Showing posts with label Lowder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lowder. Show all posts

Ravi Zacharias, Another Liar for Jesus Exposed

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I've commented on the growing evidence against Ravi Zacharias before (see tag "Liars for Jesus"--which now has 24 posts). Now Steve Baughman, who was trained as a lawyer, presents his case in his book, Cover-Up in the Kingdom: Phone Sex, Lies, And God's Great Apologist, Ravi Zacharias. It's a self-published book. Prometheus Books didn't want it. Neither did the board of Secular Nation want an article on it. Lots of Christian media outlets and magazines rejected a story on it as well. Apparently Zacharias became too rich and powerful to expose, for fear of reprisals and lawsuits. 

So Baughman published the story himself. The book reads like what you'd expect from a legal mind, complete with all the tweets, legal documents, emails (from Zacharias) along with several appendices. All of this evidence provides a solid case against the well-known influential apologist Ravi Zacharias. He's a habitual liar and deceiver. He has lied about his credentials and accomplishments for decades. He had carried on an illicit relationship with a married woman named Lori Anne Thompson. He also tried to bully her into not coming clean about their relationship to her husband by threatening suicide if she did. There's more. If you wish to read a more detailed primer to the book, Randal Rauser wrote one up, called, The Lying Apologist: A Review of Cover-Up in the Kingdom.

Rauser explains why he wrote the story when others didn't:
Baughman notes that Zacharias’ defenders have tended to dismiss his allegations, chalking them up to Baughman’s own hatred of God (4). While this is unfortunate, it is hardly surprising given the tribalistic nature of many Christians....

Over the last few weeks, several Christians have asked me why I want to review Cover-Up in the Kingdom. The question seems to be based on that same tribalism that I referenced above. In other words, don’t criticize our guys.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a habitual liar and fabulist is not my guy. And it doesn’t stop with Zacharias. Perhaps the most disturbing lesson of Cover-Up in the Kingdom is that Zacharias has been enabled by the silence and complicity of many other Christians including apologists like John Lennox and Os Guinness, megachurch pastor Mac Brunson, professor Jeremy Begbie, and countless functionaries at institutions like RZIM and the CMA denomination.

I like to say that in Christian apologetics, good arguments are important but a winsome presentation is even more important. I’d now like to add that one’s moral integrity is most important of all. And moral integrity requires Christians to speak out and denounce Ravi Zacharias and his enablers. If we claim to follow He who is the Truth (John 14:6), how could we do anything less?
Good on Rauser! When it comes to this issue I'm in his tribe.

Jeffery Lowder Silences Disagreement at Secular Outpost

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Two days ago Lowder said:
In order to maintain a high quality of discussion in the comments box, I have made the executive decision to moderate all comments on all posts. This decision is effective immediately.

The following policies are in effect....5) This blog has a philosophical focus; the editors and authors aren’t interested in debating with readers who think philosophy is worthless or cannot understand the value of clearly defined terms. Comments along those lines will be blocked. LINK
Not having been a part of the discussions he refers to, it looks like he's feeling the heat from my book, Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End, which mirrors Dr. Hector Avalos's call to end biblical studies as we currently understand them.

Listen, I have blocked people for various reasons, but never because someone merely disagreed with my views. One issue I have debated over the years is the existence of an apocalyptic prophet who was the basis for the Jesus we read about in the gospels. I have never silenced this debate here at DC, yet Lowder just censored a debate over the value of philosophy of religion. Pity, to think he claims to be interested in "genuine inquiry." Hypocrite! This is to be taken as another example of his hypocrisy.

Keith Parsons Attacks!

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Does anyone think what Keith Parsons wrote describes who I am and what I'm about? This is the kind of stuff that has a long life, something I have to constantly fight uphill to overcome. LINK. I don't need to respond since it's obvious he's ignorant about me. I do think it illustrates the unfairness of the Secular Outpost, and why no one should pay attention to anything they write about me or my works (unless it's good of course!) ;-)

Frank Zindler, the Voice of Atheism in America for at Least a Decade

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Frank is a good friend of mine. We've spent several weekends together talking and laughing and telling stories. At the age of 76 he's still an indefatigable laborer on behalf of atheism. I've mentioned him several times [See tag]. Here's a picture of us from this past weekend.

Frank was the voice of atheism in America for at least a decade, and he earned the "Mr. Atheist" yearly award twice from American Atheists. Many young atheists and new people to atheism have never heard of him. They should. Ed Suominen, co-author with Robert Price of the book Evolving Out of Eden, wrote up a very nice celebration of Frank's life.

