quality & quantity) before we should accept it. [Sounds like Bayes Theorem].

Gospel Noir @craftedheavenly replied: "That's a cleaner formulation than the slogan, and I think people on both sides could sign it. It moves the debate to where it belongs, the evidence itself. For the resurrection specifically, what quality and quantity would meet your bar?"

I replied: Thanks for the agreement! The evidence required for an ancient pre-scientific claim to be accepted as a miracle is addressed here.

Gospel Noir @craftedheavenly: Thanks, John. I appreciate you pointing me to the full argument instead of a one-liner. I'll read it carefully. Whatever side people land on, you've pushed a lot of believers to think harder about what counts as good evidence, and that's a service to everyone in this conversation.

I replied by saying: See also this discussion on miracles, along with this one.

The Biggest Threat to Christianity Is the New Testament

The feel-good quotes are overwhelmed by contradictions and superstitions

Some scholars have suggested that the earliest document in the New Testament is Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Paul makes this claim in chapter 4:16-17:

“For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever.”

I wonder how many devout Christians today are aware of this text, since reading the letters of Paul isn’t all that popular. And among those who are aware of Paul’s statement here, how many take it seriously? When they drive by cemeteries, do they hope that the day isn’t far off when their dead relatives will join them in the clouds to meet Jesus? Those who have sufficient common sense and deal with reality every day, know that Paul was totally wrong. He was confident that his lord would arrive soon, to welcome himself and the recently revived dead who had believed in Christ. Devout folks who are still hoping for The Rapture may be encouraged by this text—while totally ignoring the timing that Paul suggested.

Assessing Michael Licona's Minimal Facts Approach to the Gospels

Let's comment on Michael Licona's minimal facts approach to the Gospels. 

He and others deliberately ignore the nativity stories when considering the truthfulness of the gospels! Why is that?

LINK [You can start reading beginning with the 2nd paragraph.]

"The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible" by John Loftus

The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible, by John W. Loftus 

[In what follows is chapter 13 from my book, Why I Became an Atheist (with endnotes). I think it's the longest chapter in any of my books.] 

In the Bible we find a strange world that Karl Barth wrote about in an essay titled “The Strange New World within the Bible.” To the question of what lies within the world of the Bible, Barth gives this answer: “Within the Bible, there is a strange, new world, the world of God.”1 And it is indeed strange to us today—very strange.

We find a world where there were gods and goddess that ruled over specific lands over the earth and met in divine councils to decide our fate. It was a world where the God and his sons lived in the sky (heaven) and people who died went to live in the dark recesses of the earth (Sheol). It was a world where a snake and a donkey talked, where giants lived in the land, where people could live to be more than nine hundred years old, where a woman was turned into a pillar of salt, where a pillar of fire could lead people by night, where the sun stopped moving across the sky or could even back up, where an axe head could float on water, where a star could point down to a specific home, where people could instantly speak in unlearned foreign languages, and where someone’s shadow or handkerchief could heal people. It was a world where a flood could cover the whole earth, where a man could be swallowed by a “great fish” and live to tell about it, and where a man could walk on water, calm a stormy sea, or change water into wine. It was a world populated by demons that could wreak havoc on earth and also make people very sick. It was a world of idol worship, where human and animal sacrifices pleased God. In this world we find visions, inspired dreams, prophetic utterances, miracle workers, magicians, diviners, and sorcerers.

New Testament scholar Rudolph Bultmann calls the stories in the Bible “myths” and gets his point across by exaggerating his case:

How Science and Seminary Sabotaged My Belief in God

I was well on my way there before I got to seminary

I have often pointed out that by the time I had finished my PhD in Biblical Studies at Boston University (1975), I had become an atheist. At that point I had already served as pastor of two Methodist churches. I resigned from the ministry, gave up my ordination, and made the transition to a secular business career. That was indeed a bumpy ride, but I eventually made it in one piece. 

Not too long ago, I found in my file the 21-page essay I had written in 1970 as part of the Methodist ordination process—wow, 56 years ago. I’m glad it has survived, because it provides hints of my slide toward non-belief.  Yes, in of all places, my ordination essay!

