John W. Loftus vs Randal Rauser Debate the Existence of God

This debate took place in Dr. Rauser's home church in Edmonton, Canada, on June 5, 2013. Enjoy.

I Have Never Read a More Anti-Woman Text Than "The Witch Hammer"

I'm doing some research for a chapter on the witch-hunts for my new anthology, "Christianity is Not Great." A description of it and a link to the chapters can be seen here. The Malleus Maleficarum (literally "The hammer of malefactresses, i.e. wrongdoing women, or witches) is a treatise on the prosecution of witches that was written by Heinrich Kramer (and James Sprenger) in 1486.

The main purpose of it was to argue that witchcraft exists, that witches were more often women than men, and to provide magistrates with guidelines that could help them find and convict them. In the Introduction to this work, published in 1948 by Dover Publications, translator Montague Summers wrote:

It is hardly disputed that in the whole vast literature of witchcraft, the most prominent, the most important, the most authoritative volume is the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer) of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger...The Malleus lay on the bench of every magistrate. It was the ultimate, irrefutable, unarguable authority. It was implicitly accepted not only by Catholic but by Protestant legislatures. In fine, it is not too much to say that the Malleus Maleficarum is among the most important, wisest, and weightiest books of the world.

Note the word "wisest"? He was clearly a witch-hunt sympathizer. Nonetheless, given the influence of this witch-hunt manual I find it incredibly dense for Christians to say their faith was the motivator for the emancipation of women. It can't be. Just see for yourselves with selected quotes:

Sam Harris - Morality and the Christian God

A few weeks ago Sam Harris asked for volunteers to remix a clip from his William Lane Craig debate into a video.  Here is one very powerful result.

An Atheist's Perspective on Thanksgiving

For religious people, the standard setting for the giving of thanks is entirely incidental to the meaning of the occasion. The family around the table, the turkey or ham, the football game — all of these are just props and ritual. None is essential to thanking God.

What for a religious person, though, is just the setting of Thanksgiving is for the atheist the entire celebration itself. Family and fun, and marking the change of the seasons, is its only meaning and significance.

I suppose that to a religious person an atheist Thanksgiving must appear a thin thing, lacking reverence and grandeur. But then, again, a person who reveres a grand God must feel diminished in her own eyes. Giving thanks to God must engender in the religious the sense that they are powerless supplicants to a higher reality. Another thing we atheists are happy about, then, is that nothing at all depends on the will of a spirit in the sky.

The quote above is from Mark Mercer, chairman of the Philosophy department at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Submitted by J. M. Green

Today I'm a Very Grateful Person

Today I am thankful for my life, liberty and the ability to pursue happiness. I'm thankful for my health, my family and my friends. I'm thankful for the people who appreciate my work who recommend it and defend it against objections to the contrary. Today I am a very grateful person. I am usually this way though, so there isn't any change because it's Thanksgiving Day. It's the best way to live life if possible. Here's wishing the less fortunate among my friends can at least appreciate the simple things in life. When life seems frustrating or debilitating then just focus on breathing if nothing else.

Dr. Vincent Torley is Clearly and Obviously Delusional, Sorry to Say

In a comment on this blog Torley claimed "either God exists or scientific knowledge is impossible." Then over at Uncommon Descent Torley was arguing against Sean Carroll's excellent video talk, "Is God a Good Theory" (seen below), and in response he says:

The existence of God is as certain as the fact that our scientific inferences are well-grounded, since it is God Himself Who grounds them. My certainty about God’s existence is roughly on a par with my certainty that an apple thrown up in the air will fall back to Earth in a lawlike fashion, and not fly off into space or zoom around the room.

The god he's certain about is,

Someone (beyond space and time) Whose nature it is to know and love in a perfect and unlimited way, Whose mode of acting is simply to know, love and choose (without anything more basic underlying these acts), Who is the Creator and Conserver of the natural world, and Who is therefore capable of making anything He wishes to, provided that it’s consistent with His nature as a perfectly intelligent and loving being, and with His other choices.

[Actually, Torley is being disingenuous here and won't honestly admit it, since by extension he's also certain his evangelical trinitarian, incarnational, redeeming god exists, who is supposedly based in the pages of an inspired Bible, but I'll let that slide. If he's not certain of this, then what degree of probability would he say these additional beliefs of his warrant?] Now if Torley is a rational person unaffected by the irrationalities of faith, then he can be brought to his senses with just two facts. If not, then he cannot be helped, just like a heavily indoctrinated Moonie, or Mormon, or Muslim cannot be helped.

Dr. Vincent Torley vs Dr. Randal Rauser

Torley spends a great deal of time defending the indefensible. This time he calls out Rauser, which I find interesting and funny. To read what he wrote you can do so right here, under the heading, "Does the reliability of associative knowledge in animals legitimize scientific inference?"

In an article on his Website, Debunking Christianity, the well-known skeptic and former preacher John Loftus, M.A., M.Div., author of Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity, defends the possibility of scientific knowledge along the following lines:

“If there is no God then we don’t know anything.” False. If so, chimps don’t know anything either. They don’t know how to get food, or mate or even where to live. Without knowing anything they should’ve died off a long time ago. And yet here they are. They don’t need a god to know these things. Why do we need a god for knowledge? We learn through a process of trial and error. Since we’ve survived as a human species, we have acquired reliable knowledge about our world. Period.

"There are several things wrong with this argument," Torley writes.

A Snapshot of the Back Cover of "The Christian Delusion"

I tire of elitist Christian apologists who want more atheist philosophers of the stature of Graham Oppy and the late Jordan Howard Sobel. There is just something about this that annoys me, not because these two towering atheists don't destroy the God-hypothesis. They do. It's because Christians are trying to skirt the real basis for their faith, the historical lack of evidence for the reliability of the Bible. I really think Christians love good atheist philosophy because it doesn't actually challenge their faith. This is something I wrote about here. Okay then, Graham Oppy recommends at least two of my books. Click on the back cover of my book, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, to see what he wrote about it.Now what? Say he didn't mean what he said? Say it wasn't really a good endorsement after all? If it isn't that good of a book why would he write a blurb for it at all? Get it. See for yourself.

John's Top 30 Substantive Posts in 2013

This year I've tried to categorize them rather than list them in order of importance. Enjoy. Again, this listing might be changed slightly as the end of the year approaches.

An Interview With Guy P. Harrison

The following interview was conducted by "The Promethean" which is the email newsletter of Prometheus Books. Enjoy.

Family Secrets: Is Your Heavenly Father A Psychopath?

In the powerful movie Music Box, Jessica Lange plays Anne, a lawyer defending her Hungarian-American father against charges of being a war criminal who tortured Jews in the Holocaust.  Anne finds these charges to be unthinkable, given that she knows her father to be a loving man. Tensions rise as the prosecuting lawyer claims that the caring father she knows is a carefully-constructed persona which hides the true nature of his past.  Anne manages to secure evidence which results in the dismissal of the charges against her father, but the prosecutor urges her to stop living in a fantasy world, and to dig deeper into her father’s past, to find the truth.   Anne finds herself facing a difficult choice:  pursue the truth at great personal cost, or settle for the easy answers and safe world of what she has always thought to be true

The movie serves as a powerful illustration of the mental trauma which Christians face when they are first confronted with rumors of unsavory secrets in their family history.  Could the loving Heavenly Father which they have known actually be a brutal and heartless psychopath?   Do they dare stir the dust of doubt by digging around in the ancient archives of Yahweh, reading what was written about him in old diaries and tattered documents?

Photo of John W. Loftus

John W. Loftus

I just thought I'd put this picture of myself out there. It isn't a high quality one, but it should be good enough for the web. People who want to review my books or work in general (or trash them) will be able to find it online with a search. I'm wearing a new hat I just got. Yes, I like hats, black ones mostly.

You are looking into the eyes of a guy who is single-mindedly focused on destroying the Christian faith.

The Inputs of Science Are Better Ones

The inputs of cold hard scientific evidence are better ones. Let's say some scientific experiment proved we don't have free will. Then can you hear a Christian say we have no reason to trust the results, since if so, then we don't have free will, which is considered a pre-requisite to knowing the truth? Why shouldn't we trust the results even if we don't have free will? Again, the inputs of science are better ones. Period. If believers still disagree we just need to show them the results. And if the results are as I suggested, then they must accept them if they want to be intellectually honest, despite the fact that coming to that conclusion was determined by those results.

But look what has happened in the comments right here when it came to the problem of suffering and a good God. A typical (yet respectful) Christian showed up. He sidetracked the issue to talk about free will. It's not enough to say the video is powerful. He needs to explain why God does nothing discernible to alleviate the massive amount of suffering in the world. I tire of this. I really really do. When presenting what appears to be a slam dunk case against faith they will always, always, always divert the discussion. This is absolutely pathetic. This is what Christians must ALWAYS do rather than be honest with the empirical evidence. Skirt it. Typical. Delusional. Sick in the head. There is a virus inside them, a mind virus. It will not let them entertain the simple facts of experience. But this is illustrative of what I see so often, that if I had a dollar for every time it happened I could possibly be rich. Christian do you now see why I say you are deluded? Why you have a mind virus. It has attached itself to you and controls your thoughts so you don't even know it's there. You need our help.

Sam Harris on Morality and the Christian God

Peter Boghossian is Taking the World By Storm

...and creating one as well. Here are some links to the conversation and/or debate from Religion News Source, from Jerry Coyne who uses his definition of faith in his article for Slate titled, "No Faith in Science," from The Thinking Christian, and from his interview for the Secular World Outpost. Finally he shared the stage with Richard Dawkins:

With religion people were usually never argued into it in the first place, so they usually cannot be argued out of it.

Once religious people can admit this fact, then and only then do they have the potential for questioning what seems so obvious to them. But studies show they won't even admit this against the overwhelming evidence of psychological studies. Here then is an excerpt from The Outsider Test for Faith(OTF):

The Massively Incompetent Christian Revelation

A good friend sent me an ad he's placing in magazines and newspapers with this as a title. It's really good. See what you think:

Ever Wonder Why Religious Ignorance Breeds Dogmatic Belief?

Join Us!

My sixty plus years dealing with Christianity will let me provide a real Christian Truth:

Belief and missionary commitment are inversely proportional to one’s Biblical and Christian objective educational level, but directly proportional to one’s subjective indoctrination level.

Belief in God: What’s the Harm? (Rush Limbaugh Edition)

Right Wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh likes to refer to himself a “talent on loan from God”.  He will be today’s exhibit of how beliefs have consequences, and how religious beliefs can cause harm
.

On the subject of human-caused global warming, Rush (who has millions of listeners) has said:  

"If you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in man-made global warming. You must be agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something he can't create.  It’s always been one of the reasons for my anti man-made global warming stance." 

The purpose of this blog post is not to generate arguments over global warming. I merely offer  the Limbaugh quote as an example of how a religious belief can drive irresponsible and dangerous attitudes which could have far-reaching implications for the planet.

Dan Barker is Writing a New Book On Life, Meaning, Purpose and Morality

It's tentatively titled: Life Driven Purpose: How An Atheist Finds Meaning (Foreword by Daniel Dennett). He's not offering reasons to reject faith but he does recommend some works that do, in these words: "A wealth of positive and negative criticism of faith can be found in the writings of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, the late Christopher Hitchens, Vic Stenger, Sam Harris, John Loftus, and many other capable writers." Wow, that's a nice list of people to be mentioned in the same sentence with. I'm humbled and very grateful. Thanks so very much Dan!

I was also honored that he asked for a blurb based on a draft of his book. Keep your eyes pealed for this one. I don't have an idea when it will be published. Here's my blurb:

"Dan says he's certainly not pretending to be a Deacon of Atheism or Bishop of Freethought, but he is. In this book Deacon Dan (aka Bishop Barker) uses good scholarship in offering convincing answers to some of the most important reasons why believers keep on believing despite the lack of sufficient evidence. Writing with the wit and story-telling of a preacher, this series of "sermons" will definitely reach the masses. I heartily endorse it. May it produce a revival, one of reason, logic and science." -- John W. Loftus, author of Why I Became An Atheist, The Outsider Test for Faith, and co-author of God or Godless?

Sam Harris - It Is Always Now!

Jesus Blames God (not Satan) for Human Suffering

As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9: 1 -3)

Here’s my commentary on these three verses in a nutshell:

Believing in Christianity is Irrational!

Let's try this again folks. The evidence for Christianity is historical evidence from the ancient superstitious pre-scientific past. That's it. Private subjective experiences do not count, since all believers claim to have them. Miracle claims in today's world do not count either, since the evidence for them doesn't even convince believers in the same faith tradition, much less other faith traditions. Just think Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, and Oral Roberts, or the many claims coming from Asia and the Southern Hemisphere which only convinces Pentecostals and Charismatics. The evidence does not convince many or even most evangelicals, much less moderates, even less so liberals. The evidence for them certainty doesn't convince people outside one's own faith tradition. Protestants don't accept the Catholic miracle claims at Lourdes, France, at the hands of the Virgin Mary, while Christians don't accept the Hindu claims of being healed in the Ganges river. Philosophical apologetics isn't evidence at all. This is merely argumentation that should be based on solid objective evidence or discarded as special pleading, as I have argued in some detail right here. For a Christian to say, "okay, but these kinds of things are still evidence for me," is quite plainly irrational. There is no such thing as privately convincing evidence. Evidence, if it's to be considered as such, is objective evidence, public evidence, evidence that can convince other rational people.

Through the process of elimination then, the evidence for Christianity is historical evidence from the ancient superstitious pre-scientific past, and that's it. Period. I don't see how any sane informed person can disagree. Really. This evidence is supposed to be good enough to convince rational outsiders that God sent his incarnate son to this planet, via a virgin, to atone for our sins, who subsequently was raised from the dead and will eventually reward believers and condemn nonbelievers. I have looked at this supposed evidence and it doesn't produce a scintilla of a reason to accept it. So let me take a different, surprising tact, to help believers see why this is the case.

Christian Excuses for God's Inactivity, Redux

News Headine: Tornadoes Kill 6, Injure Dozens, Destroy Hundreds of Homes in Midwest. I live in an area affected by this and was a bit worried, having to drive at the time it hit. If God was aiming at me then he missed yet again. Whew! Close call, that one. :-) Anyway, once again here are the top 10 Christian responses to this kind of tragedy, and my decisive rebuttals.

Am I a Poor Philosopher?

Randal Rauser seems to think so in agreement with a recent Christian review of our co-written book, God or Godless?: One Atheist. One Christian. Twenty Controversial Questions. (Not entirely sure).Rauser is also taken to task and he responds, right here. But given one of the charges against him, is he also a poor philosopher? You see, Rauser is accused of begging the question. In fact, he's even accused of not knowing what that means. I for one think Rauser does know what that means, but I'd have to agree with the reviewer that he does beg the question. Actually, to be more precise, he is special pleading his case. Don't all Christian apologists do that?