The More Conservative The Church, The Less Likely It's True

I think a solid case can be made for the title of this post. Hopefully some conservative Christians might even be able see this themselves in what follows (but I don't have my hopes up). Consider first the differences between conservative and liberal Christianities:

Liberal Christianity, broadly speaking, is a method of biblical hermeneutics, an undogmatic method of understanding God through the use of scripture by applying the same modern hermeneutics used to understand any ancient writings. Liberal Christianity does not claim to be a belief structure, and as such is not dependent upon any Church dogma or creedal statements. Unlike conservative varieties of Christianity, it has no unified set of propositional beliefs. The word liberal in liberal Christianity denotes a characteristic willingness to interpret scripture while attempting to achieve the Enlightenment ideal of objective point of view, without preconceived notions of the inerrancy of scripture or the correctness of Church dogma. LINK.

As Believers in God (James 2:19), Demons Could Serve at Homeless Soup Kitchen While Caring Atheists Can’t

Atheists forbidden to volunteer at soup kitchen

SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. —A group of Upstate atheists say that a local charity won't let them volunteer to help the homeless, but those who run the soup kitchen say that the atheists are just looking for publicity. Upstate Atheists, a group with about 200 members, say they offered to volunteer at the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen, but were turned away because they are not believers.

David Marshall Is Not Yet Ready for Prime Time, Loses Another Debate

He lost to Phil Zuckerman so badly that the church refuses to post the video. You can read up on this at Jerry Coyne's blog, who seems to cover most news that's worth covering, with a nice punch. LINK. You do remember the trashing Richard Carrier dealt to Marshall, don't you? If not, watch it and see. David Marshall is a joke, folks, and this is my judgment apart from his debates.

Another "Not a Real Christian" Christian Bites the Dirt

Married Youth Pastor

Victim of youth pastor sex abuse speaks out

"The abuse started with secret text messages which led to a sexual relationship between a teenager and married youth pastor."

As Goes the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), So Goes the New Testament and the Qur’an: Two New Posts for November and December

Original Enoch in Aramaic

Post 1:
Recent facts presented by Emmanuel Tov and other scholars of the Hebrew Bible have used textual evidence from the Qumran Scrolls to force a revision in the orthodox canonical assumptions that have long formed the matrix of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic belief systems. Reality has proven time and again that believers have depended on theological assumptions to apologetically defend the historicity of Biblical events which remains an imperative if these three major monotheistic religions are to have any textual base in historical reality.

Ted Cruz, Anointed King of Republicans?

Republican politics has been in a long-standing illicit affair with religion. Parachurch moral watchdog groups, Bible-banging Baptists and fertility-venerating Catholics all seek to use political means to enforce their peculiar views of human sexuality. Calvinistic theonomists want to impose Old Testament laws (including the death penalty for blasphemy and homosexuality).  In other words, a sort of unholy offspring of the good old days of the 1950's, married to an Iranian theocracy.

Another Anthology of Mine Will Be Published, "Christianity is Not Great"

Yep, and I'm as excited as can be. Prometheus Books has just accepted another book proposal of mine on the harms of Christian faith, titled after Christopher Hitchens's NY Times bestselling book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.It's slated for a Winter 2014 or Spring 2015 publication date. Here are the table of contents and a list of authors:Introduction

1) Religious Violence and the Harms of Christianity, by John W. Loftus


Part One: How Faith Fails:

2) The Failure of Christianity and Triumph of Reason, by Robert G. Ingersoll

3) The Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Christianity, by Victor J. Stenger

4) Faith, Epistemology, and Answering Socrates’ Question by Translation, by Peter Boghossian


Part Two: Political/Institutional Harms:

5) Love Your Enemy, Kill Your Enemy: Crusades, Inquisitions, and Centuries of Christian Violence, by David Eller

6) Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live: The Wicked Christian Witch Hunts, by John W. Loftus

7) They Will Make Good Slaves and Christians: Christianity, Colonialism, and the Destruction of Indigenous People, by David Eller

