Another final missing link...again

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Another Review of My Book: “For even the seasoned Christian apologist, this work still presents a solid challenge”

Again, I'll place this review below for new visitors to DC:

Overall, Loftus’s cumulative case against Christianity highlighted several issues that I did not have an adequate answer for. Some of the topics I have found satisfying answers to from the Christian perspective, while some issues I agree with him completely. Loftus’ book offers the college level a solid introduction to Atheist arguments, while offering thorough responses to popular Christian Theist claims.

Why I Became An Atheist is an important read, especially for Christians. This resource introduces Atheist objections to Christians, which many have never dealt with them. For even the seasoned Christian apologist, this work still presents a solid challenge.

The author also mentions some weaknesses which, of course, I don't agree with at all. To read her review click here.

For more reviews of my book click here.

Another Review of My Book: "Christianity Has Been Debunked"

Again for people tired of reading these reviews I'll place it below. It's for people new to DC:

If there was one book that I would recommend to a Christian to make him see his religion from the outside it would be this. It's written in a language that a Christian would understand.

John chooses to attack Christianity from a sceptical bias and uses the tools of philosophy and even theology itself to give increasing credibility to the extremely low probability of the existence of the theistic god.

Step back and think... dear Christian, if Christianity were true it couldn't be attacked on any front. I believe that John's approach is the best and more notably I think it will have the greatest affect on the Christian. My only reservation is that they just won't read it because John doesn't have the mass-media appeal of Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens and Harris. The approaches used so far are: the open scepticism backed with keen insight from Harris; the openly acerbic attack of Christianity's core professed by Hitchens; the cowardly philosophical, softly-softly approach of Dennet and the overtly scientific approach used by Dawkins. John's approach wins hands down and he even explains why.

This is a well rounded work as each argument is laid out and the responses to it from the intellectual Christian community (sounds like an oxymoron to me) are given and John duly gives his responses. The writing and argumentation shows many years of dealing with the debate at the highest level.

It's written for a university level undergraduate audience. John writes that many lecturers in courses in theology and philosophy have recommended the book for reading and study. The level that it is aimed at maybe off-putting and heavy-going for the more general audience. However, I feel if its depth of study was lessened then John would be accused of attacking a strawman version of Christianity.

Come on Christian, read it. You won't encounter a better attack of your faith. If your faith is the sort that doesn't stand up to attack then it is a faith not worth having. If it does stand up to the attack then you can rejoice and your faith can grow. Link

To read some more reviews Click here.

Was Jesus a Pathological Liar?

This is as close to a general resurrection as Christians will ever see!

No matter how many times I have quoted John 14: 13 -14: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” Christians turn a deaf ear and simply ignore Jesus’ promise of help. Yet Christians are convinced they will go to Heaven and have salvation when Jesus NEVER gave a plan of salvation in the Synoptic Gospels and one is hard pressed to even find one in the Gospel of John.

However, despite this very vague and strange soteriology of Jesus, Christians are convince they will go to Heaven and they are equally convinced the unsaved will go to Hell.

But just how many lies of Jesus and the Gospels can simply be ignored and Christians can still be confident that everything Jesus states is true?!

So here is my challenge to the Christian community: Since the Gospel of John is generally consider the last Gospel written and contains a more fully developed Christology (such as the famous verse of John 3:16), I want any Christian to prove that neither Jesus nor the Gospel writers are pathological liars.

Lets start with one verse from John’s Gospel and I want any Christian to prove this statement of Jesus is true and correct based on the Canonical 66 book Biblical text.

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8: 44

A. Please prove from the Biblical text where Satan EVER killed or murdered anyone!

B. Please prove from the Biblical text where Satan EVER told a lie!

Christians, if Jesus is everything you claim he is (God in flesh, the living sinless Word of Truth and the only hope for eternal salvation) this should be easy for you to do.

On the other hand, if you can't give direct proof text examples, how can you trust anything Jesus or the Gospels text tell you? How can you remain a Christian in spite of known Biblical lies?

Get your priest or preacher involved here. Tell him to earn his money!

Information Professionals Caught Not Checking Sources

The Fallacy Files, Wikipedia Watch has revealed ANOTHER case of Journalists using Wikipedia as an original source. This is a real life example of how people that should know better will reproduce poor quality information. I'm sure there was no malice involved, just people trying to get a message accross that they believed likely to be true, similar to the authors of scripture.

The Fallacy Files regularly exposes Wikipedia faults, but Wikipedia is not authoritative and doesn't claim to be. As The Fallacist points out, it should be used as a starting point. Wikipedias strength is also its weakness. It depends on people to originate and maintain the information. So while Wikipedia was found by the Journal Nature to be as accurate as the Enycyclopedia Britannica in the Field of Science, occasionally something turns up inaccurate.
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Court Rules Faith in God and Prayer as Child Abuse!

In the Gospel of John 14: 13 -14 we find the propaganda religious sells pitch: ““Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” But the legal system has ruled that Jesus is a liar and the claims of the Bible are a myth!

