Additional Thoughts On Using Bayes' Theorem

No one should expect that a good argument is one that convinces reasonable people. What we should expect is that an argument is a good one, or a strong one, or very strong one, irrespective of whether it is a convincing one. Even though I know this, I still try to come up with arguments that are convincing to most reasonable people. I expect kickback from Christian believers. What can annoy me is kickback from other atheists and agnostics, especially if they don't let it go after a while, until they say nothing new I haven't considered before. BTW: A person can annoy me on one issue but be very informative, completely delightful and insightful on most everything else. That describes Ignorant Amos. In fact, the commenters here seem to be the best I've seen anywhere!

I have defended the use of Hitchens’ Razor over the use of Bayes’ Theorem (BT) when assessing miracles like a virgin birthed deity and the resurrection of Jesus. I have argued that BT cannot and should not be applied to claims which are nonsense, and that miraculous claims in the ancient Biblical past are all nonsense! They are all nonsense because there is absolutely no credible evidence for any of them. I have also argued that the goal of atheists should be to change minds, and that fewer minds are changed the more we respond with greater and greater sophistication. Doing so also legitimizes nonsense by giving believers undue credibility. I agree with philosopher Julian Baggini who said, "Converts are won at the more general level." [infidels.org/kiosk/article.] For responding to fundamentalist philosophy only encourages fundamentalist philosophers. On the general level even ridicule changes minds.

I don’t object to using BT when it’s applied appropriately to questions for which we have prior objective data to determine their initial likelihood, along with subsequent data to help us in our final probability calculations. It’s an excellent tool when these conditions obtain. So a new provocative question arises, one I didn't address: What is the best tool for assessing the possibility that a historical person existed behind the Jesus character in the Gospels?

A Former Theology Professor Who Turned Atheist Now Claims to be an Agnostic

I received an email from a retired theology professor friend of mine who had previously embraced atheism, but now claims to be an agnostic instead. I'll share his email below, along with my response. But I think this video by QualiaSoup does a good job on his concerns.



Here is his email and my response:

Which Type of Anthologies Are Best?

This Tweet is by The Non Alchemist:

Enjoying this so far. Covers a lot of ground, with essays for and against different positions. I prefer reading stuff like this where multiple perspectives are engaged and there is interaction.

This stands in contrast to all of my anthologies.

The Non Alchemist's point is an interesting one. Could that be why he hasn't yet recommended any of my anthologies? I don't know. But I think it's an interesting question nonetheless. Preference is subjective. Readers can have a preference for one type of book over another. I don't have a problem with that. Don't forget that a preference for something different is not a substantive criticism of my work.

I myself have a preference for truth in my anthologies, well-articulated, researched, and referenced truth. I don't think my opinion is subjective, but rather based on credible evidence, along with the abysmal lack of credible evidence from the Christian opposition. I have defended my opinion in 12 critically acclaimed anthologies.

But people do disagree, so let's set that all aside.

Review of "God and and Horrendous Suffering"

 

Congratulations go out to all the authors in my anthology "God and Horrendous Suffering"!! That book is going to be a classic thanks to us all. 

I share reviews like this one to the left, because atheist books don't usually get that much promotion from publishers (GCRR is an exception). Please consider promoting it if you think it's a good anthology, like I do. 

 

Read more about it here, then get it.

For an introduction to the book, see this (Offsite).

Maybe the Apostle Paul Could Talk You Out of Christianity

So much that he wrote is just plain wrong

How astounding is this: one of the founding heroes of the Christian faith wrote letters—he was obsessive about it—and we still have those letters today. Actually, the originals were lost, so we have copies of copies of copies, many generations of copies removed from the originals. Which means that quite a few errors crept into the text—some words also got left out by mistake—but it’s still quite something that we have what we do. For anyone who is genuinely curious about what Christian thought was like, right at the beginning, these letters are a treasure, preserved in the New Testament. It is a curiosity that Jesus himself didn’t think of writing letters, to codify his insights about God. After all, he was part of God himself, the divine trinity. If not letters, why not treatises? Just preaching words that evaporated into the air as he wandered Palestine seems so inadequate. Moreover, the Jesus-script that we have in the gospels probably was invented by their authors, writing decades later: there’s no way to verify any of the words attributed to Jesus. But, hey, the gospel writers had firmly held theological ideas about Jesus. So they’re worth reading, right?

