New Book: Leaving Fundamentalism (fifteen testimonies edited by philosophy professor, Dr. G. Elijah Dann)

Leaving Fundamentalism will be published Dec. 2007 by Laurier University Press.

It's editor, professor G. Elijah Dann, is not only a former fundamentalist but also had as his thesis advisor, Gabriel Vahanian. (At Princeton in 1961 Professor Vahanian wrote the ground-breaking book, The Death of God.) After Professor Dann's studies in France, he was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. Besides Prof. Dann's story ("Confessions of an Ex-fundamentalist") and a chapter on the history of fundamentalistic types of Christianity, the book includes:

The Slippery Slope of Theology
by Jeffrey W. Robbins [an American Continental philosopher of Religion. He received his B.A. from Baylor University (1994), his M.Div. from Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University (1997), and his Ph.D. in Religion from Syracuse University (2001). His dissertation was entitled "The Problem of Philosophical Theology." He is the author of two books, Between Faith and Thought, and, In Search of a Non-Dogmatic Theology, and is editor of After the Death of God. Oddly enough Dr. Robbins is not a big fan of Christopher Hitchen's recent atheist bestseller, God is Not Great.]

The Jesus Lizard [which I learned might not appear in the book, but which has been written] by James Fieser [author, co-author, and editor of seven textbooks, including Moral Philosophy through the Ages, A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford University Prss, 2003), Socrates to Sartre and Beyond (McGraw Hill, 2003), and Philosophical Questions (Oxford University Press, 2005), editor of the ten-volume Early Responses to Hume (Thoremmes Press, 1999-2003) and the five-volume Scottish Common Sense Philosophy; and founder and general editor of The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy web site.]

Fantastic Voyage: Surviving Charismatic Fundamentalism
by David L. Rattigan [Former Pentecostal and evangelical, as well as one-time associate pastor, Dave is now an openly gay liberal Anglican, and actively involved at lay-level in his local Church of England parish. He has a BA (Hons) in Biblical-Theological Studies. Some excellent online essays by Mr. Rattigan include, "Worldviews, Stories and Why Leaving Fundamentalism Hurts," "The Bible and Me: Two Friends on a Curious Journey" in which Dave explains how he lost his belief in the inerrancy of the Bible; and, "Do Evangelicals Really Believe in Hell?" Dave also manages (with some friends and co-contributors) a website titled Leaving Fundamentalism "...to aid people making the difficult and often painful journey away from conservative Christianity. It can be a time of confusion, hurt and frustration, but it's important to know that you are not making the journey alone. Thousands of others have been right where you are today. The site offers support and encouragement to anyone in the midst of leaving fundamentalism, whether they choose to remain within a Christian tradition or leave Christianity altogether." Check out the Frequently Asked Questions at Leaving Fundamentalism.]

"More Catholic than thou":
One Man's Journey through Roman Catholic Fundamentalism
by Andrea Lorenzo Molinari [Ph.D., in Theology (N.T. and Early Christianity), Marquette University; expert on the Nag Hammadi documents; Catholic educator; click on his name for further information]

From There to Here
by L. A. Livingston

My Mother, My Church
by Margaret Steel

The Ministry Revisited
by Keith Dixon

Rapture, Community, and Individualist Hope
by Joseph Simons

Looking Back at Sodom: My Evangelical and Lesbian Testimonies
by Julie Rak [Associate Professor of English, University of Alberta; and, Finalist for the 2006 Raymond Klibansky Prize for the Best Book in the Humanities (English Language)]

Life Stages
by Jacob Shelley

Inching Along
by Beverley Hardy

From Fear to Faith: My Journey into Evangelical Humanism
by Glenn A. Robitaille

"Are you a 'real' Christian?"
by Leia Minaker

The Naked Empress, Queen of Fundamentalism
by Anonymous


THE ABOVE BOOK IS BEING MENTIONED ON BLOGS:

Blog owner of Sub Ratione Dei writes:

One of the essays in Leaving Fundamentalism is by former pastor, David Rattigan, an old college friend from my two year stint at Theological College before I saw the light and got the hell away from the place. Also, he writes very well.

Alexis adds:

I also had a brush with Fundamentalism in the early 90s (and I still have emotional scars). Today I still am a person of faith, but I’ve found that the (majority of the) fundamentalist/charismatic movement has become so entrenched in the modern Christian church (and divisive to the public discourse) that I stopped going. As a result of my own inquiry, research, and exposure to other spiritual traditions, my faith today is a mixture that most closely resembles Zen Christianity.

Evolving Moral Standards Are Evidence Against the God of the Bible

I learn how to defend what I believe better because of the discussions I have with intelligent Christians. Here's an exchange I recently had with Steve Hays on David Wood's Blog:

Both David Wood and Steve Hays criticized Christopher Hitchens for lacking a moral standard to revile Christianity with. This is usual fare among Christians. In Steve's words:

What Hitchens does...is to attack Biblical theism and Biblical morality alike by his extrabiblical sense of what is right and wrong.

Since that is how Hitchens has chosen to frame the argument from evil, he needs to explain and justify his own source and standard of moral valuation.

I had said with Hitchens that Christians do not live up to their own morality. And sometimes they cause suffering when they do follow it.

Steve Hays:

What examples can Loftus cite without begging the question?

John W. Loftus said...

Steve, suffering is obvious. It's pain, pure and simple. Hitchens...has shown how professing Christians have caused suffering in the world though, and professing Christians are the ONLY kind of Christians we see. According to your own belief system a Christian isn't a perfect person (but instead one who believes), so you cannot plausibly argue that the ones causing this suffering are not true Christians without also claiming Christians are sinless, in my opinion.

As far as God commanding his followers to do what we now consider evil goes, I consider the following commands evil: your God declared that a slave is the property of another man (Exodus 21:21). A female captive in war was forced to be an Israelite man’s wife (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). If a virgin who was pledged to be married was raped, she was to be stoned along with her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), while if a virgin who was not pledged to be married was raped, she was supposed to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

I consider the evidence of evolving moral standards--standards that you yourself now accept--as evidence against the God of the Bible...or can you justify honor killings? Answer me this. In obedience to God would you have stoned a virgin pledged to be married, along with her rapist?...or not?

I'm awaiting his answer.

A Critique of Norman L. Geisler’s Review of John Loftus’ FROM APOLOGIST TO ATHEIST

Dr. Norman L. Geisler was one of my heroes when I was a believer. One of the first classes that I took as a Bible college freshman was Bibliology. The textbook for that class was A General Introduction to the Bible (co-authored by William Nix). I literally cut my theological teeth on Geisler’s exposition of the doctrines of revelation, inspiration and inerrancy. I learned how an evangelical believer should think about the development of the canon and the transmission and translation of the Bible. When I became a Bible college professor myself, I used several of Geisler’s books in my classes. I used his Christian Apologetics as one of the required textbooks in Apologetics. I used his Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective (co-authored by Paul Feinberg) and Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logic as assigned reading in my Philosophy classes. While, of course, I did not agree with everything he wrote, I had tremendous respect for his scholarship and the clarity in which he communicated. So, when I found out that he had done a critique of my fellow apostate John Loftus’ book , I could not wait to see what he said.

The review is entitled: FROM APOLOGIST TO ATHEIST: A CRITICAL REVIEW , Norman L. Geisler, Ph.D., Christian Apologetics Journal , Volume 6, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 93-109.

Geisler begins by throwing some kudos to John’s work. He states: “ … it is a thoughtful and intellectually challenging work, presenting arguments that every honest theist and Christian should face. Indeed, some of his criticisms are valid” (p. 94). The only example, though, of a valid criticism that Geisler mentions is John’s critique of William Craig’s “witness of the Holy Spirit” as a self-authenticating evidence of the truth of Christianity. To me its not surprising that Geisler mentions Craig since they are members of rival schools of apologetics. Its always good to throw a jab at one of your rivals. (I find it fascinating that Christian apologists cannot even agree on the best way to try to defend Christianity. There are multiple approaches each with their own devout followers. See Five Views on Apologetics, edited by Steven Cowan. At least one of these schools, the presuppositionalists accuse the other schools of not really given honor to the Bible.) Nevertheless, Geisler does acknowledge that John’s work is “intellectually challenging.”

My biggest criticism of Geisler’s review is that he maintains that John left the faith because of sin and rebellion not because of genuine intellectual doubts. He says that it is noteworthy that John first step away from God involved moral failure and “Then, he began to doubt God’s word” (p. 97). I am not surprised that Geisler would have this view. Conservative Christians maintain that failure to believe in God is never due to the head but always to the heart. My former pastor used to say this and he would quote Psalms 14:1 to prove it. “The fool hath said in his heart (and by implication not his head), there is no God.” Bob Jones Sr. (who is revered at BJU in way something like Hindus revere their spiritual gurus) had a saying: “If a man will give God his heart, God will comb the kinks out of his head.” For the conservative evangelical Christian it is all about sin. They cannot believe that someone may have honest doubts about God and the Bible (at least not after they have been given all of the pat answers by the Christian apologist—at that stage its only rebellion).

I am also not surprised to see that Geisler actually questioned the genuineness of John’s conversion. He says: “ In summation, one can place question marks on both his ‘conversion’ and ‘deconversion.’ Given the legalistic context, one can question whether or not he really understood the grace of God” (p. 108). Those within my old theological camp (fundamental Baptists) did not believe that most Church of Christ people were truly saved. They thought that the Church of Christ folks (whom they called Campbellites) had added works to grace because of their insistence on baptism as a requirement for salvation. They also felt that the Church of Christ belief that one could lose one’s salvation actually meant that they denied salvation by grace to begin with. A Calvinistic Christian cannot accept the notion of a truly regenerate person falling away. Again to quote my former Pastor: “A faith that fizzles at the finish had a fatal flaw at the first.”

For this reason, Geisler does not give much credence to John’s arguments against Christianity. He says: “The discussion here need not be long for several reasons. First, his unbelief was not initiated by reason, as he admits. Rather, it was his rejection by friends and the lack of Christian love. Second, there is nothing really new here that has not already been answered elsewhere” (p. 100). This confirms what I said above. Many conservative Christians believe that they have all the answers to every question ever raised against the Christian faith. All one has to do is buy their book and presto, they will have all the answers too. If you disagree with their answers, its because of your sinful and rebellious heart.

Geisler maintains that John’s problem with Genesis and science can be answered by “high school level apologetics” (p. 100). While I am no scientist, I have read somewhat widely on evolution and “creation science” and I know that the subject is far more complex than Geisler is acknowledging. He believes that he has refuted evolution by stating: “Red, white, and blue confetti dropped from an airplane will never produce the American Flag on your lawn” (p. 100). Don’t we all wish that the matter was that simple?

The fact is that evolution, while not essentially at odds with conservative Christianity (see the gap theory, theistic evolution, and progressive creationism), is at odds with Geisler’s fundamentalist view of the Scripture. Thus, he seems ready to dismiss the whole subject with his simplistic example of dropping confetti from an airplane.

Geisler says that John’s best argument against God is the argument from evil; but he says it can be dismissed due to circular reasoning. “For how can one know God is ultimately in-just (sic )for allowing evil unless he knows what is ultimately just (sic). And how can he know there is an ultimate standard of justice (i.e., absolute moral law), unless there is an absolute Moral Law Giver” (p. 101)? Here again, it seems to me that Geisler is way too simplistic in dismissing the argument from evil. Common sense and observation tells you that there are many injustices in the world (not caused by man). Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and many other types of natural disasters kill and maim young children (not to mention adults) on almost a daily basis around the globe. Children contract cancer and other horrific diseases each day due to no fault of their own. Geisler’s answer to this dilemma is that we will understand one day that these things were really for the best. In the meanwhile, we have to just trust God. Frankly, that is also the teaching of the book of Job and consistent with the overall teaching of Scripture. Don’t be surprised, however, if those who do not have a prior commitment to the truth of Scripture find this argument unconvincing and unsatisfying.

In dealing with Loftus’ “Cumulative Argument” against Christianity, Geisler responds: “First, the atheist, weighs the specific evidence differently than the theist, and his bias affects the way he weighs it. What Loftus views as improbable (say, the resurrection of Christ) is because of his bias against miracles, not because there is not highly probably (sic) historical evidence that it happened, which there is” (p. 101). I have to guess that Geisler has a blind spot here. A man as intelligent as he is ought to recognize that he comes to the same evidence with bias. No one is truly objective. No one interprets any evidence outside of their particular world-view. Now you can argue whether or not the world-view is correct but you cannot operate outside of one in some type of imaginary neutral land. Geisler is just as biased in favor of the resurrection and miracles as Loftus is against them.

Geisler goes on to say: “If miracles are possible (which they are in a theistic universe), then their probability depends purely on the reliability of the documents. And the Gospel documents are reliable. In summary, there are more NT documents, earlier documents, more documents [doesn't this sound redundant-my comment] by more contemporaries and eyewitness testimony, more historically and archaeologically confirmed than for any other events of the ancient world. Hence, it is highly probable that Jesus did the miracles contained in the NT and rose from the dead to confirm his claim to be the Son of God” (pp. 101-102). To argue that the large number of ancient copies of the NT somehow guarantees that the miracles contained in those copies must be true is a huge jump in logic. Would the existence of a large number of copies of the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Hindu Veda guarantee that the miracles described in those books were true? Geisler mentions archaeologically confirmed Scripture. Has archaeology ever confirmed that a miracle mentioned in the Bible actually took place? I am not aware of any such discovery. Archaeology may confirm some historical references in the Scriptures but that is a far cry from proving that the miracles took place.

Geisler tries to water down John’s claim that historical studies can never prove the Bible beyond a reasonable doubt by saying: “Probabilities leave room for some doubt but not necessarily always a reasonable doubt. And high probabilities do not leave room for any reasonable doubt, though there is always room for possible doubt in historical arguments” (p. 102) To me, this seems like mental gymnastics. Doubt is doubt and for some it will be reasonable doubt and for others it will not. Geisler seems to be assuming some imaginary objective arbiter here. John’s point was simply that historical evidence can never fully prove the Bible to be true and I think he is right.

Geisler continues: “It too can be a cumulative case where one probability is built upon another until the whole argument for Christianity is so highly probable that it is beyond all reasonable doubt” (p. 102). If that is the case, then the only thing keeping the whole world from converting is their lack of knowledge. If somehow, Geisler and his apologists could get their evidence in front of everyone, the whole world would believe (except for those who are willfully rebellious). Excuse me if I think this sounds a little bit arrogant.

Geisler takes John to task for saying that “ancient standards [for eyewitnesses] are pathetic in comparison to today’s standards.” Geisler replies: “This is simply false. Indeed, many legal experts have examined the New Testament eyewitness testimony and found it more than sufficient” (p. 102). Geisler’s “many legal experts” consists of a 19th century apologist-lawyer, Simon Greenleaf, and a 20th century theologian-lawyer, John Montgomery—this hardly constitutes “many legal experts.” The fact is that you can find a lawyer that will defend just about any known position. The testimony recorded in the Gospels is by and large second and third hand which would be dismissed in a court of law as hearsay. And that is ignoring the fact that the Gospel records were written decades after the events took place when memories have a tendency to fade and stories can be embellished. In any case, there is certainly no opportunity to cross examine the so-called eyewitnesses and that alone would nullify their testimony.

Geisler next calls John’s “God-of-the-gaps” argument faulty. Just because science is explaining more and more (leaving less room for God), there is no need for the Christian to worry, according to Geisler, because miracles by definition are irregular, non-repeatable events and as such can never be examined by empirical science. Thus, miracles such as the resurrection are safe from the prying eyes of science. Geisler goes on to argue that only forensic science can be used to test the unobserved and unrepeated events of the past. He writes: “Here one must depend on the principles of causality and uniformity. Events (even past ones) had a cause (causality). And the present is the key to the past (uniformity). Hence, the kind of causes that produce a certain kind of event in the present should be posited for these same kind of events in the past. Some of these events demand intelligent causes” (p. 103). Essentially, Geisler is presenting the cosmological and teleological arguments. While these arguments do have some weight in my opinion, they are far from certain. Whatever the case, what he says does not refute the fact that science has eliminated the need for supernatural explanations of cause and effect phenomena in a host of areas. Whereas people in biblical times had supernatural explanations for many natural phenomena (such as demon possession for epilepsy), most people today living in a post-Enlightenment world know that those explanations are not valid.

Geisler also criticizes John by saying: “… one of the weakest links in his case for atheism is his failure to provide any real positive evidence for God’s non-existence… "(p. 104). Here Geisler is guilty, in my opinion, of the classic fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. It is not the atheist’s responsibility to provide positive evidence against God. The burden of proof lies on the one who is making the assertion that God exists. It is the theist’s responsibility to provide positive evidence for God. The atheist’s only responsibility is to refute the theist’s positive evidence.

Geisler says that John’s “Outsider Test” is self-defeating. (A favorite term of Geisler’s I have noticed in reading his books over the years.) “. . . if one should have the presumption of skepticism toward any belief system, especially his own, then why should Loftus not have the presumption of skepticism toward his own atheistic beliefs? The truth is that the outsider test is self-defeating since by it every agnostic should be agnostic about his own agnosticism and every skeptic would be skeptical of his own skepticism” (p. 105). I fail to see the problem here. Yes, one should be skeptical of their own skepticism. They should try to see their world view as someone outside of their particular belief system would see it. They should read those from opposing world views and talk to people from different cultures and religions. By doing so, it will shed light on the true weaknesses of their particular system of thought (whether that system be evangelical Christianity or atheism).

Geisler believes that being skeptical of one’s views is somehow not a good thing. He says: “Advanced skepticism should only be used when one has advanced evidence or good reasons to disbelieve that the event really did not happen. Otherwise, one should come with an open mind to the question” (p. 107). Geisler seems to be arguing for assuming something to be true until its proven false whereas Loftus is saying to assume something to be false until its proven true. In my opinion, more advances in human thought and understanding are made by following the latter methodology. It seems to me that people are more naturally inclined to follow the first methodology and just believe what the people around them believe. It’s the ones who are willing to question the status quo that wind up making new discoveries and who find new ways to understand the world.

Finally, Geisler accuses John and all atheists of being biased. “The truth is that the only way the atheist or skeptic can even compete on the playing field of religious truth is to load the dice or stack the deck. Most often this is done by assuming either metaphysical or methodological naturalism” (p. 107). I guess evangelical Christians are the only ones who are truly unbiased. Does Geisler not recognize his own bias in favor of supernaturalism? I would agree with those of the competing school of apologetics known as presuppositionalism who maintain that the notion of neutrality is a myth (for example, see Greg Bahnsen). No one is completely objective. No one views the world free from any bias. It is impossible. The first step to achieving some level of objectivity is to recognize your own biases. Geisler does not seem to have done this.

All in all, I cannot say that I am surprised by Geisler’s critique. Knowing evangelical Christianity as I do, I could have almost written the essay for him. Evangelical Christians are certain about what they believe, often to the point of failing to recognize that when it is all said and done, it's still just a belief. They may be right and I may be wrong. I am willing to admit this and they are not. I don’t know if it’s the particular type of psyche that is drawn to dogmatic religion that explains this mentality or if there is some other explanation, but it seems to be common place among evangelicals.

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To read John's review of Geisler's review see here.

Richard Dawkins Interviews Alister McGrath

This is a 1 hr 10 minute video David Wood found for us.

The Role of Persuasion in the Question of the Holy Spirit

This article takes one of the examples in the "Reasonable Doubts about the Holy Spirit" article and explores it further to show that there is no possible way for a person to come to an informed belief based on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the alleged interference of Satan or the stubbornness of Humans and that the beliefs that we form about ambiguous subjects are results of factors of persuasion in our environment.

2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

In this situation at least three premises present themselves to Tom before he forms a belief one way or the other.
1. The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today.
2. The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Maybe some are valid and some are not.

Stipulating for the sake of argument that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit were ONLY valid at the time of the Apostles I'll assign some claims to some entities.
1. Satan says that The Holy Spirits gifts are Valid today
2. The Holy Spirit says that The Holy Spirits gifts are not valid today.
3. Tom comes up with a compromise that some are valid and some are not.

So How does Tom decide between any of these claims. He is no expert. He stands alone with these thoughts. He can find scripture to support arguments for and against, but his cultural belief in fair play give him the idea that both may be right in certain circumstances. Usually when you have to make a decision or decide what you think about something, it is based on evidence and logical inference. This is true in the day to day interactions in the world. One can see evidence of certain things and one can see if it fits with what the claims are and one can make an informed decision. He knows people that speak in tongues, but he also has a feeling that it may be just a show for attention. However in this case, the evidence is in the Bible, and it seems to be ambiguous on the issue. Usually when one is faced with making a decision and one isn't qualified to make an informed decision, one has to rely on experts.

So now who is an expert? If both arguments have support in the Bible, then how does anyone, even an expert make an informed decision? If they make the decision on a feeling, then how does anyone know where the feeling came from? Holy Spirit, Satan, or the self? If both parties ascribing to different side of the issue make their decision on a feeling that they describe as the Holy Spirit, who can argue? How do they know it was the Holy Spirit? Does this "Holy Spirit Feeling" ever manifest itself in situations where you wouldn't expect any "Holy Spirit Guidance", like at the mall for example? This is where good old fashioned Persuasion and Rhetoric comes into play when you don't have enough information to make a decision about an issue that is ambiguous.

Some factors of Persuasion are in the incomplete list that follows.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from an authority.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People look for confirmation of what they already believe and disregard things that contradict.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
- People fill in the gaps in information naturally, stories, blind spot in the eye, movies, music etc
- People will come to believe what they hear the more it is repeated to them.
- People are more likely to believe a story that is accompanied by symbols or imagery.

When there are good arguments on both sides and you don't have any evidence to make an inference based on Logic, then you always have your friends, family, church and culture to give you a feeling about the truth of an issue. This is the how the industry of marketing and advertising work as well as politics.

Does anyone just pick a church at random and make it their church home? No, they shop around, and visit other churches till they find one that 'feels' right. Why does it feel right? The Holy Spirit, Satan or self? How do they know? They decide from the factors listed above. The decide based on the influences in their environment.

To say that one follows the Holy Spirit based on a feeling is a case of special pleading. There is no way to validate it even for the person having the feeling. Therefore, the teachings in the Bible that are ambiguous, logically must not be important and can be disregarded until they can be substantiated in principle and evidence.

REFERENCES

- Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
- Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
- Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
- Cialdini's Six weapons of influence
- Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion.
- Why Do Christians Believe?
- From an Atheists Perspective
- ChangingMinds.org

Persuasion Videos from Debate Central.
- Speaking to Persuade
- Objects of Persusion
- Theories of Persuasion
- Strategies of Persuasion

Reasonable Doubt About the Holy Spirit

This article is an exploration of some stated and less disputed characteristics of the Holy Spirit. I purposely tried to avoid claims about the Holy Spirit that were disputed between denominations and Churches. I use these relatively undisputed claims as my core premises to construct the argument in favor of the Holy Spirit in order to express doubt about it. By using commonly accepted claims about the Holy Spirit, and my experience as a former Christian I hope to avoid the charge of misrepresentation or "straw man".

P1a. The Holy Spirit is God
P1b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.
P2. The Holy Spirit informs the Unbeliever as to the truth of Jesus when being told about it.
P3a. The Holy Spirit is in every Christian
P3b. Every Christian Accepts Christ
P3c. Every Christian should be favorable to Holy Spirit Influence.
P4. The Holy Spirit helped write the scripture
P5. The Holy Spirit helps interpret the scripture
P6. The Holy Spirit gives understanding (informs).

Conclusion: The Holy Spirit is effectively God, it wrote about itself, it lives in every Christian giving guidance about what it helped write about itself therefore there should be no disagreement on any characteristic of the Holy Spirit or interpretation of Scripture.

Many of the claims about the Holy Spirit are not falsifiable, but premises P5 and P6 are. For example, some early pre-Nicean Christian Church leaders rejected the Trinity. They were closest to the source, which infers that if the principles regarding the Holy Spirit were valid, then they of all people would know if it was a proper way to describe God or not. Yet the validity of the Trinity as a proper description of God seems to be in doubt by some denominations. Additionally some other characteristics of God aka The Holy Spirit seem to be in doubt. Some Christians say the Holy Spirit is a female entity, and some say it is male. Some say it is a person and some say it isn't.

Why can't all Christians agree on any of this if they are all getting guidance from the Holy Spirit? But quite counter-intuitively one Christian in one church has their point of view and another Christian in another church has a different point of view. They both believe they have the Holy Spirit inside and are getting guidance (informed). But what is the manifestation of this guidance? Is it a feeling, or verbal thoughts, or images or something else? Its obviously something personal and individual.

You who are Christian, how does the Holy Spirit manifests its guidance to you? The next time you are in a disagreement with another Christian over some aspect of scripture, do a little introspection and have some humility. First, recognize that you may be wrong. Second, if you don't come to agree with the other person, do some introspection. Look for its manifestation and see if you are getting any guidance from the Holy Spirit. See if you can distinguish what your thoughts are from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you can distinguish, and you are certain you're expressing the point of view of the Holy Spirit, then the person you are having the discussion with should agree with you if they are a true Christian and have the Spirit indwelling. If you can't distinguish then, ask yourself, is this person getting guidance from the Holy Spirit and if so how do they distinguish? Maybe you should ask them, how the guidance of the Holy Spirit manifests itself to them because if they can distinguish their thoughts from the Holy Spirit, then you need to adopt their way of thinking right away. If they can't and you can't either, then maybe you should stop worrying about the initial disagreement and start worrying about why neither one of you are getting guidance from the Holy Spirit. If you are convinced you are getting guidance, and they are too, then you are at an impasse, and logically this should not be possible. One of you must be wrong about receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit. But why would you think you were getting guidance if you weren't? In any case you'll need to get another opinion, but how do you ultimately know who's interpretation of scripture is correct and who's isn't. Hopefully the Holy Spirit will let you know who you can trust. However that doesn't seem to be the case in some churches. Churches that have had Pastors such as Ted Haggard, or a community in Uganda, Africa are sorely missing that type of guidance.

If the Holy Spirit informs, and a true Christian has it living inside and it lives inside because the person should be favorable to its influence then how can there possibly be Christian on Christian crime? I Bet William Tyndale, who created the first English translation of the Bible and was subsequently charged with heresy was wondering something similar as he was praying "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes" shortly before being strangled and burned. If a person can't tell when the holy spirit is giving them guidance, what good is it? How is it supposed to work?

During my research for this article (hardly any of them scholarly or academic sources) I noticed that some web sites talked about the lack of good commentary on the Holy Spirit and one speculated that it was probably because people were afraid of Blasphemy against it. In my opinion, the lack of commentary is because they are afraid to take a position on it out of fear of criticism. Most of them just quoted scripture and never provided any mechanism for how it worked but did provide a lot of ambiguous Emotional Persuasion Dialogue aka Rhetoric with no way to validate it. This is an indication that it is not very well understood which is not what you'd expect if the principles written about it are true.

The following are some situations I created using the principles of the Holy Spirit to explore their implications. I purposely worded them redundantly so the impact of the argument would not get lost. In each case the presumption is that the Holy Spirit informs or gives guidance to facilitate a decision to accept or reject.

How it should happen.
1. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and lives happily ever after.

How it should not happen.

Tom Believes the Gifts Were Only Valid For The Apostles:
2a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only valid for the Apostles. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit are NOT only valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on that discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it?

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Believes the Gifts Are Valid For Everyone Today:
2b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Along the way he adopts the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid today for everyone. Stipulating for a moment that the Gifts of the Spirit were ONLY valid in the time of the apostles, he lives happily ever after. His Spirit evidently did not pick up on the discrepancy. Is it possible that he made a conscious decision to disregard what the Holy Spirit was telling him and didn't know it? This argument is discussed in detail here

Tom Becomes an Apostate:
3a. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind. He makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought was rational. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He becomes an apostate later in life, living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, then if the Holy Spirit was giving him guidance and it didn't make sense to him then is he culpable when he rejects Christianity on those grounds? On the other hand how do you love something you have doubts about? If he grudgingly keeps professing his faith, gods not going to be fooled and he's as good as an apostate.

or the opposite situation happens

Tom Hangs Onto His Belief Despite Doubts:
3b. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. He does and learns more about the bible and Christianity. He has questions that are not resolved in his mind and he makes no conscious decision to disbelieve anything that he thought made sense. Everything that bothered him, bothered him exactly because he thought it didn't make sense. He wrestles with these questions for the rest of his life professing his faith and NOT living happily ever after. Was the Holy Spirit giving him guidance to cause him to find fault in the Bible or Christianity? If not, how is it that the Holy Spirit didn't intervene on behalf of itself to the point that he would not have to make a choice to disregard conflicting information that he honestly believed was valid? Here is a link to a DC article called "Christians Who Struggle With Serious Doubts" that talks about this.

Tom Doesn't Accept Jesus At First Contact
4. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. But he doesn't because he is not convinced. What could be going on in inside Tom to cause that to happen? Doesn't Tom realize that the Holy Spirit is working on him to influence him to believe? How is Tom supposed to recognize the fact the he is being informed by the Holy Spirit? Is Tom consciously disregarding information that is informing him from the Holy Spirit? Can Tom distinguish between what are his thoughts and what is the guidance and understanding of the Holy Spirit?

Tom Accepts Jesus But Doesn't Become A True Christian:
5. If Tom has the potential to be influenced by the Holy Spirit when Evan tells him about Jesus, Tom should recognize the truth and accept Christ. Evan is in the Catholic Church, or Protestant, or Church of God, or Jehovah's Witness or Church of Latter Day Saints. Tom likes what he hears and accepts Christ. But the other Churches out there are saying that those churches aren't made up of real Christians, kind of like the Pope did on July 10, 2007. So if these are not real Christians, why didn't the Holy Spirit pick up on this and over time put Tom in a position to have to make a conscious decision to disregard information about itself that he new was valid and accept information that he did not know was valid? There was no informed decision possible.

Where are the real Christians? In what church?
* The Catholic Church? or any of the other versions of Catholicism?
* Protestant Evangelicals? or any of the many other protestant churches?
* Jehovah's Witnesses?
* Latter Day Saints?
* Church of God?

Since it seems apparent that the Holy Spirit does not help interpret scripture or give understanding, Reasonable Doubt about the Holy Spirit is justified.

For effect I listed the staggering number of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia and after that, the staggering number of theological disputes between them.

List of Christian Denominations from Wikipedia
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism

With help from John, Prup, and an Ed Babinski article, here are a list of some disputed topics. I wanted to list as many items as possible to give a graphic representation of how unreliable the principles of the Holy Spirit are.

- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

My Talk at the Freethought Association of West Michigan

On June 27th I spoke for the Freethought Association of West Michigan, which, by the way, is one of the largest local Freethought organizations in America. Charles LaRue wrote up a description of my talk and book seen here [Scroll down to "Today's Meeting Topic"]. Don't assume I said everything he writes about since he offers his own particular slant on my talk in several places. Sometime soon they'll post the video of the talk I gave.

What Would You Do With $800,000.00 or 55,000 People for 12 Hours?

On July 7, 2007 55,000 people at a cost of $800,000.00 got together in Nashville for twelve hours of swaying, praying and fasting to influence God or other people or maybe it was just a pep talk to turn the country around. It was intentionally held on 7/7/07 because “Biblically, the number seven is the Lord's number," said Scott MacLeod, who helped organize The Call and is founder of Provision International, an inner-city ministry in Nashville. “All through the Bible, there are a series of sevens. So, when you get three sevens to line up at once, you know something's up.”

Can’t argue with logic like that. God knows there is more potential energy in those prayers than the combined effort of 110,000 hands laying on tools or brainstorming on different ways you could use $800,000.00 or 55,000 people to do something useful.

The Elusive "Original Text" of Scripture

Evangelical Christians hold that the Scriptures (66 books in the Protestant Canon) are divinely inspired and inerrant in the original autographs. This is seen to be the cornerstone doctrine by many evangelicals. For example see the doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Is it possible, though, to identify the words that were present in the “original text”? Or is this an elusive dream?


As a professor of NT Greek, I dabbled some in the science of "textual criticism." Textual criticism is "The study of manuscripts or printings to determine the original or most authoritative form of a text, especially of a piece of literature" (Dictionary.com). The goal of NT textual criticism is to remove spurious readings and identify the "original text" or "autographa" of the New Testament.

A very interesting article questioning this stated goal of textual criticism is The Multivalence of the Term "Original Text" in New Testament Textual Criticism, by Eldon Jay Epp in the Harvard Theological Review , July 1999, Volume 92, No. 3, pp. 245-281. See full article. (Some will jump on the fact that this article is printed on an Islamic website. That's the only place on the web I can find it now. It was published in other places before. Nevertheless, Epp is not a Moslem but rather a very well respected NT textual scholar).

Epp points to a paper read at a conference at Notre Dame University in 1988 as a stimulus that caused him and other textual critics to rethink what they meant by "original text." (He uses the term now only in quotation marks). The paper was presented by Helmut Koester and was entitled: Gospel Traditions in the Second Century. Epp writes:

Koester's discussion of "The Text of the Synoptic Gospels in the Second Century"(32) was introduced by the fully acceptable observation that (except for the fragment [P.sup.52]) no second-century manuscript evidence for the New Testament exists(33) and, therefore, severe problems attend the reconstruction of the textual history of the gospels in the first century of their transmission. Koester then startled many by turning on its head the New Testament textual critics' standard claim that they are fortunate to have so many early manuscripts so close to the time the writings originated. In contrast, he aptly observed that "the oldest known manuscript archetypes are separated from the autographs by more than a century. Textual critics of classical texts know that the first century of their transmission is the period in which the most serious corruptions occur." He then added the provocative note that "textual critics of the New Testament writings have been surprisingly naive in this respect."(34)

Koester went on to say:

[T]he text of the Synoptic Gospels was very unstable during the first and second centuries. With respect to Mark, one can be fairly certain that only its revised text has achieved canonical status, while the original text (attested only by Matthew and Luke) has not survived. With respect to Matthew and Luke, there is no guarantee that the archetypes of the manuscript tradition are identical with the original text of each Gospel. The harmonizations of these two Gospels demonstrate that their text was not sacrosanct and that alterations could be expected ... New Testament textual critics have been deluded by the hypothesis that the archetypes of the textual tradition which were fixed ca. 200 CE ... are (almost) identical with the autographs. This cannot be confirmed by any external evidence. On the contrary, whatever evidence there is indicates that not only minor, but also substantial revisions of the original texts have occurred during the first hundred years of the transmission.(36)

Epp concludes from this:

Whether or not textual critics acquiesce in all of these charges, a strong challenge remains, for they are left not only with text-critical questions--for example, which variants of Mark are most likely original?--but also with penetrating canonical questions, such as, which Mark is original?

Similar issues arise with respect to the composition of the other Synoptics, the Fourth Gospel, the Pauline letters, and other portions of the New Testament. The relation to the Fourth Gospel of the well-known Egerton Papyrus 2 (currently dated ca. 200) is one such example. Although usually understood as a later excerpt from all four gospels, Koester (retaining a dating in the first part of the second century) views the papyrus as representing a text older than John because, "with its language that contains Johannine elements but reveals a greater affinity to the Synoptic tradition, it belongs to a stage of the tradition that preceded the canonical gospels."(37) If so, the gospel of which these surviving fragments were a part would have been read, without question, as authoritative in some early church(es) and possibly also could have played a role in the composition of our gospels. Again, the question arises, what or where is the original Mark? Or Matthew? Or Luke? Or John?

Now, if the goal of textual criticism is to recover the most likely "original" text, what in actuality is the object of textual critics' research--a text of the gospels that is somewhat earlier than but very likely similar to the text of the earliest manuscripts, or a text of even earlier and now largely lost predecessor forms of these gospels'? In other words, textual critics face two or more questions rather than one: first, a prior question as to which Mark (or John, or Corinthian letters, or Ephesians, etc.) is "original," followed by the more traditional inquiry as to which variant readings of a particular work are "original." More clearly than before, the multivalence of the term "original text" emerges and confronts textual critics with its complexity.

Thus, the stated goal of textual criticism, to arrive at the "original text" of Scripture, may in fact be impossible. Why is this important? Because it is the "original text" which is deemed to be inspired and inerrant by most Christians. If one cannot be certain of what constituted the “original text” of Scripture, then one cannot be certain of what constitutes the inerrant Word of God.

Epp concludes his fascinating article by saying that the latest scholarship in Textual Criticism indicates that the goal of textual criticism must be redefined.

As New Testament textual criticism moves into the twenty-first century, it must shed whatever remains of its innocence, for nothing is simple anymore. Modernity may have led many to assume that a straightforward goal of reaching a single original text of the New Testament--or even a text as close as possible to that original--was achievable. Now, however, reality and maturity require that textual criticism face unsettling facts, chief among them that the term "original" has exploded into a complex and highly unmanageable multivalent entity. Whatever tidy boundaries textual criticism may have presumed in the past have now been shattered, and its parameters have moved markedly not only to the rear and toward the front, but also sideways, as fresh dimensions of originality emerge from behind the variant readings and from other manuscript phenomena.

You Don't Need Faith to Believe The Principle of Evolution

Rev. 1. Added link to Evolution 101 podcast.
This is a recent comment in one of the previous articles. It is a frequently offered claim that I want to take a moment to address as an article instead of a comment.
"....when one considers the amount of atheist faith required to believe the scientific theories regarding evolution in light of the absence of any eyewitness, the sort of Christian faith regarding inspired writings shouldn't be all that bizarre....."

People don't need faith to believe the principle of evolution. Scientists are doing experiments using it in labs and observing it in real time in nature. Heres a link to TalkOrigins.org to explore it a little further. Our friend Benny highly recommends this site.

When you have a principle about how something works, you don't need faith, just logic and reasoning to make the inference that allows you to make reliable predictions about the outcome.

For example, I am sure you don't need faith to know that if you leave the bag in your cereal box open the cereal will get stale do you? No, because you know, in principle, that leaving the bag open will facilitate its going stale. In the case where you have a friend make a bowl of cereal for you and you find that it is stale, you can reasonably presume, based on principle, that the bag was left open. Furthermore, you don't need to believe god made them go stale because you know there is a natural mechanism that causes it. And you don't need to be able to describe in detail how the mechanism works to understand it, you just need to know the principle. In this way you can happily go about knowing this principle and using it to make decisions about other things like applying it to your triscuits or a birthday cake. It also helps you to understand with little extra information why you may find a little package of dessicant in something that is vulnerable to damage from moisture and you may even go so far as to properly infer that it is vulnerable to damage from moisture without anyone telling you. In this way you acquire knowledge and build on it to make decisions and acquire more knowledge. As you make inferences you need to watch to see if your inferences are correct, if they are then you can repeat the process of using them to make decisions and acquire more knowledge.

In my view this is just common sense, and basically, the scientific method is just common sense formalized.

If you use common sense on the Bible and try to make predictions or gain knowledge using the principles about God in the bible, or about the state of the world back in the day, there is a lot of room for doubt. If you don't believe it, just ask any theologian.

Recommended Resources
* Evolution 101 podcast, or you can find it in iTunes.

Eyewitness Testimony and Apologetics

Most Christian apologists believe that the case for Christianity is strong because of alleged eyewitness testimony to the life, death and supposed resurrection of Jesus Christ. I say alleged eyewitness testimony because it is not an established fact that we have the actual testimony of eyewitnesses in the Gospels. What we have are second hand accounts from those who claim they spoke with eyewitnesses (Luke 1:5) or we have anonymous writings (all four Gospels) from those who claim to have been eyewitnesses to some of the events. Even if we assume, however, that there is genuine eyewitness testimony in the Gospels, then there is still the question of the reliability of that testimony.


Below is a quote from Oral Tradition as History by Jan Vansina (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). Vansina is widely recognized as one of the leading authorities on the subject of the oral transmission of history. Here is what he says about eyewitness testimony.

In the best of circumstances, even the best of witnesses never give a movie-like account of what happened, as all accounts of accidents show. Eyewitness accounts are always a personal experience as well and involve not only perception, but also emotions. Witnesses often are also not idle standers-by, but participants in the events. Furthermore, an understanding of what happened cannot occur through mere data of perception. Perceptions must be organized in a coherent whole and the logic of the situation supplies missing pieces of observation. The classical cases of car accidents or purse snatching document this to satiety. A witness reporting a car accident typically first heard a smash, then saw it, then deduced how it happened—how both cars were traveling before the accident after which he or she built up a coherent account of the incident. Usually he did not see the two cars before the accident drew attention to them. Most witnesses cannot resolve themselves to build up a story starting with a noise and the result of the accident first. If a witness was traveling in one of the stricken cars, much of what took place happened at a speed greater than his own reaction time allowed him to perceive. Such persons often only remember one or two images of the accident. Yet when called upon to tell what happened, they must become coherent and build up a tale in which the logic of the situation makes up most of the account. (pp.4-5) Eyewitness accounts are only partly reliable. Certainly it is true that complex or unexpected events are perhaps rarer than simple, expected events. Yet even here the account remains imperfect. The expectation of the event itself distorts its observation. People tend to report what they expect to see or hear more than what they actually see or hear. To sum up: mediation of perception by memory and emotional state shapes an account. Memory typically selects certain features from the successive perceptions and interprets them according to expectation, previous knowledge, or the logic of “what must have happened,” and fills the gaps in perception. (p. 5)

Note several things from Vansina's statements.

1. Eyewitness accounts are always a subjective experience and involve not only perception but also emotions.

Witnesses often are not idle standers-by but participants in the events. If there is genuine eyewitness testimony in the Scriptures, it is from individuals who are not unbiased by-standers but individuals who have a "stake in the claim." This automatically makes their testimony somewhat suspect.

2. An understanding of what happened cannot occur through mere data perception but must be interpreted.

Perceptions must be organized in a coherent whole and the logic of the situation supplies missing pieces of observation. If there is genuine eyewitness testimony in Scripture, it is from individuals who had to "make sense" of what they saw. They interpreted what they saw in accordance with their world view, which in the first century, was one in which the supernatural realm (angels, demons, God) regularly invaded the natural realm. So, their testimony is "colored" by their world view, a world-view which is largely rejected since the Enlightenment.

3. The expectation of the event itself distorts its observation.
People tend to report what they expect to see or hear more than what they actually see or hear. In other words, all personal testimony is subjective. People interpret the events in light of their emotional connection to the person(s) involved and in light of what they see as compatible with their overall set of beliefs about a person or an event. As Vansina says: mediation of perception by memory and emotional state shapes an account. Memory typically selects certain features from the successive perceptions and interprets them according to expectation, previous knowledge, or the logic of “what must have happened,” and fills the gaps in perception. (p.5)So, the claim to eyewitness testimony in Scripture, even if true (and that is far from certain), does not guarantee the authenticity of the events. While many apologists seem to think that this alleged eyewitness testimony is the strongsuit of evangelical Christianity, to me it seems more like an achilles heel.

FormerFundy

I am pleased to join John and the others on this new blog. Here is a brief introduction to my background:

I was "saved" at age 18 in a fundamentalist home. My parents had recently converted and I saw a dramatic change in their lives, especially my father. He was 40 years old and had a drinking problem. He immediately stopped drinking and smoking (3 packs a > day) and has never picked it up again (that was 30 years ago). He and my mother are sincere and devout and I would never criticize them. Lets face it Christianity (or any sincerely held belief) does work for some people. That doesn't mean its true (objectively) but, just as perception is reality, if someone holds a belief strongly enough it can change their lives. After getting "saved", I entered a fundamental Baptist college in Atlanta. After 4 years, I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Theology (3.9 > GPA, summa cum laude). In addition to my studies, I was very actively involved in the local church. I worked in a bus ministry. I preached in nursing homes, jails, etc. I attended church three or more times a week.

After graduating with my BA, I went off to Bob Jones University. There I earned a Masters and a Ph.D. in Theology. Whatever you want to say about BJU, and there is a lot to be said, they were in touch academically in a scholastic sense. Namely, the languages were greatly stressed. I passed language exams in Hebrew, Greek, and German in order to get my degree. I wrote a 326 page dissertation. During my time in Greenville, I taught an adult SS class and worked in other various ministries. Lest someone say my faith was only intellectual, let me add that I spent an average of one hour a day in prayer, memorized Scripture, I wept over "lost souls," and "won souls" for the Lord.

Upon graduation from BJU, I took a position as a professor in a small Baptist college in the Western United States. I taught there for 10 years. I taught Greek, English Bible classes, Theology, Church History, and Apologetics. During this time I began to have my first doubts about the validity of my faith. I have never been one who could just accept something without investigating it for myself. The more I studied and the more I thought, the less I believed. I finally came to the conclusion that all religions are man-made and represent wishful thinking on the part of the believers. All of us want to think that there is some meaning in life and that we will see our loved ones again. Religion offers simple answers to those and other deep questions. I can discuss in detail at some future time the specific doubts that eventually led to my "deconversion," but lets just say that the major stumbling block was the whole concept of the atonement. How could someone else be punished in my place and I go free. That strikes against any sense of fairness. We would not allow that in any court of law. Punishment is only valid if it is the guilty person being punished. I have read every major theologian's discussion of the atonement and I have never been satisfied by the various answers.

Since I left Christianity my mind has started to "clear" (from the brainwashing) and I am amazed that I was ever that foolish to believe. Its not a matter of intelligence, though, there are extremely intelligent people who are Christians but there are also intelligent Mormons, Catholics, and members of other faiths as well.

I remain interested in the academic study of the Bible and religion although from a different perspective these days.

FormerFundy

Why Do Christians Believe?

I don’t believe Jesus arose from the dead. I don’t believe the historical evidence is enough for a fair minded person to believe this either. I don’t think Christians believe in Jesus’ resurrection because of the evidence anyway. They believe it because someone they trusted told them Jesus arose.

Several thinkers have offered reasons why people are believers. Marx argued religion is a numbing drug that the rich and powerful use to manipulate the common person. Freud argued that people believe because of a longing desire for a heavenly father figure. Nietzsche argued that religion is for weak people who feel the need for it. These are psychologically based reasons for why someone may believe. What I want to do here is different. I want to trace why a person became a believer--a Christian--in the first place. I think the mind is so impressionable that we have a very strong tendency to believe what we are first taught to believe, and with that belief as our presumption, we have a very strong tendency to argue that it's correct. In doing this, smart people can find reasons to continue believing even if the evidence is against what they believe.

From my own experience and that of nearly every Christian I know, this is the case. Think about this for a moment, Christian. Think back to when you first became a Christian. Someone you liked, or cared for, or trusted, told you about Jesus and his resurrection. With me I never heard anything different from people. Everyone who ever talked to me about it believed. The people who told you about Jesus were believable. And if necessary they pointed you to some books which you read which confirmed what they were telling you, including the Bible. The Bible confirmed some things for you too, that you felt the need for forgiveness. It also tells a wonderful story about a God who loved you in that he became a man and died so you could be forgiven. The gospel offers hope, forgiveness and peace. It also offers a relationship with God. You also seemed to notice that when you prayed, things happened, which confirmed for you God answered your prayers (although people who regularly read their daily Horoscopes claim they are accurate too). Then you got involved in a community of believers who encouraged you and suggested other books to read, which further confirmed your faith.

At this point you had adopted a set of control beliefs which subsequently filtered all of the evidence you were presented with. You wanted it to be true. You wanted to meet this God of yours in heaven. And you were comforted in believing you would be spared from hell when you died.

Now there are people like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton who started out being skeptical and became believers, but I’m not talking about these people. On the other side of the fence there are plenty of others who started out as believers like me, and then became non-believers. This shows people come to their own conclusions, that’s all. It says nothing to you about whether those of us who changed our minds had good reasons for doing so, apart from looking at our reasons. As such, the fact that people change their minds can’t be used as evidence for you to believe or not, apart from looking at our reasons. But I’m speaking to the overwhelming number of Christians in this world, not the exceptions.

You believed prior to examining the evidence. You believed because someone you trusted told you a wonderful sounding story. Never mind for a moment that the person who told you this story neglected to tell you of the ugliness to be found in the Bible. Nevertheless, you believed based upon what someone told you whom you trusted. And that best explains why you are in the denomination you are presently in too, although you might be in one because of someone else you trusted, or something you read too. But this is merely switching rooms in the same house.

And that person whom you trusted believed for the same reasons. Someone he or she trusted told him or her the gospel story which was also believed prior to examining the evidence. I argue this chain of one person passing on that story to the next generation stretches back to the first century, too. But as we get back into the ancient superstitious past, people believed in lots of divinities and miracles based upon no evidence at all—none.

Okay so far?

Here’s the deal. You believe based upon a person you trusted and in the story itself. In doing so it brings you a comforting (but delusional) relationship with God, which includes forgiveness, friends, and saves you from hell. And from that day forward you filter all of the evidence through your faith.

With such a wonderful story you want it to be true. You’re afraid to doubt for fear that you might end up in hell. So you look for ways to confirm that it’s true and that it can be historically verified, even though history cannot verify such things. So you read books that mainly confirms your belief, and surprise, you find that your belief can be justified. How many times when you doubt will you read what a skeptic writes? Not many Christians I know will do this. Instead, if they are having doubts they’ll turn to the trusted writings of a Christian apologist.

Only a few Christians will bother to read blogs like this one because they know in advance what we’re arguing for is false, of the devil, and that we are willfully in denial of the gospel truth. Christians don’t trust us to learn the truth about such things. We’re just wrong. When Christians read what we say here at DC they only do so to prove us wrong. They already know in advance we’re wrong. Christians simply don’t trust us to be correct.

So when it comes to the evidence of the resurrection, Christians think the evidence shows Jesus arose because they are already predisposed to believe it, and they likewise overlook the evidence against the Christian faith.

-----------------------------
An article Former_Fundy stumbled across by Lewis Rambo gives four major components of religious conversion:

1. Religious conversion is deeply personal and takes place almost always through interaction with another human.

"people who convert or change religions usually do so through personal contact, and not through impersonal methods of communication, although that happens sometimes."

2. Religious conversion involves being identified with a whole new sociological group.

"Secondly, what is very clear is that virtually all religious groups emphasize the importance of relationships with the leader of the group, and with members of the group. One of the things that is very striking when you go into a religious group is that there is enormous affection. People in some groups will even address one another as brother and sister, or other terms that communicate that relationships are very important."

3. Religious conversion involves a completely new way of viewing the world.

"they now have an interpretative system that applies to anything and everything."

4. Religious conversion involves a totally new way of viewing one's self and one's role in the world.

"Role is very powerful in shaping peoples’ perceptions and behaviors. When people become a member of a new religious movement, or when they become a passionate Roman Catholic, they have a new perception of themselves that often empowers them to do things, to believe things, and to feel things that they have not have been able to prior to that time."

An Invitation to Atheistfest '07

To whom it may concern...

As everyone knows, there are a lot of atheists here at DC, and we’d like to take this time to invite everyone who is likeminded to come to our next festive event, Atheistfest ‘07 (specific locations and times revealed privately for safety and security concerns).

What is Atheistfest? The yearly meetings (held just after the fourth of July) conducted by the godless for the purposes of worshipping Satan, sacrificing cats, having group sex, and making blood pacts with our glorious father, Lucifer.

What is an atheist? An atheist is a teeth-gritting hater of God who spends great portions of his or her life urinating on crosses, setting churches on fire, and stealing like it’s going out of style. Everyone knows that atheism is just another religion, so let me define for you what our religion is about…

Our earthly idol and hero is none other than Joseph Stalin. Our holy trinity consists of Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Karl Marx. Our goals in life are murder, rape, and, yes, world domination! Our houses of worship are the beds of fornication, awash with every bodily fluid known to man, upon which we sleep till noon on Sundays to spite the Christian God. Our bible is The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, and on a regular basis, we do what all good atheists do: we charge into churches and throw canisters of biohazard over the pews and into the baptistery; we startle Christian women by running up to them and getting in their faces – with our tongues out and our middle fingers extended – as we scream the vilest of obscenities at them; we walk up to random kids on the street and piss on them, sending them screaming back to their mother’s arms; we decorate our houses with the latest and most hip pentagrams on the market; we sodomize sheep, pigeons, and puppies for hours on end in pagan sex rituals wherein we scream out in knee-weakening, erotic delight. Anal rape is our most treasured pastime—and believe me when I tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried baby raping! As we pulverize the seats of our victims, we yell out licentious chants like, “Almighty Prince of Darkness, guide my enormous, throbbing cock!”

Why do we do all this? We conduct ourselves so because we are atheists and have no moral standards, and it is common knowledge that without an angry sky spirit in the clouds, looking down on us and telling us what to do, reminding us that he will torture us if we get out of line, we humans are so recklessly base and primal that we’re bound to do the stuff we atheists do—like invite college-age kids back to our places with the lure of alcohol and porn, where we subdue them, torture them, and consume their flesh in place of a far too ordinary Nighthawk Steak Dinner.

Now you might be saying, “Even if you don’t believe in God, shouldn’t you atheists find at least a few reasons to live good and moral lives?” Nope, there are none! You might think we would learn to love and be happy and have some sense of compassion, but we never do. For some strange reason, we became villainous vipers the very moment we embraced atheism. No one can explain why, but every ounce of goodness suddenly left us, even our home-raising and good manners! Poof! Went right out the window, flew away—all of it, just like that!

We slam our hands down on tables and say,“I hate life. I am an atheist. Damnit, I’m bored! I’m going to stab someone with an ice-pick!” So, as you can see, we are nothing but grumpy, soulless, boneheaded, billy goats, who are way beyond the hope of saving.

You best avoid us…or if you’re one of us in spirit, join us at another fun retreat. This year promises to be even better than last year, where – if we can avoid the authorities – a brunette virgin will be sacrificed when the sun reaches Zenith.

Be there!

Diabolically yours,

(JH)

Atheists Owe Real Christians an Apology!

Over at Atheist Revolution is some more humor.

"Floods are judgment on society, say bishops"

This is shockingly ignorant.
This is a summary of a news article in the Telegraph. According to some senior Church of England bishops, recent storms and flooding that have left thousands homeless are due to “Gods Judgment”, whatever that is. He doesn’t come right out and say that God sent the storms to ravage innocent victims but he does say that he expresses his sympathy and that a problem with “environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate". He asserts that moral decadence and lack of respect for the planet are the catalyst for the cause. He claims that western civilization is ignoring the teachings of the bible, cites homosexual friendly legislation as one example and describes “the Beast” in the bible as institutional power, a euphemism for Government, that sets itself up to control people and their morals.

Praise the Lord and bring on the Theocracy.

The Great Debate, God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence

Keith Augustine announced that Internet Infidels is hosting The Great Debate, God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence, which "aims to bring together nine distinguished philosophers in a series of four debates, each with a different focus on evidence for and against naturalism and theism."

Keith tells us that "The first debate, "Mind and Will," concerns the nature of the human mind and free will as it relates to the truth of naturalism and theism. Readers are encouraged to submit questions to the three contributors participating in this debate, but there is only a small window of opportunity in which to submit questions: about a month from publication. (So all questions concerning "Mind and Will" should be submitted by early August at the latest.) The ability of readers to engage authors directly is a rare opportunity made possible by electronic publishing, so please take advantage of this opportunity while you can."

This looks very very good!

Michael Behe's version of Intelligent Design, Retracing Denton's course? By Edward T. Babinski

This is not strictly speaking an article about "Debunking Christianity," though since Behe and other I.D.ists assume that they can prove the existence of a Designer it is relevant to the topic of Debunking Christianity, though it must be admitted there are plenty of Christian Evolutionists who do not believe that Behe's attempts at finding "proofs" of the existence of a "Designer" by studying genomes will lead anywhere.

The Evolution of Behe's Views: Francis S. Collins, the head of the Human genome project (who is both a Christian and an evolutionist), critiqued Behe's earlier hypothesis (that Behe has since dropped), namely of a "super cell" in the beginning that's frontloaded with excess DNA to be put into use much later as the world evolves. Collins pointed out such a hypothesis did not make sense because if a super cell was indeed filled with tons of information to be used "much later" that information would have to be supernaturally preserved over long periods of time because unused portions of the genome are known to undergo continual mutations.

Behe once wrote, "If random evolution is true, there must have been a large number of transitional forms between the Mesonychid [a whale ancestor] and the ancient whale. Where are they?" Behe assumed such forms would not or could not be found, but three transitional species were identified by paleontologists within a year of that statement.

In Darwin's Black Box, Behe posited that genes for modern complex biochemical systems, such as blood clotting, might have been "designed billions of years ago and have been passed down to the present … but not 'turned on'." This is known to be genetically impossible because genes that aren't used will degenerate, but there it was in print. And Behe's argument against the evolution of flagella and the immune system have been dismantled in detail and new evidence continues to emerge, yet the same old assertions for design reappear here as if they were uncontested.

Behe now admits in his latest book, The Edge of Evolution, that almost the entire edifice of evolutionary theory is true: evolution, natural selection, common ancestry. His one novel claim is that the genetic variation that fuels natural selection–mutation–is produced not by random changes in DNA, as evolutionists maintain, but by an Intelligent Designer, The Great Mutator.

Behe's current situation reminds me of a similar situation in the past that the true father of the I.D. movement, Michael Denton, got himself into. After he wrote his first anti-evolutionary book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, he was praised by the folks at Access Research Network (editors of the flagstaff I.D. publication, Origins & Design), and became a member of the Discovery Institute. Then Denton admitted in an interview that he had not even known about the fossil evidence of inbetween species, like mammal-like reptiles. He also wrote his book before the various genome identification projects had taken off. Denton's views were altered significantly by the time he wrote his second book, Nature's Destiny, in which he admitted that the genetic distance between species even between humans and chimpanzees was relatively small (as I like to point out, that genetic distance between humans and chimps is smaller than the genetic distance between near identical sibling species of fruit flies), and so Denton now accepts that evolution has taken place. He also had his name removed as a member of the Discovery Institute.

Christian and biologist, Ken Miller, responds to Behe

The continuing dismemberment of Behe (Links to reviews of his new book)

Pushing Behe over the edge

Malaria according to Nat. Geog. (& Behe)

Behe blows it

Silence over Behe's book

We don’t have an intelligent designer (ID), we have a bungling consistent evolver (BCE). Or maybe an adaptive changer (AC). In fact, what we have in the most economical interpretation is, of course, evolution.
—Lisa Randall, physicist

A Review of J.L. Schellenberg’s The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism

This book argues for “complete religious skepticism,” known to most of us as agnosticism. He argues against any belief in “ultimism,” which based upon religious claims that entail “there is an ultimate and salvic reality.” (p.3). In his words, “the categorical skepticism I am defending, as the name suggests, is doubt that embraces any and all religious claims,” whether it’s “religious belief” or religious disbelief.” (p. 50)

This book contains three parts and is not as technical as one would think. You won’t find any symbolic logic to worry about deciphering. The arguments are understandable to the college student. You might first have to wade through the “Introduction” where he defines various terms he uses, although, if you’ve read his previous book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell, 2005), you would already be familiar with them.

In Part One he argues for religious skepticism based on four distinct categories of thought called “modes,” which he later combines into one. In the “Subject Mode” the author argues that human beings are limited in understanding. There is available evidence that is neglected and/or inaccessible to us. There is unrecognized evidence that is undiscovered and undiscoverable by all of us. In the “Object Mode” the author argues that it’s probably beyond finite humans beings to understand Ultimate reality, since it must be “something infinitely profound.” (p. 51) As such, we may have inadequate and incoherent conceptions of it.

In the “Retrospective Mode” the author considers the human past with regard to religious claims. The human past is too brief, (“only a few thousand years old”) and we have been occupied by other things for us to conclude we have arrived at a final understanding. There have been moral, psychological and social factors which were actively against religious improvements to our understanding. There has been hubris (or self-importance) and greed, jealously and envy, which taken together led to dogmatism, hostility and rivalry among people of different understandings. “Because religious belief is wrapped up with this ultimate concern, it has tended to go hand in hand with a rather fierce loyalty. Nothing less than complete devotion is appropriate where such a reality is involved.” ‘How, for example, can one remain loyal to God if one allows oneself to be seduced by objections to the belief that there is a God?...she is likely rather to become stubborn and intransigent, because of a well-intentional but misplaced loyalty.” “When they notice that others disagree, they tend not to think of this as an opportunity for dialogue and growth toward deeper understanding, but rather feel impelled to insist on fundamental error in the opposing views.” (p. 76-78). Furthermore, “the more attached one becomes to one’s beliefs, the more difficult it is to remain open to their falsity and to engage in investigations that might show them to be false” (p. 84), which in turn has been “inimical to creative and critical thinking” about the Ultimate.

In the “Prospective Mode” the author “considers what may lie ahead rather than what lies behind us.” (p. 91). If we survive on this planet we have 1 billion years to come up with better solutions to understanding the Ultimate, especially since we’ve just entered an era of unprecedented access to digital information that may all be categorized and placed into a hand held iPod someday. Science will progress into the future as well. People will increasingly be forced to get to know others who have a different religious perspective with a global economy and travel, and we will learn from each other and become more tolerant and assimilating of these views with a healthy exchange of information.

The author finally combines these four into one called “The Presumption Mode,” which builds on everything he said before. He argues that “human beings are both profoundly limited and profoundly immature.” (p. 117). Lacking any pragmatic reasons to counter his truth-oriented arguments, he concludes that “religious skepticism is positively justified.” (p. 129).

In a short Part Two, Schellenberg applies these modes to the argument for naturalism and the argument from religious experience. He argues that “both sides are mistaken”: “These sources of religious and irreligious belief do not have it in them to justify such belief.” (p. 132).

In Part Three of his book Schellenberg focuses his arguments against “traditional theism—the claim that there is a personal God,” since this view of Ultimism “looms large in all contemporary discussion.” (p. 191). Here is where he argues from divine hiddenness and the problem of evil that we should be skeptical of traditional theism. He also combines them to add even more force to his arguments.

I think he makes his case with regard to religious skeptisicm. But not when it comes to being an agnostic. Even though we should be skeptical of all religious claims, there is nothing wrong with arguing from what we know today that there are no believable gods, like I do, as an atheist. He deals with this objection, unsuccessfully on pages 105-107, and 124-128).

According to Schellenberg, it's possible a god might reveal himself in the future. But why should we believe that a future possibility will become a probabity, when the probabilities at this current juncture in history say its improbable that a god exists? We can only go by current probabilities, not future possibilities. Current probabilities say X, therefore we should accept X. If there is a god who waits to reveal himself and explain his silence during the centuies of witch-hunts, the centuries of slavery, along with the millions killed during the Holocaust, then reasonable people should wait until he does. Until that time we should follow the probabilities and say such a god does not exist.

Readers should come to grips with what he says, and so must everyone who is interested in these issues, or who has a stake in their outcome.

My Interview With Infidelis Maximus

Recently I was interviewed over at Infidelis Maximus. You might want to take a look at it and the blog as a whole. It's a pretty cool Blog!

How to Dissipate Anti-religion Activism

Food for thought from Nick, a commenter at Radio Open Source.

How to make Chris Hitchens and his ‘neo-atheist’ cabal lose interest in their current anti-religion activism. Imagine a new global, ecumenical convocation of the three Abrahamic faiths. All of them, from Branch Davidians to Greek Orthodoxy, from Hassidim to Islamists. And they end their massive convention by issuing the following statement:

We are appalled by the violence and intolerance our beliefs and faith-institutions have engendered, enabled, and otherwise promoted throughout the history of monotheism. We not only regret this, we seek, now, and admittedly belatedly, to atone. We recognize that the harm rises plainly from our claims to certain knowledge of the deity we purport to speak for—and we now candidly admit the implicit and explicit conceit of these claims. We have long claimed humility – but falsely – for surely mere humans cannot humbly claim to know the mind of the universe’s creator.We therefore renounce our claims to certainty.

Instead of conviction we offer hope: hope that our belief in an immortal soul is neither vain nor mere vanity masquerading as religiosity. Hope that the God we have long believed listens to our self-obsessed entreaties might actually exist in the cosmos beyond our minds’ capacity for imagination and outside of our hearts’ yearnings for the comforts of parental love and approval.

But we no longer promise this to the young we hope to influence. We will instead become, for the first time in monotheism’s troubled and troubling existence, authentically humble.We confess our abject ignorance.

We confess our dismay that so many more prayers prove futile than those that seem to have been postively answered as articulated. We admit that double-blind prayer experiments yield not a whit of difference in the lives of those prayed for.We will no longer pretend that our child recovered from a sickness because a Deity favored us and our prayer while apparently ignoring the even more devoutly offered prayers of parents and children living in dire poverty and in barbaric, hostile circumstances.We admit that such beliefs are unconscionable conceits.And we apologize.

We hope for something more, though: we hope to inspire greater love within the hearts of our co-religionists: not for themselves but for all others – even those others who do not share our beliefs and our hopes. We will no longer demand that human love be personified in our venerated mythological figures, but will hereafter allow and encourage love to be venerated as a good in and of itself. We will remodel our temples, churches, and mosques to reflect this – and will then invite non-believing others to share their stories of the profoundly transforming power of unpersonified love. Because, in our new and earnest humility, we confess that those outside our faith traditions might have profoundly valuable lessons of love to share with us.

And we will edit and revise our sacred texts to reflect this historical reformation from insufferable arrogance and the cocksure certainty of faith to genuine humility and plainly confessed hope.

Any religion or sect that cannot or will not make such a concession to reason, to humankind, and to its own parishioners fully deserves the scorn of Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest of us non-believers too. And why must it fall to plebeian skeptics like me to have to point this out?

Book Review: Why I Rejected Christianity

Rooted in biblical studies and a transformative encounter with Jesus, John Loftus lived a life of an Evangelical minister. During years of study and ministry he rigorously researched and publicly expounded a fundamentalist world view. Like most ex-Christians, Loftus had to first encounter a life situation that created emotional dissonance before he could do a rational recalc on his beliefs. His story is not an unusual one. What is unusual is Loftus’s breadth and depth of research in defense of the Christian faith before finally calling it quits.

“Recalc” is nerd-speak for re-running the numbers: dusting off old dogmas and evidence, adding any updates, and re-computing the conclusions. Once personal weaknesses and human hypocrisies opened the door, Loftus applied himself to this process with the same intellectual rigor he had applied to defending the faith.

Because of this rigor, Why I Rejected Christianity offers a window into a vast array of arguments relating to orthodox Christian assertions about the nature of God and reality. It is thoroughly referenced and quotes extensively from scholars on many sides. This makes it a great launching point for someone who is a relative newcomer to apologetics.

Approaching the text as a psychologist as well as an ex-fundamentalist, I found many of the arguments fascinating on multiple levels.

One was the logic and evidence in play. Particularly interesting were discussions about the historicity of biblical texts and demon-haunted world in which they were written. Glimpsing this world, one realizes quickly that superstitions of all sorts abounded: meteorological signs and wonders, virgin births, magical cures, resurrections, ghostly apparitions . . . . Most of us look with patronizing bemusement at the many superstitions of the Medieval Europeans, and yet we are taught that the perceptions of our Bronze Age spiritual ancestors should be taken at face value. Loftus brings together a chorus of experts and erases the double standard.

At another level, I found myself marveling at the impressively contorted reasoning used by apologists through the ages in defense their received traditions. Arguments on behalf of the “self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit” and the incarnation are extraordinary in this regard. These arguments are testimony to the power of the human mind when we are determined to make the evidence fit a preconceived story line---or when we are determined to hold an appealing belief despite being backed into an evidentiary corner. They are worth reading from the standpoint of cognitive psychology alone.

Why I Rejected Christianity opens weakly, I think, with a personal narrative that is more confessional than it needs to be. Loftus lays out both his failings and his credentials as if to head off critics. He doesn’t need to. As a writer, he hits his stride when he enters the arena of scholarly discourse. His encyclopedic knowledge speaks for itself.