Daniel Hauser was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and has a 90 percent chance of surviving his Hodgkin's lymphoma with chemotherapy or only a 5 percent chance of living with only faith in Jesus and Biblical promises.

In a 58-page ruling, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser has been "medically neglected" by his parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, and was in need of child protection services.

Better yet, can an all loving God cure a disease he let happen in the first place? (Oh, that’s right Freedom of Choice: Daniel Hauser had Free Will to wish this cancer on himself in the first place and the virus was given Freedom of Choice or Will by God to choose on which person it would inflict cancer on!)

One Step Closer To Making Life In The Lab

From Nature.com (requires login), "RNA world easier to make": Ingenious chemistry shows how nucleotides may have formed in the primordial soup. Here's a link from "Wired" that is freely accessible "Life’s First Spark Re-Created in the Laboratory"

Another Review of My Book: "Brilliant: the Book I Was Waiting For!"

For people tired of these kinds of posts I'll place the review below. For others like the reviewer herself who are first time visitors to DC and/or never heard of my book, this is for you.

"Why I became an Atheist" by John W. Loftus is excellent from cover-to-cover. A few weeks ago I came across "Why I Became an Atheist" by Mr. Loftus while browsing the local bookstore - I must admit, I hadn't heard of this title before I laid eyes on it (sadly). At first sight of the book I was hopeful and expectant, and my expectations were NOT failed. I would say that this book picked-up/filled-in where all the other Atheist-type books left-off/missed-out, if that makes sense.

This is one of my absolute favorite books that deals with Atheism and I will continue to suggest it to others and use it as a source-book for my own future reference as well. On a final note: if you are, like me, a fan of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc.. you'll love this book too! But don't expect to find the same rehashed arguments; this book is fresh, audacious and thought-inspiring, and I recommend it to all. Enjoy! Click here for the full review.

To read other reviews Click here.

An Excerpt From a Chapter in a New Book I'm Compiling: "At Best Jesus Was A Failed Apocalyptic Doomsday Prophet"

See below:

And when we look at the New Testament we see this theme reflected in many places. In what has become known as the “Little Apocalypse,” Mark chapter 13 (cf. Matt 24), we find Jesus instructing his disciples about the time when the temple would be destroyed and the “Son of Man” comes. Making a crystal clear reference to a prophecy in the book of Daniel ('the abomination that causes desolation') Jesus tells them it will be shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in 70 A.D:

"But in those days, following that distress, " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' "At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.” And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. "Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

Given what we already know about the apocalyptic milieu in which Jesus preached and granting for the moment that this passage comes from the lips of Jesus, his disciples would understand exactly what he meant. The sign of the coming “Son of Man” was the distress and tribulation surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The lesson of the fig tree merely reinforces the point that just as they can predict when summer is coming when the fig leaves blossom, so also can they know the “Son of Man” is coming when they see the destruction of Jerusalem. [Critical studies of this passage lead many scholars to think Jesus probably didn’t speak of the destruction of Jerusalem here, only that he predicted the imminent coming of the “Son of Man.” Such a prediction may have been added by the author of this first gospel after the fact, leading his readers to conclude the eschaton would take place immediately based on Jesus’ prior eschatological preaching]. And as such the very generation of people living in his day will witness this apocalyptic event, which echoes clearly what we read earlier in Mark 9:1 (cf. Matt. 16:28; Luke 9:27) when Jesus says to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

Theologians have tried to construe the word “generation” in the above passage to mean “race,” as in “this race of people will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” But that is not the obvious natural reading, given the whole context. Edward Adams, Senior lecturer in New Testament Studies at King’s College, London, states it forthrightly: "It is virtually certain that 'this generation' means the generation living at the time of utterance. The time frame in this verse is thus the lifetime of Jesus' own contemporaries." [Edward Adams, The Stars Will Fall From Heaven: Cosmic Catastrophe in the New Testament and its World (New York: T & T Clark, 2007) p. 164.] We can see this from a study of the Greek word itself, in which the primary usage means “generation” rather than “race.” The translation “race” wouldn’t make any sense here anyway, since no Jew of that day would ever consider the possibility that their race of people could “pass away” given their assuredness of special divine promises of favor. We also see this from the whole context of the Jewish milieu and from what we read in the rest of the New Testament itself. We read of Jesus saying: “I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (Matt. 10:23). Speaking to the Sanhedrin during his trial Jesus reportedly said, “you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:16; Matt. 26:64). The meaning is obvious.

Another Skeptic Weighs in On a Craig/Loftus Debate

If you want to get my attention comment on whether you would like to see me debate my former professor, William Lane Craig, since that's what I'd like to see happen. People on both sides of the fence are calling for such a debate, although some skeptics are hesitant to do so because of recent losses to Craig. Reasonably Aaron weighed in on this and said something amazing about me:

I'm a huge fan of John W. Loftus and think he brings more to New Atheism than the four horseman combined. In fact I would like to see more of Loftus around the place. Why Loftus is not as big if not bigger than Hitchens is beyond me. Link

Where is Jesus's Diary? Information As A Product, Not A Byproduct

I'd like to propose an analogy to represent the relationship between God, Us, the Bible and the World. God would be in charge, and the source and producer of information, and the majority of us would be his potential customer, subscriber or consumer. We would have a value to him and lets assign the value the number 1. So if one of us 'subscribes' to Gods information, then he correspondingly gets to add that to his return on investment.

God Continues To Operate In The Red After 4000 Years.
God is and has been working at a loss since he supposedly made himself known to Abraham. He continues to lose his investment. This year alone potentially AT LEAST 4.5 billion people are going to hell, some of them will be unborn fetuses, some of them will be Muslim Children that don't care anything about differences between religions and politics, and unless their interpretation is correct, some of them will consider themselves Christians. Most of them simply don't find Biblical Information to be believable, in the same way they simply don't find other information to be believable.

World Population: 6,790,062,216 (July 2009 est.), CIA World Fact Book [1]
Christians make up only 1/3 of the world [2] (2,263,354,072 people), and even then they are divided about who the true Christians are, so True Christians make up less than 33% of the world. The cause of divisions between the Christians is the interpretation of the text. If the text were of high enough quality, no interpretation would be needed. It would accurately reflect real world states and the Quality of Knowledge would be high and therefore the outcomes from the use of Biblical Information would improve. There would be fewer denominations, and more Christians. Gods return on investment would improve.

Quality Information and Knowledge
Civilizations are advanced by taking advantage of Quality Information and Knowledge. The machine age and the industrial revolution translated, captured and reproduced with machines the accumulated knowledge of artisans which standardized and sped up production of Goods. The increased productivity and efficiency gave companies competitive advantages. Quality Knowledge was derived from Quality Information and that Quality Information was intrinsically useful.

The Computer revolution and the Information Age transformed how information is captured, stored, distributed and reproduced. It has torn down the traditional boundaries of accessible information and put information on demand at peoples fingertips. It has increased communication and fostered collaboration and created a Global Community of people that produce, provide, maintain and consume information. To ensure quality information, the principles of manufacturing are adapted to guide information production. Quality Information is information that has been treated with some care and control to ensure its accuracy and usefulness. To ensure Information Quality, Information must be treated like a product not a byproduct. Capturing real world states as accurately as possible and as timely as possible using DUE CARE and DILIGENCE is one way to do that. Companies that treat information as a product have a competitive advantage. Quality Knowledge is derived from Quality Information and that Quality Information is useful.

Since the formulation of the principle of Falsifiability and its endorsement by Karl Popper, Science acquired scope and definition. Since that time, co-opting the computer revolution and accessible information, science has also enjoyed a revolution of a sort. Using sound principles and Quality Information, science is a method for creating Quality Knowledge and that information has proven useful. The past fifty years have arguably been the most fruitful in creating useful Quality Information and Knowledge.

Two propositions follow from this. To increase successful outcomes,
1. Organizations must create a reservoir of Quality Information
2. Organizations must use that information to create a reservoir of Quality Knowledge.

Create Knowledge with Quality information
Supposedly God wants to produce Christians, and the bible was created to aid in producing Christians. But the Bible was not created using principles of Information Quality even up to the standards of common inventory, household finance, or tax keeping of the time. The fact that accurate records are important has been understood since merchants started trading. However, scripture didn't use those simple record keeping principles about accuracy. Obviously, The Bibles accuracy and clarity was not of primary importance and the limited and splintered success of Christianity is what you'd expect and typical of organizations that create their information similarly.

Make an Inventory of What You Know In Real Time
Capturing the information about God and Salvation was not given the same importance as God and Salvation or even equivalent importance that a merchant has for his inventory, or even a household shopping list. The representation of God and Salvation in the medium of language is as important as God and Salvation itself, because the medium is supposed to represent it. If the medium doesn't represent its object accurately, then there is no accurate representation of the object to be understood. Therefore the real world states of God and Salvation are not represented anywhere for human understanding. Similar to the inventory, if records don't accurately reflect the real world state of an inventory, then the state of the inventory is unknown. It is demonstrably an open question.

It should be self-evident that the INACCURATE production of information directly NEGATIVELY impacts the PURPOSE for the production of that information.
For example, if I go to a biology lecture and I don't record it or take notes, there is not much point in going. If I don't capture the information as it occurs, then I won't be able to accurately recreate it later on the exam. My score on the exam depends on how well I record that information and am able to review it before the exam. If I were to use someone else's notes, then I'm lucky if they've "taken good notes" and I'm lucky if I don't have to INTERPRET them or look to the book for interpretation due to missing information, inconsistent representation or ambiguity. If the information is treated as a product, and DUE CARE and DILIGENCE is used to ensure that it is captured accurately in real time, then it will be of higher quality than if it is treated as a byproduct and captured after the fact from memory. The Quality of that information directly impacts the quality of Knowledge that is derived from it, and this principle is put into practice and used every second of every day and is measured periodically by such things as tests in school.

Where is Jesus' Diary? Examples of Treating Information As A Product
At the time of Christ, the Roman Centurion, in charge of one hundred troops kept a daily log book and passed that information up to his commander and that information made its way up the chain of command to be used in logistics and decision making[3].

