Where, Oh, Where Have All the Virgins Gone?

I have a confession to make. 

I was raised in a religious cult. Uh-oh, here we go again you may be thinking, another cult victim writing about her experiences. I understand how the stories may begin to blur in our collective minds. There really are so many of them. It shouldn’t surprise us though. After all, perhaps more than any other country in modern times, America is home to the Christian cult or what I like to refer to as the cross-eyed cousins of Christianity. You know what I’m talking about. An endless array of bizarre belief systems that have either sprung up from a single individual, usually a male, and then attracted a following or a splinter group that felt the need to redeem a church with stricter interpretations of the scriptures. These wacky doodle groups abound in the US like no other country in the western world. There’s nothing mainstream about them AT ALL. My father was one of those lone wolves who believed he had been called out from among them to be separate. The voices in his head literally told him that he was the last prophet of the last day and age. Lucky me. I was ten when he converted and it was a rough ride until I was old enough to finally leave home.

Telling Off God, the Supreme Procrastinator

A review of Fernando Alcántar’s book, To the Cross and Back

“Well, you never were a real Christian.” I sometimes hear this from pious folks who can’t process my transition from Methodist pastor to atheist. They know that their ‘walk with the Lord’—their personal relationship with Jesus—is so authentic. They’re pretty sure I never had that.

And they’re right. I believed in God and I knew that Jesus was his son, but it was alien, under my mother’s devout tutelage, to speak of ‘having a walk with the Lord.’ Nor did it occur to her—no matter how sincere our prayers—that Jesus could somehow be a pal or friend. Perhaps my atheism is easier to explain since I failed to make that personal connection with Jesus; atheism is impossible once that has happened. Because Jesus is so real.

The Outsider Perspective Helps Believers in Two Ways

I am arguing for a test to help believers examine their own faith fairly and honestly, without any special pleading or double standards. I am not specifically arguing any particular faith is false, hence no rebutting defeater. Nor am I specifically arguing on behalf of a different religious faith, hence no undercutting defeater either. How, for instance, does a fair test for religious truth argue for or against anything? This should be seen in the first few pages of my book.

I do think the test leads to unbelief, but that's a separate discussion. I can't even help most believers agree to this fair test, much less help them to abandon their faith.

The outsider test is designed to help believers see the need for requiring sufficient objective evidence. Believers can play lip service to this requirement by saying they accept it. But what is meant isn't always readily apparent. So the test also helps them see what is meant by sufficient objective evidence. That's it. In other words, the outsider test helps believers twice-over. It's both a test and a teaching tool. The test helps believers to accept the requirement for sufficient objective evidence (all by itself a hard task!). But it goes on to teach believers what it means by forcing them to consider how they reasonably examine the other religious faiths they reject. It teaches them to apply the same single standard across the board to their own religious faith.

If someone already accepts the requirement for sufficient objective evidence that person doesn't need the outsider test. To the degree then, that belief is involved--especially the kind that blinds people from seeing the need to require sufficient objective evidence--to that same degree the belief should be subjected to an outsider's perspective. And there is no better way to know who needs the outsider perspective than the believer who adamantly refuses to require sufficient objective evidence for their beliefs.

In other words, to the degree believers reject the outsider perspective is to the same degree they are the ones who need it the most.

A Facebook Discussion On Who Has the Burden of Proof

Here's an insightful discussion with a young would-be apologist named Cameron Bertuzzi. It took place after I posted QualiaSoup's fantastic video on "Who has the burden of proof?" Note how many times Cameron says my criteria for knowing which religion is true, if there is one, are self-refuting. And what is my criterion? The criterion of sufficient objective evidence. The delusion is very strong with him to think this is a reasonable answer. Faith has a blinding effect on believers. It's plain and simple. It's clear and obvious. To see this portrayed in the best possible way watch the video I share below. It offers three tests for how well you can count. My bet is you will be wrong.

Introducing our discussion I had said: "I've long been a fan of QualiaSoup. This video is on who has the burden of proof. He nails it! Believers who make extraordinary bizarre supernatural claims do, that's who."

Who Has the Burden of Proof?

I've long been a fan of QualiaSoup. This video is on who has the burden of proof. Believers who make extraordinary bizarre supernatural claims do, that's who. He nails it!

Do We Have Free Will? Part 2: Relativity

As I mentioned last time, there are both causal and non-causal varieties of determinism. Most people think of determinism only in terms of the former: events are determined, they might say, if they are the result of prior states along with strict laws of cause and effect (so that given those prior states and laws, the events could not have failed to occur). But historically there have also been arguments for determinism that have nothing to do with causation, such as logical determinism and the type of theological determinism based on God’s foreknowledge (as opposed to God’s foreordination).

I’ll return to theological determinism next time. Today, I want to talk about a much less well-known kind of non-causal determinism.

According to the theory of relativity, there is no absolute “now,” or present moment. What for you are two simultaneous events won’t necessarily be simultaneous for someone else. So, for instance, take what is going on in a galaxy far, far away at the moment you are reading this. There are events occurring there that, from your perspective, are occurring right now. You can’t know about them yet, of course. If the galaxy is, say, 2.5 million light years away, then you have to wait 2.5 million years for its light to reach us. But if you look at it then, you will see what was happening there at the time you were reading this (approximately). However, you can’t say that those events that for you are occurring right now are occurring right now in any absolute sense — because for someone else right now who is travelling relative to you, what is going on in that galaxy will be some other set of events. But that means the universe as a whole cannot be absolutely divided at each moment into past, present and future.

How Much Faith Must the Faithful Have?

Exactly how much faith must the faithful have? If I had a dollar for every time a believer smiled serenely at my pesky questions and then replied with the ultimate slap in my logical face: 

“God requires that we have faith,” 

I’d have accrued a sizable little nest egg by now. It’s the deal breaker reply for me and the believer. Stop the train! Let me get off right now. There’s nothing else that I can say. The ardent believer really BELIEVES that they won the argument with a non-argument. God’s tricky like that, apparently. If I insist on proof that she’s there, she gets offended. 

Why can’t I just believe? 

What’s wrong with ME, not what’s wrong with the expectation that I’m required to just have faith that some kind of god is out there, minding my personal business no less. 

Why Faith? Reviewing Mittelberg's Book "Confident Faith" Part 3

Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, sought-after speaker, and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic Evangelism, in partnership with Houston Baptist University. He wrote the book Confident Faith: Building a Firm Foundation for Your Belief (2013)—which won the Outreach Magazine's 2014 apologetics book of the year award. Yet, it appears his book has been flying under the atheist radar—so far. I aim to rectify that with a few posts offering my thoughts and criticisms of it.

The third important matter that comes to mind is to wonder what Mittelberg was thinking when he defined faith? He defines faith as "beliefs and actions that are based on something considered to be trustworthy--even in the absence of proof" (p. 2). According to Mittelberg then, if your conclusions (i.e., beliefs) and actions are located above the threshold of what is trustworthy, you have a reasonable faith. If they are located below that threshold, you have an unreasonable faith. His main polemical point is that everyone has faith. For if we base our conclusions on anything less than absolute proof we do so on faith.

Mittelberg brashly tells readers Richard Dawkins has faith because on his 1-7 spectrum of atheist probability Dawkins is only a 6.9! Dawkins's conclusion, he says, "is a belief that he holds in the absence of real proof...one that goes beyond what can be known with certainty." (p. 4) "Dawkins doesn't know there is no God...Rather he takes it on faith there is actually no God" (p. 4, italics from Mittelberg). Dawkins "exhibits what might best be described as a religious faith" Mittelberg says, because he can only say God "almost certainly does not exist" (p. 141, italics from Mittelberg).

Quote of the Day By Sir_Russ On the Outsider Perspective

The outsider perspective has the capacity to protect people from the consequences of ignorance, whether it's mine or the profound institutional immorality and ignorance of the Christian informed-by-God church. Everyone needs to be protected from the God-informed Christian church's ignorance, superstition and barbarism, and that can only happen by embracing outsider perspectives like those of secularism and science.

Why Apologetics Books? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 2

Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, sought-after speaker, and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic Evangelism, in partnership with Houston Baptist University. He wrote the book Confident Faith: Building a Firm Foundation for Your Belief (2013)—which won the Outreach Magazine's 2014 apologetics book of the year award. Yet, it appears his book has been flying under the atheist radar—so far. I aim to rectify that with a few posts offering my thoughts and criticisms of it.

Mark begins by telling us what he aims to do. Is this an investigative book giving the pros and cons of Christianity, letting reader decide? No, of course not. It's a polemical book. Does it aim to convince nonbelievers and people of different faiths? Again, no, not primarily anyway. As the subtitle says, it aims to build "a firm foundation for your belief (i.e., your Christian belief)." I know publishers have a big influence on the titles of books. Yet Mark says he's writing mainly for Christians, and only secondarily for others. He says, "if you're a Christian, how certain are you that your faith is based on reliable information--that it's really true? This book will help you answer that question. And if you believe something other than Christianity, how can you test your beliefs if they square with reality? We'll address that issue too." (p. xi)

Apologist Steve Hays On the Outsider Perspective and the Historian

I copied this debate we had on Facebook. I can't get the pages sized the same, oh well. I typed much of it on the fly using my phone, so I could have done a bit better if I had a computer. I think I did very well. There's new stuff here. It would be well worth your time to read it to better learn how to answer believers.

Getting the Gospels Off on the Wrong Foot

The strange Jesus in Mark’s story

The Christian church has managed to pull off one of the biggest con jobs in history. It got away with it, I suppose, because lay people did not have access to reading the gospels for the first 1,500 years of Christian history. The laity trusted their priests that Christ the Redeemer was all that mattered; hence the down-and-dirty details in the gospels went unnoticed. As Richard Carrier has put it, “What Jesus did on earth was irrelevant to what he could do for you now that he was exalted in heaven, and it was the heavenly Jesus that was sold to the masses, not some dead carpenter from Galilee.” (The End of Christianity, 2011, ed. John Loftus)

That was the con. Part of which, also, has been the relentless marketing of the good, holy Jesus. For the lay consumers, he has been represented in stained glass, countless works of fine and mediocre art, romanticized and sanitized Bible storybooks, novels, choral works, and hymns. These days people ask, “What would Jesus Do?” assuming that he is the ultimate moral arbiter.

What If You Had to Dance the Polka to Get to Heaven?

“Honey, please, don’t worry about grandma. She’s in heaven with the angels now. Grandpa is with her and Aunt Rosie and even little Fido. Grandma is happy and someday we’ll see her again.” 

Such beautiful words that on the surface seem harmless enough. 

Of course, to tell anyone, especially our children, such a fantastical story is a big fat lie. I can understand why people love this story. It’s comforting even to an adult to believe that those who have passed on are reunited with family and waiting happily for us to join them some day. Who wouldn’t love for that to be true, especially when you consider how terrifying life can be. We’d all like to believe that we have something better to look forward to someday.

An Introduction to Mark Mittelberg's Book "Confident Faith" Part 1

Mark Mittelberg

Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, sought-after speaker, and the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic Evangelism, in partnership with Houston Baptist University. He wrote the book Confident Faith: Building a Firm Foundation for Your Belief (2013)—which won the Outreach Magazine's 2014 apologetics book of the year award. Yet, it appears his book has been flying under the atheist radar—so far. I aim to rectify that with a few posts offering my thoughts and criticisms of it.

I found Mark’s book recently in a Goodwill store for $1. That was a lucky find. I didn’t know of his book until then. Thank Good...will. I have met him before, at a debate I had with David Wood. What I didn’t know was how similar our backgrounds are. We both studied at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and we both earned a masters degrees in the philosophy of religion there (him a M.A.; me a Th.M.). We also studied under the late Stuart Hackett while there, as did Paul Copan, as did William Lane Craig before us, who has admitted his debt to Hackett. LINK. Upon Stu’s death I wrote a post remembering him titled, Remembering and Honoring Professor Stuart C. Hackett. Hackett was Mark's "primary philosophical mentor" (Confident Faith, p. 271, note #2). William Lane Craig was mine. Perhaps Craig was gone by the time Mark attended, I don't know.

Do We Have Free Will? Part 1: Physical Determinism

The most common Christian view holds that human beings are free in the usual libertarian sense of the term — meaning that we can choose from among different courses of action (this is what I’ll mean here by “free will”). Eve and Adam chose to eat the fruit, but they could have chosen to obey Yahweh instead; you chose to read at least this far, but could have stopped after the first sentence; and so on. There are serious problems with such a view, however, and I thought it might be interesting to cover the main ones in a brief series of posts. (Plus, I don’t think I could have chosen otherwise anyway!)

Are We Robots Or Not? Does Free Will Matter?

Are we biological robots? In an age where evolutionary science and technology reign are we just performing tasks according to our particular inputs, do we have free will? If not, should we hold on to the language of free will? Is free will important? I was happy to be the moderator of a panel of experts who discussed this issue at the Atheist Alliance of America's annual convention 2017, held at DragonCon. Participants were Mark W Gura, Derek Colanduno, together with Annelies Beaty, Timothy Edward Dawson, PhD., and Asher Haig, PhD. in Artificial Intelligence and Psychoanalysis. Asher is also the CEO and Lead Engineer at Strong.AI.

Quote of the Day by Guy P. Harrison

Guy P. Harrison put the problem of the brain this way. If a skeptic disputes a psychic’s readings, then “the believer’s brain is likely to instinctively go into siege mode. The drawbridge is raised, crocodiles are released into the mote, and defenders man the walls.” He goes on to explain, “The worst part of all this is that the believer usually doesn’t recognize how biased and close-minded he is being. He likely feels that he is completely rational and fair. It doesn’t happen just with fans of psychics. We are all vulnerable to this distorted way of thinking.” [Think: Why You Should Question Everything, 2013), p. 67.] This process happens whenever the brain feels threatened by contrary data. The brain feels physically attacked when confronted with ideas that challenge it, and will do what it takes to deflect that attack. To see more, and learn what's required to overcome this strong tendency of the brain to keep us from the truth, see the tag mind of the believer.

"The brain treats questions about beliefs like physical threats. Can we learn to disarm it?"

From a recent article with the above title:

Jonas Kaplan is an assistant research professor of psychology at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute. He studies the human brain using fMRIs to observe how it responds to, among other stimuli, challenges to predisposed beliefs.

In a study that he and his research team published in Scientific Reports last year, they studied the scans of people undergoing simultaneous questioning, and demonstrated the physical effects that take place within the brain during periods when political beliefs were questioned.

The study uncovered a correlation: when a belief is directly challenged by new information, parts of the brain that typically show activity for physical threats expressed greater activity in people who tended to be more resistive to changing their minds.

“The brain can be thought of as a very sophisticated self-defense machine,” Kaplan told me. “If there is a belief that the brain considers part of who we are, it turns on its self-defense mode to protect that belief.”

Kaplan argues that this demonstrates that the brain reacts to belief challenges in the same way that it reacts to perceived physical threats. This would help explain why minds are so resistant to change the beliefs that form one’s perception of reality.

Can we learn to disarm it? The answer is Yes!

Five Things I Wish God Had Told Us Long Ago

Last summer, while hanging out with a few friends of a certain age, we began to discuss how much life had changed since we were kids. One thing led to another and eventually we arrived at a kind of mutual consensus that our parents had done a pretty poor job of preparing us for the realities of adult life. “I wish my parents had taught me something about finances. Even how to balance a checkbook would’ve been helpful,” one friend confessed. We all laughed in agreement. Sex, marriage, raising children, money, practically all the big topics had been given precious little attention. Furthermore, because we were born in an era where technological change was faster than it had ever been before, our parents wouldn't have been able to imagine the changes in store for their children. 

“99% of the Bible Would Not Even Be Missed”

It’s not the Good Book…and it’s not a good book to curl up with

In April 2015 the Gideons announced that they had given away their two billionth Bible. The American Bible Society probably isn’t far behind. I don’t doubt, moreover, that the Bible is the best selling book of all time, as is often claimed; it’s also been translated into more than 2,000 languages. So a lot of people on the planet own the Bible.

But how many of them read it? No matter how it has reached so many people, most of its owners don’t find it a page-turner. It’s probably the least read best seller of all time. Believers know they ‘ought’ to read it—but, no doubt about it, it’s a chore. They are stumped by so much of what made it into the canon. It doesn’t feel like God’s Word. Shouldn’t it be the best stuff ever?

The Brain of the Believer Is Deceiving Its Host. Why It Does It. And What It Takes To Be An Honest Seeker Of Truth.

This time, boys and girls, I want to highlight what we see over and over and over again from Christian apologists and wannabe apologists alike without exception. Every single analogy offered in defense of a crucial tenet of faith is disanalogous to the very point being defended. Every. Single. One. Without. Exception. I could write a booklet highlighting them. When seen for the false analogies they really are, all they got is special pleading. So combining a whole lot of false analogies disguised as analogies gets them nothing.

Harold Newman asked Don Camp how we go about verifying his "personal experience with God" claim? "This one is especially puzzling to me because we haven't established that God exists, and you cannot have experiences with something that doesn't exist."

Don Camp:

We can establish that God exists in the very same way that we can be reasonably sure that there was a mouse in my kitchen. But, as you say, not 100%.

If we add the reasonableness of God's existence to the subjective experience of him, I who have that subjective experience can be more than intellectually convinced convinced of the probability; I can be personally convinced.

That is like my experience with the mouse. My report is reasonable based on the investigation and reasoning done. It is probable there was a mouse. My experience seeing the mouse makes it a personal reality.

And I can be reasonably sure that I did not hallucinate the mouse. If I alone had the experience of seeing the mouse, that might still be a possibility. But If others, many others, also see the mouse in my kitchen, the likelihood that we all are hallucinating is minimal.

The DC commenters have already taken Camp to task on this, but let me highlight what's wrong with it. First off mice exist. We have seen plenty of them to know. We can verify the existence of this mouse with objective evidence that would convince everyone; mouse droppings, eaten food, noises in the walls, and/or with our eyes. Again, we can verify the existence of this mouse with objective evidence that would convince everyone. There is no such evidence that convinces everyone Don Camp's sect specific god exists. That's because there is no observable god, unlike mice. Point. Get. The. The proper analogy is not a verifiable mouse. The proper analogy is to substitute Hobbits, Goblins, Unicorns, or gods like Zeus, Thor, Ra or Odin. Those invisible non-verifiable concepts do not admit of evidence that would convince every reasonable person. Let's compare comparables if we want to be honest with the available facts.

Evidence for a Multiverse in NASA & ESA Satellite Data?

Quote of the Day by Gary M On Faith

For Christians who believe faith is a gift, Gary M shows your hypocrisy:

Very often when I discuss the claims of Christianity with Christian apologists we get into a dispute over the meaning of the word "faith". We usually arrive at this point because I have made a claim such as this: "Those of us living in modern, educated, western societies are never asked to believe a truth claim by 'faith' except when it comes to the claims of religion."

The Christian apologist will usually object: "We all (Christians and non-Christians) exercise faith every day of our lives, in many different situations! By faith we cross bridges in the morning on our way to work. We do not get out of our car and personally inspect these bridges prior to driving over them. We have faith in the expertise of the engineers who have certified the bridge as safe. Likewise, when we board a plane we have faith that we will arrive safely at our desired destination. We place our faith in the quality construction of the manufacturer of the airplane; we place our faith in the airline operating that airplane that they have performed proper maintenance; and, we place our faith in the pilots of that airplane that they are well trained and that they will operate the plane in a safe, professional manner. Therefore, people living in modern, educated, western societies exercise faith in many areas of their lives, not just in the practice of their religion."

Based on the above, the apologist may give this short summary: "Faith is trust based on past performance."

I don't buy it.

That is not what most Christians mean by "faith" when they invoke this term regarding their belief in the supernatural claims of Christianity. They may incorporate some of the above into their concept of "faith" but the above definition leaves out a key component of Christian "faith". And that key component is this:

"Faith is a gift from God. It is not the product of one's own endeavors (works); it is not the product of one's use of his or her own intelligence, decision-making, or maturity."

Isn't that exactly how the Apostle Paul describes faith in his letter to the Ephesians???

When non-Christians cross over a bridge to go to work in the morning, they do not claim to be exercising secret knowledge gifted to them by an invisible Being to make it safely to the other side? When non-Christians board an airplane, they do not claim to be exercising secret knowledge gifted to them by an invisible Being to make it safely to their destination. It is therefore clear that the term "faith" used by Christians in relationship to the supernatural claims of their religion is not the same "faith" they exercise to cross a bridge or to board a plane. In the latter situations, they are exercising trust based on past performance. In the former situation, they are exercising wishful thinking regarding the unproven existence of an invisible supernatural being who gifts them secret knowledge and powers.

Christian faith is not simply trust based on past performance, my friends. Christian faith is really this: trust based on the reality of magic---and modern, educated people should not believe in magic!

When Arguments Defy Knowledge

(Adapted from a reply to Vincent Torley)

A mind is a complex thing. Every example of a mind that we can study is the result of a complex system of biological bits and pieces.

There is one apparent exception: the mind that theologists claim created everything. This violates everything we know about minds -- especially the fact that minds are only explained as an emergent property of a complex biological system.

To those theologists, the explanation for that mind is that it's self-explanatory; with the bonus feature that it explains everything from creation of the universe to the laws of nature. We still have a lot to understand about the origins of the universe. it's premature to say we can never find a satisfactory explanation.

Explaining this kind of mind requires knowledge of it's form of existence. It cannot be real, otherwise it would be subject to all the rules of reality that came from that mind. It cannot be abstract, because no abstract "thing" can control the universe in any way. This mind must be a categorically different type of existence, a kind of existence that is otherwise unknown. Theologists cannot explain or defend it, only assert it.

Is Materialism a Faith?

One often hears the claim that the worldview of atheists is based on faith, so that we have no more reason for our beliefs than the religious have for theirs. (Though many who say such things strangely enough consider their own faith to be perfectly justified!) One of the common atheist beliefs criticized this way is materialism. Supposedly, materialists say there is nothing beyond the physical world simply because they prefer to believe this. But is that true?