Below you'll watch Frank do a great job of debating William Lane Craig. This debate took place at the Willow Creek Church in 1994. I don't have the words to express my contempt for Jeff Lowder, whose only comment about Frank Zindler, a giant of a man, was that he's one of the worst atheist debaters. WTF? No really, WTF? It took my prodding to keep Lowder honest, since that's apparently a hard thing for him to do if left unchecked, by forcing him to change what he wrote. Now Lowder says this is one of a handful of the "worst atheist debate performances," and that too is nothing but dishonest self-promotion from a non-credentialed wannabe self-proclaimed "philosopher." For apparently we need Lowder to tell us what a bad debate performance looks like because we're just too dumb to think for ourselves. And yet Lowder refuses to say what everyone else but him thinks, that Richard Carrier's debate performance against William Lane Craig was one of the worst atheist debate performances, making Lowder a hypocrite as well.

What to Understand about the "Infamous Loftus Ego" and How to Deal With That Rascal ;-)

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I think the most often repeated complaint against me is that I'm thin-skinned, that I don't respond to criticism very well. Whew! That's a relief. At least I'm not being accused of jaywalking too! Jaywalking? Ahhh yes, I think I have done that on occasion. The undeniable fact is that we all have personality flaws. What's yours? No, really, WHAT'S YOURS? Biblical advice might be useful here: "How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" And this: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone." It would seem as though my critics want me to be more like them. But if I were more like them then I would have their faults rather then mine, since we all have faults. Sorry, I like my faults better than theirs, thank you very much! Despite mine I'm a really good person. Still, let me tell you how to deal with that so-called "infamous Loftus ego." ;-)

Who Is To Be Considered a Philosopher?

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Daily Nous is a site maintained by Dr. Justin Weinberg, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. Recently he weighed in on who should be considered a philosopher, and he had some trouble with it. Calling everyone a philosopher (which might technically be true) lowers the standard into oblivion. It would be an injustice to call Joe Sixpack and William L. Rowe both philosophers in the same sentence. However, there are people recognized as philosophers because they truly are philosophers. They have met certain criteria in this highly specialized discipline. Weinberg tells us,
Let's stipulate that someone is a philosopher who as a PhD in philosophy, or working on a graduate degree in philosophy, or having a regular appointment in a philosophy department LINK
In a similar vein, Dr. Hector Avalos recently commented on who should be considered a biblical scholar. Avalos tells us,
In general, a scholar is one who, at minimum, has the equipment needed to verify independently the claims made in the relevant field. Usually, it is standard to have undergone some certification process as reflected in graduate degrees and peer reviewed published work. Self-proclamation as a “scholar” is not standard academic procedure.
The words for "philosopher" and "scholar" must have meaning, so philosophers and scholars working in those fields are best qualified to define them.

Vic Reppert On the Fundamental Divide Between Jeff Lowder and Me

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I do think that there is a fundamental divide between people who think that atheists and theists have a common goal, a goal of understanding one another better, and those who think that the only legitimate goal is the partisan goal of advancing one's own viewpoints. I think that is the dividing line between people like Loftus and people like Lowder.
Whoah there! What a load of false propaganda crapola! Did he just say I don't want to understand theists? That is laughable and one of the reasons I think ridicule is an important response to such drivel. I don't care if Vic has a doctorate, either. Here's a clue Reppert, see chapter 3 in my seventh published book in seven years, How to Defend the Christian Faith, which highlights the honest search for truth as the priority for us all, and I mean it. Furthermore, the whole reason my writing gets such wide acclaim is precisely because I do understand Christianity. In fact, I have spent the better part of my waking hours doing so for years, and decades. And did Reppert just say I think the only worthy goal is a partisan one of advancing atheism? Again, refer to what I just wrote above. I'll go farther to state that I'm the last atheist on the planet to say atheists should all do this or that, that there is one one way to be an atheist, that all atheists should do it my way or get to the highway. Cookie cutter mentality is the last thing I have. Of course, since I stand against cookie cutter mentality then Jeff Lowder and I have problems because it's JEFF who seems to think all atheists should be like him, and THAT is our problem. It's also our problem when he calls himself a philosopher when he is not, because he uses that unearned accolade to gain credibility when criticizing me for not boot stepping in complete sync with him.

