Seeking to Confirm One's Faith is the Worst Method for Determining Which Religion is True, if There is One.

A Muslim named Bishr Nayal is commenting here at DC, which I welcome. He quoted Quran 30:58 which reads, "In the Qur'an We have explained things to people in myriad ways. But no matter what Sign you bring to them, those who are resolved upon denying the Truth will say: 'You are given to falsehood." But this quote can be used to say other believers in different sects within Islam are wrong too. Nayal, you are seeking to confirm your faith. Almost anyone can do that. Given the prolific number of religions and sects on the planet, you know that they do it. Yet you're doing the same thing! This is the worst method for determining which religion is true, if there is one.

I've written a book for you. It's called, "The Outsider Test for Faith." Read it. If you choose not to do so, then at this point you are not interested in knowing if your religious faith is true. It can be found here on Amazon. Go ahead. What have you got to lose? It's about methodology.

One thing is sure, whether your read my book or not, seeking to confirm one's faith is emphatically NOT the way to know if your religion is true. It's a known cognitive bias. Agreed? If not, why not? See this explained with regard to St. Anselm. Okay, now read the introduction to my book, to whet your appetite.

Suspicious Interpolations, by Greg G.

Bible scholars often have suspicions of interpolations but do not go as far as taking them out of the Bible unless they have old, reliable manuscripts that omit the passage. Here are some passages that were in the King James Version but have been removed, or in the case of popular passages, they are noted as missing in the most reliable old Bibles.

Greg Boyd, Prolific Apologist for God, Is Making Sh*t Up! There is No Doubt About It! Proof It's All Invented From the Beginning Until Now.

Boyd is leading evangelicals to fundamentally rethink their faith. This comes as the conclusion of his failed efforts to defend his original evangelical faith as an apologist. He lays out what he now believes in an introductory post, which starts out sounding victorious, even as it announces the defeat of the old evangelical Christian faith he now rejects.

We live at an exciting juncture of history. The traditional triumphant understanding of the church, known as “Christendom,” is crumbling. Out of its rubble is rising a grass-roots global movement of people who are captivated by the vision of a Jesus-looking God raising up a Jesus-looking people to transform the world in a Jesus-kind of way. And as this new kingdom wine is bursting the old wineskins of Christendom, believers and skeptics alike are being forced to rethink everything they thought they knew about the Christian faith and life. LINK.

In a way, I hope he succeeds. If he suceeds more evangelicals will be brought closer to the truth, closer to those us who don't believe at all. I've written about this phenomena before. See my posts Honest Evangelical Scholarship is a Ruse. There is No Such Thing!; and also The New Evangelical Orthodoxy, Relativism, and the Amnesia of It All.

Come to the GCRR Virtual Academic eConference on ReligiousTrauma!

Are you suffering from religious trauma? I did, and still do (see below). Visit this virtual academic eConference live on Zoom, hosted by the Global Center for Religious Research, on June 10-11th. It will bring together clinicians, researchers, and survivors from all over the world to discuss the latest research on religious trauma.

Here's a 15% off coupon code. Go to THIS LINK, buy a ticket to the eConference, and use the promo code LOFTUS at checkout. Thanks to the work of Darren Slade for this event and the code!

Teaching of Jesus that Christians Dislike and Ignore, Number 5

They just say NO to their Lord and Savior

A few years ago, a devout Catholic woman was kind enough to read an early version of a chapter that ended up in my 2016 book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief. Her willingness differed from the response I got from other churchgoers—those who refused because they were Christians; they were afraid that their faith might be damaged (i.e., I don’t want to think about it). In the chapter she read I discussed Jesus-script about his coming on the clouds to bring god’s kingdom. I was surprised—but not surprised—by her reaction: “I didn’t know Jesus is supposed to come back.” How could she not know this? —because it’s right there in Jesus-script: this would be the finale of his story, his eventual triumph, initiating the kingdom. I was not surprised, however, because I have yet to meet a Catholic who has been encouraged to read the Bible. As I’ve often pointed out, the gospels are a minefield, and the clergy want to avoid having to defend them. This minefield includes 292 not-so-great Jesus quotes—well, that’s my tally, and the list can be found on the website for my book, Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught.

Daniel Mocsny, On The Need Not to Test One's Faith Lest it Fails

A lot of intelligent and thoughtful people comment here at DC. On this thread Daniel Mocsny offers a good comment. He responded to an aspiring apologist named David Pallmann, who has probably not seriously considered any alternative religion given his education. [See Pic] He said, "John W. Loftus hardly. We all try to rationalize our own belief systems first and seldom try to rationalize belief systems which we seldom (if ever) encounter. That's not a double standard."

Double Standards and Hypocrisy!!

Christian apologists aspire to be experts at excusing their god from ineptitude, ignorance and incompetence, when they would never consider doing the same with other gods with whom they don't agree. Am I right, or am I right?

The reason this is wrong, since I was asked, is that it's using double standards and hypocrisy in the quest for which religion is true, if there is one. Aspiring apologist David Pallmann responded:

John W. Loftus hardly. We all try to rationalize our own belief systems first and seldom try to rationalize belief systems which we seldom (if ever) encounter. That's not a double standard. This is, perhaps, the lamest objection I've seen from you yet. 🙄

But David Pallmann, you say what an alcoholic says who claims we are all alcoholics. For surely I just introduced you to the multifaceted number of religions you reject, but refuse to consider, even after learning about them. This is another exercise in hypocritical excuse making.

Two Fantastic Quotes from Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll: On Willful Disbelief & A Designer In Need Of Design

#1 On Willful Disbelief: Can we control our thought? Can we tell what we are going to think tomorrow? Can we stop thinking? Is belief the result of that which to us is evidence, or is it a product of the will? Can the scales in which reason weighs evidence be turned by the will? Why then should evidence be weighed? If it all depends on the will, what is evidence? Is there any opportunity of being dishonest in the formation of an opinion? Must not the man who forms the opinion know what it is? He cannot knowingly cheat himself. He cannot be deceived with dice that he loads. He cannot play unfairly at solitaire without knowing that he has lost the game. He cannot knowingly weigh with false scales and believe in the correctness of the result.

The Bible quotes Jesus with having said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” The Christians say that it is the duty of every person to read, to understand, and to believe this revelation – that a man should use his reason; but if he honestly concludes that the Bible is not a revelation from God, and dies with that conclusion in his mind, he will be tormented forever. They say,” Read,” and then add: “Believe, or be damned.” Suppose then I read this Bible honestly, fairly, and when I get through I am compelled to say, “The book is not true.” If this is the honest result, if the book and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and the brain do not agree? Either God should have written a book to fit my brain, or should have made my brain to fit his book. The brain thinks without asking our consent; we believe, or disbelieve, without an effort of the will. Belief is a result. It is the effect of evidence upon the mind. The scales turn in spite of him who watches. There is no opportunity of being honest or dishonest in the formation of an opinion. The conclusion is entirely independent of desire. We must believe, or we must doubt, in spite of what we wish. --From Col. Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone

Cruelty, Crime and Abuse in the Name of Jesus

It never seems to stop

How does religion get away with it? It relies on the ignorance, gullibility and, yes, the complacency of those are committed to piety. And the consequences can be calamitous. In an article I posted here in January, Humanity’s Urgent Need to Outgrow Religion, I mentioned the plan to spend big bucks to build what amounts to a theme-park at the supposed site of Jesus’ baptism—but the developers have been careful not to call it a theme park. It’s a scam, a prank, a joke, because nobody knows where Jesus was baptized, in fact the gospel of John omits any mention of Jesus setting foot in the River Jordan. Yes, John the Baptist is there, but mainly to announce that Jesus is the “lamb of God who takes way the sins of the world.”  

 

But a baptism theme-park is a minor offense. We keep being hit with news about the cruelties, crimes, and abuses done in Jesus’ name. Three headlines of recent vintage illustrate the ongoing problem.

Musings of Daniel Mocsny

Lately Daniel Mocsny wrote a few separate comments for us. Here are some of them. Enjoy!

The Genetic Fallacy

Here is an excerpt from my book The Outsider Test for Faith. There are a lot of gems like this tucked away in that book! Enjoy!

A Hugely Defective Gospel Sequel

A high quotient of fake news

 

The red flags in scripture are all over the place, and easy to spot. By this I mean story elements that alert readers to be suspicious. If we came across these in a Disney fantasy or in Harry Potter story, we’d say, “Very entertaining, but not to be taken seriously.” There are so many red flags in the gospels, and they show up in the first chapters of each. In Mark, a voice from the sky tells Jesus, “You are my beloved son”—right after his baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus had sins? A god yelling from the sky doesn’t sound at all like a real-world event.

The Lord's Brother

Let's explore the relationship between Paul and James. First, calibrate your sarcasm detectors for Paul's attitude regarding circumcision.

Galatians 5:11-12 NIV
11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

Jeruel Schneider's "The Holy Shit of the Bible" is a Shitty Book! No Shit!

Tom Jump contacted me to blurb a book for which he had written the Foreword. Jeruel Schneider wrote it and titled it, THE HOLY SHIT OF THE BIBLE: A Countdown of the 75 Best Obscenities, Absurdities, and Atrocities. Now THAT got my attention! So I looked into it and indeed I could happily recommended it, saying:

This book is full of shit. God's shit. The Bible is full of it. Two billion or so Christians are ignorant of it. Hopefully this ingeniously conceived book by Schneider will get their attention. He hopes, like I do, that by throwing this shit against the wall of an indoctrinated brain, some of it will stick. But don't be deceived, it's a well-written, well-informed book, concerning 75 well-informed choices of the shit we see in the Bible.

You can get it on Amazon.

In his Introduction Schneider aptly reminds us what Thomas Paine had said: “Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be true.” Let's call this type of book the shock genre of counter-apologetics. Remember what Paine said as you read it.

His book is a countdown from #75 down to #1. It's a great bathroom reader! You get to read a little shit while you're, you're, taking one! Here is a sample. Enjoy.

Ciarán Mc Ardle Argues Michael Jones of "Inspiring Philosophy" Should Not Be Allowed to Sit At the Adults’ Table

Ciarán Mc Ardle sends me emails. Here's an interesting one he sent: In a recent video [Link Below], "Inspiring Philosophy" essentially argues that Christians never really believed in Young Earth Creationism until recent times.

In a hundred years time, there will be an Inspiring-Philosophy-esque apologist who will claim that no Christians ever really believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Plenty of quotes could be adduced to prove this. Even in the New Testament, Saint Paul seems only to believe in a spiritual resurrection. Quotes could then be adduced from Popes, saints, church fathers et al, spanning the 2,000 years of Christianity so as to lend credence to the notion that Christians never really believed in a bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was always viewed by True ChristiansTM as mytho-history.

The Role of the Bible in Destroying Faith

Deceptive translators don’t want readers to see the problems 

There has been a meme floating about on the Internet: “If you ever feel worthless, remember, there are people with theology degrees.” These degrees are granted by a huge variety of religious schools, ranging from fundamentalist Protestant to Vatican-loyal Catholic. So among those holding these degrees—what else would we expect?—there is substantial disagreement regarding what god is like, how he/she/it expects people to behave, how he/she/it wants to be worshipped. This is one of the reasons Christianity has splintered into thousands of quarreling brands.

On Tithing To Receive Back

The whole process of tithing in order to get back is rife with problems. I have a dear Uncle who swears that by sending his tithe of $200+ per month to a televangelist his life has improved greatly in the last year or so. His eyes well up in tears over it. Apparently, he switched giving his tithe from one of them to the other. And he doesn't go to church since none of them are good enough. He gives. He gets. The proof is in the results, right?

There must be a few million believers like him who prop up these televangelists who have it easy. The believers who donate to them don't care if they're already filthy rich, since it's all about what they get out of giving to them.

My Rejection of Christianity Passed the Threat of Hell.

Christian believers need to know that my rejection of Christianity passed the threat of hell. That means I had to be very sure I was right, otherwise I could find myself in hell when I die. So there isn't a significant objection they can put forth that I haven't considered before.

The problem is that blog posts, FB posts, essays and papers cannot show them this, otherwise they need to be 500 to 1000 pages long. My detractors are just uninformed about what they read from me, and I cannot show them this is the case since it requires reading a few books of mine, and they won't do that. Discuss please.

"Aliens and Religion" A New Book by Johno Pearce and Aaron Adair!

 

 

Look what came in the mail today!! This is an impressive work! It's an ingenious attempt to reach believers who are otherwise impervious to reason, which has a good chance of succeeding. Bravo Johno Pearce and Aaron Adair! LINK

If It Looks Like a Cult, Walks Like a Cult, and Quacks Like a Cult…

It’s a cult!

 

With well more than two billion followers, Christianity ranks as humanity’s biggest religion, and thus to many it also qualifies as one of the great religions of the world. Look at all it has going for it: 2,000 years of momentum, churches in every city and town—in the countries where it predominates—as well as massive cathedrals that draw vast crowds. From my own experience, I can say that those in London, Paris, Milan, Rome, and Barcelona are indeed magnificent. Some of the great composers have set Christian stories and rituals to music, e.g., Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi. A massive propaganda engine promotes the faith as well: Sunday school, catechism, and professional apologists whose primary goal is to explain away the incoherencies that sabotage Christian theology, i.e., its many claims about god are in jarring conflict, and cannot, in truth, be reconciled. But the apologists are slick enough to make it look good.

Keith Augustine and the Case Against Afterlife Claims

Previously I had written about Keith Augustine's devestating research into afterlife claims, right here. Now Keith has combined his findings into one massive essay at the Secular Web for sharing! Please share! Help end faulty reasoning on behalf of these claims and with it, debunk them, because all apologists can do is use faulty reasoning to defend them.

Paul and James Corresponding

Thank you, John Loftus, for the invitation and opportunity to express some of my ideas.

Dr. Steve Mason has said on a couple of MythVision Podcasts that some of the epistles have passages that seem to be responding to something that has been asked or stated here and uses a telephone analogy to describe it here. He makes a point that this lends authenticity to the epistle, but we can only guess what has prompted the response. This article attempts to show that Paul and James were interacting in that way.

Teachings of Jesus that Christians Dislike and Ignore, Number 4

They just say NO to their Lord and Savior

 

When you’ve been nurtured on ideas since early childhood—they’re a source of comfort and derive from adults whom you trust—it can be hard to see that some of the ideas may be truly weird. This is especially true of the gospels, which remain, for far too many of the faithful, unexplored territory. There may be passing familiarity with gospel stories, based on texts read from the pulpit and heard in ritual. Of course, Christian children’s books have played a major role in making the best Jesus-script well-known, e.g., in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), and “God so loved the world…” (John 3:16, may or may not be Jesus-script: there was no punctuation in the Greek manuscripts.)

My Rambling Thoughts On Free Will, Determinism, and Making Choices

I had a nice discussion on metaphysical free will, determinism, and making choices that matter. What follows are my rambling thoughts because it was a discussion, and I was finding different ways to communicate. I just don't want to clear up the repetition. It begins with this quote which I dispute:

My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.
― Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

Since we’re alive we must make choices, even if they are determined ones. So why not make those choices good ones, even though those choices are determined ones? At the time we choose we don’t know which ones are determined to be. So the fact that they are determined doesn’t affect which choices we make. Live then, as if it’s all up to us, knowing it’s not up to us. It doesn’t change how we should live by knowing that our choices are determined.

In other words, an action is not yet determined until we choose to do it. We must choose to act throughout our days. Therefore, we are participants in which actions take place. I don’t know in advance which actions I will choose throughout my days. So I am learning as I choose which actions were determined beforehand for me to make. It’s a discovery we make by making our choices.

Keith Augustine On The Fallacious Reasoning of Christian Apologists In Survival After Death Cases

Keith Augustine is the executive director of Internet Infidels, a mega site of helpful articles, debates, commentary, and book reviews. Their main outlet is The Secular Frontier. Along with Michael Martin, Augustine edited a masterful book investigating the afterlife. If you like my anthologies you will love this one, titled, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death. Now that Martin has died, Augustine is probably the leading secular expert in after-life claims. If you're interested in life after death cases, you need to be reading what he has to say!

Given that his book is expensive Augustine has written a 3-part blog post (#1 here, #2 here, and #3 here) on 16 items that will be helpful for readers. He begins Part # 1 like this:

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. — Bertrand Russell, “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish” (1943).

In my critique of the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) essay competition on the “best” evidence for life after death and my response to the summer and winter commentaries on it, I made reference to striking similarities between the arguments made by Christian fundamentalists and survival researchers (i.e., those who purport to investigate survival of bodily death scientifically). In this three-part guest post, I’d like to highlight or elaborate on fifteen or so examples of how those at the forefront of “scientific” research into an afterlife—or in BICS’ framing, the survival of human consciousness after death—have consistently used fallacious arguments that mirror parallel arguments prominent among fundamentalist Christians.