Isn't it Obvious that Children Raised in Christian Homes Have Been Brainwashed?

Isn’t it obvious that in a Christian dominated culture children are taught to believe before they could ever come to their own conclusions through reason? And in such a dominant Christian culture isn’t it obvious that these children who are raised to believe receive certain benefits from the social relationships of the church they’re involved in that make faith comfortable for them? What best explains why the Amish children stay in the Amish fold if they never leave their particular small culture? What best explains the fact that many young people lose their faith when they get out of such a church environment by attending a University? And isn’t it obvious that if a child is told s/he should not doubt but have faith or else s/he will be eternally punished that this provides a very strong firewall against honest doubt? Child molesters tell their victims not to tell anyone or else they might be killed. Is that much different? And isn’t it obvious that this whole process is best described as brainwashing or mind control? What is it, if that doesn’t explain it? And isn’t it obvious that most of us could be persuaded or manipulated into thinking and doing what we normally would consider false or wrong? Doesn’t the malleability of human thinking alone call upon us all to be skeptics? I think so. If you disagree, why not?

The characteristics of a brainwashed person are 1) xenophobia, or the fear of outsiders, an us/them mentality (which includes the fear of reading what those who disagree write); 2) A high degree of emotionally attachment to a belief; 3) That a person highly prefers his/her beliefs are true. And, 4) wishful thinking, which clouds a person’s judgment. There are other factors.

Believers are blinded by their passions because they have been brainwashed by their culture. Our culturally inherited beliefs are what we use to “see” with. These inherited beliefs are much like our very eyes themselves, so it’s extremely difficult to examine that which we use to see with. We cannot easily pluck out our eyes to look at them since we use our eyes to see. But we must do this if we truly want to examine that which we were taught to believe. Again, it’s a simple fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed!

Should We Rate Religious Indoctrination with an R, for Restricted?

In a 2008 book titled Forced Into Faith Innaiah Narisetti "forcefully argues that children's rights should include complete freedom from religious belief. Narisetti proposes that the choice of religious belief or non-belief should be deferred till adulthood. Just as most societies recognise that marriage and civic responsibilities such as voting are adult prerogatives that children should not be allowed to exercise, so should the choice of a belief system wait till an individual is competent to exercise mature judgement."

"In this controversial critique of the UN convention, humanist Narisetti cites numerous examples of the ways in which early religious indoctrination leads to later negative attitudes such as intolerance, suspicion, and outright hostility directed toward those who believe differently. He also notes that religion provides a cloak for such obvious evils as sexual abuse, genital mutilation, and corporal punishment of children. While most societies are quick to condemn such abuses, Narisetti suggests that they should be willing to take the next logical step and look to the role of religion in such problems."

Sometimes ideas take a long time to germinate and become accepted. This proposal may be many decades away from being accepted, but the case has now been made.

Morality Is A Category Of Acts Of Mutual Self-Interest

In my view debates about Morality derive from the tendency of people to attribute and misinterpret intent and intelligence in self-organizing phenomena. To me it is obvious that Morality fits in a category of phenomena that derive from self-organization. Self-organization is commonly spoken about, even by scientists whether they mean to or not, as having some kind of intent or intelligence behind it.

CONFUSING INTANGIBLES WITH TANGIBLES
I think we do this because we are used to talking and thinking about objects. So we use those common patterns of speech as pre-made patterns of phrases to express ourselves because it is convenient for the speaker and the listener. It's so embedded in the English language and culture, in the heuristics we use day to day, even skilled thinkers such as scientists speak as though processes have intent.

In a way Morality is like math.
It is a representation of concepts that have natural relationships that exist and must be discovered to appreciate. In fact, in the days of Pythagoras, math was considered mystical, even divine, being objective and having "forms", and "essence". Its legacy in philosophy can be traced to the concept of the "essence" of humans, or "the soul". But that's a topic for another article half-done in my Googledocs.

Math is the process of applying values to representations of objects and intangibles to manipulate the relationships between them to assess different outcomes. The rules of Math are not so much "invented" as discovered. The rules of math are observations recorded for re-use. In the same way that mathematical rules are recorded observations of the interactions of their properties, the interactions between self-interested agents that have common properties can be recorded and given the name "Morality". Does this mean that "moral" acts can be predicted or assessed mathematically? I think the fact that people are comfortable predicting what someone would do in a given circumstance demonstrates that it is done informally on a day to day basis, and should someone take the time to capture that process mathematically, then I think it could be done probabilistically, similar to Game Theory.

A MECHANISM FOR MORALITY
- Mirror neurons,
"A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal.[1] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting." Mirror neurons have been shown to have a relationship to intentions, empathy and language.
Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2008. Answers.com 04 Mar. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/mirror-neuron
- An observed event.
One agent observes another agent experiencing some event.
- A Change of State of the feelings of the observer
- The Feeling causes an Emotion
such as "compassion" or "empathy". Additionally, emotion can be stimulated by input from our senses or by artificial stimulation using probes and electricity, or in some cases mirror neurons.
- Desire
The emotion causes a desire
- Thinking
The desire causes thinking processes.
- How do we think about this stuff?
We use mental images, we use language, we use the processes in our brains, and we can only use what we've stored up to the moment. How we think about things is completely dependent on our inventory of thoughts and experiences up to the point. Additionally there is evidence that shows across cultures that people have some parameters for behavior hardwired into the brain. The Trolly Problem demonstrates that people across cultures and categories seem to have a biological algorithm for dealing with situations that distinguishes intentional and unintentional harm during a rescue.

A Theory of Moral Grammar
Harvard University's Cognitive Evolution Laboratory was established to study moral decision making and has a "moral sense test" set up for visitors to test their "moral sense". Marc D. Hauser, a biologist at Harvard, is testing a theory that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their minds by evolution. In his book, “Moral Minds”, he shows that instant moral judgments seem to be generated by the "moral grammar" which are inaccessible to the conscious mind partly because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations.

THINKING ABOUT "MORAL" BEHAVIOR AS AN OBJECT
- How do we capture it for mental storage and transmittal?
We have to have a way to think about all the facets of the event, and how to describe it to some other mind.
- The "Moral" Act
The desire and the self-talk may lead to an action and if it does then the event plus the action could be observed by a third mind and then once its all over, some value ranking goes on, judgments are made, conclusions are drawn, and now there is something to describe, to judge, and store in an inventory of experiences, to share with another mind, and either endorse, reject or ignore.
- Organizing "Moral" Acts
Once there are more than one of these events in an inventory, a way to think about them that reflects their similarities is needed, so we classify them, and we call it "Morality".

MORALITY IS ANALOGOUS TO ECONOMICS
From what I can see, "morality" is a category of behaviors that result from the self-interest of many agents. It is a form of self-organization of these agents according to their mental capabilities into groups behaving according to implicit rules that will become explicit in humans and has an analogy in economics. Its like circumstances are being guided by an "Invisible Hand". "The Invisible hand" is "an economic principle, first postulated by Adam Smith, holding that the greatest benefit to a society is brought about by individuals acting freely in a competitive marketplace in the pursuit of their own self-interest."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 04 Mar. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/invisible-hand)

The difference between Self-interest and Selfishness
I see a lot of people make the claim that Adam Smith was endorsing "selfishness". Selfish is to Self-interest as Revenge is to Justice. While similar in concept, one is harmful and the other is not. Selfish and Revenge are about gaining an advantage, Self-interest and Justice are about maintaining an equilibrium.

Morality is really just a category of behaviors.
If we say that a behavior that fits in the category of morality is an action by an agent that requires an investment or risk to the benefit of another, then these behaviors can be observed to cross species boundaries and get more sophisticated with the sophistication of the species. All types of animals ranging from Apes, Whales, Dolphins, Birds, Elephants, have been documented exhibiting behavior that could be categorized as a rudimentary form of morality.

The real question is where does the behavior come from?
Lets trace it from its origins in an example taken from one of my experiences. I saw a person walking their dog on a leash. A stray dog attacked the dog on the leash and the person was struggling with separating them and not getting bit. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like I wanted to do something about it. From that feeling rose an emotion that caused me to start a process of thinking. My self-talk was something like "that's not right". I could relate to the person, and I knew how I would feel. I could relate to the dog, it was in danger from an aggressor and at a disadvantage. Through my emotion, self-talk, and narration creation process, I derived a strategy of dealing with the world. So it seems like the feeling came from the stimulus of a situation that was "unjust" or "out of place". The person was doing the right thing, the dog wasn't harming anyone and the stray was loose and aggressive. I made the choice to stop my car, get out and kick the stray dog to make it leave. But it had everything to do with visual and audible stimulus that came in through my biological receptors (eyes and ears) to set some biological process in motion that gave me the feeling, that caused the emotion, that caused me to derive a strategy for engagement with the world that I decided to take action on.

If God, then which God and how much is he involved in "Moral" behavior in non-humans?
If someone wants to inject God into that scenario then one has a lot of explaining to do. Since morality emerges in other species, other cultures and religions, then if God is injected into the situation above then he has to be injected into all the other situations including those of animals and Atheists. Why is God needed to explain it? Where does God Fit? Which god are we talking about? How does one know which god? How can someone else verify that it is being attributed to the proper God? If God has more to do with some situations than others, where are the boundaries for understanding when and how much God is involved and when he's not? Where is the tipping point or turning point when we can say that God is responsible for such and such moral event? And if the claim is "the bible says" then why should anyone trust the bible when the time of origin, the place of origin, the authors, the credentials of the authors are unknown, and there are is a lot of wrong data, even inconsistent data in the bible? The information in the Bible is of demonstrably poor quality when assessed using sound principles for information quality.

Consider these examples of moral behaviors derived from self interest
- I don't hit you because I don't want to get hit back.
- I grow vegetables well, Jill farms animals well, Harry is a good hunter, John makes good pants, and we all trade amongst ourselves for the things we need creating and equilibrium. It is not in our self-interest to allow one of the other participants to feel they are at a disadvantage by becoming selfish.
- I love Jill and when she is sad it bothers me so i try to cheer her up. Cheering her up makes me feel better.
- I trade with harry and he feels bad so he's not hunting, so I try to make harry feel better so I can get more meat
- Momma ain't happy so nobody's happy, so we try to make her happy.

Self-Interest Related to Relations
- We have biological emotional attachments to our children, and families, these are documented in research. Our desires to benefit them are derived in part from our emotions. The initiation of an emotion is not controllable for the most part, but we can do things to reduce the likelihood of their occurrence, or calm down, or work ourselves up, or decide to behave under the influence of the desires brought on by emotion.

It Just Ain't Right!
I don't need the police to do anything with my son when he takes a twenty out of my wallet, and I don't need the church to teach my son that his behavior is unacceptable on many levels.

It Just Feels Like The Right Thing To Do
And what is the origin of the desire to help an "enemy"? An uncomfortable feeling. Helping the enemy helps to resolve that uncomfortable feeling. It just "feels like the right thing to do".

Examples of Aiding the Enemy
- Christmas Truce and Informal Armistice
- Americal Civil War had many reports of aiding the enemy
- The American Underground Railroad for rescuing slaves

Language: Naming, organizing, classifying and categorizing.
Once the agents observe a phenomena and identify what it is they want to talk about, they must give the phenomena names in order to communicate what is going on in their mind. For example they have to give "sharing" a name, give "empathy" a name then they have to define what it is that is going on. The have to capture the phenomena in language so it can be discussed, then they can take steps to refine it and make it better, to set some parameters and boundaries, make some rules. They have to create a mental object from an intangible in order to work with it in a discussion to manipulate it according to parameters to make predictions about it. It's like verbal math working out the details of a moral equation.

The Aggregate Sum Of The Values Of THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Over time, the Value of "Pride" has changed in the moral equation. Pride used to be a virtue during the time of the Illiad, then Pope Gregory listed it as a deadly sin, then it re-emerged relatively recently as a behavior with positive and negative characteristics. The process of classification of morality continues to this day. You can see it in the news stories about legislative debates, most notably of late, legislation about the rights of homosexuals. Its a kind of an "Evolution of Morality" similar to the idea of Evolution of Coorperation

Justification For Morality Without God
The Justification for how "morality" came about is its inherent utility. The explanation starts with the feeling that causes the emotion, that creates the desire to act, which causes the action, and the result is beneficial whether it is realized or not by the agent. If it is realized, by humans for example, then we can further organize and classify it as a moral act and manipulate it to create a rule that can be used as a "tool".

The study of "Morality" seems to me to similar to a few other fields of study that I've listed below. I endorse the reader to take some time to become familiar with them. I've used Wikipedia for the links below and throughout not because it is a highly reliable source, but because it is a good place to start.

- Evolution of Cooperation
- Spontaneous Order
- Emergence
- Self-organization
- Game Theory
- Economics
- Harvards Moral Sense Test
- Marc D. Hauser
- Link to all DC's articles on Morality

Anyone that wants to argue that god has anything to do with morality has a very narrow point of view and is ignoring a ton of disconfirming qualifiers.

Morality is just plain good Economics.
Morality is ultimately an act of self-interest.
It Just feels right, and logically creates better outcomes for all agents.

The Scholarly Trend and the Mark of a Brainwashed Person.

I have argued that the reasons why Christians believe is because of brainwashing, ignorance and fear. We skeptics can even show from psychological studies that people of faith don’t reason too well; none of us do.

How many believers are willing to test what they believe by taking the Debunking Christianity Challenge? If Christians were really interested in the truth then those books would fly off the shelves. What I have learned is that many apologists have not even read many of the best books critical to their faith. Which of those ten books have YOU read Christian? What other books besides those ten have you read?

Yes, there are individual scholars who can stay believers in one or more fields of study antithetical to faith, like anthropology, Biblical scholarship, psychology, archaeology and many of the branches of science, but the overwhelming trend among scholars in those fields is toward doubt. Those are the facts. This means that it's a person's personality and sociological makeup that causes an individual to continue to believe in the midst of the evidence against what s/he believes. If the trend was towards belief then you might have a point. But it isn't, not by a long shot. Want to take a stab at explaining why this is so? My explanation is brainwashing, ignorance, fear of hell, and even the fear of the loss of social relationships.

People who have become atheists after embracing faith describe it as a terrible ordeal, much like pulling teeth out. They fear hell, and they fear what their families will think and do to them. It's best not to question the status quo and simply ignore doubt.

Christians don't realize you've been given a culturally adopted set of eyes through which you see everything. You just cannot see any differently. You don't even want to try to see things differently, do you, because you're scared? Does that describe you? Yes or no? If yes, that is a mark of a brainwashed person. If no, then take the debunking Christianity challenge.

Note to Reppert, Plantinga and Craig: The Claimed Proper Basicality of the Christian Set of Beliefs is Utter and Complete Nonsense!

The more I hear about this extremely queer argument the more I'm inclined to think with Dr. David Eller that believing and knowing are two separate things. He argues for a change in our nomenclature even though I'm not yet convinced he's right. It's just that there is no comparison of the Christian set of beliefs with our knowledge that the past happened. By my lights I see the belief in Elves and the belief in the Christian God as resting on the same foundations--culturally adopted ignorant and delusional beliefs which have no place among intelligent and highly educated scientifically minded people.

The fact that I have been treating Christian beliefs respectfully in the past does not mean I ever thought differently about them or of the people who hold to them. Christian, you are ignorant. Sorry, but that’s what I honestly think. Maybe by my saying this it will make you pause. Just become either an anthropologist, a psychologist, a scientist, a real Biblical scholar, or an archaeologist and it’ll help you appreciate what I’m saying. Yes, there are conservative believers in those fields, I know, but the ratio of conservative believers to liberals and non-believers is much much less in these fields of learning than the general populace (and Biblical scholars started out being conservative). I know why this is so, so you'll have to guess why. Philosophers of religion like Reppert, Plantinga, and Craig are merely accepting the results of shoddy conservative biblical scholarship and then seeking ways to defend those results without being Biblical scholars or archaeologists themselves to know the difference, like Hector Avalos, William Dever, Bart Ehrman are, along with so many others. [Craig is probably best to be thought of as an apologist, not a Biblical scholar]. And anthropology is, well, the clincher, or is it psychology, or paleontology, or geology, or astronomy, or any one of a number of other disciplines of learning?

I've learned a great deal while Blogging these few years. Just like flat earthers are ignorant so also are believers. But there's more to it since being ignorant doesn't exactly describe such a person. Believers are blinded by their passions because they have been brainwashed by their culture. Our culturally inherited beliefs are what we use to “see” with. These inherited beliefs are much like our very eyes themselves, so it’s extremely difficult to examine that which we use to see with. We cannot easily pluck out our eyes to look at them since we use our eyes to see. But we must do this if we truly want to examine that which we were taught to believe. It’s a simple fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed!

And there is no parity with an atheist here, so don't say "you too." For the real debate is NOT WITH ATHEISM AT ALL! The real debate is between the Christianities of the past and today along with the debates between a plethora of Christianities in today’s world. Then this debate kicks into high gear between the myriad of religions themselves. An atheist is someone who simply doesn't think that a particular set of religious claims is correct. I came by my atheism as the result of a process of elimination, as most atheists have done. Christians are on that same road too. They just fail to understand that the same kinds of requirements they demand of other Christianities and of other religions they reject also apply to their own beliefs.

As I’ve said before, I think I have solved the Christian puzzle.

Test Your Knowledge about Jesus on a Harvard Final Exam

This course was taught in 1999 by Helmut Koester (John H. Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History) and M.P. Bonz a graduate teaching fellow.

The course was offered as HDS 1500 (Harvard Divinity School 1500) and as FAS 1419 and E 1325 in the general University.

This is the final exam for this Divinity School course entitled Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels.

Harvard Divinity School 1500
Fall 1999

Professor Helmut Koester and Graduate Assistant Marianne P. Bonz

Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels

Final Examination

Section 1: Essays (Write an essay on one of the following topics)

(1) Describe your own portrait of the historical Jesus. What elements of the various gospels (canonical and non-canonical) would you select for your portrait, and why do you regard these particular traditions as more likely to be authentic than other traditions that you would choose to omit?

(2) Discuss the differences of the views of Jesus as they are presented in two gospels of your choice, for example, the Synoptic Saying Gospel and Matthew, or the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Luke.

(3) David Friedrich Strauss claimed that the gospels depict a mythological Jesus; that is, that they are not trying to represent Jesus “as he actually was”. Using relevant biblical texts, respond to this claim. What sort of evidence might either corroborate or refute this claim? Does such appear evidence in the gospels, and if so, what is it?

4) Choose one Gospel and discuss the redactional method(s) and literary concept of the author that have shaped his/her image of Jesus. Be sure to make reference to specific passages that demonstrate the special christological perspective of the author.

Section 2: Exegetical Passages

Choose one form part A and one for part B.

In your comments, discuss form-, source-, and redaction-critical questions, consider parallels in other Gospels as well as the role of the passage for the understanding of that Gospel and the probable value of this text for the question of the historical Jesus.

A. Comparisons (choose one)

Compare Mark 8: 34 - 9: 1 to Matt 16:24 – 28 and Luke 9: 23 – 27.
How does a comparison of these passages indicate Markan priority. Please provide a detail analysis.

Compare Matthew 22: 1 – 14 to Luke 14: 16 – 24 and Gospel of Thomas 64.
Identify the common source and the ways in which the individual authors modify their source to further their individual schemes.

Compare Matthew 16: 5 – 12 and Mark 8: 14 – 21.
What theological themes does the Markan pericope develop? How does Matthew’s version differ and why?

B. Passages (choose two, but not both from the same gospel)

Matthew 6: 1 – 18 (Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting)
Matthew 22: 1 – 10 (Parable of the Great Supper)

Mark 8: 34 – 9:1 (About discipleship)
Mark 12: 28 – 34 (Question of the Great Commandment)

Luke 9: 37 – 43a (Healing of the Epileptic Boy)
Luke 17: 22 – 37 (The Son of Man)

Q/Luke 7: 18 – 35 (Question of John the Baptist)
Q/Luke 13: 22 – 30 (Judgment over Israel)

John 5: 17 – 29 (The judgment that Jesus proclaims)
John 13: 31 – 38 (The new commandment)

Gospel of Thomas 12 – 13
Gospel of Thomas 91 - 94

The Newest Books on Evolution.

Yesterday in our local library I looked through Jerry Coyne's new book Why Evolution is True. [Check out the blurbs for this book on Amazon!] Believe me when I tell you that this is a masterpiece written to explain to the non-technical reader why scientists accept evolution. It presents many charts that explain the text too. If you as a Christian think the book of Genesis tells us about creation then you cannot be ignorant any longer, and ignorance is what it is. Get this book and come up to the educated world. After reading it you will then need to reconcile the fact of evolution with what you find in Genesis, and that prospect is not promising at all.

Another newer book deserving of high praise is Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. Don't be ignorant any longer.

Fitting the Pieces Together, the Christian Puzzle is Solved!

I think I've finally solved the Christian puzzle. Here is my solution in brief (details are linked to, and a much fuller explanation is needed):

Christians do not believe in the God of the Bible, despite what they claim. Instead, they believe in the perfect being of St. Anselm in the eleventh century after centuries of theological gerrymandering. The Bible isn’t consistent in describing its God, but one probable description is as follows: Rather than creating the universe ex nihilo, God fashioned the earth to rise out of the seas in divine conflict with the dragon sea god sometimes called Rahab (in Job 26:9-12). This God is merely the “god of the gods,” who like the other gods had a body that needed to rest on the seventh day and was found walking in the “cool of the day” in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh, the god of Israel, probably emerged out of a polytheistic amalgamation of gods known in the ancient Near East in pre-biblical times. In the ancient Near East, all pantheons were organized as families, and Yahweh was simply one of the members of that family. Some biblical authors consider Yahweh, the god of Israel, as one of many gods fathered by Elyon whose wife was Asherah, to whom was given the people and land of Israel to rule over (Deut. 32:8). This God was responsible for doing both good and evil, sending evil spirits to do his will and commanding genocide. As time went on, Yahweh was believed to be the only God that existed. Still later, Satan was conceived as an evil rival in order to exonerate Yahweh from being the creator of evil. Still later, in the New Testament the God of the Bible was eventually stripped of physical characteristics and known as a "spiritual being" (although, in an era where gods could become men and where women were regarded as merely receptacles of the male seed, the virgin birth story is problematic in the New Testament, and hard to reconcile with a God who is considered a "spiritual being"). As theologians reflected on their God, they came to believe he created the universe ex nihilo. Anselm finally defined him as the “greatest conceivable being.” But Anslem’s God is at odds with what we find in most of the Bible.

The origin of the Christian cult started with an apocalyptic prophet who preached a doomsday message and gained a small following in Palestine. Jewish prophets like these were a dime a dozen and they had it easy given the harsh Roman rule.

After Jesus was crucified his followers had visionary dreamlike or ecstatic experiences which led them to believe Jesus was alive in a heavenly type existence. As time went on an empty tomb sequence was added to the story as well as other mythic elements, like a virgin birth a transfiguration, and so forth.

Their story was of a God who loved people so much that he sent his Son to atone for our sins in a culture where human, animal, and child sacrifice was acceptable to large segments of society. This story made sense and so evangelists and missionaries like Paul were able to reach the people of the whole Roman empire who themselves were superstitious to the core, since they believed in many gods and goddesses and had no evidence for them either. The best story had the best chance of success in those times.

Since warriors go to war in the name of a god, and since the Christian religion was growing in numbers, Constantine went to war in the name of the Christian cross and established a Christian empire. Upon becoming Emperor he called upon the church to settle their disputes which decided orthodox doctrines at that time. So Constantine's battle on the Milvian bridge decided which religion would dominate in western cultures from that time forward. We have inherited our religious beliefs because of this whole process. Had Constantine fought in the name of another god then history might have turned out differently.

Since that time Christianity has simply reinvented itself in every generation, much like a chameleon.

The only reason Christians refuse to acknowledge these things is because they simply are defending their culturally adopted beliefs. Many Christians refuse to even acknowledge that human beings don’t reason logically about this at all! That’s because, as Dr. David Eller argues, our culturally inherited beliefs are what we use to see with. These inherited beliefs are much like our very eyes themselves, so it’s extremely difficult to examine that which we use to see with. We cannot easily pluck out our eyes to look at them since we use our eyes to see. But we must do this if we truly want to examine that which we were taught to believe.

And as far as where we got our morals from in our western cultures, the same things can be said. Our morals evolved.

There is no basis for believing. The only antidote to the brainwashing of our culture is to demand evidence!

The Christian puzzle has been solved for me. In this sense Christians are no different than roughly half of Icelanders who believe in the existence of elves.

The Good Book Looks like a Good Book!

It's already a bestseller, ranked right now at 170 on Amazon! The author is David Plotz, who is the editor of Slate Magazine. To get the book Click here. My claim is that the Bible debunks itself.

Icelanders and Their Culturally Inherited Belief in Elves

Roughly half of Icelanders believe in the existence of elves. So strong is their belief that it halts construction and road projects, among other things. See here. These beliefs are culturally inherited ones. Christian, why do you think yours are not!

HT exapologist

There are Serious Problems With the Flood Stories in Genesis!

That's right. Plus, there is no archaeological evidence for such an event. Let's just admit the Flood stories are myths, okay? Then let's look at other Biblical stories with that same critical eye. Christian, when you do you'll see many of them falling down one after another like dominoes.



Cheers.

Are My Arguments Really Emotional and Superficial?

Some Christians have basically charged that I left the fold for emotional reasons and that my book is superficial. In talking to Norman Geisler, a former student claims Geisler doesn't recommend it because of my arguments but because it shows I left the faith for emotional resaons.

Let it be said that former believers like me left the fold because of emotional reasons. That's just another delusion they have. The fact is that the emotional upheavals in people's lives merely shock them into doing what sane reasonable adults should have done all along, questioning what they believe in the first place.

And so I don't deny Geisler thinks this. He said as much in a series of personal email exchanges. But I think many of the arguments used by some of the top Christian apologists and philosophers are superficial too. Bill Craig even called J.L. Mackie's argument against miracles "shockingly superficial"! Really? That is shocking to even read that. Mackie's arguments are not superficial at all. I find them persuasive.

Where does that get us?

My case rests upon the fact that we simply "see" things differently, and I argue in the first half of my book for why I see things differently. We see through a particular cultural set of controls beliefs. I have an anti-supernatural bias. Christians have a supernatural bias. The real debate is on settling that particular question. No other atheist author that I know of seems to appreciate that point but me, at least not to where s/he will spend over half of a book defending an anti-supernatual bias before looking at the Biblical evidence in the later half of it.

What Evidential Weight Does a Majority of Scholars Have in A Christian Dominated Culture?

William Lane Craig in his debates about the resurrection thinks this matters a great deal. That's why he mentions it. What do you think? ;-)

Bart Ehrman's Book, Jesus Interrupted, to be Released Tomorrow!

I heartily recommend getting this book!

Angry Atheists

My heart sank a bit today when looking at former minister and friend Dane Eidson's blog, Ranting Lunacy. He seems angry. There just might be stages that formerly brainwashed believers go through who leave the fold, and the first stage is anger. I myself didn't experience that stage, and I still have no anger after learning I was brainwashed into believing. After all, I was brainwashed by the brainwashed and I in turn brainwashed others.

Dane writes:

We love to mock Christian evangelicals. If you complain about this blog's contents being offensive after just reading the above text you're only proving two things about yourself. And these are that you're a hypocrite and that you are an idiot!

Some of the purposes of his blog are:

To point out the hypocrisy of far right fundamentalists.
To mock Christian fundamentalism.
To offer evidence that Christian evangelical fundamentalism is actually a mental illness and delusional thinking.
To report on the latest moral failures of Christian fundamentalist preachers through providing the links to and commenting about the news articles and videos catching these hypocrites in action.

And in one of his posts he wrote:

I openly mock you Christian fundamentalists! I piss on the name of your God.

Don't get me wrong, as I've written previously, I understand Dane's anger, much like there was an understandable African-American rage once blacks began gaining their needed rights in American society, it's just that I wish angry atheists would first calm down before they write much. It plays into the stereotypical view believers have of atheists, and it's not healthy if sustained for a long period of time.

At the same time some anger seems justified. Psychologist Dr. Valerie Tarico has written an excellent piece describing the phenomenon of Atheist Arrogance which equally applies I think to “Angry Atheists.” I wish everyone would read what she wrote. It explains so much of what is underneath the stereotype.

My Interview on "The Things That Matter Most"

This Christian show has had a lot of top notch guests on it. The program will be podcast and archived so you can hear it. I felt a bit marginalized but it's always good to have this kind of exposure. See for yourself. No short interview can do justice to the arguments in my book.

What Can Account for Morality, We're Asked?

In David Eller's excellent book, Atheism Advanced, Eller basically explains morality as those moral rules made up by people in order to define what it means to be part of any culture. They are usually based upon the religious myths each culture accepts. There is no morality then, only "moralities."

He finds that there are moralities among animals like Chimps, so it shouldn't surprise us when language bearing humans came up with more elaborate moral rules. And since we're talking about human beings, it's no surprise that our moralities have some major similarities since we are social animals who need to get along, to be loved and to love, to help and to be helped. Anyone who doesn't accept the moral rules of a culture are not allowed in the group, or we banish them, ostracize them, imprison them, and kill them. Do you want the benefits of being in the group? Then obey the moral rules, or at least don't get caught. Otherwise, you’re on your own. As such, there is nothing prohibiting someone from not accepting the moral rules of a culture if s/he doesn't want the benefits of the group (which would be a Freudian "death wish"). Are acts like murder, rape, and theft objectively and universally "wrong" then? That's probably a nonsensical question.

Therefore, there can be no argument for the existence of God based on morality. Human beings make up their own moralities because we're social beings who need to belong and get along. Morality is part of our survival instinct. We need other people to survive!

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For a Christian who might be stunned by the conclusion that it's probably a nonsensical question whether or not murder, rape, and theft are objectively and universally "wrong," then think again. Look at your own Bible. There is plenty of that to be found in it, all sanctioned by your barbaric God. Elsewhere I've argued that rational self-interest can account for our morality.

Louis Feldman on Jesus and the Truthfulness of the Gospels

[Note: This is an excursion from a post I’m working on as a reply to Christopher Price’s study on the Testimonium Flavianum pericope the Jewish Historian Josephus (Ant. XVIII. 63 - 4) is claimed to have written. The full lecture, from which these sections were taken by Louis Feldman, can be found here.]

Louis Feldman:
As Eli Wiesel has said, the world is willing to forget the slaughter of six million innocent Jews sixty years ago, but it will never let the Jews forget the execution of that one Jew two thousand years ago.

However, the fact that it depends upon the Gospels immediately raises a number of questions. Because, after all, when you say the Gospels, there are four different accounts in the Gospels and they don't agree with one another in a number of respects. For example, there are different genealogies of Jesus. They have different accounts of the trial of Jesus. And we'll see there are other discrepancies.

In addition to those four accounts, there are a number of accounts that never made it into the canon of the New Testament. So therefore to speak of something that will be dependent upon the Gospels, which Gospel?

Secondly, how could you depend upon the Gospels when after all, the Gospels were not composed in Galilee where Jesus came from. They were not composed in Jerusalem where Jesus died. They were not composed in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, but in Greek. They were written by people who never knew Jesus in person. None of them knew Jesus in person. One of them, Luke, was not a Jew, incidentally. And the Gospels were written at least forty years after the death of Jesus. Now, coming from such sources, would evidence be admitted in a court today, let alone be ready to convict somebody?

But one thing is clear, that the earliest of the Gospels certainly, usually said to be Mark, dates from around the year 70, which is long after the time of Jesus, who apparently died in the year 29. And that Jesus never wrote anything. You know, if you had an inquest in the case of Jesus, who killed Jesus, you don't have a body. You don't have anything he wrote. None of the authors of the Gospels ever talked to him. So you have nothing.

On Josephus and Jesus:
It's very interesting that there is one other account which, if it is authentic, does deal with the crucifixion. And that is by the Jewish historian Josephus. The question is whether Josephus really wrote it. And I've written about that, and I've come to the conclusion that he couldn't have written it, certainly in the form that we have it, because Origen, the Christian church father, at one point says that Josephus didn't recognize that Jesus was the Christos.

On Pilate and Jesus:
Here we have two people - and these are really the only two people who deal with Pontius Pilate at any length, namely Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, who was the leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria, and Josephus. They both mention Pontius Pilate. I might say that Josephus mentions Pontius Pilate in both the Jewish War and in the Antiquities.

The major difference, I might say, between the two accounts of Josephus is that the Jewish War account, which is almost as long as the one in the Antiquities, does not mention the passage about Jesus, which is a central focus of the Pontius Pilate account in the Antiquities.

Philo says about Pontius Pilate, and again you would never get this from reading the Gospels and certainly not from Mel Gibson, that he was "inflexible, he was stubborn, of cruel disposition. He executed troublemakers without a trial." He refers to Pilate's "venality, his violence, thefts, assaults, abusive behavior, endless executions, endless savage ferocity." And I'm quoting.

Now, Philo was certainly a scholar. He apparently had good information. You can see that he certainly tries his best to be fair towards the Romans. He got along with the Romans. He was the head of a delegation to the Roman Emperor Caligula, yet this is the way he speaks about Pontius Pilate. And those are the only substantial accounts that we have of Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate, according to Josephus, actually took money from the Temple and built an aqueduct in Jerusalem. He offended Jewish sensibilities by attempting to introduce busts of the emperor into Jerusalem.

Again, when the Samaritans arose to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Gerixim, he sent his soldiers, who slaughtered the people. Eventually he was deposed. The Roman governor of Syria, who was in charge of the procurators, actually forced him out of office.

A Few Links About James P. Holding

James Patrick Holding changed his name to Robert Turkel and changed it back to JP Holding. There are several sites dedicated to exposing his disgusting and depraved tactics, along with the way he dishonestly mischaracterizes his skeptical opponent's arguments. He riles atheists and agnostics not because Holding effectively refutes our arguments, but because he's an obnoxious know-it-all who treats those who disagree with disdain, even credentialed scholars. He's spread his cancerous type of Christianity over at Theology Web where he has been given an area as his own, which he says is his "exclusive place to debate." Any skeptic who dares to challenge his views there will not be able to take the ridicule and abuse he and his followers will heap on him. It will not be a free discussion of the ideas. Expect to be mocked. This is his version of Christianity at its best, and it's ugly. You will feel as though you're back in High School trying to carry on a reasonable discussion with a gang of adolescents who don't care, who mimic their hero J.P. Holding. And Holding likes it this way, because then he doesn't really have to deal with the opposing arguments.

I want to comment about JP Holding's recent Blog he's involved in that is dedicated to personal attacks on me [Edit he now has two, count 'em two Blogs dedicated to Lil ole me. Tee hee. They say you can tell how famous a person is by the number of stalkers he or she has. I have a few of them. But Holding is obsessed with me]. He claims he's focusing on me because of my "entertainment value." Hmmmmm. What's that exactly? And if so, is this a good "stewardship" of his time? The truth is he's being disingenuous, for he later adds that I am an "enemy of the common good." Lot's to say about that one. He cannot honestly or consistently tell us why he's targeting me. No one bothers targeting people who are not influential or important, now do they? Besides, most of what we get from him are ad hominems. He's the one who has entertainment value I think! ;-)

I don't plan on giving Holding much attention here at all. Attention is what he craves for it validates him. In fact, among his ignorant followers they think he's important precisely because he gets some pretty important skeptics to turn our guns on him. His followers conclude he must be doing something right if we go after him. But the truth is that Holding merely annoys us by treating us with such disrespect that we feel compelled to respond. He makes us angry, not because he has great arguments but because of his demeanor toward us.

Dr. Keith Parsons calls him an "idiot loser" and writes: "If you elicit foaming rants from Holding and his ilk, you must be doing your job." "Holding is like the big, fat cockroach that scuttles across your kitchen floor. You just can't resist the temptation to stomp on him."

In one of his diatribes Holding called Dr. Hector Avalos "Dr. Stupid" not long ago. As you'd guess that got a rise out of him. So Avalos powerfully responded to Holding right here. Dr. Avalos points out "A series of self-assured statements (from Holding) that turn out to be false, sloppy, misleading, or outright lies." He continues:

In general, Holding’s review relies heavily on the following types of arguments:

1. Ad hominem argumentation

2. Ad vericundiam argumentation, an “appeal to authority” that is inadmissible in logic, especially without further explanation of why such an authority is correct.

3. Juvenile rhetorical devices usually repeated ad nauseam (“whine” “rant” etc.) that could apply equally to his complaints about my book. These devices serve to deflect attention from the lack of substance in Holding’s posts.

Then there is the case of former DC member, Matthew J. Green, who as a skeptic tried to be Holding's friend to no avail, and finally wrote him off.

One of the most important debates about Holding and his clowns has to do with his Biblical justification for ridiculing and belittling apostates, skeptics and yes, even other Christians he thinks are heretics. Holding’s justification for being obnoxious to people who don't accept the "truth" can to be found here. Most everyone would disagree with Holding on this. He and others like him live in a tiny tiny part of the world. I've weighed in on this matter here. There are Calvinists who think God has predestined people like me to hell and so I deserve nothing from them, not any dignity, respect or truth. So why would anyone trust much of anything these Calvinists or Christians like Holding say about skeptics like me? They have all but admitted I don't deserve being treated charitably with dignity and respect. Holding is a grand master of what is called "terrorist apologetics," and he's focused on me.

Holding hangs out at TheologyWeb. The first time I went online in 2004 Ed Babinski pointed me to TWeb. I didn't know any better. So I went there. All I have wanted to do is to discuss the issues and the evidence for my claim can be found here at DC every single day. But what I found at TWeb were juveniles, hacks, hyenas and jackals who were not interested in an honest respectful debate for the most part. Holding was the ring leader. People there followed his example of "terrorist apologetics." But I stayed because I wanted to see if I could break through to them. And I didn't know where else to go. It's the one forum I emphatically do not recommend if you're looking for an honest and thoughtful discussion of the ideas. They are juveniles. They act like juveniles, think like juveniles, and argue like juveniles, after their juvenile leader, Holding. To deal with the likes of them is to wallow in the mire with pigs.

When I first self-published my book, Why I Rejected Christianity, it appeared on Amazon without any description of the contents inside. So in order to tell readers about it I wrote a description and posted it as a review using my name. In order to do so I had to rate it, so I did what most other self-published authors do, I rated it with five stars. Then when the description of it appeared three months later I removed it from Amazon. Three years later someone on TWeb claimed I wrote a deceptive review of my own book hiding the fact that it was me. I denied it partially because of how this accusation was made. I emphatically did not attempt to deceive anyone. My name was on the review and I said I was the author and that in order to tell readers what was inside the book I had to rate it. I also denied it because I had forgotten that I wrote it. But Holding and company claim I deceived and denied the truth. I didn't. It was the nature of the accusation and the fact that I had forgotten I did it. When shown that I had written it I remembered and admitted I did so.

In complete frustration with the likes of Holding I went on the attack and started a blog about Holding with numerous quotes and links that people who have dealt with him before wrote (what you will find below). Even a cuddly dog can be provoked to take a bite out of you, and I did. Holding is lying when he says that when confronted with it I denied it. I most certainly did not. I admitted it. Prove me wrong or shut up!

There is another guy over there named Nick Peters whom I debated on the problem of evil a few years ago. Why did I debate him? Who knows? When I first came online in 2004 I didn't know where else to go. In any case, every single one of the Christian TWebbers said I had lost the debate to Nick even though he lost that debate miserably. But rather than say anything critical about his performance all he received was unqualified praise for beating me when he didn't. TWebbers basically lied to him. Nick was at the time a college student working at a Walmart. The only thing I could figure out was that these Christians were encouraging Nick despite the evidence and despite the truth. Liars for Jesus they proved themselves to be. Liars to Nick. I really think we should not lie to people like they were lying to him. Christians will do this out of faith. They'll say "yes, you'd make a good minister," only to have such a person fall flat on his ass figuring out years later he should never be in ministry in the first place. That's why I wanted Nick to hear a second opinion, mine, since he was aspiring to be an apologist and showed no signs of being able to comprehend a simple argument in that debate. I said the reason they encouraged him and put him on staff at TheologyWeb is because he has a disability and the staff felt sorry for him.

Now they go around lying about why I said what I said, without the whole context. Maybe Nick will indeed be a good apologist. He certainly has improved himself somewhat over the years. But there is no crime in telling the truth when everyone else he knew was not doing so. You might be able to fault me in the future for being wrong (or blunt in the heated aftermath of a debate). But it is an absolute lie for them to say what I said was spoken out of hate for a man with a disability.

Nick can show himself to be an adult. Rather than doing the right thing and telling people to drop it since it makes no difference now, he's playing the sympathy card: "Poor pitiful me," he's now acting, "look how a big bad atheist told the truth as he saw it at the time." And that is what I thought at the time, although I also said that even if he proved me wrong he can thank me for inspiring him. It's like I must have actually kicked him or something. I didn't. Get over it Nick. Grow up. Do the adult thing. Tell people to drop it. It's over. Move on. But he's learned from Holding. He'll not amount to much of anything so long as he seeks to mimic Holding and that has nothing whatsoever to do with any disability he has.

Holding also lies when he claims I misused Norman Geisler’s 'endorsement' of my book. I did no such thing. What, must I quote everything Geisler said to provide the context for one or more of his sentences and if I don't, I'm misusing the quote? Who in their right mind would ask for that? I quoted him accurately and even included another personal note inside the book from him later, where he states he does not agree with me.

Holding and crew will throw up other accusations at me from when I was visiting TheologyWeb a few years back. All they can show is that when visiting an insane asylum I can act as crazy as the inmates since I was completely frustrated with that forum and the people there. There comes a point when a person can be so frustrated with a group of people who are not interested in a decent discussion that there is nothing left to do but blast them. And I did. I have no respect for them and do not try to have a rational decent discussion with the likes of them any more. They deserve only my disgust.

So now I have a problem. What I know without a doubt is that Holding and his ilk are swine and they continually try to drag me down into the mire with them. If I don't respond then it seems they win. If I do respond I am equated with him.

But I am not like him. He is below me. He dogs my steps with a couple of blogs dedicated to personal attacks on me on a monthly basis, if not more (plus a few sticky posts at TWeb about me up front and center). He claims I'm obsessed with him but if so, why is it I hardly ever mention his name? Remember, it's not me who has two Blogs dedicated to debunking him. He's not worth it. I merely respond to his false and childish accusations once in a long while. If he didn't do this from time to time I'd never even bother thinking about him or his clown followers. [No wonder they hate me 'cause I call 'em clowns. I maintain they are. No one but a clown would be a follower of Holding].

As far as I'm concerned except for this lone post, Holding doesn't exist. This probably bothers him greatly because he craves validation and I refuse to give it to him. That's why he continues to bring up these false and out-of-context accusations in order to get a rise out of me, to see me mention his name again and again. I suppose he'll bring up these old accusations five years or ten or twenty years from now as if they are relevant to who I am. They aren't, not at all.

Until he comes up to the respectful adult world of discourse who treats his intellectual opponents as human beings, and until he displays a greater level of education and thinking skills, I will ignore him.

I call upon his own Christian friends to bring him to his senses. He is the one who initially poured gasoline on the fires on my passion. I warned him about this that as a passionate man he ought not to have done it with me. I am motivated by believers who think they can dehumanize a person simply because he does not believe the exact same way. I dare say that Holding's efforts his whole life will not be in the plus column after you factor in the way he motivated me to go for the jugular vein of the faith that allows him to justify dehumanizing people like me. It's that same faith that led to the burning of heretics. The only difference is that people like Holding do not have the political power they once had.

But he still laughs even though I am dedicated to the destruction of his faith. Evangelicals have him partially to thank.

---------------------------

Here are what others have said about him:

Joe E. Holman wrote:

"Holding is nothing but a balls-to-the-walls, obnoxious prick who thinks the world of himself and exalts his views to the level of the bible which he tries to defend. To have to fight through someone's mockery and disrespect and insults to get to a good debate isn't worth it. I've debated better credentialed people than him who were openly respectful and decent. They were good exchanges -- without the bullshit! That's what we'd prefer."

"Holding has the annoying tendency of many apologists of looking up facts and presenting himself as an authority on the issues he just looked up. He fronts himself and the select group of 'scholars' he considers valid. To him, everyone else is 'stupid' and he says so specifically. No one makes as many ad hominem attacks as this guy. He'll quickly make you want to hit him in the mouth as hard as you can. No kidding."

Jason Long responds to J.P. Holding here, where he writes, 

"He is most notorious for redacting and editing his debates, misrepresenting his opponents, editing his opponents’ responses, refusing to link to his opponents’ responses because 'it gives small-minded people something to complain about,' invoking insults and other ad hominems, outright lying, appealing to authority, dodging questions he cannot answer, constructing absurd rationalizations to make biblical harmonies, and justifying cruelties if carried out in the name of God."

exapologist said... 

I want to take a moment to point out that John's most fundamental point is actually correct, viz., that Holding systematically mischaracterizes the views and arguments of his "opponents", and his argumentation is characterized by strings of ad hominems, non-sequiturs and other sorts of fallacious reasoning. This has can be shown by simply looking at the dialogues themselves in which he has engaged. See, for example, the exchange between Holding and Keith Parsons.

Now this doesn't mean that Holding is incorrigible, that he should be written off forever. If he decides later on that it would be better to listen to people's arguments and characterize them fairly and sympathetically, then we welcome discussion with him. There are plenty of Christians who are very smart, but who are also civil and honest, and who care about following a line of argument wherever it leads. Victor Reppert is an example. So are christian philosophers like John Hawthorne, Dean Zimmerman, Michael Rea, William Alston, etc. We are happy to listen to them, since they're reasonable people who recognize the importance of the free, civil, democratic exchange of ideas in the pursuit of truth. There arguments are also forceful, and worthy of consideration in their own right. But Holding, at least for some time and (apparently), is not in that camp. As long as he's not willing to engage in the civil exchange of ideas, there are principled reasons for not engaging him. For one thing, abusive language is contagious and gets everyone angry, leading to the deterioration of the pursuit of truth and serious discussion. For another, systematically misconstruing the views of others positively prevents the pursuit of truth, and stifles inquiry.

In short, there's not much point trying to engage in serious inquiry with someone who has the goal of shutting it down -- it's self-defeating. Since Holding does this (again, at least he does so now -- if he turns over a new leaf, then things will be different), the only reasonable thing to do is to ignore him. Instead, we'll happily listen to Christians who have the same basic interest of careful, civil inquiry about fundamental questions and hopefully have fun and make friends along the way).

Chris Hallquist sums up the consensus opinion about J.P. Holding, here. Hallquist said, 

"The consensus seemed to be that he was an arrogant, inflammatory, buffoon, not worth taking seriously. I think Matthew in particular nailed him on his ridiculous attempts to belittle the intelligence of scholars who specialize in ancient history/Biblical scholarship, when Holding only has a degree in library science." "Holding has demonstrated that he simply cannot be trusted to accurately represent his sources."

As a former dialogue partner with Holding Matthew J. Green just got fed up with him, seen here. Matthew says,

"My friends, I am sorry I defended Holding. My opinion of him now is that he is an arrogant spin-doctor of questionable honesty who enjoys insulting people and arrogantly scoffing at those who disagrees with him. I cannot believe that I even wrote a response to a blog post on here trying to defend him by asking blog members on here not to take him so seriously. I would like to offer a bit of friendly advice to people here: don't take him seriously at all. He's a sad joke!"

Matthew J. Green later responds to J.P. Holding, here in these words: 

"Turkel has adopted a style of viciously attacking skeptics and, sometimes, even Christians who have been known to have opinions that differ from himself. I believe that the reason Turkel acts this way is because, frankly, he has a serious ego-problem. I consider his arrogance to be borderline pathological. He resorts to abusive name-calling, treats atheists and other skeptics who disagree with him with the utmost contempt, and goes out of his way to make them feel completely and utterly stupid. His favorite defense mechanism is to dodge criticism by redirecting it at those who make the criticism. Thus if someone criticizes Turkel for his behavior, Turkel will latch onto a fault of that person, no matter how minor, irrelevant, or what-not and dish it out at the person making the criticism. I am continually bothered by Turkel's alarming egoism, the abuse that he continues to dish out at skeptics, and the silly arguments that he will often prop up in support of his faith. I would hope that other Christians who are embarrassed by Turkel's behavior and his fellow Turkelites will join with me and others in denouncing Tekton, Turkel, and others as in need of humility and reform."

Ebon Musings said this about Holding's tactics, here: 

"Mr. Holding's interest in having an honest and open discussion is doubtful at best." And here he says, "Mr. Holding's position is one that will concede no ground and countenance no loss, no matter the evidence or logic arrayed against him, no matter how soundly he is trounced, no matter how hopeless his case is. In such circumstances he will clutch at any argument, no matter how strained, and present it with a belligerence usually inversely proportional to its strength. His repeated use of ad hominem attacks, his sneering demeanor, his contemptuous and dismissive tone, his scorn and derision of anyone who differs from him - such patterns of expression permeate his site, and are often deployed to intimidate opponents and camouflage arguments that are patently weak, faulty, or irrelevant."

Earl Doherty responds to the "style" J.P. Holding, here in these words: 

"The heavy sarcasm, the open derision, the sophomoric recourse to insult, the sneering tone: these are readily recognizable as the all-too-common reaction of those whose cherished beliefs are being threatened or even questioned. His lengthy critique of my site is one vast ad hominem diatribe. To perceive, much less to appreciate, the counter-arguments he offers to some of my ideas, one has to wade through a distracting and distressing overlay of insult, innuendo, scorn and ridicule, delivered with a ‘wit’ and word-play of questionable sophistication. Such heavy-handed invectives often serves to bolster what are weak, or beside-the-point, or even fallacious arguments on his part. This is not the mark of the professional scholar, and I suspect that few genuine members of that category, or even the discerning layperson who is interested in learning something on the subject of Jesus’ existence and the reliability of the New Testament record, would bother to read through much of this overblown exercise in self-indulgence."

J.P. Holding's dishonesty is exposed, here. There we read,

"Robert Turkel uses a number of deceptive and dishonest rhetorical tactics in his efforts to "win" religious debates. Among other things, Turkel will make up answers off the top of his head; he will hide damaging information from his readers; he will take another person's argument, make a caricature of it, and attack the other person on the basis of his misrepresentation; he will distort and misrepresent the writings of scholars and historians to support his position, he will use insults to minimize those who disagree with him (see here); he will employ insults and bluster to dodge troublesome questions; he will respond to questions with questions; he will make unreasonable demands in exchange for answering a question or questions that he does not want to answer; he will rewrite his responses in debates after the other person has already responded; he will claim to have answered a question or to have addressed an issue when in fact he has not; and so on and so forth. Not all of these actions are blatantly dishonest-but many of them are and all of them, taken together, reveal a basic dishonesty in his approach to discussion and debate."

Jim Lippard points out J.P. Holding's dishonesty, here. He says, 

"In Turkel's response to "The Jury Is In," he criticizes me on the basis of arguments I never made, writing that I "botched" three points. I pointed out that I hadn't made those arguments, but rather a different argument that he doesn't address." Then after a response from Holding Lippard says, "He still doesn't get it. No, I don't mean he misunderstood my arguments, I mean he mistakenly attributed statements to me which I did not author and which were not attributed to me by Robby Berry--the error is Turkel's, but it's unlikely he'll ever own up to it, since he doesn't care."

Keith Parsons replies to J.P Holding, here. He says, 

"Apparently, attacking a straw man whenever he pleases is a convenience that Mr. Holding likes to take advantage of."

Farrell Till responds to J.P Holding, here, and here, and here. Till says this of Holding: 

"He has a habit of either removing or revising articles after errors in them have been exposed or he has been caught with his pants down on some issue."

Kyle Gerkin responds to J.P Holding, here. Gerkins writes, 

"Holding starts out with ad hominem attacks, lampooning me as an author in an effort to denigrate my credibility. These are cheap rhetorical tricks, that have no bearing on the truth or falsehood of the propositions laid out in my article. This is certainly not the tone of an objective analysis."

Brian Holtz responds to J.P. Holding, here. Holtz wrote:

"In our debate over the Trilemma (that Jesus was liar, lunatic, or lord), Robert Turkel's latest response to me contained no less than 137 polemical blunders, each categorized and separately identified below...."

G.A. Wells responds to J.P. Holding, here. He wrote,

"Most of Holding's article is devoted to appraisal of the pagan and Jewish testimony to Jesus. This is not, and never has been, my position." And he says, "Holding begins his criticisms, as do many of my critics, by questioning my qualifications to say anything on the subject at all. His final dismissal of my views as "the result of a fallen and sinful human nature, and nothing more" is just childish. His case is not improved by his accusations of "outright misrepresentation to get round the evidence", of ignoring "a great deal" of it, and of treating what is left "most unfairly". Characterization of me as "a measly professor of German spouting balderdash dug up from old books by F.C. Baur" well illustrates the abusive and vituperative material that dominates these responses. One cannot expect to find much in such writing that is worthy of serious attention..."

Richard Carrier responds to J.P. Holding, here. In response to Holding's argument Carrier says this, 

"Holding does not make any effort to answer these questions even vaguely. Thus, his conclusion can only be vaguely certain at best." In responding to Holdings' counter argument, Carrier says, "Most of Holding's criticisms worth responding to are not important enough to warrant emending the text of my critique. Rather than identifying actual errors of fact or critical omissions that significantly affect my arguments, or clear flaws in my reasoning or manner of expression, most responses amount to an unjustified misunderstanding of what I actually wrote, or new groundless assertions or even outright false claims."

Thom Stark, a liberal Christian scholar writes the following about JP Holding:

Holding does not trust in his ability to present the facts in such a way that they are able to speak for themselves. He has to employ character assassination, prefacing all his criticisms with assurances that the object of his critique cannot be trusted. In this way, Holding is profoundly disrespectful to his readership; he displays a disdainfully low estimation of their intelligence.

[Please note: I update this post periodically.]

The Best Antidote to Brainwashing: Demanding Good Evidence

[Written by John Loftus] This is what I need to believe: good evidence along with good arguments. This is what the Christian needs when it comes to the other religions he rejects: good evidence along with good arguments. If a Muslim argues that the Christian simply refuses to believe in Allah because of a hardened heart, the Christian will scoff at the suggestion just as I do when a Christian says I refuse to believe in Jesus because of a hardened heart, so let’s just dismiss this as any kind of explanation for why I don’t believe, okay? We all need good evidence along with good arguments to believe, and all of us claim this to be the case. But we also must admit some people are brainwashed into believing. The best and only antidote to delusional beliefs is good evidence along with good arguments.

I’ve already articulated some of the kinds of evidence I need to believe: just click here. But this evidence does not exist. What good evidence is there to believe Christianity, the particular local one you believe in, Christian? There is no external evidence that shows any miracle occurred. There is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus or the Canaanite conquest. There is no external evidence for Noah’s flood. There is no external evidence that Daniel was saved from the lion’s den. There is no external evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. There is no external evidence that Jesus was transfigured before the eyes of his disciples. There is no external evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, either, nor can such evidence be found in the Turin Shroud. There is none as in N-O-N-E!

The Christian claims that evidence of the universe’s complexity points to a designer. But even if so, and there are good reasons to doubt this, what reason can be found for not thinking this universe is the result of the last act of some god as he was dying in which he merely started the quantum fluctuation that produced this universe? And even if this universe was designed by this god, or some other god like Allah, why is there so much unintelligent design found in it, including so many natural disasters? The supposed fall of Adam and Eve in the garden is pure myth, but even if true, it does not account for what we see in this so-called designed universe for so many reasons I don’t know where to start, except to say that the designer must be blamed for not providing them the needed evidence to believe him, otherwise they would never had sinned in the first place! And it is sheer barbarism to punish all of the children who suffer in this world for the sin of Adam and Eve.

The Christian claims he has the evidence of morals that point to a moral lawgiver. But again, if there is a moral lawgiver, then this does not show us that Yahweh exists over Allah or some other god. And there are good reasons to doubt this anyway, given the Euthyphro dilemma and the fact that it does absolutely no good to say there is a moral law when Christians cannot provide any agreed upon specifics about what that so-called moral law is when it comes to the myriad disputes they themselves have had over what God requires of them down through the ages.

The Christian claims there is good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But this evidence is mainly internal to the canonized New Testament texts and gospels which were redacted from oral story-telling and various non-inspired written accounts of the life and death of Jesus. This Jesus is best thought of as merely another failed Jewish apocalyptic doomsday prophet, and nothing more. And so upon his shocking crucifixion his disciples had visionary experiences of him and concluded just like the Millerites, the Jehovah’s witnesses, and other similar religious groups that their God was providing a new direction for their cult. In the case of the early disciples they concluded from these visions that Jesus was still alive and that the end of the world (the eschaton) would come very soon in their lifetime. Besides, historical evidence is very poor evidence to believe in extraordinary claims like Christians must believe in anyway.

Lastly, but probably not exhaustively, Christians will claim they have a religious experience which counts as good evidence for what they believe, like an inner witness of the Holy Spirit. This is so bogus of an argument it’s hard to even start. Every religious believer of almost every particular religious faith will claim they too have had veridical religious experiences to support what they believe, so religious experiences are entirely untrustworthy to decide which religious truth claims are the correct ones. I’ve already provided a way to test these experiences right here, and I critiqued William Lane Craig’s defense of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit in several places, the links of which can be found in this last post.

Apart from the design argument mentioned above, what about the other arguments for the existence of the Christian God? Suffice it to say that at best, if they all work, they only conclude that a deist god exists, and that kind of God is so far removed from the triune God believed by Christians in the Bible that it’s like trying to fly a plane to the moon…it cannot be done. But in fact none of these arguments can give any good reason for why the Christian God does not have the same problems with regard to how he himself exists as a fully formed 3 in 1 eternal being who has never learned anything new because he supposedly knows all things, and so forth. Where did he come from? It is a nonanswer to merely parrot back to me that "he always has existed." That's a mere language game I don't buy into. Explain it. If you can't do this then the simpler brute fact excludes such a complex being by virtue of Ockham's razor.

Christian, since you and I believe there are many people in the world today who are deluded by their religious beliefs, including brainwashed people in the so called “cults” that need “deprogramming," how do you know that you are not one of them having been brainwashed by the very culture you were brought up in? How do you know? You must consider this a possibility for it’s a fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed. It matters not how many people believe as you do in your own culture. They may be brainwashed with you, just like you think the more than one billion Muslims have been brainwashed. You need to clearly think about these sorts of things. Read my links. Think about them. My claim is that you are brainwashed. I’m here to help you. Demand good evidence along with good reasons for why you believe, or cease believing. It’s that simple. You do it with everything else you accept. Do the same here.

I honestly think that I was brainwashed by the Christian culture I was raised in. Now I demand evidence to believe along with good arguments. I adjure the Christian believer to do likewise. Do not believe upon insufficient evidence or poor arguments. Do not believe just what you were taught to believe, for again, as far as you know the people and the culture who taught you what to believe may be brainwashed as well, just like you claim this of the Muslims, the Mormons, and the Hindus who were all raised in their own particular religious cultures.

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I know there are many Christians who read this Blog who refuse to get and read my book that offers a sustained critique of Christianity. It's getting some pretty good reviews. To test whether or not you are one of the brainwashed ones you owe it to yourselves to get and read it.

More Christian Heuristic Analysis

I'm a big fan of argument analysis, and in William Lobdells post he listed several common Christian heuristics for dealing with the problem of apostasy. In the comments section of his article you can see one of our christian guests using some other common heuristics which I've taken a moment to analyze. I welcome William, and I hope he'll consider joining DC as an author.

This is a list of some of the heuristics William handled in his post:
Criticism: You’re anti-religious or anti-Christian.
Criticism: You are trying to lead people away from God and/or Jesus Christ
Criticism: You’ve confused the sinfulness of man with a perfect God.
Criticism: You were never really a serious Christian, so you didn’t really lose your faith, you never had it.
Criticism: You’ve consigned yourself to an eternity in hell

In the comments section of that article one of our guests used quite a few common heuristics laying them out nicely for an opportunity for analysis. In my view these heuristics are the result of various cognitive biases and unskilled thinking. A couple of Good books on that sort of thing are "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich and "How To Think About Weird Things" by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn

BLAMING THE VICTIM
"no you have not lost your faith – just exchanged it. "
This depends on belief being a voluntary action. Try believing that the sun won't come up tomorrow, or the sun will not set around the time its forecast. I can't do it, and I don't think anyone else can either. One can commit to an idea, but that is completely different than having a belief or an emotional investment in it. I can say "Sir" or "Ma'am" completely independent of whether I think its deserved or not.

One practical test of whether belief is inherently "rational" is to look through trivia game cards and choose the right answer from four or five options. Sometimes there will be one that the observer thinks right away could be the answer, then see another that the observer "feels" more likely to be the right answer. Then the observer is wrong and it was the one the observer thought before but didn't feel right. This kind of thing happens to me all the time. Belief, for the most part, is not consciously controlled, if at all.

"Without proof absolute either way to believe there is no God is as much of a leap of faith (more in my opinion) as to believe there is a God."
A lack of proof of something SHOULD cause a belief that a real world state is not being accurately described by the data. The commenter seems to say that the belief that the datum is unlikely given the lack of evidence is EQUIVALENT to believing it without evidence. The quality of the evidence is relevant only to the observer. The evidence may foster a belief in some people but not in others.

It is appropriate to doubt a datum that lacks support, it is NOT appropriate to commit to a datum that lacks support. The commenter faults the apostate for appropriately doubting the datum on the grounds that the evidence does not nurture, support, cause, sustain or warrant his belief. Therefore the commenter faults the apostate for not ARTIFICIALLY sustaining his emotional investment.

"I really think you are taking cheap (and intellectually weak) shots at the religion that has not met your expectations – by the way, did you meet Christ’s expectations of you?"
This depends on the apostates expectations being inappropriate. Were the apostates expectations inappropriate? If the apostates expectations were based on sound principles in support of the apostates value system then how can it be inappropriate? What expectations does the apostate have that is inappropriate? I think its safe to say that apostates are apostates because the evidence doesn't nurture, support, cause, sustain or warrant their belief. If the only definitive proof is some inner knowing about God, then if God is of One Mind, this inner knowing should be consistent across people and multiple denominations of Christianity are evidence that its not.

THE "TU QUOQUE" FALLACY
"But why should we expect more of Christians and their institutions than of secular organizations?"
"Secular organizations do it too!"
Is it inappropriate to fault something because other things exhibit the same behavior. But it can be appropriate to fault things even though the behavior is exhibited by the speaker. Should I NOT reprimand my child for vulgar language even though I do it too? My child has every right to reprimand me, and to further reprimand me for not being consistent. In this case, how Secular organizations behave has no bearing on how Christian organizations should behave.

THE CIRCULAR ARGUMENT
"it is rational to expect Christianity to attract more than its fair share – where else would they go in an unforgiving world?"
This presumes Christians are in a constant state of "recovery" from their sin. The guest concludes that there are more "sinners" in church exactly because "sinners" see church as place they can go to help overcome their "sin". Therefore it should be expected that one would find "sinners" in church. After all, people that go into an Ice Cream shop have a desire for and are lacking ice cream, so we would expect to find people lacking ice cream in the ice cream shop.

The missing qualifier in that reasoning scheme which disconfirms it and which is the qualifier that breaks the circle is the effectiveness of the ice cream shop in providing Ice Cream. People do get their ice cream because the ice cream shop is effective at selling it to them. So if customers of ice cream never left the store, we should see more of the customers that have had ice cream, and can get it anytime they want and less of those that want it, do not have it and have not had it.

I'll concede that we are all in constant state of recovery from undesirable human behavior. That is what education and learning how to associate in a society is all about. But this leads to the question of HOW EFFECTIVE CHRISTIANITY IS at dealing with undesirable Human Behavior (Sin) compared to other methods. When you assess the effectiveness and efficiency of Christianity on dealing with undesirable human behavior, its evident that it has no advantage.

"[the apostate says] 'I indeed was a serious Christian' Well you certainly went through some of the motions!"
This asserts that though the apostates behavior was consistent with a true believer, his apostasy proves that he never really believed at all. This missing qualifier which disconfirms the statement and breaks the circle is the intent behind the actions. What benefit would the NON-BELIEVER have in ACTING LIKE A BELIEVER? Obviously to act like a Christian is a result of believing oneself to be a Christian or believing their is some benefit to pretending to be a Christian. To say that someone pretended to be a Christian for over a decade and then decided to renounce it and advertise it requires some forethought and premeditation to what benefit? To put oneself into an undesirable minority? Not bloody likely.

THE SLIDING WINDOW
"have fallen into what seems to be a common atheist trap on giving up religion – finding in the literalistic interpretation of the bible anything that can be criticised."
The guests seems to be saying that though the Bible is the revealed word of God, it shouldn't be taken at face value. Its only accurate so far, but they won't define any parameters. Bring some parameters for how to measure what is an accurate representation of a real world state and what is not to the table and there might be a case for a non-literal interpretation. As it stands, it is not clear that the author of the scripture did not intend for it to be taken literally except where there is an obvious use of metaphor such as in the case of parables.

"Given the social context of His time there were many things Jesus did not directly seek out against – capital punishment etc."
This seems to presume that it was somehow inappropriate for God on Earth to speak out against slavery, or not killing witches. If Jesus was God on Earth, then in order to Qualify as God he must have been the ultimate authority, so how would it have been inappropriate? Is it NOT a sound principle that the most qualified should lead, or that the authority should exercise that authority, or that beings should be prevented from intentionally or otherwise harming themselves or others? To make the guests claim tenable the criteria for appropriate behavior in an authority and the criteria for appropriate behavior by the observer of suffering must be modified.

THE SELF-CENTERED STANDARD FOR CHRISTIANITY
"The problem you seem to have faced was that when you realized God was not in the beliefs you held you seem to have decided there is no God rather than that God might be different from what you believed or wanted Him to be."
This is the old "I Got Mine, Why Can't You Get Yours?" argument. If the apostate understood Christianity the way our guest understands it, the apostate would still be a believer. Meaning that if the Apostate would ignore disconfirming qualifiers in the standard Christian reasoning schemes, then they would still be a believer. I Agree.

Link to all my articles

Norman Geisler's Review of My Former Self-Published Book is Now Online!

You can read it and decide for yourselves. Here it is. To read my response and a link to FormerFundy's response see here. Needless to say my Prometheus Books edition is a massive revision of my former book and supercedes it in many ways. To see some reviews of it follow this link.

Debunking Christianity is Ranked 13th Among Atheist Sites From More Accurate Polling Numbers

Link. This is updated every week.