Religion 101: Final Exam

If you're a believer then you shouldn't have any problem with this Final Exam.

Go ahead, see how you do. ;-) Hat Tip: Jim Jones.

Science Is Doing What God Can’t Do: Answering Prayers for Healing

Spray-on skin, made-to-order muscle, and print-out kidneys aren't just science fiction anymore. Dr. Anthony Atala and Dr. Stephen Badylak, two pioneers of regenerative medicine, talk about the latest methods for building new body parts, and the challenge of growing complex organs like the heart, liver or brain.

Audio @ NPR:
What the Doctor Ordered: Building New Body

THIS is how you debate the resurrection. (Arif Ahmed vs. Gary Habermas Debate)

Cambridge Professor Arif Ahmed undercuts all potential arguments for the resurrection with his opening salvo (a variation of Hume's argument against the probability of miracles/magic).  Habermas never really recovers, and his typical apologetics for the resurrection do not offer a coherent reply.

Some Mistakes of Moses, Continued

Note from my friend Julian Haydon who sends me these posts every week: "This was written 133 years ago; for a public beginning to receive "explanations" for absurdities; but still when many, as now, believed every word in the bible true. Ingersoll relentlessly drives home the full implications of what they beleive -- but some of the learned doctors he quotes are in no way embarrassed."

God Cannot Be Perfect Because Perfect Does Not Make Sense

So in a recent post on Skeptic Blogs I was talking about how God, prior to creation (at least according to classical interpretations of God based on the Ontological Argument), had ontological perfection. That is to say, he was in a perfect state of being (since this is built into the definition of God). The argument followed that, in creating the world, God would be either lacking something and thus having a need, which is incoherent with ontological perfection, or he was downgrading his perfect state in the process of creating this world.

Was Jesus Married? New Papyrus Fragment Fuels Debate

BOSTON (Reuters) - A previously unknown scrap of ancient papyrus written in ancient Egyptian Coptic includes the words "Jesus said to them, my wife," -- a discovery likely to renew a fierce debate in the Christian world over whether Jesus was married.

The existence of the fourth-century fragment -- not much bigger than a business card --was revealed at a conference in Rome on Tuesday by Karen King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dr. Victor Reppert On Why He Doesn't Read Any Book I've Recommended

I don't think there is another blog where so many educated evangelicals and atheists converge for debate but here at Debunking Christianity. I like this very much and admire these Christians who wish to engage the opposition even though at times it gets a bit rough. Some of the best evangelical scholars visit and comment here like "The Big Four": Victor Reppert (ranked about 18th in all-time comments), David Marshall, Randal Rauser, and Matthew Flannagan (although Matt only comments when I write about him). I have even allowed guest posts by several other Christian scholars, like James Sennett, Doug Groothuis, Craig Blomberg, Kenneth Howell, John F. Haught, and even one by William Lane Craig (posted by proxy), all of which can be read here. Few of them however, have ever acknowledged that my arguments are any good (Sennett, Howell and Haught are the exceptions, but then they aren't evangelicals). Probably none of them have ever heard any really good faith-damaging atheist argument (the ones they acknowledge don't actually provide an under-cutting defeater to their Christian faith). Perhaps because I have interacted the most with "The Big Four" I've become convinced Christian apologetics is rank sophistry, or just plain blind willful ignorance. By sophistry I mean "a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning," or rather, "subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation."

For the record, Reppert seems to be the most biblically ignorant of the "Four" (because he focuses on his specialty, the Argument from Reason). Randal Rauser is biblically literate but is also almost pure sophistry. Vic is the most cool, calm, and dispassionate commenter, willing to take the heat without responding in kind, and the most willing to learn from his opponents (but as you'll see that doesn't mean much). Marshall is the wittiest and the most biblically literate (although that too doesn't mean much). Rauser loves to communicate in hypothetical stories which I find very interesting (although most of them utterly miss the point). Flannagan pretty much argues like I do although with a great deal of sophistry. Now for my case in point of the day, Dr. Reppert's ignorance.

Have Someone Different At Your Campus, Atheist Meet-Up, or Convention

I'm available for speaking engagements, debates, weddings, funerals, and other stuff like that. To learn what I can offer and how to contact me, read below.

Quote of the Day, by Thomas Paine On The Evidence to Believe

The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon-day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection, and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.

Analytical thinking erodes belief in God

Will Gervais asked 93 university students to rate their own belief in God and other supernatural agents such as angels. Then, several weeks later, they underwent "priming" for analytical thinking – they were asked to unscramble sentences that included words such as "ponder" and "rational", read text written in hard-to-read fonts, or even just look at a picture of Rodin's sculpture The Thinker

After tallying the results here is the conclusion:

Some worthy secular organizations need your help.

As I write this, three amazing secular organizations are all within striking distance of *major* money courtesy of the Chase Community Giving Program  The 46 charities who receive the most votes will receive a minimum of a $50,000 grant from Chase,  The Secular Student Alliance and Foundation Beyond Belief are in a close race with many other charities for the guaranteed $50k (Foundation Beyond Belief is only 15 votes away from 46th place!), and they could use a few extra votes to help push them over the top.  Camp Quest  is also in the running for a runner up prize of $20,000 which will go to those who place lower.   Voting is free, so please take a few seconds to help out these worthy organizations.

Some Mistakes of Moses, Continued

This was written 133 years ago for a mainly hostile public, and in a time when the Bible was regarded as "every word true and inspired by God". Ingersoll uses the Bible against itself. [Provided by Julian Haydon]

THE NECESSITY FOR A GOOD MEMORY by Robert Ingersoll.

It must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the creation in Genesis. The first account stops with the third verse of the second chapter. The chapters have been improperly divided. In the original Hebrew the Pentateuch was neither divided into chapters nor verses. There was not even any system of punctuation. It was written wholly with consonants, without vowels, and without any marks, dots, or lines to indicate them.

These accounts are materially different, and both cannot be true. Let us see wherein they differ.

The second account of the creation begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter, and is as follows:

Quote of the Day, By Matt McCormick on Randal Rauser

One exercise that I run with my students is to have them spend time at the outset of an essay giving a clear, charitable, and accurate reconstruction of the author’s arguments they wish to criticize. I’m still not seeing anything like that in these posts. Link.

Three Fair and Impartial Tests For Christian Faith

There are three impartial tests for intellectually honest Christians who wish to test their faith. 1) We have The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) which I've written extensively about. But there are two others that Professor Matt McCormick has written about.

The Old Testament Caught in Lie, After Lie, After Lie

Each segment is 51 minutes long. If you don’t have time, please just watch the summation in video 4: The Book (I would love to see WL Craig try debate either Israel Finkelstein or Neil Silberman over the truth of the Bible! These videos will be a foundation for my forthcoming post.) "In God We Trust" . . . Like Hell!

The Bible Unearthed 1.The Patriarchs

The Bible Unearthed 2.The Exodus

The Bible Unearthed 3.The Kings

The Bible Unearthed 4.The Book

I Doubt Rauser is Even Trying To Understand Me

I have said that Dr. Randal Rauser is not being intellectually honest when it comes to his faith. This does not mean I think he's doing anything unethical or immoral. It means his faith blinds him from being honest with the arguments to the contrary. Let me try, yet once again, to persuade him to throw off his blinders with what I consider one of the dumbest rejoinders to my arguments I think I have ever heard. I do so in hopes he will see it for what it is, and then take seriously that this same blindness affects how he treats other arguments against his faith. I hope in vain though. Dr. Victor Reppert endorses what Rauser wrote, so hey, he's no different. Faith makes otherwise brilliant people stupid, and I mean this. They must hand out PhD's to almost anyone, is all I can say. Let me show you this stupidity from a post Rauser wrote titled, "Is John W. Loftus 'dumber than a box of rocks'?" Warning, this is going to get ugly.

Rauser, This Is Not A Intellectual Game of Chess With Me

How can I convince a deluded person that he is playing intellectual chess games when he is really really good at them? I probably can't. Case in point, yet once again, is Dr. Randal Rauser. I had previously written an open letter to him but to no avail. Perhaps others can learn from it on how not to search for the truth. That's who I write for, others, people searching for the truth, not Rauser. I do so in hopes they can see this for what it is, because he can't. I'm sure that if I were discussing the ideas that separate us with an equivalent Rauser type of Scientologist or a Mormon, I couldn't convince them either. He doesn't get this point. He may never get it. He discounts the overwhelming probability that the whole gospel is based on a lie. Now let's consider his rejoinder to what I had previously written.

Responding to Rauser On the Wildly Improbable Christian Faith

Dr. Rauser fancies himself as a Christian intellectual who seeks to straighten the rest of us crooked people out. We’re bent out of shape, you see. He’s gonna fix us. ‘Cause we need fixed. He wrote a review of my chapter in The End of Christianity titled, “Christianity is wildly improbable.” I had not read a word of Rauser's review until lately, after he practically begged me to comment on it. He shouldn’t oughta do that. ;-) Since I said I would comment, here goes.

A Note On the Bible and the Kingships of God and Jesus

{I’m working on a major post on the why the Bible cannot be trusted as either history or theology (complete with footnotes) which I hope to post within the week.}

With just the simplest reading of the Bible, we find that both God and Jesus are depicted as kings. That is, while they maybe divine, they rule as earthly kings just as the pharaohs of Egypt or the emperors of Rome ruled with absolute power and fear. Since the professional scribes of the Biblical world did not know of any other rule, plus the fact that religion was used to support imperial dictatorships, all ancient rulers were appoint by some King God (be it he Yahweh, Zeus, or Aten) to function as an extension of their God King. So to it was for even Paul and his justification of the divine rule of the Roman Emperor in Romans 13. Likewise in the final book of the Christian Bible (Revelation), the kingship of God and the kingship of Satan clash in one final battle over who will rule humanity as the last and eternal dictator.

The Whole Gospel (or Good News) is Based On a Lie

Today I was eating lunch and watching people. You know, it's fun. It keeps our minds occupied wondering about them. Where are they going next? How was their morning? What are their concerns today? Are they happy? Things like that. It's fun guessing based on our limited view of what we see ever so briefly. My wife and I play a game where we have some fun at their expense by doing so. But have you ever wondered what they think about the various issues of ethics, politics and religion, specific issues? Going even deeper have you ever wondered what it would like being them? Ever wonder what it would be like being a closeted gay person, or the opposite gender, a different race, or being older than you are? Ever wonder what it would be like to be someone else, to have all of the experiences another person had, having learned everything he or she did? Now take this beyond the shores of your particular country or continent. Ever imagine what it would be like being a person from Japan, or Africa, or South America, or France, or Greece? I know one thing. If we were raised in a different culture as a different person we would largely think like people who are different from us and who live in different cultures. The evidence is overwhelming.

Now let's back this up with a question: How is it possible to reasonably judge people, all people, based on what they believe happened in a lone part of the ancient world? The gospel "belief unto salvation" dogma dies on this rock. It's reminiscent of the ancient barbaric thought police. Even liberals of every religious persuasion are persuaded that one's beliefs cannot be the basis for pleasing any god, or being judged by him. And yet this "belief unto salvation" dogma is reflected in the New Testament over and over. It cannot possibly be true. The whole gospel is based on a lie.

Them's My Rules

I treat people more respectfully and graciously than most people do online, unless they violate one of these three rules: 1) tell me what I should or should not do (It's my life and it's my blog); 2) malign me in some demeaning way (I will not allow believers to dehumanize me); or 3) show a repeated lack of ignorance and unwillingness to learn from me (Unfortunately, the more I interact with a Christian then the more I can see whether this is the case). I'm saying don't do these things if you want a reasonable respectful civil discussion with me. If anyone violate these rules I'll tell them off, sometimes in a big bad mean way, and I don't care who you are either. Just don't do it. Ever. I would hope people know this by now. It's who I am and I'm not about to change. If you don't break these rules I will not verbally abuse you in any way, although I cannot guarantee others won't. They are not up for discussion or debate either. Repeated violations will get you banned and will cause a cessation of contact from me. And to any morons out there, how I respond to violators of these rules does not adversely affect the strength of my arguments, as Robert Ingersoll said when accused of lecturing for the money:

Christopher Hitchens' Widow On Mourning And 'Mortality'

For 18 months, while undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens chronicled his year of "living dyingly" in a series of essays for Vanity Fair. Those essays, as well as never-before published notes from Hitchens' final days, are compiled in a new, posthumous book titled, Mortality. Carol Blue, Hitchens' wife of 20 years, wrote the afterward to the book. She talks with NPR's Neal Conan about her husband's final days.

What Contrary Evidence Troubles Me?

Davis Marshall asked me three questions:

What existentially difficult questions do you even admit face you, as an atheist? What contrary evidence troubles your confidence? Do you dare confess?

Let me take the last one first. I think he is probably "projecting" onto me. That line of psychological reasoning goes like this: "Since I have secret doubts then John probably does too." I'm not presuming to know this about him, but I suspect it's true. Perhaps he'll say that having doubts is a good thing, since he could claim it to be a mark of an open-minded person. Nonetheless, I have no trouble telling people what I think. He knows this. Perhaps that's why he asked. But he envisions me secretly fearing hell, worrying that if I am wrong I'm doomed, or worrying whether I'm doing a good thing by arguing against Christian faith, or that I hide some facts that support faith whenever it's inconvenient to do so. So in obliging his request what follows isn't a confession. I have no secret or hidden questions so there is nothing to "confess." This doesn't mean I know everything. I am continually learning as I go, and I have a lot of unresolved questions about the Bible, theology, and the history of the church. I have a lot of philosophical questions, the kinds that science can solve in principle, if not outright. I have questions about whether there will ever be a grand unified theory of everything, concerning the ultimate origins of everything, of human self-awareness and consciousness, and questions about metaphysical free-will, and the nature of ethics. They all interest me but they are not my specialty.

Honest Christians, Answer This Question!

I'd like for you to be honest with your faith here. No delusional sidesteps, okay? Answer a question having to do with what came first, your faith or your understanding. As we know, Anselm argued that "faith seeks understanding." That's the same stance other believers view their own religions. First they believe, then they seek to justify it by understanding it. Did you reasonably examine your faith before you adopted it? Or, did you try to justify it post hoc, after believing it?

My claim is that justifying something post hoc is an unreasonable way to examine a religion. It's something the Outsider Test for Faith finds to be an inconsistent double standard. For we know from cognitive studies that the strong human propensity is to unreasonably justify what we believe after the fact. We do this in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance in our heads (that uncomfortable feeling we have from for holding two contrary propositions at the same time).

Here's how cognitive dissonance works. You made a public stance in a confession for Jesus. Then you come across disconfirming evidence. What do you do? You already stated publicly you believed. So you must make a choice, either recant and be embarrassed for making a rash commitment, or find some way to escape the force of that disconfirming evidence. Sometimes that escape hole is so small only an ant could crawl through it, but when it comes to faith that'll do just fine.

In any case, this question has two aspects to it. The first aspect is chronological, the second one is logical.

How Did 9/11 Change Your Religious Beliefs?

Huffington Post is asking this question so I thought I would as well.

I've Propped Up a Couple of Christian Sites For Too Long

On or about August 14th I ceased linking to Christian blogs in my sidebar. I had done so for years in some cases under the rubric "Sites I Visit From Time to Time." What I didn't realize is that by doing so I was propping up their audiences. I made them more important than they were. And anyone who had anything nasty to say about me eventually congregated at them. The owners of those blogs reveled in their success and learned that by berating me they could get even more hits. So this played itself out over and over until those sites became cesspools of Loftus bashers. Two of them used to be ranked by Alexa at or about the 600,000th mark. Now look at their Alexa rankings, but before you do, let me crow a bit at my absolute power over them. *peep* *peep* ;-)

Howard Bloom: "A Does Not Equal A"

I've previously recommended Howard Bloom's new book, The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates. It is an intellectual feast. Bloom's central question is how the cosmos creates without a creator. Even if you disagree with his thesis there are startling insights and gems for thought that will probably stun you. For everyone interested in such a question on both sides of our debates this is sure to be essential reading. Let me tease you with something that might be stunning from chapter 2.

Contra Dr. Rauser on the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF)

Rauser commented on the OTF thusly: "As for the principle that 'you have to assume x is false and then establish its truth before you can believe it,' I'd like John to be consistent and apply the principle to itself.'"

Randal, there is some really solid overwhelming evidence that when it comes to your religion you should presume it has the burden of proof, which is to assume it is false. It's hypocritical to do otherwise, since that's how you REASONABLY approach all other religions that you reject. If your faith passed the OTF then you would be crowing about it. The fact that you intuitively recognize it doesn't is the only reason you rail against the OTF. There are a great many things you accept that you would change your mind about if someone presented sufficient evidence against them. Evidence has a way of breaking through to us all. Why doesn't your faith have that kind of sufficient evidence for it?