Optometrist
When I go to the Optometrist, I do a few tasks, and the optometrist records some values on a piece of paper. Those values represent the real world state of my lenses. Any interpretation by the manufacturer of that prescription will lead to increased risk of inaccurate production of the lenses.

Airline Safety
Similarly in the airline industry, inspecting and recording the states and results of maintenance is treated as a representation of the state of the aircraft itself. If the records show that aspects of the airplane are out of tolerance, the airplane is taken out of commission.

Medical Records
In the medical field, the record that represents the health of the patient must necessarily be as accurate as possible because it is used to make decisions on the welfare of the patient.

Copying a Song From A CD
When you want to make a copy of a song off of a CD you have many options about the sampling rate. The Sample rate is how often the computer records the state of the song in realtime. The more often the the computer samples the song, the higher the quality of the copy, and you can hear the difference. It is a perceptible demonstration of Information Quality principles.

In each of these cases information is treated as a product. The person who gathers the information acts in the role of the information provider. In the case where the information is inconsistent, ambiguous or missing, a reassessment is necessary before any sound decisions or conclusions can be made. The Quality of that Information directly impacts the Quality of Knowledge derived from that information which directly leads to measurable outcomes.

Information Quality is Quantifiable and Measurable.
High Quality Information has several characteristics that distinguish it from lower quality information. Biblical Information has few of these characteristics. For example, even Christians, the consumers of information in the bible, are divided about what is accurate, and what is metaphor and this is the underlying reason for the different denominations within Christianity.

Its not a "representation of the body of Christ", its the result of Information that has a low Interpretability score.

Therefore, God continues to operate in the red after 4000 years,
not because human beings reject him,
but because they simply don't get it.

Because the Information Providers simply and demonstrably didn't do a good job.

List of Information Quality Dimensions And Their Categories That Are Used To Derive Metrics

INTRINSIC
- Free-of-Error (a dimension of Accuracy)
- Objectivity
- Believability
- Reputation

REPRESENTATIONAL
- Interpretability
- Ease of understanding
- Concise representation
- Consistent representation

CONTEXTUAL
- Relevancy
- Value-added
- Timeliness
- Completeness
- Amount of information

ACCESSIBILITY
- Access
- Security

Further Reading and References
1. CIA World Factbook

2.Religion by Adherents

3. The Laws Of The Roman People, Callie Williamson, page 209

Quality Information and Knowledge, Chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Kuan-Tsae, Yang W. Lee, Richard Y. Wang
Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458

MIT Total Data Quality Management Program

Embedded Parasites

Watch this video on Embedded Parasites by Jim McKerrow. Very interesting stuff here.

A Lesson From Dr. Dan Lambert on Dealing With My Book

[Written by John W. Loftus] Dr. Lambert is a professor for John Brown University; what looks like a good Evangelical college. He's using my book in a class titled: "Capstone Seminar in Christian Life." He sent me an email about the class:

The class I’m using your book for is a special May Term class. Only 4 weeks long and about 30 class hours. I have chosen to only use your book and no others since it’s such a short class. You give readers enough to digest without adding in others like Flew, McGrath, or Dawkins (yea, I chose you over them!). It’s a senior-level class and we typically have 5-8 students take it in May. I have 15 students this time due to the topic. We have met twice already and they are engaging well, so I am excited to see where we go.

He also sent me his syllabus where he offers some great advice to his students and to Christians everywhere who want to deal with the arguments in my book. I consider his advice to be a model for Christian would be apologists:

Reading Reflection Papers: Read VERY thoroughly the assigned chapters for each day. Use a highlighter or pen to mark in the book. Write one page on each chapter about what you read. Do this in a format as if you were having lunch with Loftus and discussing his book with him. You cannot use the Bible to try to refute his points or to support your own. You must use logic and critical thinking primarily. THIS WILL BE MUCH HARDER THAN YOU ANTICIPATE!

Whether it'll be much harder than they anticipate I don't know, but read again what this Christian professor said:

You cannot use the Bible to try to refute his points or to support your own. You must use logic and critical thinking primarily.

I especially like the fact that Dr. Lambert did the reasonable thing by forbidding Bible quotes to refute my points, since if they did so it will not have an effect on someone who doesn't believe the Bible. Kudos to him on that. I think this is the difference between ignorant Bible thumpers and intelligent Christians. Lambert wants to educate and train intelligent Christians for ministry, not Bible thumpers.

I appreciate his intellectual integrity and congenial spirit toward me on the issues that separate us, which is also something Christians can learn from him. We have a somewhat shared background but we have never personally met. He's sending his students here to DC to check us out. Welcome to you all.

On Recent Debate Losses to William Lane Craig

Atheist Bloggers have been hesitant in recent weeks about recommending or promoting one of their own to debate Craig, given recent losses in Hitchens and even Carrier. Some of them have taken it personally, describing these losses as "our losses," and that "we've failed."

Knowing atheists and freethinkers like I do so well, who is the "our" in "our losses," and who is the “we” in “we’ve failed”? Herding us is like herding cats, right? Others failed. I didn’t. You didn’t. Atheists didn’t. I choose who speaks for me. So does every atheist. The media doesn’t choose them for me. Book sales don’t do it either. From these atheists I still haven’t seen any reasonable connection between "Hitchens lost" to "I lost," or to "atheism lost." I really haven’t. I think some atheists do though. That’s why they're hesitant to promote another debate against Craig so that THEY don’t lose again. Christianity will not be debunked in proportion to the degree with which atheists win against Craig anyway. Debates are both entertaining and educational. Like a boxing match we get to watch two people spar for the approval of the audience. But truth is not decided by debate. I think atheists know this, but the words they use say otherwise.

There is a liberalizing tendency with evangelicals over the years. It won’t be atheists that lead them down this road, which can and does lead to atheism. The liberals do this just fine without us. The real debate isn’t between atheists and evangelicals anyway. It’s just that both groups in America seem the most passionate about these issues. The real debate is between evangelicals and other conservatives within the Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist and Disciples of Christ churches, and so forth. Then the debate switches to the evangelicals against the liberals, and the liberals will literally clean their clocks. Ever wonder why Craig doesn't debate liberals? That's why I use the arguments of the liberals in my book so often. Further down the road the debate becomes one between evangelicals and every religion in the world. Evangelicals cannot even win the debate between themselves, much less with the liberals, and even less with the many other world religions. But as soon as they apply the same skepticism against their own evangelical faith that they use against other religious faiths they will become agnostics and atheists. This is what I think will happen if they apply my Outsider Test for Faith.

So relax atheists. Religion is here to stay, probably as long as there are human beings. In the meantime let's enjoy the debates and learn from them how to effectively debunk the Christian faith, since after all, that's the one we're most familiar with in the English speaking world.

A New Book On the Resurrection I Recommend

Kris D. Komarnitsky just published a new book on the resurrection titled, Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? As you'll see when you read my review by following the link, I think it's a great introduction to the topic from the skeptical side of the fence.

Some Things of Interest on the Internet

First off, people are starting to call for a debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and me:

Kel is calling for such a debate and says:

Loftus was a former preacher and student of Craig who turned atheist and now runs the fantastic blog Debunking Christianity where he along with other former theists try to debunk Christianity. Now Craig has said he won't debate former students, though given the challenge it does seem appropriate to engage Loftus given his current credentials as a "new atheist". Unlike many of the other atheists recently putting out books, Loftus' book Why I Became An Atheist directly attacks Christianity in particular - contrasting the styles of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett who go after faith itself or the institution of religion.

Kel also offers some good reasons why Christianity is not more probable than atheism.

Christian Blogger Irish Farmer concurs. He wrote: “I'll second that. I think this would be a great debate, and if we can get a groundswell of support in favor of it then we should." Although he doesn’t think I will win. Others are doing so on Facebook, I’ve heard. I'd like still more Bloggers to call for such a debate if you think it would be both entertaining and educational.

A new book on my wish list is Wicked Plants. Here's the description:

A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).

Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

Christians must ponder why these plants exist. I have a better explanation in blind evolution than either the supposed Fall in the Garden, or divine hiddenness (which one of these plants is God hiding behind to watch us?).

Fellow Blogger at Debunking Creationism, Nicholas Covington (aka AIGbusted), wrote a new book titled, Atheism and Naturalism. I haven’t seen it yet but he wanted me to mention it. Knowing him it's gotta be good.

I'm also getting some flack about a letter to the editor I wrote concerning the appropriateness of posting the Ten Commandments by Dr. Glenn Peoples, a Christian friend of mine who didn't adequately address my points.

Is it Self-Defeating to Argue on Behalf of Skepticism?

The answer is a resounding NO! Christians claim that it is and then try to drive a whole truckload of assumptions and beliefs through that small crevice. If, after all, it's self-defeating to argue on behalf of skepticism then, well, anything goes, including the inspiration of a canonical set of documents written by ancient superstitious people and the beliefs that are entailed within them by interpreters today (yesterday's interpreters got it wrong, you see). So even if it is self-defeating to be skeptical about skepticism Christians are completely wrong to make such a huge leap.

But in fact it's not self-defeating to argue on behalf of skepticism. Not by a long shot. Not even close. Skepticism is not a belief system. It's an approach to truth claims, a reasonable one at that. Skepticism is founded squarely on the science of human nature, psychology, and the science of culture, anthropology, for starters. We human beings are woefully illogical and gullible and trusting. We adopt the beliefs of the culture within which we were raised. We don't understand things very well. What we believe we prefer to believe. We don't see things correctly. What we see is filtered by what culture we were raised in. We won't even seriously consider we were led to believe something that is false. In fact, we may be personally offended and think anyone who disagrees is ignorant or stupid. That's how entrenched some cultural beliefs can be.

Based on these scientific studies we should be skeptical about what we believe. We should be skeptical about that which we were taught to believe. We should test claims and see if they have independent corroboration through science. We must think outside the box. Skepticism then is a virtue. Skepticism is the hallmark of an adult who thinks for himself. He refuses to believe something just because others tell him that's what the truth is. I see nothing self-defeating about this at all. If after approaching a truth claim with skepticism it passes muster, then the skeptic has good reasons to accept it. So the skeptic does accept certain claims to be true. No one can be skeptical of everything. It's just that each truth claim he tests for himself must pass the test of skepticism.