Vincent Torley Responds! News and Views From An Apologist Who Became a Skeptic

I have argued with Vincent Torley a time or two. As an honest Christian scholar he eventually changed his mind. A history of our debates can be found here. [Especially see Christian Apologist Vincent J. Torley Now Argues Michael Alter’s Bombshell Book Demolishes Christian Apologists’ Case for the Resurrection, plus Christian Apologist Vincent Torley Says I've "rendered a service to philosophy", and finally, what he wrote about Bayes Theorem: Bayes Theorem with Regard to Vincent Torley.]

I emailed Vincent to see what he's doing, and what his views might be now:

I hope you're well. What are you up to lately? I was reading some of your writings using Bayes Thereom. Hume didn't use Bayes Thereom.

Christian apologists like Tim McGrew and several others, including Richard Carrier, Benjamin Speed Watkins, and Paulogia (a popular content creator) think Hume is obsolete. They think we should ignore Hume and just present our arguments (in Baysian terms if possible).

With the caveat that Hume didn't want to state his arguments using math, I'm considering plugging his arguments into Bayes Theroem to satisfy his critics.

We know he disputed the ontological argument and the cosmological argument, plus he went into length against the design argument. He doesn't give any of it any credence. I'll see what he might have said about the moral argument, but that won't matter.

The rest of what Hume says is against the probability of ancient testimony to miracles on behalf of the Christian religion in deference to other religions.

God is out. All that's left is ancient testimony.

This could be a game changer for his legacy.

What do you think of this project?

To cut to the chase after more than two months Vincent responded:

"Catholic" Christian Apologist Vincent Torley Asks, "Is Joe Schmid Right on Catholic Miracles?"

LINK.

If Devout Christians Don’t Love Reading the Gospels…

How do they feel about the letters of Paul?

Many years ago, I met a devout Catholic woman who bragged—during out first meeting—that she had seen the Broadway musical, Phantom of the Opera, more than 200 times. She was obsessed with it, obviously. It was only many years later that it dawned on me that I should have asked her, “The last time I checked—am I right? —the Catholic church doesn’t classify Phantom of the Opera as sacred scripture.” Then the follow-up question would be, “Exactly what does the church classify as sacred scripture?” In other words, her massive time wasted on a musical could have been devoted instead to serious study of the four gospels—at least. But I doubt very much that she has read/studied the gospels. I suspect that very few priests—or Protestant ministers—give assignments from their pulpits during Sunday worship: “I want all of you to read Mark’s gospel this week, and hand in your book reports next Sunday.” Or the assignment could be to read Matthew, Luke, John, or the Book of Acts. With so many entertainment possibilities available—TV, movies, musical theatre, sports—reading books of the Bible will never be a popular option.

Never Think about the Religion You Were Taught as a Child?

Yes, DO THINK about it: study and research it ceaselessly!

At the Methodist church I attended as a child in rural northern Indiana, every Sunday service began with a cherished hymn with these lyrics—as the choir walked down the middle aisle:

“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.

Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty! God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!” 

(This hymn was written by Reginald Heber, 1783 -1826)

Given this weekly drama and performance (which paled in comparison to what the Catholics were doing on the other side of town), I can recall only one moment when doubt passed briefly through my mind: how do we know there’s really anything there? But this doubt quickly vanished. How could my mother, the minister, and everyone around me be wrong? Indeed my mother was very devout—but was by no means a fundamentalist. She read voraciously, e.g., history, biography, and when I was a teenager, she bought the 12-volume Interpreter’s Bible, a product of Protestant scholarship. I read it too, and she even allowed me to take it with me when I went away to college. So very early on I came to understand that so much of the Bible cannot be taken literally.

Rick O'Sheikh Points Out an "Undesigned Coincidence" About The Judeo-Christian god Yahweh

What are undesigned coincidences in the Bible? AI Overview: An undesigned coincidence is an apologetic argument used to support the historical reliability of biblical narratives by pointing out subtle, interlocking details that fit together naturally across independent accounts. It occurs when one biblical text leaves a detail vague or raises a natural question, and a completely separate passage—often incidentally—supplies the missing piece of information.

The Argument: Proponents argue that separate writers would not accidentally include such seamlessly matching, trivial details unless their accounts were rooted in genuine historical memories rather than fabrication or collusion.

YouTube·A Christian Perspective: Origins: Popularized by Anglican theologian John James Blunt in 1847 and built upon William Paley’s 1790 work, the method has seen a modern revival through contemporary authors like Lydia and Timothy McGrew.

Famous Examples

The Feeding of the 5,000 (John and Luke): In John 6:5, Jesus specifically asks Philip where they can buy bread. John's gospel does not explain why he singles out Philip. However, Luke 9:10 notes that the event took place near Bethsaida, and John 1:44 mentions elsewhere that Philip is from Bethsaida. Combined, it makes local sense why Jesus turned to Philip.

The Green Grass (Mark and John): Mark 6:39–40 is the only gospel to mention that the crowd sat down on "green grass". John 6:4 casually notes that the Passover (springtime) was near. Around the Sea of Galilee, grass is only green shortly after spring rains, aligning the two small details without any sign of forced coordination.

Critical Perspectives

Alternative Explanations: Academic critics and scholars note that these connections can often be accounted for by literary dependence (one gospel author copying or adapting another) or shared oral traditions rather than independent eyewitness corroboration.

Skepticism: Critics also argue that finding these "puzzles" can be subjective, relying on reading harmonization into texts that may have slight geographical or structural tensions (such as differing locations or timelines in source criticism).

Now here comes Rick O'Sheikh, who points out a "Counter Designed Coincidence", an important fact that is counter to what evangelicals say about an undesigned coincidence (!):

Three Hard Hitting Posts by Richard Carrier

1. Christianity Is a Conspiracy Theory.

In essence all supernaturalist theories are conspiracy theories, only wherein the conspirators are gods and angels and other superbeings—including, even, Satan, demons, and their secret devilish cabals, because they conveniently also further the conspiracy by suddenly keeping quiet about it and hiding even their own existence in opposition, however inconsistently Christians believe they do. Which is what makes the Christian conspiracy so much less likely than any other: you have to posit additional entities, wholly bizarre entities, for which there is no evidence, nor evidence of their even having any cosmic plausibility, much less having the strange and hyper-specific motives required.

2. Apologetics Is a Grift.

In practice, apologetics means “defending a claim against all the evidence refuting it.” Which more often than not requires lying; making apologetics, really, an art of lying. Lying by omission is the most common method; but most apologists inevitably resort to outright lies, deliberate distortions, or creating a false flight. Even honest apologists can fall into this trap eventually (see Comparing Apologetical Methods: Jonathan Sheffield vs. Michael Licona), because the function of apologetics is not to determine the truth, but to shield a belief from the truth. And there really aren’t any effective ways to do that honestly. Apologetics is therefore inherently corrupting of one’s integrity and intellect. Few who devote themselves to it survive its poison.

3. Your Forebears Murdered Their Way into Your Mind

Christianity and Islam cannot survive true religious freedom because they only exist today because of their core DNA of religious oppression. By violently colonizing the globe, Christianity colonized your mind. You are only a Christian or a Muslim because of mass global murder. Not because of evidence, utility, or wisdom.

Why Did Jesus Change His Mind So Much?

The better question: Why did the gospel authors create such different Jesus-Script? 

The general consensus of non-evangelical New Testament scholars is that the gospels were written many decades after the death of Jesus: all of them were created after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. We don’t know who the gospel authors were—the traditional names we’re so used to were attached to them later. Nor do we know where they got their information; the witnesses to Jesus would surely have passed from the scene by that time. But it’s a major error to assume that the gospel authors were trying to write history. Each in his own way was trying to promote the Jesus sect/cult. They fully qualify as propagandists. 

There’s nothing wrong with that, but readers today must be aware that this was their goal, their game.

"Horrendous Suffering Effectively Refutes God" By John Loftus

Here's a direct link to my paper on the minimal approach to the problem of evil, titled Horrendous Suffering Effectively Refutes God. It appeared in the Freedom from Religion Foundation's monthly newsletter. Please share! [For the record I'm in Facebook jail. I didn't do anything different than I usually do.]

Why Are the Devout Okay with Demons, Superstitions, and Magical Thinking?

Because they don’t grasp that the gospels are fantasy literature

It seems to me that most of the devout who attend church are not obsessed with studying history and science—nor are they aware of implications of seeing their faith in the context in which it arose. They have been coached/trained not to do so by their religious leaders. But it doesn’t take very much curiosity to detect the signs, the clues, that the gospels are fantasies. Right at the start of Matthew’s gospel—who the author actually was, nobody knows—we find a genealogy demonstrating the Joseph was descended from king David; this pedigree seems to have been an essential credential for Joseph’s son to have qualified as messiah. But then we read that his betrothed, Mary, was made pregnant by the holy spirit. Joseph decided to divorce her quietly, but an angel told him in a dream what had happened—so he changed his mind. The author then quotes a text from Isaiah 7:14—or rather misquotes it, since he was familiar with the Septuagint translation of this text which reads virgin, not a young woman which is in the original text. 

But the author of the gospel apparently didn’t notice the major flaw here: why provide a genealogy to prove Joseph was descended from David—but then claim that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, after all? Maybe he did notice it, but just didn’t care because his specialty was writing fantasy literature. Moreover, Joseph getting a message from an angel in a dream is also a fragment of fantasy. It’s worth noting, by the way, that virgin birth is not mentioned in either Mark or John.

An Earlier Draft of "An Atheist Morality without God"

When readers look at my paper, "An Atheist Morality without God", the first thing seen is that I had trouble getting it passed peer review.

Submission received: 2 March 2025/Revised: 22 September 2025 / Accepted: 3 November 2025 / Published: 12 November 2025

One peer reviewer wanted to debate me about the problem of horrendous suffering in my first few paragraphs. I thought what I said was pertinent. But this reviewer was not giving an inch, some criticisms of which were ignorant. Dr. Sterba suggested he or she felt threatened by what I wrote and wasn't going to accept the paper unless I deleted that part, so I did.  

Here is the contested part: 

On God and Horrendous Suffering

When it comes to horrendous suffering I have written several chapters in my books on it, plus edited, God and Horrendous Suffering (2021). The force of this problem is much greater for evangelicals, who believe a perfectly good, all powerful, all knowing theistic God exists, who allegedly inspired the horrific tales in the Bible, including sending people into an eternal conscious torment in hell. That explains why evangelical apologists like William Lane Craig said, “The problem of evil is certainly the greatest obstacle to belief in the existence of God. When I ponder both the extent and depth of suffering in the world, whether due to man’s inhumanity to man or to natural disasters, then I must confess that I find it hard to believe that God exists.”1

Christian philosopher James F. Sennett echoed what Craig said: “By far the most important objection to the faith is the so-called problem of evil—the alleged incompatibility between the existence or extent of evil in the world and the existence of God. I tell my philosophy of religion students that, if they are Christians and the problem of evil does not keep them up at night, then they don’t understand it.”2 The force of this problem is perhaps the greatest for Calvinists who believe in theological determination, as opposed to non-Calvinists who believe in free will.

The Gospel Authors Tried So Hard to Prove Resurrection, Part 2

But the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection fail basic standards

In my article posted here last Friday, I discussed the major flaws in Matthew’s story about dead saints coming alive in their tombs when Jesus died, then wandering in Jerusalem on the first Easter Sunday. Also, I analyzed the account of Jesus raising Lazarus, found only in John 11. Neither of these stories stand up to careful, critical analysis; they both sprang from the imaginations of their authors. 

But what about the gospel depictions of the resurrection of Jesus himself? Are they more to be trusted? Well, unfortunately not. As Robert Conner has pointed out, according to the gospels, nobody actually witnessed the resurrection of Jesus. Let’s take a look at all four, beginning with the first to be written.