Let's put it this way: If God created us with minds that need sufficient evidence to believe and did not provide the needed evidence to believe, then he took away with one hand what he demands on the other hand. It also means that reasonable people who demand sufficient evidence to believe, reasonable people who were not born in a Christian privileged culture, will be condemned to hell by that same God simply because they were born as outsiders. Even the great Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton argued for an outsider test for faith.

Some Mistakes of Moses (Continued)

The God of Moses was a God with hands, with feet, with the organs of speech. A God of passion, of hatred, of revenge, of affection, of repentance; a God who made mistakes:—in other words, an immense and powerful man.

Note: as before, the following is an excerpt chosen by my friend Julian Haydon from an 84 page paper written in 1879 by Robert Ingersoll. Says Haydon, "There were some Christians who were beginning to reject a talking serpent in favor of allegorical explanations; but there were millions who regarded every word in the Bible as holy fact. Ingersoll was contending with the latter. His tactic is to recount the story as told; drive home the clear meaning; allow the impossibilities and contradictions to speak for themselves; and draw stinging conclusions."

Evolution - don't throw the baby out with the bath water

I was having a discussion about evolution over on a thread at Skeptic Blogs, a case of someone, not necessarily a denier, thinking there were genuine issues with evolution that needed answering. I answered his five points with ease - some typical misconceptions. But it did make me think about the epistemology of Creationists and evolution deniers; something which I have thought about before and want to share (it is lifted from my latest Skeptic Blogs post).

I was having a discussion about evolution over on another thread of a post I made from the other day. After explaining a few misconceptions and showing that evolution really does have a good smorgasbord of evidence to support it as a theory in a way that promotes bewilderment in the face of denial.

It reminded me of this issue with denial:

Denial of evolution, usually from a presupposed position of theistic necessity (very few atheists deny evolution!), comes in two shapes:

Quote of the Day, By Robert Ingersoll

If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future.

Before Him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted.

He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain.

He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto da fe.

Biblical Discussions Are Notoriously Manufactured

Earlier I had said that written out discussions are notoriously manufactured. I said that in reference to Randal Rauser's book, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that all of them are to some degree (barring audio or video-taping). This is especially true when one side of a particular debate gets to write them. Now for the Bible lesson of today. Read the chapter I've reproduced below from Luke's Gospel. Have you ever actually seen religious debates like the ones in this chapter, where one side (Jesus) repeatedly and conclusively stumped the other side? I haven't. It's manufactured. Don't trust it to represent what actually happened. Hint: The Pharisees and Sadducees were not convinced, I guarantee it, and they had rejoinders which were never written down by the gospel writers. The Bible is a biased book that needs corroboration at every turn, and it lacks it.

Wannabe Christian Apologists, Tackle This Book!

I recently received Howard Bloom's massive new book, The God Problem: How a Godless Universe Creates. It looks like a real intellectual feast, although I've only skim-read it at this point. You can look inside the book at Amazon to see for yourselves. Bloom's central question is how the cosmos creates without a creator. Even if you disagree with his thesis there are startling insights and gems for thought that will probably stun you. For everyone interested in such a question on both sides of our debates this is sure to be essential reading.

A Typical Discussion With a Christian

In homage to Randal Rauser's book The Swedish Atheist, the Scuba Diver and Other Apologetic Rabbit Trails, which is set in a conversational tone, let me do the same from my perspective. I have but a few minutes right now so this could be bettered, and these type of written out discussions are notoriously manufactured *cough* *cough*. But let Smoe represent a Christian and Joe a non-believer.

Give Drs. Rauser and Marshall a Big Welcome!

Christian apologists Drs. Randal Rauser and David Marshal seem to have conspired together to comment here as a tag team in a wrestling match against me at DC. Why? Because I have "a big audience," said Rauser in a comment, an audience of atheists, agnostics and skeptics. And so it seems with Marshall as well. Give them a big warm DC welcome. No, seriously, I welcome them. Now I don't want to be over-run with Christian apologists, but I suppose they will be met with more atheists who want to debate them over the issues that divide us. So I would welcome this too. Just be careful when it comes to my involvement. Don't assume that if they have the last word that I cannot answer them, and don't expect me to have the time to answer them either, since I now have a second job (I had told my readers this might be necessary for a long time, and the time has come. I'm tired of living on a meager income). I'd like to say some additional things about this development, if it's something that will continue into the future (and of this I don't know).