Now consider some odd sort of phenomena, and let's say there are only seven known theories to explain it, some more probable than others. The skeptic may deny outright three of them and weigh the others in the balance. Then he might conclude theory E is the best explanation for it. But he also acknowledges he could be wrong and even that there might appear an eighth theory to explain it that no one thought of yet. The non-skeptic may only consider one particular theory, the one he was taught to believe, and he may pronounce it to be true beyond what the evidence calls for, since there are other theories that have some degree of probability to them as well. Nonetheless, the non-skeptic acts with some measure of certainty that he's correct. He may not even consider the other theories at all, or if he does, he does so to refute them.

That's the difference. There is a huge difference between affirming a truth claim and denying one. The denial is the easy part, since there are many possible theories to explain a phenomena. The hard part is to affirm which one of them is the correct one. And there is also a huge difference between the level of assuredness the skeptic has of any truth claim he accepts, from the non-skeptic. The skeptic has the reasonable position, by far, and it simply is not self-defeating at all.

Church Attendance and Torture Approval - What's the Connection?

The circles I run in include a fair number of recovering fundies—people who were raised on the notion that morality comes from Jesus. In fact, the former Calvinists among us were taught that anyone who is not "washed in the blood" is utterly depraved. For real. A Seattle Calvinist mega-minister, Mark Driscoll, had this to say to his flock: "If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, there’s no reason for us to be here. If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, there are parties to be had, there are women to be had, there are guns to shoot, there are people to shoot." (Have you heard that Calvinism is all the rage?)

Children are hard-wired to be credulous, to accept what they are told—which means that this shit gets inside people at a gut level—which means it takes a lot of work to get it back out. Recovering fundies spend a fair bit of time reminding each other that just because something got wired into your brain before your critical faculties developed doesn’t mean it’s true. So of course last week’s Pew report about churchgoing and torture approval made the rounds.In case you missed it, Pew released survey data showing that the more frequently someone went to church, the more likely they were to approve of torture. (So much for total depravity on the outside.)

Church attendance in this case may be a proxy for conservative religious belief. Of the groups surveyed, Evangelical Christians were most likely to think that torture is often or sometimes ok (62%), followed by Catholics (51%), followed by mainline Protestants (46%). Nonbelievers were least likely to agree (40%).What’s the deal? Over at the Washington Post religion blog, On Faith, modernist theologian Susan Brooks Thistlewaite, suggested that maybe the problem is rooted in theology, what is called the "penal theory of atonement." Jesus gets torture and death because the rest of us deserve it. So through the twists and turns of theo-logic, Jesus getting tortured to death turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to the human race. It’s the way believers escape the fate that awaits the rest of us—and is a part of God’s perfect, loving plan.

"For Christian conservatives," Thistlewaite says, "severe pain and suffering are central to their theology." In evidence, she points to Evangelical enthusiasm for Mel Gibson’s movie, a theologically justified orgy of Hollywood torture. She has a point. Convinced of the film’s salvific merit, my mother’s church bussed in teens and made special arrangement for wheelchair-bound elderly. Wouldn’t want them to miss that half-hour beating scene.Does penal atonement theology lead to torture approval? Could be. A host of other hypotheses were suggested in response to Thistlewaite’s article, most of them none too flattering in their assessment of those Evangelical churchgoers:

--It’s political. They’ve allowed the GOP instead of the gospel to shape their thinking.
--They don’t think. Being a Christian requires you to torture logic every day.
--Christians have a higher duty to protect innocents than prisoners.
--Since God approves of torturing most of the human race for eternity it must be ok.
--Witch drowning, heretic burning, even medieval waterboarding – the Church has a lot of practice at torture.
--Evangelicalism is authoritarian—so is torture.
--Anyone who believes in torture isn’t a true Christian.
--They approve because it’s Muslims who are being tortured.
--The ends justify the means in saving souls; the ends justify the means elsewhere.
--Since Christian leaders are saved, they can do no wrong.
--Evangelical Christianity is a tribal religion, focused on distinguishing in-group from out-group, and out-group actors don’t have rights.
--Christians walk around with an instrument of torture dangling from their necks.
--Many Christians misunderstand the message of Christ.

After spending 10 years watching my tired father twitch in church, I’ll confess to my personal favorite: "Sometimes sermons are such that congregants who cannot fall asleep feel that torture is part of God's plan; this does not imply that they like it."

But one comment actually made me think. It was from a nonbeliever who expressed her dismay, not that so many Christians were willing to condone torture, but that so many nonbelievers did too. Christian fundamentalism may increase tolerance of torture, but if so, it is part of a broader problem.

Scholar Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade,The Real Wealth of Nations) offers a framework that may lend some relevant insights. Eisler proposes that all institutions, ideologies, and relationships can be thought of on a continuum from domination orientation to partnership orientation. In a domination orientation, people are caught up in the business of competing for control. You either eat or are eaten, and given the option, most people would rather be at the top of the food chain. Underlings use what power they do have: manipulation, deceit, passive resistance, even suicide. Those in power do harm, often because they perceive that the alternative is "being done to." Being the torturer is better than having your hands tied behind your back and a hood over your head.

Evangelical Christianity has a strong dominance orientation. The metaphor of "spiritual warfare" is ubiquitous. Onward Christian Soldiers. Dominionists seek to take control of the reins of power to rule the rest of us according to Biblical principles. In the church I grew up in, women were taught to submit, even to abuse. My pastor gave a full sermon on breaking the will of his two year old. Spare the rod . . .

But the rest of us are not immune from this mentality of domination either, which ultimately is a mentality of fear, the fear of exploitation or insufficiency. It’s so—primate. Unless the weaker monkey can sneak, the dominant monkey will eat all the grapes. Unless the weaker chimp can sneak, the dominant chimp will get to mate with all the best females. But even our primate cousins would have impossibly wretched lives without the rudiments of compassion and cooperation. Chimpanzees both seek help from one another and give it. Rhesus monkeys have been willing to starve for a week rather than shocking another monkey to get fed (Hauser, pp. 354-355). Their behavior reflects a complex blend of domination and partnership strategies dictated largely by instinct. But, our intelligence allows us more behavioral flexibility than any other species. We who call ourselves homo sapiens sapiens –wise, wise—have the power to understand fear and domination deeply and to orient our personal relationships and social institutions toward the other end of the continuum.

Even as old an institution as Christianity has the power to learn. That may be one of the most important take-aways from the Pew study. Yes, as many people pointed out, the Church has a history of embracing torture, sanctifying it theologically and using it to defend purity of belief. And yes, those Christians who are still stuck defending the "fundamental" belief agreements made in the Fourth Century may be stuck defending torture as well. But Christians like Thistlewaite who have been willing to re-evaluate the old regula fidei or rules of faith have moved both theologically and morally. Many mainliners center their theology not in "penal atonement" but in radical hospitality. Call it love. Like partnership oriented Humanists, Buddhists and others they teach their children how to think rather than what to think and don’t feel a need to "break" them to control their spiritual quest. If that doesn’t help us to outgrow torture, I don’t know what will.

A Letter to the Editor on the Posting of the Ten Commandments

Someone posted the Ten Commandments in a prominent place on his own property in our area. He was subsequently described as "courageous" in a letter to the editor. This is my brief response:

It doesn’t take courage to post the Ten Commandments on private property, as one person recently commented. That’s a right guaranteed by the first amendment which most people enthusiastically support and defend, including me. I wonder though, if this is the symbol Christian people really want to display to reflect their beliefs? There are three versions of the Ten Commandments, which were based to some degree on the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1795 – 1750 BC), and they don’t all agree with each other (Exodus 20; Exodus 34; Deuteronomy 4). Which one do you post?

The only commandments relevant to American law are the ones prohibiting homicide, theft and perjury, which are laws almost everyone wants enforced, for good reasons. Who, for instance, in our day wants to prosecute people for worshipping a different god, making a graven image of him, working on the Saturday Sabbath day, taking the Lord’s name in vain, not honoring their parents, committing adultery, or coveting another person’s property? We all know what happened when such laws were enforced by the church, now don’t we? We live in a democracy, not a theocracy, and for good reasons. The last one about not coveting reflects the ancient barbaric practice of a thought police, something which is still being enforced in some Muslim countries where people can be prosecuted for what they think!

Besides, what about some other commandments that aren’t listed but could be, like: “Thou shalt not buy, beat or own slaves,” “Thou shalt not treat people differently because of the color of their skin,” “"Thou shalt not treat women as inferior persons, nor shall you rape them or force them to marry a man they do not want to marry," “Thou shalt not kill or torture heretics or witches,” “Thou shalt not conduct Holy Wars,” or “Thou shalt not trap or abuse animals but treat them humanely.” I think those additions would’ve been very helpful down through the ages, don’t you?

Even if we regard the Ten Commandments as moral rules, aren’t they too restrictive? Is there any room for mitigating circumstances or exceptions? The history of ethical thinking reveals there are a great many exceptions to straightforward commands such as these. Is religious art a graven image to avoid? Should we always honor or obey our parents in everything, even if one tells us to do wrong or who molests us? One commandment states we should not kill, yet we see plenty of divinely sanctioned killings in the Bible, even genocide. Should we always tell the truth under all circumstances? I think not, and so do many religious people. I just think better symbols are available, that’s all.

Bart Ehrman On if He's Out to "Destroy the Christian Religion"

Ehrman answers this question for the Washington Post. Speaking about the fundamentalist faith in the Bible or in inerrancy he claims:

Throughout most of history most Christian thinkers would have been seen this view as theological nonsense. Or blasphemy. The Bible was never to be an object of faith. God through Christ was. Being a Christian meant believing in Christ, not believing in the Bible. Link

David over at the Unreligious Right Blog says this about Erhman's point:

This is also interesting from the atheist perspective, as atheists often attack Christianity by pointing out the many problems with the Bible. Such a line of argument can be effective with Christians who believe in the primacy of Biblical authority, or Biblical inerrancy, but is less compelling to those who hold more liberal versions of Christianity. Link.

I agree. That's why my focus is about debunking the ideas that Christians have gained from the Bible rather than the Bible itself. Besides, I have reasons for rejecting liberal Christianity as well.

There Will Be Saved Parasites in Heaven!

The Biblical text is clear in that neither Enoch (Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Genesis 5:24), Elijah (As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven. 2 Kings 2:11), Jesus and maybe even Moses {(Transfiguration (Matt 17:3 and parallels), in the Jewish work, The Assumption of Moses and its likely New Testament preservations in Acts 7:36 and Jude 8 - 9)} died, but were taken up into Heaven clothes, parasites and all!

While the parasites in the guts of Enoch and Elijah never died, but were translated to Heaven with them, the E. coli parasitic bacterium in the gut of Jesus died and were resurrected back to life by God along with the body of Jesus. Theologically not only are we talking about a single bodily resurrection, but millions of parasitic bacterium E. coli who were also bodily resurrected too…Glory! Praise God!

[Since some the resurrection narratives of Jesus are not coherent or expressed whether Jesus arose bodily or in spirit form only, some Gospels (such as Luke 24 below) went out of their way to prove a physical resurrection (To also counter the spiritual only view which later would be considered heretical), Jesus is not only handled by the apostles, but even eats food:

36 While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be to you.” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. (Codex Bezae reads: “they thought they saw a ghost”). 38 And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. 41 While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; (the Textus Receptus better know as the King James adds: and of an honeycomb.) 43 and He took it and ate it before them.]

So, according to Luke 24, Jesus’ E. coli parasites were also alive and still active in Jesus’ holy gut to help break down the fish (and, maybe even the honeycomb) Jesus ate telling us not only did God resurrect Jesus, but God resurrected the holy parasites that dwelled in the promised land of Jesus’ holy gut.

Thus, like the E. coli in the guts of the living Enoch, Elijah; Jesus’ resurrected E. coli were taken up to Heaven with Jesus too and now dwell up yonder only to return again to earth along with Jesus in the Second Coming!

Some Things of Interest on the Internet

You might want to take a look at Dr. Matt McCormick's post, Putting Odds on Jesus. Really, what are the odds? [BTW He's using my book in his class on atheism]. Ed Babinski sent me a link to the 7 Most Horrifying Parasites On the Planet. God is perfectly good, right? That site has many other interesting things on it you could spend a lot of time reading. William Lobdell's book, Losing My Religion was just recently given a rave review in the NY Times. Congratulations William! My own book will be reviewed by the overseas equivalent, The Literary Times Supplement. Bruce Droppings recently reviewed an interview of Pastor Dave Schmelzer and me where he says he was disappointed. Check it out to see why. Then don't forget to look over my friend James McGrath's hosting of the Biblical Studies Carnival 41. It's interesting to see what people are saying. Lastly I've received notice that some fine folks on Facebook are getting up a petition calling for a debate between my former professor William Lane Craig, and me.

Cheers.

Dr. David A. Dunning: "Most Incompetent People do Not Know That They are Incompetent."

On the contrary. People who do things badly, Dr. Dunning has found in studies...are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

While we can all ponder about this I've offered a good reason to think we at DC know what we're talking about right here. For those Bible thumpers out there who think we're ignorant and incompetent simply because they disagree with us, try listening to what your own Christian professors are saying about us. If we're ignorant and incompetent, then what do you say about them when they recommend and use my book in their college classes?

Christians Converting Christians to Christianity

From 1983-85 I worked in electronics with a Bob Jones University ministerial graduate who was getting support for the mission field. His country of choice was the Pacific nation of Guam; a country where over 90% of the population is Roman Catholic or, as he put it: Over 90% are lost.

The excerpts below are from several of his news letters to his mission board and supporting churches. In them he shares a few of the burdens the Lord has laid on his heart to win the Catholic false religionist to Christ:

“We have almost finished another door-by-door visit through the village of Agat. Many of the doors are posted with Catholic signs that clearly state that they are not interested in any other “religion”. Never the less we keep sowing, praying and watering and trust the Lord of the harvest to bring forth fruit. We are very thankful for those that He has brought in and rescued from the religion that the devil has used to blind their eyes. Our old folks’ home ministry is also still going well. God keeps the door open though we preach strong doctrinal messages that contradict the predominant religion of the residents. A few have professed faith in Jesus Christ.”

“That village is on the southern tip of Guam and has about 2,000 folks living there. Please pray that the hearts of the folks will be receptive to the gospel since it is very strong Catholic. During the meeting there was one soul saved. In the past month one of our members had the blessing of leading a niece to the Lord and a daughter to confirm her salvation.”

“I am sad to report that a Catholic lady Doris and I had witnessed to many times over the past five to six years went into eternity last week and to our knowledge she had not been saved. What a price to pay to be loyal to a false religion!”

Atheism Hits Southern Bible Belt!

More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops