A Minimal Facts Approach the the Problem of Evil

I just uploaded a major paper at "Academia.edu" titled, "A Minimal Facts Approach to the Problem of Evil." Hat tip to Gary Habermas and Michael Licona for the concept! Enjoy, and if you enjoy it please share! Get the book here: LINK. After reading it Frank Zindler said: "You can never have too much Loftus!" I like it! [Look him up!]

Visit My Page at The Secular Web!

Avid readers will pardon me for reminding others of my page at The Secular Web. I've published on some key issues there. They cover major faith responses to those of us who value reason and science. Consider the recommendation of Frank Zindler, who recently said, "You can never have too much Loftus!" I like it! [Look him up!]

The first one you'll see is a link to an offsite paper, linked directly here: Atheist Morality Without God.

This essay is a response to James Sterba's "An Ethics without God that is Compatible with Darwinian Evolution" and thoroughly provides a secular morality in that it argues that the most reasonable ethics are secular systems that don't require a God, gods, or goddesses. Loftus further goes on to defend an atheist morality by appealing to polls that show that there is a common neighborly morality that matters to most people based in facts about who we are as a species, which includes facts about the prehistoric world. Finally, Loftus argues that 'Sterbaian ethics' succeeds in that it is useful for human flourishing.

My most recent paper is The Christian Faith Makes No Sense. This one hasn't had too much promotion but it's really good!

In this paper I canvass a variety of ideas throughout the Christian Bible that make no sense at all. These include God's unembodiment, timelessness, foreknowledge, and human characteristics like longing and tribalism, as well as the idea of divine inspiration, the Trinity, the existence of Satan, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Heaven and Hell, punishment for sin, the task of evangelism, and the need for apologetics. These epitomize what Jeremy Bentham famously called nonsense upon stilts.

There are others.

My Debate Notes: "God Probably Doesn't Exist Given the Existence of Horrendous Suffering, by John W. Loftus

Get this huge book!!

I had mentioned this debate yesterday. Here is my planned opening statement: 

My focus is on heinous, hideous, horrific levels of horrendous suffering given the belief in a theistic God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfect good. Unless we focus on that kind of suffering, the kind that seems needless and absolutely inexplicable, we’ll fail to see this problem for what it is. Instead of focusing on bruises, sprained ankles, slaps on the cheek, a clump of hair being pulled out, or sicknesses like colds and the flu, let’s focus instead on people who have been burned alive, boiled alive, and buried alive.

God may well have good reasons to allow for a modest amount of pain since we have physical bodies and we will all die. So we can set aside that kind of suffering as largely uninteresting in this discussion. Horrendous suffering, by contrast, should be our focus. My perspective is a “minimal facts” approach to the problem of suffering. I’m arguing that God should not allow a specific kind of suffering, horrendous suffering. Failing to focus on it is a failure to honestly search for the truth, for when horrendous suffering is our focus, the standard theodicies don’t work.

My contention is that the theistic God probably doesn't exist given the existence of horrendous suffering. Just ask what we would expect to find if we woke up one morning for the very first time. Would we expect to find so much horrendous suffering on this planet? I submit that people would never guess there would be as much horrendous suffering as there is in our world if such a God existed. For it’s clear that God should never allow it. We wouldn’t expect the existence of God since he could prevent it, should prevent it, yet doesn’t prevent it.

1. Horrendous Suffering 2. Catastrophic Superstitions 3. A Vicious God

Christian theology is shattered by these three factors

For centuries, the devout—determined to preserve and protect their faith—have ignored reality. They have turned off curiosity and critical thinking. That just doesn’t work anymore. 

 

There are major brick walls that Christian theology smacks into—and these should put a stop to belief in the god it claims to adore, follow, and worship. Let’s consider three of these brick walls.

The Best Cure for Christianity Is Reading the Bible, Essay No. 7

Big problems with the apostle Paul: please stop calling him a saint

Just how did the apostle Paul become convinced that Jesus was the key to salvation? He assured one of his congregations that he heard this news directly from Jesus himself, in a heavenly vision: 

 

“For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)

The Problem of Evil Will Pulverize Theism into Oblivion Thanks To James Sterba, Paul Draper, and My New Book On Horrendous Suffering!

This latest book by Paul Draper should be very good! This should lead to a triple thumping to take place against Christian theism! It's coming from books by Sterba, Draper, and Loftus! The 2nd edition of mine comes out in about two weeks!

Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 9

A sorry mix of superstition, cult bragging, and bad theology

Baptist preacher William Miller predicted that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Thousands of people were psyched for this dramatic event, which turned into what became known as The Great Disappointment, since Jesus didn’t show up. Miller had calculated the date based on data—what he assumed was data—that he found in the Bible. He should have grasped that some Bible data is just plain wrong. Such as the opening verse of Mark 9: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” 

 
We are entitled to wonder what was going on in the head of the author of Mark’s gospel—whoever that was. There is consensus among mainstream New Testament scholars that this gospel was written in the wake of the destructive First Jewish-Roman War (67-70 CE), during which Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. This horror is reflected in Mark 13. The Jesus-script in Mark 9:1 might reflect this gap of four decades between supposed Jesus events and the writing of the gospel: “some standing here who will not taste death” until they see the arrival of the kingdom. Some maybe, likely very few.

Video: Calvinism and the Problem of Evil:

Video 1: My livestream on Calvinism and the problem of evil.

I did a livestream reaction-video today on the problem of evil. There are some sound issues with this video, but my sound seems to have been mostly recorded, it is just quiet. The reason for its quietness is that there was a lot of background noise: cars passing, heavy rain, renovations—or, in the American dialect: remodelling—and so I had to have the gain on my cardioid Blue Yeti mic down really low, so as to exclude most of this background noise. The heat and the humidity, here in Ireland—as I am sure that my friend from North of the Border, Ignorant Amos, might confirm—is quite severe today, and so I had to have my windows open despite all of the background noise going on. However, I did not stand close enough to the microphone, and so the sound of my voice is really low. It was my first stream using OBS, and I think that it was ok for a first attempt.

Sound issues aside, one of the points that I keep returning to is that I consider Systematic Theology to be a System of Lies. In my view, “Systematic Theology” is merely an attempt by theologians to force the Biblical Text into its being univocal … when it is anything but.

I refer to Captain Cassidy McGillicudy, quite a lot, as I particularly like her style of counterapologetic. I don’t think that Captain Cassidy has much of a presence on YouTube which is why I particularly like to discuss her ideas on YouTube. I have binge-read most of what she has written over a period of more than a decade. Captain Cassidy, as I read her, is much more interested in persuading her readers that Christianity is harmful, rather than persuading her readers that Christianity is false. That Christianity is false, really should be a given, in this day and age. A religion invented to swindle mostly illiterate Mediterranean peasants, 2,000 years ago, really should not be swindling and fooling people today, in the age of the internet and Artificial Intelligence. As John Loftus puts it:

‘2,000 years is enough!’

. Pondering, though, the ways in which Christianity may be harmful, to my lights, is a much more interesting discussion, than pondering the myriad ways in which Christianity is false. Cassidy excels at this. To this end, allow me to recommend 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity (2022) by Charles Bufe. From what I remember from this book, and I read it but recently, Bufe mostly argues from Christianity’s being harmful rather than arguing from Christianity’s being false.

As John Loftus writes in a chapter in one of his anthologies—I just looked up my Kindle edition of God and Horrendous Suffering (2021), and it does not appear to be this one—the harm caused by Christianity is itself an argument from evil against the existence of an all-powerful, all-seeing and omnibenevolent god. Another humorous quip of Loftus’s is:

‘God’s hiring practices are abysmal!’

Leaving Home

[Dr. Valerie Tarico posted this on 05/25/2007. Enjoy!]

Greetings! John has graciously asked me to join this community of thinkers and scholars, and I am honored to say yes. In a world torn by religous tribalism, what could be more important than re-examining the traditions that have inextricably blended wisdom and community with bigotry and violence.

I will begin, as others have, by posting my deconversion story. Out of a sheer overwhelming lack of time, I am cheating: copying out of my book,The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth, rather than beginning the narrative again from scratch.

Leaving Home.

When I first started having misgivings about my faith, I did what any good Evangelical would: I prayed. I was fifteen at the time, earnest and devout. An eldest daughter with a caretaker’s heart and responsibilities. A good student surrounded by a good family, good friends, and a good church community. Even so, the cognitive changes that beset teenagers—increased ability to introspect, to think critically, and to envision the possible—were giving me trouble.

Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 7

The devout must hope Mark was wrong about Jesus here

 
If the Judeo-Christian god truly had the welfare of humanity at the center of attention, it’s hard to understand why he/she/it didn’t include a major book in the Bible about health and hygiene. This missing book could have included detailed information about germs, exactly why we get sick, and ways to stay healthy and fit. Was this god satisfied that it would take thousands of years for humans to discover the realities of disease? In the meantime, we suffer, so what? So much of the Bible is useless nonsense: what harm would it have done to include a major book explaining the realities of human biology and contagion?

A Christian Defends Popular Theobabble with Amateur Theobabble

Religious personal opinion doesn’t replace epistemology 

 

In my article here last week, I explained exactly why He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands—popular though it might be—is nonetheless theobabble. It makes no sense whatever when we honestly admit that there is so much pain and suffering in the world. But devout folks have devised ways to divert attention from these realities. It was no surprise, therefore, a Catholic jumped into the debate. One of his earliest comments was:
 
“God has a plan. Human beings act freely within that plan. People committing acts of violence and mass murder are acting against God’s Plan. God’s divine providence makes sure that good comes from the evil. So basically, if had not been for Gods plan, the human race would have destroyed itself long ago.”

The Evil God Challenge, Part One: Introduction

John W. Loftus asked me to write about Steven Law’s Evil God challenge (Wikipedia link). The topic turns out to be rather large, and it ramifies into several related topics that should be familiar to readers of this blog.

The Evil God challenge spawned a sizable literature, with articles that expand on it, and articles from theists that attempt to rebut it or nullify it. To keep the subject manageable, I’ll split my coverage across several articles. This article introduces the subject and provides references and a video.

• Wikipedia articles:
  • Steven Law
  • Evil God challenge (Wikipedia link)
• Steven Law’s blog pages:
  • The Evil God Challenge, February 12, 2010, announcing his original paper:
    • Law, Stephen. “The evil-god challenge.” Religious Studies 46, no. 3 (2010): 353-373.
    • PDF link to the paper
  • God, Evil, and Theodicies - Evil God and Mirror Theodicies, January 10, 2016
• Scholarly links:
  • The Evil God Challenge, Google Scholar entries
  • The Evil God Challenge, Google Scholar search result (original paper plus responses)
• And on Debuking Christianity:
  • What is the Likelihood That a Trickster or Evil God Exists?, 1/22/2010

Now that AI is here, check out my brief chat with Google Gemini on the Evil God challenge. Here is Gemini’s initial response:

Steven Law’s “Evil God challenge” is a philosophical thought experiment that questions the traditional concept of an all-good, all-powerful God. Here’s a summary of its core ideas:

• The Challenge:
  • Law presents the challenge of explaining why believing in an all-good God is more reasonable than believing in an all-evil God.
  • He argues that many arguments for God’s existence don’t inherently prove God’s goodness, and could equally support the existence of an evil deity.
• The Symmetry Thesis:
  • A key component is the “symmetry thesis,” which suggests that if the existence of good in the world is used to argue against an all-evil God, then the existence of evil should similarly argue against an all-good God.
  • Essentially, he questions why the “problem of evil” is considered a strong argument against a good God, but the “problem of good” isn’t considered an equally strong argument against an evil God.
• The Goal:
  • The challenge aims to provoke deeper consideration of the attributes ascribed to God, and to examine the logical consistency of theistic arguments.
  • It also forces examination of why we define good and evil in the way that we do.
• Responses:
  • There have been many responses to Laws challenge, including arguments that good is a positive reality, and evil is a privation of good, therefore not symmetrical. Also there are arguments that an all evil god, would not allow any good to exist.

In essence, Law’s challenge forces us to consider why we prioritize belief in a good God over an evil one, and to scrutinize the reasoning behind our theological assumptions.

Gemini’s summary is pretty good, but could do better at framing the Evil God challenge as a tool for showing how weak the standard theodicies are. (A theodicy is an attempt by a Christian apologist to solve the Problem of Evil, i.e. to explain how there can be so much evil in a world supposedly created by an omni-God.) Steven Law says that for many of the standard Christian responses to the Problem of Evil, there is a “mirror theodicy” that equally well (or poorly) tries to explain how there can be so much good in a world created by an omni-malevolent God. If the theist views the theodicy as a valid justification for the omni-God, why then isn’t the mirror theodicy an equally valid justification for the Evil God?

Alert readers will recognize similarities to parody religions and Street Epistemology, topics I’ll address in following articles. To very briefly summarize, both of those things aim to stimulate critical reflection by showing a person how the arguments they give to support their own religious claims work equally well, mutatis mutandis, to support a wide variety of other claims, such as the claims of other religions, or of parody religions.

This notion of analyzing the form of an argument, and plugging different terms into it, to see if the argument form still seems to work, is central to critical thinking. Around 2400 years ago, Ancient Greek thinkers began to analyze arguments this way. Presumably people had been making arguments for as long as they had language (which might have been for as long as people had anatomically modern vocal organs). Critical thinking began when people realized that arguments aren’t just things you assert when you want to make some specific point, but things that have forms you can analyze. The Evil God challenge is a clever case study in this kind of critical thinking.

Here’s a video to finish off this short introduction to the Evil God Challenge. Enjoy!

Actual Pain vs. Remembered Pain - A Crucial Difference for the Problem of Evil

You might wonder what this article has to do with zebras. Spoiler: they teach us how pain is not necessary for soul building, even if we allow for the baseless metaphysical projection of souls from the merely physical psychology of learning. Unlike Bruce Springsteen, Zebras are literally born to run.

In his blog post entitled My Paper on Morality without God is finished of March 1, 2025, John W. Loftus mentions his visit to Notre Dame University to meet James Sterba. A photo accompanying his post shows a reprint of Sterba’s article An Ethics without God That Is Compatible with Darwinian Evolution (Religions 2024, 15(7), 781; doi.org/10.3390/rel15070781). Religions is an Open Access journal, so Sterba’s paper is free to read online. (Read it now! I’ll wait.) The paper overlaps considerably with Sterba’s recent book:

Could a Good God Permit So Much Suffering?: A Debate by James Sterba, Richard Swinburne, OUP Oxford | 2024 | ISBN: 9780192664693, 0192664697 | Page count: 160.

Publisher’s blurb:

Another Chapter by Dr. David Eller: "Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality"

This is his Chapter 13 from my anthology "The Christian Delusion." Enjoy.

Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality by Dr. David Eller.

            Imagine someone said to you that English provided the only basis for grammar.  After you overcame your shock, you would respond that English is certainly not the only language with a grammar. You would add that grammar is not limited to language: understood broadly as rules for combination and transformation, many phenomena have a grammar, from sports to baking. Nor is grammar the sole or essential component of language: language also includes sound systems, vocabularies, genres, and styles of speech. And you would remind the speaker that grammar does not depend on human language at all: some nonhuman species, including chimps and parrots, can produce grammatical—that is, orderly and rule-conforming—short sentences. Ultimately, you would want to explain that English does not “provide a basis” for grammar at all but rather represents one particular instance of grammar. English grammar is definitely not the only grammar in the world and even more definitely not the “real” grammar.

            The person who utters a statement like “English provides the only basis for grammar” either understands very little about English (and language in general) or grammar, or the person is expressing his or her partisanship about language (i.e., pro-English)—or, more likely, the speaker is doing both. Thus, the person who utters a statement like “Christianity provides the only basis for morality” either understands very little about Christianity (or religion in general) or morality, or the person is expressing his or her partisanship about religion (i.e., pro-Christianity)—or, more likely, the speaker is doing both. But, as a savvy responder, you would answer that Christianity is certainly not the only religion with morality. You would add that morality is not limited to religion: understood broadly as standards for behavior, many phenomena have a morality, from philosophy to business. Nor is morality the sole or essential component of religion: religion also includes myths, rituals, roles, and institutions of behavior. And you would remind the speaker that morality does not depend on human religion at all: some nonhuman species demonstrate moral—that is, orderly and standard-conforming—behavior. Ultimately, you would want to explain that Christianity does not “provide a basis” for morality at all but rather represents one particular instance of morality.  Christian morality is definitely not the only morality in the world and even more definitely not the “real” morality.

David Eller On Morality and Religion

Once again cultural anthropologist Dr. David Eller has granted us access to a large amount of text, from his excellent book, Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of a Freethinker, pp. 365-390. If you want to learn about morality this is very good, as is the whole chapter 10, "Of Myths and Morals: Religion, Stories, and the Practice of Living."

 On Morality and Religion by David Eller.

            There is no doubt much more stress in Western/Christian cultures on morality than on myth.  Again, Christians would insist that they do not have “myth” but that they definitely have morality, or even that their religion is morality above all else.  Atheists, often taking their lead from Christianity and literally “speaking Christian,” tend to allow themselves to be swept along with Christian thinking on this subject.  Atheists do not much trouble ourselves with myths (for us, all myths are false by definition, since myths refer to supernatural/religious beings and we reject the very notion of such being).  But we trouble ourselves very much with morality, down to trying to prove that we “have morality too” or that we can “be good without god(s).”

            Given the amount of time and energy that Christians and atheists alike—and not just them but philosophers, politicians, lawyers, and social scientists—have devoted to the problem of morality, it is remarkable that so little progress has been made.  As the famous early 20^th-century moral philosopher G. E. Moore wrote almost one hundred years ago, morality or ethics “is a subject about which there has been and still is an immense amount of difference of opinion….  Actions which some philosophers hold to be generally wrong, others hold to be generally right, and occurrences which some hold to be evils, others hold to be goods” (1963: 7).  Surely any topic that has resisted progress and agreement for so long must be being approached in the wrong way.

David Eller On Freeing Ourselves (and Others) From Misunderstandings of Atheism

David Eller, as many of you know, is pretty much my favorite scholar/author at this point, next to just a very limited number of others. As a friend he's allowing me to publish the very best, next to none chapter, on what the words atheist and agnosticism mean. It comes from his most recent book, Liberatheism: On Freedom from God(s) [GCRR, 2024], one that I was honored to write the Forword. Enjoy!

Freeing Ourselves (and Others)

From Misunderstandings of Atheism

“I

do not believe in God and I am not an atheist,” Albert Camus wrote in his Notebooks 1951–1959.[1] What are we to make of that statement? Perhaps Camus was being wry and cryptic, as French philosophers are often wont to be. Maybe “atheist” meant something different to him or to 1950s-era France. Alternatively, it might have been too dangerous to avow atheism in that time and place. Or maybe he was just confused about the word.

If the latter is the case, then Camus would not be the first or the last to labor under misconceptions about atheism. Of course, theists are highly likely—and highly motivated—to get atheism wrong. Since they are not atheists and possibly have never spoken to one (at least not intentionally and civilly), they really do not know what we think; they can only see us through their own theistic eyes and assume that we are the reverse image, or, more perversely, some odd variation, of their own theism. Then, as sworn and mortal enemies of atheism, they are driven to portray us in the most unflattering light, to construct a ridiculous straw man that they can summarily caricature and assassinate. We need not take their (mis)characterizations of us seriously, except as a public relations problem.

What about atheists themselves? Surely they are accurately portraying their position. Surprisingly and distressingly, too many professional atheist writers and speakers commit a regular set of errors in describing the nature of atheism. This is a tremendously damaging tendency, for two reasons. First, we mislead current and future atheists, who are misinformed by the incautious pronouncements of prominent atheists. Second, we empower theists and other critics of atheism who use our words against us: “See, even atheists say that atheism is X, so we are justified in our criticism and condemnation of the idea.”

In this chapter, we will expose and free ourselves from recurring and systematic mistakes in the atheist literature. We will not repeat or critique “arguments for atheism,” which have been sufficiently covered, including by me[2] and are largely cogent and decisive; all but the most hard-headed theists and religious apologists (who still exist) concede that “the case for god(s)” is weak at best and lost at worst. Nor will we linger on the New Atheists, who have been thoroughly examined many times before, including in the previous chapter where we noted their unexpected and unfortunate turn toward reactionary social and political attitudes—ironically simultaneously debunking one of the pillars of Western civilization (i.e. Christianity) and defending Western civilizational traditions of sexism, racial thinking, and Islamophobia, among others. The New Atheists are broadly guilty of the common charge of scientism, not just of crediting science with the solution to all problems but of equating, as Richard Dawkins does, religion to science (albeit bad science). For instance, Dawkins wrote in his lauded The God Delusion that “‘the God Hypothesis’ is a scientific hypothesis about the universe,” and Victor Stenger actually put this “god hypothesis” business in the title of one of his books.[3] Finally, all of the New Atheists, who are quality scholars on their own turf, operate with limited (by which I mean Christianity-centric) notions of religion and god, in which “god” means the Christian or Abrahamic god and “religion” means Abrahamic monotheism. Any college freshman student of religion knows better.

It Should Be Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Loftus

 

As others have said as well

Carl Sagan once said, “I don’t want to believe, I want to know.” I have encountered so many churchgoers who are satisfied with belief—and they trust that their clergy have taught them correct beliefs. There appears to be so little curiosity about Christian origins, about the complex ancient thought world in which their faith arose. Nor is there much curiosity about how the gospels came to be, and how much they are burdened with flaws, contradictions, and laughable impossibilities. The drama, ceremony, music, and ritual of weekly (or even more often) worship are enough to sustain devotion and commitment. They are happy with believing, not knowing.

Hail Mary! Was Virgin Mary Truly the Mother of God’s Son?

 Hail Mary! Was Virgin Mary Truly the Mother of God’s Son?

 -- By John W. Loftus

Catholic Christians pray the rosary, which is a string of beads representing creeds and prayers to be recited. Devout Catholics are considered to recite it every single day. In it the Apostles’ Creed made the cut, which is recited one time. The Glory Be (Doxology) is recited five times, the Lord’s Prayer is said six times, but the Hail Mary prayer is recited a whopping 150 times!   

 As one who was raised a Catholic I was required to recite these things a number of times upon visiting the confessional booth, depending on the gravity of my sins. While the Hail Mary can be dated back to the 13^th century, the current prayer dates to the 16^th century: 

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Logistics and Mary the Mother of God.

We need to start by briefly considering some logistics. Consider first, the logistics of how a real mother named Mary could conceive of God (or God’s Son).

The ancients commonly believed that the woman contributes nothing to the physical being of the baby to be born. They thought the child was only related to the father. The mother was nothing but a receptacle for the male sperm, which grew to become a child.

Today, by contrast, with the advent of genetics, most Christian thinkers try to defend the virgin birth on the grounds that the humanity of Jesus was derived from Mary and that his divine nature was derived from God. They do this because they know something about genetics and know Mary must have contributed the female egg that made Jesus into a man. But this doesn’t adequately explain how Jesus is a human being, since for there to be a human being in the first place minimally requires that a human sperm penetrate a human egg. Until that happens we do not have the complete chromosomal structure required to have a human being.

Now of course, God could conceivably create both the human egg and the sperm from which to create life inside Mary’s womb. But if it’s a created human life then it’s not God, who is believed to be eternal, and the creator of everything, who came to suffer and die to atone for human sins as a sinless God. Other problems emerge when it comes to the supposed genealogies and fulfilled prophecies.

Nevertheless, what if God had a body? He did, didn’t he? Sure he did, even though later Christian theology describes God as a Spirit. God is described as walking and talking with Adam and Eve, who even tried to hide from him in the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8-10). Later on, Jacob prevailed over God in an all night wrestling match, after which Jacob said, “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” God also let Moses see his body, even his backside (Exodus 33). After monotheism arrived God was still seen as having a body. He sat on a throne (Ezekiel 1; Daniel 7; Matthew 25:31; Revelation 5:1), and he rewarded the faithful by allowing them to see his face (Matthew 5:8; 18:11; Revelation 22:3-4). The first martyr Stephen saw Jesus “standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). Even at the end of times every eye will see him—and presumably recognize him—riding on a white horse to do battle with his enemies (Revelation 1:7; 19:11-21).[1]

So perhaps it isn’t too surprising Mormons still believe God has a body. But if so, they have to struggle with the virgin conception of Jesus. Was mother Mary a virgin or not? According to Brigham Young, the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “The Father came down and begat Jesus, the same as we do now.” Mormon apostle Bruce McConkie agreed, saying, “Christ was begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers.” Two Mormon researchers ask us if it “is so disgusting to suggest God sired a son by sexual intercourse?”[2] Inquiring minds want to know.[3] But if God’s son was produced the old-fashioned way, his son Jesus was not conceived of a virgin after all!

Horrendous Suffering Reduces the Probability of a Loving God to Zero

The desperate scramble of theologians to rescue their deity 

In the classic American play, Inherit the Wind (by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee), about the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, we find this exchange between the characters based on William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow:
 
Bryan: “I do not think about things I do not think about.”
Darrow: “Do you ever think about things that you do think about?”

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

Because it exploits magical thinking and has mastered show business

Here we go again, from the Associated Press, 25 July 2024: Missouri lawsuits allege abuse by priests, nuns; archdiocese leader in Omaha among those accused. Here are three excerpts:

“Among those named is Omaha Archbishop George Lucas. A lawsuit filed Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court said the unnamed accuser was 16 when he met Lucas at the now-closed St. Louis Preparatory Seminary in the late 1980s, where Lucas was a priest and dean of education. The lawsuit accused Lucas of sexually abusing the boy multiple times and offering better grades for sexual favors.”