Two Negative Reviews of the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF)

I find that people who disagree with a reasonable non-double standard test for religious faith cannot be reasoned with, for obvious reasons. How we test a truth claim has a great deal to do with the kind claim we're testing. Sometimes a poll can settle one type of claim. Other times we can settle a different claim by traveling somewhere. Counting spoons can test a certain type of claim, while sitting on a fluffy pillow can test a different one. Logic and/or math can test other types of truth claims. In testing some types of claims we rely heavily on one discipline of learning, while testing other claims we rely heavily on other disciplines of learning. Some claims demand testing from several different academic disciplines. It depends on the type of claim we're testing that determines how we test it.

Silly Sayings of Jesus: Don't Worry About Food or Clothes.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"                 Matthew 6:25-30 (ESV)

Really Jesus? Paris Hilton could have come up with something more sensible than that steaming pile! I mean, maybe you were doing that whole new-age guru, Deepak Chopra on Ecstacy thing… Pretty, birdies and flowers… bliss out baby! Sorry to harsh your buzz, but your words ring hollow in countries where sad-eyed children with arms like sticks, are starving to death. Try spouting your platitudes to a desperate mother who doesn’t have enough nutrition in her emaciated body to breast-feed her starving infant. “Life is more than food…”? Uh, no. If you go very long without food, life goes away. It’s called being dead. And clothes? Well, fashion isn’t important in the overall scheme of things, but a warm jacket can be helpful in not freezing to death in the winter.

What About the US Government Shutdown?

I don't say much about politics but this issue deserves some commentary and condemnation. I blame the Republican idiots, including my own Congressman who recently said: "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." -- Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.)



If you want to debate the issue then comment on the article, Obamacare's Real Glitch, which is utterly lacking in perspective.

Faith vs. Evidence - Why Religious Tolerance Always Wins

Peter Boghossian Highly Recommends My Work

Peter says some flattering things about my work at 51:09, for which I am very grateful:

Jonathan Pearce's Brief Review of My Book on the OTF

The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is intuitively simple.The multitude of religions require explaining from a theistic point of view, and until an adequate answer is given, skeptical agnosticism is the most reasonable position. That is common-sense. Loftus takes this idea and thoroughly defends it in a fully convincing and very readable manner.

I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did because I though that the argument was simple and obvious, but the way Loftus drew in quotes and arguments from a plethora of different sources meant that this book packs a really hefty punch and left me thinking, on many, many pages, that I must remember this quote or that quote.

I am hoping to do a more in depth view on the content of the book to post on my blog. I think this book deserves to be very widely read as the argument seems not to have any significant counters.

Jonathan writes a blog for SIN.

A Critical Review of the Book, "In Defense of the Bible," Cowan and Wilder's "Introduction"

As announced earlier I’m planning on reviewing select chapters in the new evangelical anthology, In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of Scripture, edited by Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder.[To read other entries in this series as I write them, just click on the "Defending the Bible" tag below this post].

So let me start by making some comments about the Introduction, co-written by editors Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder. While they introduce the chapters that follow, they also introduce how they view the Bible. Speaking for all the contributors to this book the authors claim the Bible is the inerrant word of God.

Christian Unity Means Assurance of Salvation

This was left on my car's windshield.

Folks, there is no more Hocus Pocus when it comes to Salvation; no sir!  We can KNOW we are saved simply by reading seventeen verses cherry picked straight from of the Bible’s 31,103 verses followed by reciting a simple “Sinner’s Prayer”.  Salvation can then be suddenly achieved without any doubts, questions and further study faster than Ernest Angley can say Jesus.    No more confusion; no more of that “lost” feeling; and no more being on God’s shit list on a toboggan ride straight to an eternal Hell fire.  So amen and thank you Jesus!

The tract tells me my next move is to contact the local Independent Baptist Church and let the pastor share in the joy of my salvation.  (You see, isn't Christian salvation so very simple and sure?  Not only that, but NOW I KNOW I’m “Saved” . . . beyond a shadow of a doubt!)

So let’s say, after meeting and rejoicing in my new salvation with Baptist Pastor Jim, I go home praising God only to find two Jehovah Witnesses on my porch.  I tell them that, without a doubt, I know I’m saved.  To my surprise, they don’t rejoice with me, but tell me I’ve been tricked by Satan into a counterfeit religion.  OK, maybe there was a misunderstanding here.  Hey, as Pastor Jim puts it,  I’m just a babe in Christ.

After 100 Years of Faithful Christian Service, God Calls a Church Home to Heaven

When I was a student at Columbia Theological Seminary, this was one church (out of more than several dozen) where we could do our required Supervised Ministry. As I watched the news account of the fire, I was left wondering just how believers would explain the reason this church caught fire and burnt, which took one-hundred fire fighters to extinguish and remains unknown. As an atheist I’m sorry this historical church burnt, but for us non-believers; hey, shit happens. However, I do have four questions for Christians: A. Did God cause the fire to test the congregation’s faith (a standard theological ploy often used as an excuse)? B. Did God cause the fire to punish disobedience and sin (Based on the Bible, God hates sin and punishes unforgiven sin both in this life and the next)? C. Did Satan attack and burn God’s house (In the New Testament, Satan is always at war with God)?
D. Or does shit simply happened and Christians really don’t have any better explanation than atheists in spite of their Christian faith?

Are Christians Stupid?

I have a friend who calls Christians “stupid people that believe in a fairytale, with whom one cannot have intelligent conversations.”

I have to disagree. I know many Christians who are quite intelligent.

Do Christians hold stupid beliefs? Absolutely. Are there Christians who are stupid? Undoubtedly. Just try and follow Pat Robertson’s rambling incoherencies, or pick a different clown from the televangelist freak parade. Are there certain groups or denominations within Christianity which tend to denigrate reason, and celebrate emotionalism and mindless belief? Most assuredly. But, haven’t we also encountered atheists who are uniformed about certain things and yet hold dogmatic assumptions nonetheless?

A Critical Review of the Book, "In Defense of the Bible," Edited by Steven Cowan and Terry Wilder

Beginning today I’m planning on reviewing select chapters in the new evangelical anthology, In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of Scripture, edited by Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder.[To read other entries in this series as I write them, just click on the "Defending the Bible" tag below this post].

In this first post I'm going to introduce the editors and make some general observations/criticisms about the book as a whole.

Let's Look at Subjective Religious Experiences This Way

What if ten thousand people went up to a mountain top, saw something, and then they all disagreed with what they saw, even people who largely agreed with each other? Even with this best possible analogy to subjective religious experiences we would still have a reason to think the lack of oxygen caused them all to hallucinate.

Five Myths About Jesus, by Reza Aslan

Reza Aslan is the author of the NY Times bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.These five myths about Jesus are largely accepted in the scholarly literature:

Quote of the Day, by AdamHazzard

"I'm increasingly convinced that the point of Christian apologetics is not to defend the faith, but to create the illusion that the faith is defensible."

"50 Great Myths About Atheism" is Now Available in Paperback!

Russell Blackford and Udo Shuklenk's excellent book, 50 Great Myths About Atheism, is now available in paperback. I've commented about it here, where in it they recommend my books. Get it. NOW!

Another Unsuccessful Effort to Defend Biblical Ethics

I really like Kenton Sparks personally, and I enjoyed working with him a bit when he was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sparks was even gracious enough to thank me in one of his previous books (Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and their Expression in the Hebrew Bible [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998) for helping him get started on that work.  I think that book still represents good scholarship.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the the same for his recent book, Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture (2012), though I give him credit for acknowledging that the ethical problems of the Bible are real.

Otherwise, you can read my full review recently published in the Review of Biblical Literature.

Five Questions Matthew Flannagan Hasn't Answered

Flannagan said: "As to the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) you'll see I have pointed out that argument is incoherent." Really? For a refresher on the OTF see this and the links to follow. Over three years ago I asked Flannagan to respond to five questions. So far he hasn't done so. Here they are again:

An Interview with Richard Dawkins on His New Memoir, Evolution and God.

"British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was catapulted to fame in 1976 with his first book, “The Selfish Gene.” It revolutionized Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution with the idea that genes are the keys to natural selection. Dawkins was the first professor for public understanding of science at Oxford University. And he is one of the world’s most outspoken atheists, author of “The God Delusion.” His latest book is the first volume of a two-part memoir titled An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. It covers his childhood in Africa through his mid-30s."

The audio interview on NPR can be heard HERE

On God and Objective Moral Values, One More Time

I don't think there is a way to break through the thick skulls of many Christians on this, but let's try again. When it comes to morality, overwhelming numbers of people hold to basic ethics (as opposed to dilemma ethics), expressed even by C.S. Lewis in his book, The Abolition of Man (even though I disagree with his conclusions). What best accounts for this? Certainly not any given provincial deity. Otherwise everyone should embrace the rest of the moralities commanded by these deities. Yet they conflict with each other over a wide assortment of moral issues (theocracy, homosexuality, marriage and divorce, chauvinism, war), and religious issues as well (praying five times a day facing Mecca, genuflecting, washing in the river Ganges, wearing burkas, eating habits, fasts, hair length), since after all, they are also required by these same deities. Moreover, within the Christian tradition itself, the one I know the best, there are serious disagreements in justifying a specific kind of Christian morality that go beyond what most everyone accepts as basic morality. In order to become informed of this there is no better book to read than J. Philip Wogaman's Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction. You see, Christians cannot come to an agreement about ethical theory much less the additional moral duties themselves.Come on, before you spout off the phrase "Christian morality" again, look at the facts. Stop your special pleading. Stop begging the question. There is no such thing as "Christian morality." Never has been. Probably never will be.

The Basis for Morality is Empathy

Do non-believers have a basis for saying some things cause harm? I think so. Just look at a burning child. We have a computer that computes the steps. Our brains. Such things cause harm. It's obvious. The basis for morality is empathy. The divine command theory has no room for it. If God is thought to command killing witches then empathy be damned. While there are two greatest commandments the only one that counts is the first one. Christians need not be concerned with the plight of human suffering, only loving the god in one's head.

An Interesting Book, Edited by John Brockman

Check it out: This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works

Wedding Pastor Disaster

In this video, we witness a host organism (the priest) whose infection with the God Virus has progressed to an extreme state. He is performing a wedding ceremony for two living, breathing, human beings, but all he can think about is how offended his Invisible Friend must be by the photographers who are documenting the wedding.

“This is not about the photography, this is about God.”

Uhhh, no Reverend Douchebag. This is about the couple getting married, and their happiness. They hired the photographers that you are trying to run off, to capture memories of what should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives.

Another Review of My Magnum Opus (Which Randal Rauser Still Has Not Read)

If I must gloat I'll let others do it for me. ;-)

Those Who Believe Only Biblical Faith Creates Morals and Ethics Need to Consider the Fact that Charles Manson Was a Bible Believer

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22: 6

Jesus said: Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10: 34

Raised by his fundamentalist Bible believing grandmother who required him to attend church and read the Bible daily plus memorize Bible verses, as an adult, Charles Manson was captivated by the blood, gore and prophecies in the Book of Revelation and saw himself and The Family as true believers ordained by God who would arise to rule a new post-apocalyptic world.

In a new biography, author Jeff Guinn looks at the strict religious world Charles Manson grew up in and how the Bible along with popular culture of the 1960’s created a religious psychopath.

An NPR audio interview with author Jeff Guinn about his new biography can be heard HERE

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