Debunking Christianity

March 10, 2011

The Danger of Belief is Thinking You Believe What God Does

[Written by John W. Loftus] A study done by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago tells us all believers think God agrees with what they do about a host of non-related issues. Let me just quote from Discover Magazine’s “Creating God in One’s Own Image” (Nov. 30, 2009):

Epley asked different groups of volunteers to rate their own beliefs about important issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, the death penalty, the Iraq War, and the legalization of marijuana. The volunteers also had to speculate about God’s take on these issues, as well as the stances of an “average American”, Bill Gates (a celebrity with relatively unknown beliefs) and George Bush (a celebrity whose positions are well-known).

For many religious people, the popular question “What would Jesus do?” is essentially the same as “What would I do?” Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.

Epley surveyed commuters at a Boston train station, university undergraduates, and 1,000 adults from a nationally representative database. In every case, he found that people’s own attitudes and beliefs matched those they suggested for God more precisely than those they suggested for the other humans.

If this study shows us anything at all it should make believers less certain of what they pontificate about. In fact, this study falsifies faith itself, for there is no independent way to determine what God thinks, if he exists at all. Believers simply create their own religion, their own Gospel, and their own God in their own image.

This is a recipe for disaster since believers will claim they have a divine mandate for anything they think is the case.

March 09, 2011

On the Failure of God's Strategy

So many things to say about this and so little space. But think on this. Christians describe the world as a stage for a cosmic war. So what should God do with any skeptic who's aim is to dethrone him? He could continue allowing us to do what we do waiting for the time to sock it to us in hell. But our eternal fate would be equivalent to being blindsided with a divine sucker punch after the ending fight bell had rang. And waiting until that time seems unreasonable since we're leading others "astray" into eternal damnation, which isn't something I would want people to experience if I were God. I would think he would kill or silence the leading atheists late at night in mysterious ways when no one is looking. Or, he could give them their own undeniable personal miracle so they would believe. Or, God could personally visit them and explain enough of his mysterious ways for them to believe. Then too, God could simply snap his fingers and take away their critical thinking skills so that they would believe. Christians say it's all in his plan. Balderdash! Sounds inept to me. It's like God is a Jekyll and Hyde all rolled up into one. Don't quote the Bible to me. I know what it says. I'm questioning what it says. I do not believe it. Offer a reasonable answer. Tell me why his strategy is effective rather than a failure.

BBC - Wonders of the Universe - Episode 1: Destiny

Harry McCall on the Lies of God

Does God lie? He most certainly does according to the Bible. If so, how can we trust anything in it? Maybe God's plan is to send skeptics to heaven and gullible believers to hell? ;-) Ya just can't know.

Quote of the Day, by Jon Jeremy

There is a fairly simple diagnostic test for delusion: before starting any debate, just ask: "What kind of evidence would cause you to change your mind?" If the answer is 'none' then you've caught one of the deluded. Go on with the debate by all means, but treat it as a spectator sport rather than an attempt to convince your opponent.

"Is the Catholic Church a Force for Good?" by Stephen Fry

This is very well said!

Christopher Hitchens on 60 Minutes

Enjoy.

10 Questions That Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer

Enjoy:

How Do We Know Christians are Delusional?

Enjoy:

Proof That Islam is the Truth!

Yep, let's see other believers at the next Islamic worship service. Enjoy and convert now! So many believers, so sure of themselves, it all sounds the same. Because it is!

March 05, 2011

On Appreciating the Arguments of Ludwig Feuerbach

Feuerbach was a skeptical pioneer who influenced Karl Marx. The first edition of his influential skeptical book, The Essence of Christianity, was criticized widely by the public at large as "baseless." So in the Preface to the Second Edition two years later, he explains why so many people thought his work was bad, just like many Christians think my work is bad. While I'm not comparing myself to him, what he said in response was brilliant:

If Nothing Else Look at the Trend, From Conservative to Moderate to Liberal to Agnostic to Atheist

[Written by John W. Loftus] In Ed Babinski's book, Leaving The Fold: Testimonies Of Former Fundamentalists, published seven years ago, there are testimonies from former fundamentalists who became moderates, liberals, and even "ultra liberals," like Dewey Beegle, Harvey Cox, Conrad Hyers, Robert Price (who now describes himself as a "Christian atheist"), and seven others. We could add other names like Howard Van Till, Valerie Tarico, John Hick, Marcus Borg, John A. T. Robertson, James Wall, Andrew Furlong, and James Sennett. In another section there are testimonies of former fundamentalists who became agnostics, like Ed himself, Charles Templeton, Farrell Till, and five others. We could add other names like Robert Ingersoll, William Dever, Bart Ehrman, and William Lobdell. In still another section of his book there are former fundamentalists who became atheists, like Dan Barker, Jim Lippard, Harry McCall, Frank Zindler, and four others. We could add other names like Hector Avalos, Michael Shermer, Ken Daniels, Ken Pulliam, Jason Long, Joe Holman, Paul Tobin, myself and many many others. I can't remember all the names of the important people who left fundamentalist Christianity because there are simply too many of them to remember! If you read Ex.Christian.net, deconversion stories are posted there almost every day.

Dr. Richard Carrier On the Dark Ages

Richard reminded me he wrote on this subject a few years back. Enjoy. Below is the money quote:

Has God committed morally wrong actions? If God is the almighty creator of the universe, then there are countless instances where there was an event that God was either directly or indirectly causally responsible for that we would ordinarily identify as morally wrong. Consider the class of actions or omissions that we would identify as morally wrong if a moral agent had been present and had committed them or allowed them to happen. A person drowns by herself near a dock on a lake where a life vest sits on the dock. If a person had been standing next to the life vest and saw her drowning in the lake, but refrained from tossing the life vest to her, we would think of that failure to act as morally abhorrent. There are countless other events like these where it does not appear that God did what we would ordinarily have identified as the morally obligatory act. Therefore, it would appear that God has committed (or by omission allowed to happen) countless morally wrong events.

The Late Ken Pulliam on the Mind of the Believer

Dr. Pulliam only blogged for about a year before his untimely death in October 2010. But he did have something to say about neurology and the mind of the believer. He reviewed a few important books and studies that I'll link to below:

Dinesh D'Souza On Why We Need Earthquakes

D'Souza reviewed a book for Christianity Today titled, Rare Earth, written by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, which he recommends. The answer proffered is that without earthquakes, "the planet couldn't support creatures like us." Here's my response:

The Mind of the Believer, Revisited

As I said earlier, the more I read the contorted ways Christians try to gerrymander around the basic questions I ask of them and the more they retreat when I ask for evidence to believe, then the more I become interested in the psychological state of the mind of the believer. Even though I once believed, it continually amazes me to see how believers respond to what I write. That's why the next several books I plan on reading have to do with this topic, books that you can read for yourselves, three of which I have previously reviewed (or commented on).

So let me pursue this here, even though it's probably fruitless. Let's say Christianity is palpably false much in the same way as Christians think Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and Hinduism are palpably false. Let's also say that believers in all of these faiths are delusional by virtue of being indoctrinated (or brainwashed) by their cultural upbringing to believe. Let's say this is all true even though I cannot persuade devout believers this is in fact the case, for if this is the case then it's highly unlikely anything I say could convince them otherwise. Okay? Now let me put the following questions to you: If you are deluded by your faith would you want to know? Are you honestly interested in knowing whether or not your faith is true? Or, do you instead get a knee-jerk visceral reaction to any doubt producing argument? Do you come here to do battle with Satan himself, or do you view me as a human being who is sincerely expressing his doubts? Can you say you are willing to honestly consider what I write, or not? If not, why not?

Is God Omnipotent or Not?

Why is it that believers say God can do anything until I suggest a scenario that they don't like? This is yet another reason why I think Christians are delusional. It's crystal clear that what they think God can do depends on whether a given scenario is something that they like or not. It's much like how they deal with unanswered prayer. They count the hits and discount the misses. And it's much like giving God the credit for the good that happens in life and blaming human beings (or the devil) for everything else. I don't get it. Is God omnipotent or not? Let me give just one scenario concerning earthquakes which cause massive amounts of suffering.

CFI's New Campaign: Living Without Religion

I love it!

March 02, 2011

Why the Gods are Not Winning, by Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman

American opinion on the issue of human evolution from animals has been rock steady, about half agreeing, about half disagreeing, for a quarter century. What has changed is how people view the Bible. In the 1970s nearly four in ten took the testaments literally, just a little over one in ten thought it was a mixture of history, fables, and legends, a three to one ratio in favor of the Biblical view. Since then a persistent trend has seen literalism decline to between a quarter and a third of the population, and skeptics have doubled to nearly one in five. If the trend continues the fableists will equal and then surpass the literalists in a couple of decades. Link

10 Awful Truths About Book Publishing

Given the following ten awful truths about book publishing I'm very thankful to have a decent readership of my books:

1. The number of books being published in the U.S. has exploded.
2. Book industry sales are declining, despite the explosion of books published.
3. Average book sales are shockingly small, and falling fast.
4. A book has less than a 1% chance of being stocked in an average bookstore.
5. It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.
6. Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
7. Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers.
8. No other industry has so many new product introductions.
9. The digital revolution is expanding the number of products and sales channels but not increasing book sales.
10. The book publishing world is in a never-ending state of turmoil. Link.

The Delusional Mind at Work

People are chiming in against me and reveling in it. At last, "we've got him," they chant as they raise their glasses and sing songs to Jesus. "He's blatantly wrong, ignorantly wrong, palpably wrong, utterly wrong, completely wrong," they chant on into the night. What am I wrong about? That the Christian Middle Ages were the "Dark Ages." I pretty much stand by what I wrote, but here's what some are concluding from my being wrong:

Were the "Dark Ages" Really Dark?

I'm being taken to task for publishing a graph depicting the Medieval Ages as the "Dark Ages" leaving a huge gaping hole in Western history, which can be seen here. What some people failed to realize is the title to the post in which Augustinian Platonism shares a large part of the blame (no, it is not totally to blame). Augustine like Plato before him placed a much greater value on the heavenly world (the realm of the eternal "forms" or ideas) over the empirical earthly world.