Phil Bair On Atheism, Miracles, and Extraordinary Evidence

No intellectual should expect that a good argument is one that convinces reasonable people. What we should expect is that an argument is a good one, or a strong one, or very strong one, irrespective of whether it is a convincing one. Even though I know this, I still try to come up with arguments that are convincing to most reasonable people. I expect kickback from Christian believers. What can annoy me is kickback from other atheists and agnostics, especially if they don't let it go after a while, until they say nothing new I haven't considered before. More on that in another post.

This post will concern Phil Bair, a good guy who engages me on Facebook from time to time. He's spent 40 years by his count, studying these issues. He even wrote a book. His target is atheism.

Christianity in the Light of Science: Critically Examining the World's Largest Religion

This is one of my favorite anthologies! People who say I repeat the same old arguments have not read my works!

In this indispensable volume, John Loftus and his colleagues demonstrate all the different ways in which science undermines and threatens religious belief. The only way you can rescue God from this book is if you force him to retreat so far that you might as well stop believing in him. I defy you to read this volume and still believe that religion and science shall ever meet. John Loftus will never receive the Templeton Prize, but he should. This collection alone will further our understanding of science and religion more than all the previous winners combined.

—Dr. Maarten Boudry, philosopher, Ghent University. --LINK.

Just Released: "A Statistical Critique of the Minimal Facts Apologetics of Gary Habermas and Michael Licona." -- Written by Michael J. Alter and Darren M. Slade

SHERM Journal just released a publication whose full correct title is, "Dataset Analysis of English Texts Written on the Topic of Jesus’ Resurrection: A Statistical Critique of Minimal Facts Apologetics." It was co-authored by Michael J. Alter, and Darren M. Slade. In a nutshell, the article disproves (for the first time using actual data) the common apologetic assertion that 90% of "critical scholars" accept the historicity of certain minimal facts about Jesus. Abstract:

This article collects and examines data relating to the authors of English-language texts written and published during the past 500 years on the subject of Jesus’ resurrection and then compares this data to Gary R. Habermas’ 2005 and 2012 publication on the subject. To date, there has been no such inquiry. This present article identifies 735 texts spanning five centuries (from approximately 1500 to 2020). The data reveals 680 Pro-Resurrection books by 601 authors (204 by ministers, 146 by priests, 249 by people associated with seminaries, 70 by laypersons, and 22 by women). This article also reveals that a remarkably high proportion of the English-language books written about Jesus’ resurrection were by members of the clergy or people linked to seminaries, which means any so-called scholarly consensus on the subject of Jesus’ resurrection is wildly inflated due to a biased sample of authors who have a professional and personal interest in the subject matter. Pro-Resurrection authors outnumber Contra-Resurrection authors by a factor of about twelve-to-one. In contrast, the 55 Contra-Resurrection books, representing 7.48% of the total 735 books, were by 42 authors (28 having no relevant degrees at the time of publication). The 42 contra authors represent only 6.99% of all authors writing on the subject.

The leading defenders of the minimal facts approach are Gary Habermas and Michael Licona. One of the authors of this Sherm Journal Article is Dr. Darren M. Slade. He studied under Habermas at the doctoral level, and took many classes with him. He even debated him. You can find the article's webpage Right here. Below is an excerpt from the article's conclusion.

Christian “Truth” in Shreds: Epic Takedown Number 7

…god really isn’t all that great 

Oft-repeated items from childhood stick in the mind. Our mealtime grace was “God is good, God is great, thank you for this food. Amen.” Full-blown, industrial strength, Sunday School naivety about religion. Drivel. I’m tempted now to ask, “What were we thinking?” —but of course we weren’t thinking at all. How is it even remotely possible that the creative force that (supposedly) runs the Cosmos requires/desires/appreciates being told by countless humans that he/she/it is good and great? What a useless idea. Moreover, instead of the word “God,” we could just have well have said “our food supply chain” is good and great. If you didn’t eat everything on your plate, the cliché we heard was, “Think of all the starving people in China.” If God is good and great, how could that happen? We were fortunate to have a well-functioning food supply chain.

I didn’t expect this!

Any author or editor wants their work to be acknowledged as being good and helpful. But I never expected this from the most recent Freedom From Religion Foundation's newspaper.

Have you gotten that book yet? It's one of a handful of my favorites: Christianity Is Not Great.

Christianity Is Not Great: How Faith Fails

Anthologies are not easy to organize. Contributors have to be recruited, and they may not all be available at the time you need them. Scholars have to respect you enough as an editor to join your project if they are available. Over the past few years, John Loftus has demonstrated his ability to recruit the best scholars and scientists to his anthologies. The present anthology, Christianity Is Not Great, is no exception. Scholars representing fields as varied as physics and anthropology are here.

Consequently, these anthologies are some of the most substantive collections of rebuttals to theistic arguments, and specifically to Christian theistic arguments, in existence. They signal a new era insofar as atheists are organizing coherent and scholarly responses that are wide-ranging in scope, instead of just focusing on a few traditional issues (e.g., philosophical arguments against theism or creationism). These anthologies touch on, among many subjects, history, sociology, psychology, and biblical studies.

Christianity Is Not Great swiftly demolishes one of the greatest and subtlest myths promoted by believers. The demolished myth is that Christianity, even if it cannot be proved to be true, has at least been good for the world.

Aside from the wonderful contributions, this volume is an indirect tribute to Loftus himself. John Loftus is an indefatigable laborer for atheism. He represents one of those voices who still has not received the honor he deserves. Yet few modern atheists have provided as much useful service to educating the masses about atheism as he has done.

--From the Foreword by Dr. Hector Avalos.

Bill Burr Speaks the Truth About Religion

Sound familiar? This video has been watched 2.6 million times. Burr is reaching millions more people than I could hope to do. Here is a snippet to tease you into watching this 9:48 minutes of pure genius.

Everybody else's religion sounds stupid. The first time I heard the story of Scientology I was like, that is the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my life...while simultaneously still kind of believing that a woman who never got f*cked had a baby that walked on the water, died and came back three days later. Yeah, that made total sense to me. So it just hit me one day. Why doesn't Scientology make sense and my shit does? I think it's because I heard their story when I was an adult. I heard my story when I was four years old. What was I going to do? I had to make a decision. Just let go of it. Let go of it like that creepy moment in curling... That's what I did with my religion. I just let go of it. It just floated away.

Bible Study to Help You Get Over Christianity

So much of scripture undermines belief

There are zealous Bible apologists—of the evangelical/fundamentalist variety—who try to make the case that the Bible is inerrant: It’s the perfect word of their god. Their followers are confident that, opening the Bible to any page, any chapter, god’s wisdom and guidance are there without fail. They can gerrymander even the worst texts to come up with lessons that fuel their piety. But we know that there are many Christians outside these circles who aren’t so blind. They recoil with horror at so many Bible stories and teaching—as much as secular readers do. And they know that too much of the Bible should not have been included in the canon, although they wouldn’t quite agree with Hector Avalos’ suggestion that 99 percent of the Bible would not be missed.

The Outsider Test for Faith

Formulating and extensively defending the OTF is Loftus’ greatest contribution to the philosophy of religion and atheism. The basic idea is that you can only have a rational faith if you test it by the same standards you apply to all other competing faiths; yet when you do that, your religion tests as false as the others, and the same reasons you use to reject those become equally valid reasons to reject yours.

This is the greatest book Loftus has ever produced. It's without question a must-read for believers, and atheists who wants to debate them. Superbly argued, air tight, and endlessly useful, this should be everyone's first stop in the god debate. Loftus meets every objection and proves the Outsider Test for Faith is really the core of every case against religious belief, and the one argument you can't honestly get around. It takes religion on at its most basic presuppositions, forcing the believer into a dilemma from which there is no escape: either abandon your faith or admit you don't believe in being logically consistent. After reading it, and sincerely applying its principles, anyone who really wants to be rational will be on the road to atheism in no time.

Though this idea has been voiced before, Loftus is the first to name it, rigorize it, and give it an extensive philosophical defense; moreover, by doing so, he is the first to cause a concerted apologetic to arise attempting to dodge it, to which he could then respond. The end result is one of the most effective and powerful arguments for atheism there is. It is, in effect, a covering argument that subsumes all other arguments for atheism into a common framework. LINK.

-- Dr. Richard Carrier, author of Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith.

“The Rationalization Hypothesis: Is a Vision of Jesus Necessary for the Rise of the Resurrection Belief?” — by Kris Komarnitsky

I had previously highly recommended an essay by Kris Komarnitsky in my chapter on the resurrection for The Case against Miracles.

When it came to my chapter 18 on the resurrection of Jesus I mentioned the theories that help explain the origins of the belief in Jesus' resurrection. I stressed one theory above all the rest:

One theory has recently been defended by Kris Komarnitsky, author of "Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box ?" He has done an excellent job of showing what could have happened in an online post on Mathew Ferguson’s blog titled, "The Rationalization Hypothesis: Is a Vision of Jesus Necessary for the Rise of the Resurrection Belief?" I find it to be the most detailed defense of this theory, making it worth considering, complete with four real-life examples of it in history. He takes issue with the bereavement visionary hypothesis of the disciples, widely regarded as a plausible naturalistic explanation for the data, and argues instead for what he calls the cognitive-dissonance-induced ration- alization hypothesis. The question he discusses is whether bereavement visions produced the belief that Jesus arose from the dead, or whether the resurrection belief came first due to cognitive dissonance reducing rationalizations, favoring the later. Go read it. Now! Forget the swoon theory that Jesus didn’t actually die, the conspiracy theory that the disciples purportedly concocted to perpetrate a hoax, the impersonation theory that someone impersonated Jesus, or the unknown tomb theory where the disciples went to the wrong tomb.

Then I linked to it. It has now been released again, for which I thank Matthew Ferguson! “The Rationalization Hypothesis: Is a Vision of Jesus Necessary for the Rise of the Resurrection Belief?” — by Kris Komarnitsky.

Arguments Against God: 10, 20, 30, 50, and Counting!

Christianity’s unfortunate embrace of incoherence

Following the publication of my book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Faith six years ago, one of the most common questions I got from atheists was, “What, only ten?” Of course, there are far more, and I explain that I sorted the many problems into the ten categories. There’s a certain appeal of top ten lists. But others have taken a different approach. In 2014, Armin Navabi published his book, Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God. Guy P. Harrison has a good brand going with these titles, 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God, 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True, 50 Simple Questions for Every Christian. 

 

All of these books are included in the Cure-for-Christianity Library I have been building since the publication of my 2016 book. There are now more than 525 titles, most published since the year 2000. The devout may be wondering—if they even know about this surge in atheist/secular publishing— “Why do these heretics keep writing?” From behind their high stacks of frothy, sentimental devotional books, churned out year after year, they cast contemptuous glances at atheist books that might come to their attention. They may wonder how there is anything more to be said against god and believers.

Follow the Money Trail: Faith-Based Education and Publishing in Apologetics, by Michael J. Alter

Michael J. Alter is an independent researcher and author of The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry (2015), A Thematic Access-Oriented Bibliography of Jesus's Resurrection (2020), and the forthcoming text from GCRR Press, The Resurrection and Its Apologetics: A Critical Inquiry, Vol. 1.

Alter has written a two part essay at the Global Center for Religious Research titled, "Follow the Money Trail: Faith-Based Education and Publishing in Apologetics. Highly recommended! Nonbelievers seeking an education and a publisher are not out-gunned, they just have less opportunities when up against the massive amount of resources of Christian organizations, colleges and publishing houses. I know this all to well.

Recent Trends in Apologetics, Part 3

To read Part 2 in this three part series click here.

From the outset I should say that a great many Christian theologians don't think highly of apologetics, following in the footsteps of Karl Barth who thought natural theology was a failure. In their colleges there is no apologetics department, or apologetics classes! According to them, Natural Theology is a failure. God is his own witness. Stands to reason, right? Only God can reveal God. Revelation from God can only come from God, or as Barth himself said, "the best apologetics is a good dogmatics". [Table Talk, ed. J. D. Godsey (Edinburgh and London, 1963), 62]

I should also say that most apologetics books are just more of the same old, same old thing. I can't tolerate reading any more them, as they rehash what others have already said, for the umpteenth time. It can even be seen in their annoying and false book titles, using words like Evidence, even though there is no direct or objective evidence, Eyewitness, even though everything we have is filtered down via 2nd-3rd-4th hand hearsay, and Comprehensive, even though the chapters in those books are superficial treatments.

"Evidence"

J. Daniel Hays, A Christian's Guide to Evidence for the Bible: 101 Proofs from History and Archaeology

Allen Quist, Evidence that the Bible is True: The Apologetics of Biblical Reliability

"Eyewitness"

Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony [Expanded and Updated], 2017.

Daniel P. Buttafuoco, Consider the Evidence: A Trial Lawyer Examines Eyewitness Testimony in Defense of the Reliability of the New Testament

"Comprehensive"

Joseph M. Holden, ed., The Comprehensive Guide to Apologetics, 528 pages. I did a search inside this book for Dawkins, Harris, Barker, Price, Stenger, Carrier, Avalos, & Loftus. None of these names are mentioned. Barker is quoted as saying there isn't any evidence for their faith. Dawkins is quoted the most, someone admittedly untrained in philosophy or theology.

William A. Dembski, Joseph M. Holden, Casey Luskin, eds., The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, 656 pages.

Now on with the show.

Holding On to a Horrible God

“…remarkably resistant to rational inquiry”

There are some human tragedies that prove unsettling to even the most devout folks. Faith is shaken because events seem to shatter confidence that there’s a god who has “the whole world in his hands.” His eye is on the sparrow, he even knows how many hairs are on our heads. That god is paying attention. So how do big tragedies happen, right under his nose—so it would seem? The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 225,000 people; a huge percentage were infants and toddlers—crushed and drowned by the waters. In 2012, at Sandy Hook School in Connecticut, a gunman murdered twenty kids (six and seven-year-olds), and six members of the staff. In 2000, a Concorde aircraft crashed in flames on takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport: 109 people on board were burned alive. These horrors remain firmly in my mind.

Recent Trends in Christian Apologetics, Part 2

To read Part 1 in this three part series click here. Now on with the show.

I'm going to begin at the beginning, what's considered to be the resurgence of Christianity touted by Christian apologists. Over at Patheos, there is a page for Evangelicalism that offers little more than self-congratulatory bluster for its philosophical and apologetical achievements in the recent past, given the religious diversity in the world. Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith was quoted as saying that God "is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments." That's the LAST stronghold. "God" has already been ousted from most every other department in the university. So why on earth would evangelicals be quoting Quentin Smith on this, or feeling good about what he said? The bottom line is that you cannot have a religious trajectory that will last very long without a good solid foundation. What evangelicals will have to come to grips with is the lack of a Biblical foundation for what they believe. It simply is not there. They have completely and utterly ignored this fact.

I'm here to remind them that Natural Theology is dead, so their philosophical renaissance is nothing more than fundamentalism on stilts, as Dr. Jaco Gerike argues. I especially love Gerike's chapter 5 in my anthology The End of Christianity titled, Can God Exist if Yahweh Doesn't?

One problem with answering the philosophical arguments of WLCraig, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and company, can be seen in Craig's response to the atheist literature over the last few decades that trounced their fundamentalist arguments. A fine summary of that atheist literature can be read here. Craig seems jubilant about it all, saying:

You have masterfully surveyed for us the current philosophical landscape with respect to atheism. You give our readers a good idea of who the principal players are today. Moreover, I hope that theists, especially Christian theists, who read your account will come away encouraged by the way Christian philosophers are being taken seriously by their secular colleagues today. The average man in the street may get the impression from social media that Christians are intellectual losers who are not taken seriously by secular thinkers. Your letter explodes that stereotype. It shows that Christians are ready and able to compete with their secular colleagues on the academic playing field.

In other words, responding to fundamentalist philosophy only encourages fundamentalist philosophers!

Jim Jefferies - God is drunk at a party

Maybe Jesus Himself Could Talk You Out of Christianity

There’s so much he shouldn’t have said!

A few years ago I asked a prominent Italian journalist: “Can it possibly be true that the Vatican hierarchy really believes the wacky ideas that the church promotes?” For example, transubstantiation, papal infallibility, immaculate conception, the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. He responded, “Oh, maybe half of them do. Don’t forget, it’s a business.” The primary product of this business is Jesus, and for twenty centuries the church has worked hard to hype the product. The apostle Paul got the ball rolling with his message that he’d had private conversations with the dead Jesus, whom he was convinced was alive in heaven. Paul was confident that believing in resurrected Jesus was the key to salvation. This is a perfect example of magical thinking: believe something and voilà, you get your wish. Decades after Paul, the gospel writers wrote their stories about Jesus the Wonder Worker.

Recent Trends in Christian Apologetics, Part 1

I'm going to revisit this topic for a Part 2. I already have a draft to post. Help me out. What are some trends in apologetics that you've noticed?

[First Published 11/13/19]. As the author of a book that offered good advice to Christian apologists, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist, I should keep up with how they're doing. Given that Evangelicals concede they are losing in the marketplace of ideas, and that they partially blame this on the rise of the internet, no wonder apologetics is in demand. Everyone is doing it, or so it appears. This is a sign, all by itself, that Christianity of the evangelical kind is dying. For apologetics is necessitated by the need, and the need is dire.

So what's recently been happening in the apologetics publishing world? Let's look at some books.

1) Apologists are making apologetics more accessible to readers.

We've seen the advent of apologetics study Bibles. The first one to be published was The Apologetics Study Bible: Understand Why You Believe, by Holman Bible Publishers, 2007. 

I Got a Letter from a Jehovah’s Witness!

A short letter packed with bad theology

In pre-COVID days I occasionally saw Jehovah’s Witness missionaries standing by their literature tables in the New York City Subway—and even too, once, just outside a Paris Metro Station. But that’s the closest I ever get to them: I live in an apartment building, so they’ve never had access to my front door. COVID must have made knocking on doors even more unpopular. So sending letters is an alternate strategy.

An Outsider Test for Polytheism

On Twitter:

Ben Watkins:

That any particular religious belief is geographically and temporally predictable based on local facts about culture and familial relations is more likely given naturalism than theism. Despite the insistence of some apologists, this likelihood judgment is not a genetic fallacy.

Ocean:

This would very much be a monotheism objection. With polytheism one would expect localized variations.