I don't think there's just one divide between us anyway. There are several of them, which I think are very instructive:

Ravi Zacharias Lied About Having Honorary Degrees and Being A Visiting Scholar at Cambridge

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I like this guy, the Friendly Banjo Atheist, who exposed the dishonesty of a popular Christian apologist named Ravi Zacharias in the video below. Zacharias received honorary degrees not real ones. That's like receiving honorary praise as "a philosopher" to subsequently turn around and dishonestly call oneself a philosopher. The dishonesty can be easily seen in Zacharias. It should equally be seen in Jeff Lowder. [See "Lowder" tag below].

On Lowder's Stupid Atheist Meme #4: “Let’s Put an End to the Philosophy of Religion!”

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Jeff Lowder again, with another so-called "Stupid Atheist Meme." One of the reasons I have publicly exposed Jeff Lowder's dishonesty and hypocrisy is because he has successfully convinced people into thinking he's a philosopher when he is not, which I consider his biggest con. He has a college degree in computer science and is well-read in the area of philosophy of religion, okay. But I have found him to be ignorant many times. His biggest ignorances have to do with taking positions against those I have taken, so it does matter that people see who he really is. For if he's considered a full credentialed philosopher with a Ph.D., then what he says is taken more seriously than what I say. His all white male philosophy student cheerleaders defend him because he has successfully conned them. They say there have been many philosophers in the past who didn't have Ph.D.'s, like Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes and Aquinas, which I know all too well. That is irrelevant. I'm arguing Lowder lacks the depth and breadth necessary to have earned a Ph.D. in philosophy.

What I'm writing is helpful. One person wrote:
I have been using the Internet Infidels for about 15 years now. The essays therein has helped me in my philosophical path from "angry antitheism" to a more moderate nontheism. And in all those time I have thought JJ Lowder is a philosopher. I don't know why I had that impression, but I did. Maybe subtle hints in his online writings made me believe that he is one. If you had not exposed his actual academic background, I would still think he is a PhD-toting analytic philosopher. LINK.

The Stupidity of Jeff Lowder: "Nontheists Should Stop Using 'Freethought' as an Umbrella Term"

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Jeff Lowder again, with today's post: "Stupid Atheist Meme #3: Freethinker = Atheist." He may be baiting me so I won't continue dogging his every step, just a few of them as I see fit. Jeff Lowder smuggled his way into being known and respected as a philosopher without any relevant credentials. I aim to "out" him about this. Don't shoot me I'm just the messenger. If you're looking for a more accurate analysis of philosophical arguments then I bid you turn elsewhere. I am banned from commenting at the Secular Outpost because I have publicly exposed Jeff Lowder's dishonesty and hypocrisy, so in order to comment on a post of his I must do so here. Okay.

First let me point out more of his hypocrisy. A while back Dan Fincke, a former Freethought Blogger, issued a pledge to civility. Jeff Lowder endorsed it with his full support. Afterwards Greta Christina published her book, Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless.Lowder has yet to state for the record that he disproves of the tone and/or substance of that book since she is definitely not being civil to religionists. So his supporting the civility pledge doesn't mean much. I consider this more of his hypocrisy, as I wrote earlier. Now why is he a hypocrite? For one reason. To please important people. He will, on occasion, say what needs to be said to please them, hoping no one notices his hypocrisy. People call that being two-faced. [For my part I reserve the right to piss people off and I can like Greta Christina's book because I never signed that unbalanced pledge].

But to the point of today's lesson. Lowder once again is spouting ignorances. He calls himself a philosopher but he lacks both the knowledge and thinking skills to be awarded that accolade. See for yourselves. He claimed it is stupid to think of a Freethinker as an atheist. Not just wrong, mind you. Stupid. Let's see who the stupid one is, shall we, and why.

Another Example of Jeff Lowder's College Level Approach to the Philosophy of Religion

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Jeff Lowder smuggled his way into being known and respected as a philosopher without any relevant credentials. I aim to "out" him about this. Don't shoot me I'm just the messenger. If you're looking for a more accurate analysis of philosophical arguments then I bid you turn elsewhere. I am banned from commenting at the Secular Outpost because I have publicly exposed Jeff Lowder's dishonesty and hypocrisy, so in order to comment on a post of his I must do so here. Okay.

I first want readers to notice how he dishonestly presents the impression that he is a philosopher. In a recent post on morality he writes as follows:
The concept of “objective morality” is notorious for its ambiguity. You might even say that people–or, at least, philosophers–have a moral obligation not to use that expression unless and until they first give a very nuanced definition of what it means! Because the concept is often misunderstood, I’m going to try to offer a “layman’s guide to moral objectivity” in this post.

Let’s start with “morality.” The average person who is not a philosopher probably thinks there is just the one ‘thing,’ morality, and that’s the end of it. In fact, the topic is a little bit more complicated than that. Non-philosophers might be surprised to learn that philosophers make a distinction between the good (values) and the right (duties). LINK.
If you don't see this for what it is, or object to his use of language then you should. In a post sometime back, Lowder talked about having written "a paper", which real philosophers know is a technical term for something one reads at a philosophical conference (just think of a "call for papers"), or it refers to something that will be published in a peer reviewed journal. What he wrote was neither of these things, just the dishonest use of language.

An Exposé of the Dishonesty and Hypocrisy of Jeff Lowder

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I must keep this short, so I want to say from the outset that Jeff Lowder is a valued atheist intellectual, even if I'm right about everything I write below. I am most grateful that he used his B.S. degree in computer science to co-create Internet Infidels, a huge repository of scholarly essays debating the merits of religious propositions. But Jeff Lowder and I have had a series of fights, which I wrote about previously in An Open Letter to Jeffery Jay Lowder. Anyone interested should read that post. We made a bit of a truce for a time then it started bursting out in the last few months. It came to a head with something he posted on his popular blog. [Click on the above image]. He wrote a post titled "Loftus Says I'm not Making an Impact." After a day he deleted it when I called him out on it. Then he apologized. Them's the facts. Lowder says it was an honest mistake. I don't believe that for a minute. I'm sure his fan boys do. Cognitive bias theory predicts they would too. So let me explain.

Socrates Would Not Be Recognized As a Philosopher So Why Should We Recognize Jeff Lowder?

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I'm opposed to Jeffery Jay Lowder claiming he's a philosopher, which he does. This is a screenshot of his Twitter profile claiming he's a Philosopher of Religion. He only has a B.A. in Computer Science earned in 1995 from Seattle Pacific University. I have a great deal more qualifications to claim I'm a philosopher, but I don't do so. It's for others to say, and they say that of me once-in-a-while. I rarely even see a real philosopher claim he/she's a philosopher. It's an accolade others bestow on you, and/or given to you by the university you teach at. So Lowder is arrogant to say so. It does not matter what others say or how many of them say it.

One of the responses from his echo-chamber of a blog is to compare Lowder to Socrates. If Socrates was a philosopher without credentials then Lowder can be one too. Lowder even "liked" such comments! *cough* Lowder is someone who, as far as I can tell, never read a paper at a philosophical conference, much less published in a philosophical journal. And he never taught a philosophy class either. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page! ;-) At best he's self-taught, which isn't bad, but there is a big difference between a directed philosophical program taught by experts and being self-taught. It's much worse than this when it comes to Socrates. He not only didn't have any academic credentials, or write anything, he was rejected by the scholars of his day. More than this, if Socrates came to life he wouldn't be able to write a philosophical paper that would pass peer review. If you look at his reasoning--brilliant and original that it was for his day and the reason we hail him as a philosopher--his arguments in Plato's Dialogues are at an introductory college/university level, not the highly technical philosophical level demanded by today's philosophers. In fact, Socrates probably wouldn't even be able to understand most philosophy today. He wouldn't know anything about Oriental philosophy, that's for sure. Nor would he understand a great deal about either the Continental or Analytic traditions in philosophy. He wouldn't be able to understand much of the Philosophy of Religion, since a great deal of it is based on the new religion (to him anyway) of Christianity. And modern discussions of ethics and justice have by-passed his brilliant and original contributions significantly, as they have to his arguments on behalf of immortality and the afterlife. Socrates would have to catch up on the history of philosophy before he could even make a contribution. For surely one cannot understand Immanuel Kant without first understanding David Hume who awoke him from his dogmatic slumbers, as but just one of many examples. And Socrates didn't know anything about modern science either.

My point is that the era of Socrates is long past. This is a new era with better levels of argumentation by those recognized to be scholars. It's been said that Aristotle was the last person who knew everything that could be known. That day is gone too. We now live in an era of specialization and in this era there are recognized standards requiring credentials along with a certain quality of work. My claim is that Lowder doesn't meet these rigorous standards, and even if he did he should keep silent about it. Otherwise, doing so makes him look bad.

The reason why this matters and that our disagreements are important to be forthcoming.

Some Recommendations of My Work

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I find it very interesting that when disagreeing with each other we fail to mention any good in that other person. That's not what we would do in person and it does not fairly represent the total contributions we each make. It's also why I get upset when being nitpicked to death by people who have not done what I have accomplished so far. Sometimes it's just a pissing contest though. For people who think the Secular Outpost and I aren't on the same team as atheists, you would be wrong. Here, see for yourselves:

Jeffery Jay Lowder: "It's Self-Defeating to Ridicule Beliefs"

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Jeff is once again disagreeing with me. That's okay as far as it goes and expected sometimes, but I truly find his ignorance surprising. [Edit, this type of exchange finally led me to the opinion that Jeffery Jay Lowder is a dishonest person, a hypocrite, seen right here. I have found he only has a B.S. college degree in computer science, yet goes around calling himself "a philosopher", even though he's so ignorant about this and so much more. [See tag below.]

On his Twitter account (@SecularOutpost) Jeff boasts of being "Paul Draper's Bulldog." I think Draper is the reason we disagree on the issues we do. Draper is wrong on those issues even though I too have a respect for him. I really do not understand Jeff's claim that it's self-defeating to ridicule beliefs, and he certainly failed to defend that claim. Recently I argued that ridicule has value in our cultural wars, right here. Jeff commented:

Quote of the Day, By Jeffery Jay Lowder (With Rebuttal)

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[T]he philosophy of religion is not “dead,” but it is in serious condition, if not on life support. This can be shown by counting the number of philosophy departments at secular colleges and universities which have faculty lines for philosophy of religion. (They are very rare.) Why is this? I think that one contributing factor to this state of affairs is the blatant partisanship which is very much the norm in the philosophy of religion. Many philosophers of religion, including both atheists and theists, function as natural theologians (if theists) or natural atheologians (if atheists). In other words, they act as if their job description says, “If you’re a theist, defend theism; if you’re an atheist, defend atheism.” It’s rare for philosophers of religion to engage in genuine inquiry and to spend equal amounts of time defending theism and defending atheism. But, if a philosopher of religion is going to act like a philosopher, not an apologist, they should be engaging in inquiry. LINK.
Below is my response, which I guarantee will be worth a click of your time. ;-)

In Defense of Peter Boghossian's Tweet About the Philosophy of Religion

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Jeff Lowder has produced what he called a "reductio ad absurdum argument against Boghossian’s ridiculous tweet." A big brouhaha is taking place because of it. Me? I try to first understand what someone is saying before I criticize it. I try to state the argument better than the original if I can, something neither Justin Schieber nor Taylor Carr have done in addition to Lowder.

Here's Boghossian's tweet:
Being published in the philosophy of religion should disqualify one from sitting at the adult table. — Peter Boghossian (@peterboghossian) June 15, 2014.
Jeff quotes this tweet and proceeds to put together a very impressive list of atheist philosophers. It was a complete surprise to see my name in that list, by the way, for which I am very thankful. Jeff's point is that if published philosophers of religion should be disqualified to sit at the adult table then so should published atheist philosophers of religion. Since it's clear these atheist philosophers of religion are not to be disqualified as childish, therefore Boghossion's claim is absurd. Stay with me. I'm about to defend Boghossion. After all, I consider myself to be his bulldog.

Jeff Lowder: "Two Thumbs Way Up" for My Book WIBA

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I give this book two thumbs way up. In addition to courageously sharing his personal story, Loftus applies his considerable training and expertise into developing a cumulative case against Christianity and for atheism. I cannot think of another book like it on the market. Loftus is clearly familiar with the work of evangelical apologists like Copan, Craig, Geisler, and Moreland, as his book is filled with references to their work and objections to their arguments. In fact, his book might best be described as a “counter-apologetics” textbook. Anyone who reads this blog (The Secular Outpost) but has not yet read Why I Became an Atheist should do so. LINK.

The Top Ten Worst Atheist Books

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Okay, I've been prompted to write this post due to Jeff Lowder's lists of the worst atheist debaters . Up until this time I have never written such a post. See what you think:

There is No Such Thing As Theism or Christian Theism or Mere Christianty

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In an earlier post I had argued there is no such thing as "theism" or "Christianity" or "Mere Christianity." Link. In a post where Jeffery Jay Lowder says he doesn't know whether religion causes more harm than good I brought this up, saying religion like theism or Christan theism or mere Christianity does not exist in the abstract. Bradley Bowen, who writes for Lowder for the Secular Outpost responded. Here is what he wrote and my subsequent response: