The Pure Sophistry and Obfuscationism of Philosophy of Religion and Why the Evidential Requirement Changes Everything

Earlier I had posted this link. I then reminded believers that had they been born differently due to the lottery of birth they would be raised to believe differently. Their religious rituals would be different too! On Facebook it was called the genetic fallacy. Nope. Look at what happens when the sophistry of philosophy of religion is used to obfuscate the impact of the lottery of birth, and why the requirement for evidence changes everything:

Dr. Graham Oppy On the Five Best Atheist Philosophy of Religion Books

The team at Five Books interviews experts on their five best book choices on anything from language, sport, and art, to science, philosophy and the environment. I love this site and encourage everyone to subscribe to its bi-weekly updates, where they "ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview." The site has over a thousand interviews.

They decided to ask Dr. Oppy to suggest and talk about the five best atheist philosophy of religion books. Specifically he was asked to suggest and discuss the five books "that have been the most influential" to him in his work as an atheist philosopher of religion. I've previously said what five books changed my life right here, and none of them were philosophy of religion books, even though I basically majored in that area of study for three of my master's degrees. [I'll not begrudge Oppy for failing to suggest my book in his list, Why I Became an Atheist, even though at least one informed atheist ranked it as the best atheist book of the past decade over some other top philosophy of religion books. Hey, don't shoot me, as I'm just the messenger! ;-)

Here are Oppy's choices. There are some surprises to be had in them. I have five important questions to ask him. See below for them and a link to his interview:

Julian Baggini Concerning Philosophy of Religion "What the Hell Are You Doing?"

Julian Baggini's 2005 review of Michael Martin's anthology, The Impossibility of God, was needed and brilliant! It should be required reading for discussion by everyone interested in philosophy of religion. LINK. It might be subtitled, "What the hell are you doing?"

Baggini, as an atheist philosopher, starts off saying he "found the book faintly dispiriting, futile even. Rather than finding myself standing on the metaphorical touchline cheering my team as it chalked up point after point, it seemed to me that everyone on the pitch was engaged in a useless game that no-one was ever going to win. This was a bravura performance, but who was it for?" His main point is: "I just don't believe that detailed and sophisticated arguments make any significant difference to the beliefs of the religious or atheists."

The book is useless for the unintellectual, he says, who won't read it much less understand it. "The fight against unthinking religion must be fought in terms unthinking believers can relate to. Discovering Angelina Jolie is an atheist is much more likely to make the unintellectual doubt their belief than the arguments of Patrick Grim" (an author in the book). A current example is The Big Bang Theory sit-com. It's doing a fantastic job of influencing the young away from faith via example and ridicule. As many of us have argued, ridicule does indeed have an impact upon the masses. Baggini surprisingly also says Martin's book is useless for the intellectual, both the believer and the atheist, for "when we get to this level of detail and sophistication, the war has become phoney. Converts are won at the more general level." [My emphasis].

"Faith is Pretending to Know Things You Don't Know" Just Like the Sophists in the Days of Socrates, Who Was Wise Because He Knew He Didn't Know.

I consider Peter Boghossian's stipulative definition of faith to be a sound one from all I know about how apologists defend their faith (above). I documented this in my somewhat sarcastic book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist. Check it out. It'll surely surprise most of you. Take a look at the blurbs.

The problem is faith. Faith is the mother of all cognitive biases. Faith leads believers to play the childish pretend game of religion. To have faith is to have a misplaced childish trust in non-existent deities. Faith is the entrance ticket to the fantasy-land of religion. Faith is a virus of the mind that stunts the growth of a person. It keeps people childish in their thinking.

In response, the brain of the believer will lie to its host. It will make shit up to hide the fact that its host believes in fairy tales. The host will be told lies that the overwhelming consensus of scientists is based on faith, that people need their particular parochial modern deity in order to live good moral lives, that atheism is a religion even though atheists do not believe in supernatural forces and/or beings, the list go on. Believer, you must bring your brain to heel by demanding objective evidence before concluding something, by proportioning your assent to the strength of the evidence, and by denying your brain the natural tendency to prefer wish-fulfillment over the cold hard truth. You say you really want to know the truth? Okay then. Force your brain to read this book: Christianity in the Light of Science: Critically Examining the World's Largest Religion. Check it out. It'll surely surprise most of you. Take a look at the blurbs.

Since faith is indeed pretending to know things you don't know, then faith does not deserve a whole sub-discipline known as Philosophy of Religion in our secular universities either, as I argued Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End. For readers not studying or teaching philosophy of religion classes, the book is a manifesto against faith itself. I argue against pretending to know things we don't know. So I'm not only calling for the end of the philosophy of religion sub-discipline, but also an end to philosophy of religion itself, at least, how it's currently being practiced by almost everyone. I think the book could revolutionize what readers think of religion. In it you'll learn how to effectively deal with faith-based claims and how to spot them. Check it out. It'll surely surprise most of you. Take a look at the blurbs.

On Reviews of My Book Unapologetic

According to this review my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End is an "mandatory/essential read for people interested in the issues it addresses! I've copied it below for your convenience. There's more to my book than merely calling for atheist philosophers to end their own discipline. It's also a manual for teaching readers how to effectively deal with religion and other faith-based paranormal claims.

I expected some bad book reviews since my target is the philosophy of religion. What I didn't expect are utterly unfair reviews by people who should know better, who are destroying their own credibility in writing them. So far they nitpick at it rather than deal with its focus--one reviewer doesn't even tell readers what I'm doing in it, basically leaving them clueless. In any case, these two posts of mine effectively answer the bad reviews I've seen so far: 1) On The Value of Philosophy and Definitional Apologetics; 2) Isn't it inconsistent to criticize the legitimacy of Philosophy of Religion?

My Latest Book "Unapologetic" Is Going To Print Today!

My new book is being sent off to be printed today! It should be available by the 1st of November. Various online bookstores will have it along with an ebook and maybe an audible version. Below are all the blurbs received for it:
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Unapologetic offers the Philosophy of Religion the swift, ugly end it has long deserved. This single book will cause the death of a discipline.

-- Dr. Peter Boghossian is a philosophy professor at Portland State University and author of A Manual for Creating Atheists.

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Unapologetic is probably my favorite monograph by John Loftus. It deserves a gold medal for undertaking the Olympian task of explaining in clear and accessible prose why the area known as Philosophy of Religion should be ejected from modern academia and our intellectual life. Pretending that we have good arguments for God is about as useless as pretending we have good arguments for Zeus.

-- Dr. Hector Avalos, Professor of Religious Studies, Iowa State University, and author of The End Of Biblical Studies.

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As an introduction to the ever-growing frustration with so-called Christian philosophy among many secular ex-Christian authors, Unapologetic is invaluable reading material for any reader interested in the wide variety of polemical issues it deals with.

--Dr. Jaco Gericke, Associate Research Professor for the Department of Theology and Philosophy, North-West University. Gericke earned PhD’s in both Philosophy of Religion and Old Testament.

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Unapologetic is a wonderfully entertaining read. With masterful erudition, John Loftus presents a compelling case for why the philosophy of religion contains nothing but sophistry and illusion and should, therefore, be committed to the flames. It has no more right to exist than the philosophy of fairies, or the study of Superman. One might be skeptical of this claim—as I was before starting the book—but the arguments are so well-crafted and persuasive that I bet you’ll walk away nodding your head in agreement. Of Loftus’ many critiques of Christianity, this is the best yet. I highly recommend it to anyone with a fondness for great writing and the truth!

--Phil Torres is the author of The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the Apocalypse and founder of the X-Risks Institute.

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Given his background, John Loftus is uniquely qualified to demand the long-overdue fall from grace befitting the philosophy of religion as an academic discipline in secular universities. In Unapologetic, he explains thoroughly and lucidly why it is time both atheists and secular philosophy departments step away from the discipline forever, exposing it for the religious evangelism it merely pretends not to be. Recommended for anyone who still believes in the value of the philosophy of religion, so that they can see their error.

--Dr. James A. Lindsay is the author of Everybody is Wrong about God.

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In this powerful book, former preacher and veteran scholar John Loftus demands to know why so much time and energy is still being wasted analyzing and debating fringe details of a thing no one has yet shown to be real. This passionate, hard-hitting, and important book will enlighten and inspire readers to think in new ways about an old battleground of thought. It’s clear that Loftus is running out of patience when it comes to the faithful but he certainly has not run out of steam.

--Guy Harrison, author of Good Thinking: What You Need to Know to be Smarter, Safer, Wealthier, and Wiser and 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian.

More Advanced Praise for My Upcoming Book "Unapologetic"

In this powerful book, former preacher and veteran scholar John Loftus demands to know why so much time and energy is still being wasted analyzing and debating fringe details of a thing no one has yet shown to be real. This passionate, hard-hitting, and important book will enlighten and inspire readers to think in new ways about an old battleground of thought. It’s clear that Loftus is running out of patience when it comes to the faithful but he certainly has not run out of steam.

--Guy Harrison, author of Good Thinking: What You Need to Know to be Smarter, Safer, Wealthier, and Wiser and 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian. He's not the only one to say such things. So do others, for which I am extremely grateful:

You Don't Need a PhD to Criticize Religion

Hemant Mehta nails this subject. It goes right along with what I'm writing in my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End. The full text of his talk can be found below.

The Introduction To My Last Book, "Unapologetic"

Introduction

This will probably be the last book I’ll write on the topic of religion. I think I’ve said all I need to say. I’ve kicked this dead rodent of the Christian faith into a lifeless blob so many times there is nothing left of it. Mine has been a publishing career that stretches back ten years and ends with this, my tenth book.

The Philosophical Elitism of Keith Parsons

I'm going to try showing Keith Parsons that he stands a lot to gain by listening to me, that I know what I'm talking about, and that he's wrong about the New Atheism. While I probably won't convince him, keep in mind that an argument doesn't need to be convincing for it to be a good one. I'm going to argue his problem is philosophical elitism. I will do so respectably, although it's that same attitude that may keep him from responding. First, here's a quote from Eric MacDonald endorsing Parsons:

The problem is precisely that the New Atheists think it appropriate to dismiss theology and philosophy of religion without understanding the first thing about it. Some New Atheists say, "I know enough about it. I was brought up as a Catholic or an Anglican or ...." But that's not qualification enough. Arguing from this point of view, where you really do not know what your opponent is arguing, because you have made no attempt to find out, is a simple informal fallacy known as special pleading. And the New Atheism is full of it. That's where Keith Parsons is way ahead of the New Atheists. Be an unbeliever by all means. But don't say that you know that there is no God or that theology is all make believe until you have really tried to understand what theologians are saying. And when you have done so, you will, I think, qualify your dismissal. --Eric MacDonald

I think this criticism of the New Atheism fails to understand the very phenomena being criticized. Let's just re-purpose MacDonald's quote: "The problem is precisely that the New Atheists think it appropriate to dismiss Scientology, or Mormonism, or militant Islam, or Hindu theology, or Haitian Catholic voodoo without understanding the first thing about it..." Need I go on? If anyone is special pleading it is MacDonald, for it didn't enter his mind to consider the many other religious faiths out there he easily dismisses without knowing that much about them. So I think reasonable people don't have to know a lot about religious faiths to reject them. We can dismiss these and other faiths precisely because they are faiths. The evidence is not there and even runs contrary to them. The moralities of these faiths also count against them. Do we need to know something about them to dismiss them? Sure, we should know something about them. In fact, to reject one of them we should at least hear about it. But even a rudimentary level of knowledge is enough for that, since faith is the problem. As outsiders we don't need to look into the many varieties of faith to know the results of faith are not likely to be true. We can do this simply by generalizing from the many mutually inconsistent false faiths to the probability that any given particular faith is false, even before getting an in-depth knowledge about it.

My specialties are theology, philosophical theology and especially apologetics. I am an expert on these subjects even though it's very hard to have a good grasp of them all. Now it's one thing for theologically unsophisticated intellectuals like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger to argue against religion. It's quite another thing for a theologically sophisticated intellectual like myself to say the "New Atheists" were within their epistemic rights to denounce religion from their perspectives. And I do. I can admit they lack the sophistication to understand and respond point for point to sophisticated theology. But it doesn't matter. The reason is because all sophisticated theology is based in faith: faith in the Bible (or Koran) as the word of God, and/or faith in the Nicene creed (or other creeds), and/or faith in a church, synagogue or temple. No amount of sophistication changes this. Even an informed ten year old can come to the correct conclusions about faith without any sophistication at all.

Let's take a serious look at what Parsons said:

Do you need a Ph.D. in philosophy to be a legitimate and respectable participant in the theism/atheism debate or the science/religion debate? Of course not. But you do need to know what you are talking about. Those, however accomplished in other fields, who leap into the debate philosophically uninformed inevitably commit freshman mistakes that expose them to the scorn of sophisticated opponents. LINK.

My Interview of Professor Keith Parsons About The Philosophy of Religion

Dr. Keith M. Parsons is on the faculty of The University of Houston--Clear Lake, where he is Associate Professor of Philosophy. He has written a number of books and essays and was the founding editor of the philosophical journal Philo. He also did very well in two debates against William Lane Craig. Keith has honored me with the opportunity to interview him on the philosophy of religion, a topic I'll be writing about in a book titled, Unapologetic: Why the Philosophy of Religion Must End. What prompted this interview was that I noticed he was teaching a Philosophy of Religion (PoR) class after saying he wouldn't teach these classes any longer, or so it appeared seen here. I want to let him clear the air in case he changed his mind (his prerogative if he so chooses), or correct any misunderstandings readers might have. Going beyond this I want to get his present perspectives on the PoR discipline.
The following interview took place as I asked Keith a question via email, to which he responded as his time allowed. Then I would ask him another one, and so on. This was not debate, because I was restricted to asking questions. Even though I threw a few hardball's it wouldn't be fair to characterize this as anything more than a discussion. I interviewed him for the purposes of learning his views more or less, and that's it.

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John: The first question I must ask is why are you teaching a PoR class? Is it just one class, or are there others? Didn't you say you would no longer do so?

My Next Book "Unapologetic" For People Like Paul K. Moser Who Have Lost Touch With Reality

There is only so much a person can take when dealing with people who have lost touch with reality. Must we always maintain a patient attitude when we already know their arguments? Must we always respond in a dispassionate manner to people who are persuaded against reason to believe something delusional? We know this about them based on everything else we know (i.e., our background knowledge). I for one, see nothing wrong with dispassionately discussing the beliefs of philosophers who do little more than build intellectual castles in the sky without any solid grounding to them. I do this all of the time. But sometimes I don't. Sometimes I get too fed up with the pretend game of faith with its ever receding theology.

I don't intend to write this new book with the jaded attitude I have today, so this is probably just for today. I'll not apologize for arguing it's time for the philosophy of religion to end though. It's time to put the hammer down hard on pseudo-intellectuals.

Help Eliminate Some Book Titles

Short but sweet and titles:

1. The End of Philosophy of Religion
2. Ending Philosophy of Religion
3. On Ending Philosophy of Religion

Attention getting titles that better explain what my new book is about:

1. The End of Philosophy of Religion: Why It Must End, How to End it and What Should Replace it.
2. The End of Philosophy of Religion: On Keeping Philosophers and Educators Honest in the University
3. An Atheist Educator’s Manifesto: Why Philosophers of Religion Should Teach This Discipline Honestly and Thereby Put Themselves Out of a Job
4. An Atheist Educators Manifesto: Why Philosophy of Religion Should End in the Universities
5. An Atheist Educators Manifesto: Why Religion Is Being Taught in Our Secular Universities and Why It Shouldn’t Be
6. An Atheist Educators Manifesto: A Call for the Secularization of Our Universities by Ending Philosophy of Religion Departments
7. An Atheist Educators Manifesto: Calling for the Secularization of Our Universities by Ending the Philosophy of Religion Discipline

If Theism Is Dead, What Then? James Lindsay Responds.

Recently I wrote a blurb for James Lindsay's new book, Everybody Is Wrong About God.I said:

Lindsay correctly argues in this book that theism (or “God”) is dead, even though most people don’t realize it yet, echoing the words of Nietzsche’s madman. Lindsay surprisingly goes on to argue that if theism is dead then so is atheism. For without theism we shouldn’t be atheists either, just human beings living in a post-theistic secular society where the relevancy of theism for our lives is beneath serious consideration. Lindsay calls us to completely rethink both theism and atheism, and he informs us what this means and how we should proceed into the future. This is a very thought provoking book, sure to be controversial. I love it!

Privately though, I emailed him some concerns:

Why Are So Many Philosophers of Religion Theists?

Why? I'll tell you why. Because theists gravitate to that field, that's why. In fact, given that they do gravitate to that field, the fact that there aren't MORE theists working in it tells us something interesting about the philosophy of religion (PoR) itself. I've been arguing that the PoR should end in the secular universities. A new study confirms what I'm saying since the discipline isn't even able to keep those believers who enter it! That's the take away from a recent study of the figures.

Keith Parsons On The Amalekites and Options for Apologists

Even though I have master's degrees in the Philosophy of Religion (PoR), I have argued this discipline doesn't deserve a place in secular universities. I've said why in that link (in reverse chronological order). Let me stress a major criticism of the discipline. It usually doesn't deal in concrete biblical examples, and when it does, it takes for granted what no reasonable person should. I prefer to deal in terms of concrete biblical examples by far, so I cannot grant for the sake of argument most of the things philosophers of religion do. PoR departments are dominated by Christians in America, and most of them are evangelical leaning professors. Most of the published work in this discipline is likewise written by Christians. It's the last bastion for evangelicals who cannot defend what they believe because of the evidence coming from evolution, neurology, archaeology, comparative religion analysis, and biblical criticism. Being a philosopher of religion specializing in the analysis of ancient religions and a biblical scholar to boot, Dr. Jaco Gericke has said, "The trouble with William Lane Craig and and Alvin Plantinga is that their philosophy of religion conveniently ignores the problems posed for their views by the history of Israelite religion. They might as well try to prove Zeus exists. People sometimes forget 'God' used to be Yahweh and it is possible to prove from textual evidence that 'there ain't no such animal.'" Evangelical PoR is simply a Fundamentalism on Stilts. In fact, all Christian PoR is special pleading by degrees. It is pseudo-philosophy just as much as creationism is pseudo-science.

On Ending the Philosophy of Religion; That's What I'm Talking About!

Johnnie Terry of Sierra College, CA, tells me he's using Jerry Coyne's book, Why Evolution Is Truefor his critical thinking classes this semester! He says:

As the Philosophy 4: Critical Thinking class satisfies the college level reading requirement, I'm having the students read both "Why Evolution is True" and "Monkey Girl." Coyne's book provides excellent support for scientific reasoning, verificationism and falsificationism.

That's what I'm talking about when it comes to ending the philosophy of religion subdiscipline in secular universities!

Dr. Hector Avalos Calls For Ending Religionist Philosophy of Religion

I've been wondering what Hector thinks of my call for ending the Philosophy of Religion, since I'm basing it on his call to end biblical studies. So I asked him. He has not followed the discussion that much but enough to say this (per email):

My proposal is "to end biblical studies as we know it" (The End of Biblical Studies, p. 15),which means in its current religionist and apologetic orientation. So I am for ending the philosophy of religion if its only mission is to defend religion and theism. So, akin to my vision of the end of biblical studies, I would say that the only mission of the philosophy of religion is to end the philosophy of religion as we know it.

He also provided a progress report so far on his call to end biblical studies:

On Ending the Philosophy of Religion Discipline

[First published 7/31/14] I intend to do a series of posts on my call to end the philosophy of religion (PoR) discipline in secular universities, by answering the following questions: 1) Why do I propose ending PoR as a subdiscipline of Philosophy proper in the secular universities?; 2) What should we know when it comes to ending the PoR?; 3) What exactly is my proposal?; 4) What are the best ways to examine the claims of religion?; 5) What are some practical steps to help facilitate this proposal?; and 6) Why do secular philosophers of religion object to this proposal? In this post I intend to answer question #1. To read further posts in this series click on the tag below, "Ending Philosophy of Religion."

Dr. Paul Draper on "What is Philosophy of Religion?"

Earlier I linked to what philosophers of religion think of Philosophy of Religion (PoR). Paul Draper, offers four suggestions on how to best approach the discipline in hopes of reforming it. I want to examine these suggestions in a little detail here.