8) The Slave is the Owner’s Property: Christianity and the Savagery of Slavery, by John W. Loftus

9) Christianity and the Rise of American Democracy, by Richard Carrier


Part Three: Scientific Harms:

10) The Dark Ages, by Richard Carrier

11) The Christian Abuse of the Sanctity of Life, by Ronald A. Lindsay

12) The Gender Binary & LGBTI People: Religious Myth and Medical Malpractice, by Veronica Drantz

13) Christianity Can Be Hazardous to Your Health, by Harriet Hall

14) Christianity and the Environment, by William R. Patterson

15) Doth God Take Care For Oxen?: Christianity’s Acrimony Against Animals, by John W. Loftus


Part Four: Social & Moral Harms:

16) The Cultural Wars, by Ed Brayton

17) Woman, What Have I To Do With Thee?: Christianity’s War Against Women, by Annie Laurie Gaylor

18) Secular Sexuality: A Direct Challenge to Christianity, by Darrel W. Ray

19) Psychological Harms of Christianity, by Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico

20) Abusive Pastors and Churches, by Nathan Phelps


Part Five: Morality, Atheism and a Good Life

21) “Tu Quoque, Atheism?” - Our Right to Judge, by Jonathan Pearce

22) Only Humans Can Solve the Problems of the World, by James A. Lindsay

23) Living Without God, by Russell Blackford

About the Contributors

More details will follow in the months to come. This will be a superior book without peer since it has superior contributors writing substantive chapters on many of the most important issues.

Peter Boghossian's Book is Now Available!

It's titled, A Manual for Creating Atheists, and from the looks of it he's taking Amazon by storm!Everyone interested in the atheist versus faith debate should get it, NOW!

The Evidence from Guilt Argument

In a previous post I summed up the evidence for Christianity, which you can read here. I think I missed something. Guilt. We all feel guilty at times for something we did or didn't do. Religions pounce on this. Almost all of them. It's used as a wedge to open up the mind for faith. There is something wrong with us. We desire to do good and yet too often we don't. We even have false guilt, accepting responsibility for something that wasn't our fault. Religions were created to provide the solutions, almost all of them. They offer a way to find forgiveness, along with a way to behave better. Religions therefore thrive on guilt. C.S. Lewis made this a centerpiece in his classic book, Mere Christianity. However, if guilt is considered as evidence for religion then it favors none of them because it equally supports them all. Evidence that equally supports mutually contradictory religions cannot be considered as evidence for any of them.

Articulett Does it Again!

If you visit here at DC then eventually you'll run into articulett (or she will run into you!). She is a High School teacher with a master's degree, and that's all I'll tell you. She is also an administrator here but doesn't exercise her powers much at all. She has never written one post. But she is a pit-bull when it comes to unevidenced supernatural magical beliefs. I admire her tenacity and her use of words. She helps me deal with the comments of believers, and like all of my posse, I appreciate this so very much! I actually met articulett in Vegas when I was at TAM in July (that's James Randi's, The Amazing Meeting). She is a very delightful person. We laughed a lot. She has become quite the advocate of the Outsider Test For Faith (OTF) too, and you know that's music to my ears. Here are some recent quotes of hers. Enjoy.

R. Douglas Geivett On, "Can And Would God Speak to Us?"

R. Douglas Geivett

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].

This time up is R. Douglas Geivett's chapter, "Can and Would God Speak to us?" (pp. 13-46). It's set as a dialogue much like some of the books written by Plato, Berkeley, Galileo, and Hume.

Who Cares About Certainty? We Have Virtual Certainty!

It isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that probability is all that matters when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. It it isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that sufficient objective evidence is all that matters when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. It it isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that evidence based reasoning is all that matters when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. Since evidence based reasoning is science based reasoning, it's likewise true to say that it isn't certain, but it's virtually certain that science based reasoning is all that matters when it comes to understanding the nature of the universe. If anyone can provide a better method for understanding the nature of the universe then what is it? Faith has no method at all.

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: