The Rest of the Story
Here is an excerpt from my book, Why I Became An Atheist: Personal Reflections and Additional Arguments:
I'll Be in Denver On April 29th
Link. I hope some of you can come out. Dr. Douglas Groothuis and I will dialog about my talk afterward. My friend Doug is a Christian apologist who has written or edited the following books: Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith
, Unmasking the New Age
, and In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment.
, Unmasking the New Age, and In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment.Nine Best Atheism Books of the 21st Century
Far be it for me to toot my own horn, but...this list on Amazon is exciting to me, especially when compared to the other books on the list. ;-)
Bill Craig Answers My Question
Remember what I asked? Here is his answer just after answering a previous one:
Why I Think The Rapture Madness is Indeed Madness
[Written by John Loftus] Below is a video where sincere believers describe what they think will happen in the future:
End of the World Predictions are a Dime a Dozen
You can see how many end time predictions there have been year by year. Just pick a year to learn who thought the world would end. Hat Tip Unreasonable Faith.
Mano Singham on the Ought-Is Fallacy
Most people understand that we cannot usually infer ought from is. But what religious people like Craig seem to be doing is committing the even worse offense of what one might call the 'ought-is fallacy', where because they think that we need an objective morality in order to keep our barbaric impulses under control, therefore it must exist. And since they also think that only a god can supply such a morality, therefore a god must exist also.
No.
Believers in god have to first establish using empirical evidence that god exists before they can use god in arguments about morality or anything else. You cannot argue for the existence of god on the basis of some property that you arbitrarily assert must exist (for whatever reason) and that could have only come from god. Link.
Quote of the Day, by GearHedEd
Science doesn't kill people; people kill people. Religion doesn't kill people either, but it does tell you WHY you should...
A Question in the Aftermath of the Craig/Harris Debate
Bill takes Q & A's on his website so I just submitted this one:
Bill, in your debate with Sam Harris you claimed God was the grounding of objective morality. That word "God" is problematic though. Until that word is defined, or until you tell us how we know what this "God" wants us to do, or what it is, what you end up saying is that there is an objective grounding to morality, and that's it. But then Sam Harris agreed with you on that score.Think he will answer it?
What do you say to someone who claims this debate was just about semantics, that is, you both agreed there was an objective grounding to morality, but that the real debate concerned how you each defined the word "God"? Sam does not like that word, nor does he use it, and he would vehemently deny that the word applies to his grounding for morality. But what would you say to the objection that the debate was about what that word means, and you never told us anything about this "God" or how we know what "God" wants us to do, or what it is, so all you argued is that there is an objective grounding to morality, and that's it, in agreement with Harris. And since Harris attacked your notion of God repeatedly he won that debate.
Goodness Without God is Good Enough: William Lane Craig vs Paul Kurtz
This debate took place in 2001. Bill Craig has been debating this topic for a long time. Link. A book came out in 2009 with a transcript of this debate along with other essays: Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics.
Check it out. I am.
Check it out. I am.Patricia Churchland's Gifford Lecture - Morality and the Mammalian Brain
Watch the YouTube video below;
William Lane Craig and the Ontological Foundation of Morality
Since Craig made a big deal of this in his debate with Sam Harris, here is Wes Morriston's critique of it. Link. Here's a quote:
Either God has good reasons for his commands or he does not. If he does, then those reasons (and not God's commands) are the ultimate ground of moral obligation. If he does not have good reasons, then his commands are completely arbitrary and may be disregarded. Either way, the divine command theory is false.
History Channel's Mini Series "The Bible" Produced by Mark Burnett Roma Downey is Propaganda and Flat Out Wrong
Biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou argues that God had a wife - and that her existence was covered up. Make time for this. It is excellent. Must see TV.
You can watch parts 2-4 below.
You can watch parts 2-4 below.
William Lane Craig's Post-Harris Debate Impressions on Facebook
Here are his comments from Facebook:
It was wonderful being back on the Notre Dame campus again. Even though I am not a Catholic, I felt very much on the home court here and sensed the support of the Christian community. Many have remarked on the terribly low quality of the questions following the debate. What you need to understand is that the audience was loaded with people from the community who are part of the local sceptics group. Last year they also dominated the mikes, with the same intellectually dampening effect. Here's an amusing anecdote we received prior to the debate:
Quote of the Day, By articulett
I think about my believing years, and it would have done me some good to hear people like Harris--or any smart person treating religious beliefs like the crazy delusions they are. When you treat these things with respect, then trusting people assume that there's something worthy of respect there-- that faith is something to be respected. I bet I would have found former preachers and priests turned atheists fascinating-- and there's growing numbers of them.
I'm glad we don't have to tiptoe around peoples' magical beliefs any more. I think there is a lot to be said for declaring the emperor naked. Of course believers will rush and swear that the emperor is wearing magical robes and that they saw them and that the silly person calling the emperor naked doesn't know anything deep about magical fabrics-- but the seeds of doubt will be planted in young minds and they will have a choice that many of us didn't have until later in life.
I do think that religion will mostly be associated with the less educated classes and the poorer in the future. One day people will wonder how it is that people could have ever really believed such crazy things.
Craig/Harris Debate: If You Were Scoring Points Craig Won, But Harris Clearly Had the Better Arguments
I was in the audience and it was quite the debate. Unlike watching online debates I could see each man while the other one was talking. Sam stared at his computer while Craig was talking, sometimes smiling and typing, and Craig would sometimes look puzzled at what Sam was saying.
The audio of the debate can be found here. Someone took notes on the debate which can be found here.
The audio of the debate can be found here. Someone took notes on the debate which can be found here.
Sam Harris to Debate William Lane Craig Tonight
I'll be in the audience with Chris Hallquist. They'll be debating whether goodness comes from God at 7 PM EST. I'm told live streaming of it can be found here.
Why Do Christians Want a Craig-Dawkins Debate, But Not One With Me?
Although not all Christians say this, some do. Isn't that disingenuous? Surely if they want to see Craig trash Dawkins in a debate then they have no qualms about seeing such a thing, if that should happen with me. Consistency thou art a jewel! They may have other reasons but to say he will trash me cannot be one of them.
I Want To Debate William Lane Craig
Yep, this is well known. I do. Give me a chance. Someone set it up. Many people want to see it. Bill said at one time that the person he fears debating the most is a former student of his. I am that student.
Women Submit, or So Says the Bible
Gandolf argues
For starters,Eve is the one blamed for being convinced and led astray in the garden of eden by the naughty snake that convinces her to eat the fruit of the tree so that they will become as gods, Eve then leads adam astray by helping convince Adam to do likewise through being led by Eves example,thus causing downfall of man.
Quote of the Day, by Christian Philosopher Richard Swinburne
I cannot see any force in an argument to the existence of God from the existence of morality. The Existence of GodIf it doesn’t convince him why should it convince me, or anyone else for that matter?(p. 215).
I'll Be Speaking At Denison University
Tomorrow I'll be speaking about my book, The Christian Delusion, on the third floor of Denison University's student union building, Slayter Hall, at 7:30 PM. Denison U. is located in Granville, a central Ohio suburb located east of Columbus. I hope to see some of you there.
If You Were To Debate William Lane Craig How Would You Go About It?
[Posted by John W. Loftus] Jonathan Pearce weighs in on debating Craig below. How would you do it?
The William Lane Craig vs Lawrence M. Krauss Debate
The audio can be found here. The videos can be found here. Enjoy.
A Mysterious Coincidence Can Lead Us To Think Some Agent Did it
Okay, okay, I'm an atheist. But I'll tell you that I was a bit shocked today with something that was so initially mysterious I attributed it to an agent. Yep, me, John Loftus the atheist. A friend on Facebook thought the late Ken Pulliam's blog no longer existed and asked me if Ken's posts on the atonement were lost. Ken's blog is still there so I linked to these posts in a message back to him. And guess what? Well, this is what. Look at the picture and tell me you might not conclude what I did. Remember, Ken was an atheist who is dead and gone. Or, is he? This is what I saw:
William Lane Craig's Brother Mallory Doesn't Believe in God
In the most recent issue of Free Inquiry (April/May 2011) Mallory tells of tragic time when his son Paul narrowly escaped death. His older brother Bill came to visit Paul in the hospital to pray for him and he recovered. Mallory says: "I imagine my brother believes he delivered us a miracle...Whatever happened, Paul is the one who did it, that much I know...God is dead, but Paul's still going." Now there's a person who doesn't accept anecdotal evidence! The interesting thing to me is what Mallory said about Bill: "I still remember when he got religion back in High School--the misfit debate team nerd had found a community to join. Over the subsequent years, his inexorable transition from science-lover to science-denier was fascinating, though heartbreaking, to witness." Mallory, we all have black sheep in our families, eh? ;-)
The Power of the Delusion
I argue that the more often Christians are forced into arguing their faith is merely possible in the face of contrary evidence, rather than probable, then the less likely their faith is true. Every time they do this they are explaining the evidence away by admitting the evidence does not support what they believe. Probability is what matters.
When we take an inventory of the times Christians argue that the evidence supports their faith, and compare them to the times where they are forced into explaining the evidence away, we find something very interesting. Most of the evidence they claim supports their faith doesn’t actually support their particular faith. It is only consistent with their particular faith. The same evidence can be used by other believers to support their faiths too. And of the remaining so-called supportive evidence, at some point along the way Christians must play either the Faith Trump Card or use the Omniscience Escape Clause, or both. That’s all they’ve got when it comes to supporting their particular faith. The rest of what they do is to explain the contrary evidence away by claiming it's still possible to believe despite that evidence.
So in the end, Christians demand that I prove their faith is impossible before they will consider it to be improbable, since most of their arguments are possibility ones rather than probability ones. This demand of theirs allows them to believe in the midst of many powerful arguments to the contrary. But it's an utterly unreasonable demand. That's the power of their delusion.
Daylight Atheism did a parody of what I'm talking about ;-)
When we take an inventory of the times Christians argue that the evidence supports their faith, and compare them to the times where they are forced into explaining the evidence away, we find something very interesting. Most of the evidence they claim supports their faith doesn’t actually support their particular faith. It is only consistent with their particular faith. The same evidence can be used by other believers to support their faiths too. And of the remaining so-called supportive evidence, at some point along the way Christians must play either the Faith Trump Card or use the Omniscience Escape Clause, or both. That’s all they’ve got when it comes to supporting their particular faith. The rest of what they do is to explain the contrary evidence away by claiming it's still possible to believe despite that evidence.
So in the end, Christians demand that I prove their faith is impossible before they will consider it to be improbable, since most of their arguments are possibility ones rather than probability ones. This demand of theirs allows them to believe in the midst of many powerful arguments to the contrary. But it's an utterly unreasonable demand. That's the power of their delusion.
Daylight Atheism did a parody of what I'm talking about ;-)
Quote of the Day, by Jerry Coyne
If, as liberal theologians tell us, the “necessary” evils of this world are exactly what God would produce given his penchant for human free will and for physical “freedom” like the movement of tectonic plates, then would a nicer world disprove the God Hypothesis? Don’t hold your breath, for the nature of the God Hypothesis is that no observation could ever disprove it. That’s why it’s not scientific at all, and why religion and science will never find an amiable concordat. Link.
I'll Be Less Active Here This Month
I'm involved the copy-editing phase of my anthology, The End of Christianity, and I'm teaching an online class on What is Atheism? for the CFI Institute. I'm pumped. For now use the comments below for anything you wish to argue. Don't get crazy on me. ;-) I'll be in and out.
Are Christian Apologetics Getting Better and Better?
That's what I heard William Lane Craig say (although I can't remember where). I think the truth lies elsewhere. Christian apologists have been forced into gerrymandering around the evidence against their faith, that's what has happened. And yes, they do this very well. So it sounds like they're getting better only to the deluded. Take for instance the scientific mysteries of today, like the puzzle of quantum mechanics, the physics of black holes, the possibility of wormholes, the possibility of life on another planet, of the multiverse theory, and so on. I think it's just that science has created a greater number of new mysteries that they are in the process of solving, for one thing. Back a thousand years they had mysteries to solve too, but they pale in comparison to the number of gigantic mysteries today. And faith always finds a foothold in mystery. The point is that it was science, not faith, that solved the mysteries of the past, and it's science, not faith, that has opened up the number of new and greater mysteries today. What do you think?
Quote of the Day, by Russ
If Bible-god was real wouldn't it know best how I would accept its reality? If it was real wouldn't its message be free to anyone and everyone? So why does it send it's message through people we have to pay for it, the Christian clergy? If god was real it would speak to me with full understanding of what I know and understand; it wouldn't work in mysterious ways. It would be very clear and its actions would make its reality obvious. It amazes me that I'm told that Bible-god is my father, but everything I can know about him comes through third party clerics and theologians. If Bible-god was real, I would know because it would tell me, its son, in a way that I could understand and know was real.
The Anatomy of a Conversion: Richard Morgan, From Atheist to Christian
I read with some interest Richard Morgan's conversion to Christianity. I wanted to know how deeply committed he was as an atheist and what caused him to change his mind. I'd like to know more about him, but all we have is this article he wrote for a publication called The Monthly Record, beginning on page 8 and highlighted by several Christian websites. Morgan seems to have been a committed atheist, who was a frequent visitor on Richard Dawkin's site forum. There was a Christian guy named David Robertson who also posted there who was kind and thoughtful. And what he said and how he said it had an impact on Morgan, when everyone else there ridiculed this guy. Then for some reason the atheists began to belittle Morgan, perhaps because he was becoming sympathetic to David Robertson and his views. So Morgan defected to a theistic site where he encountered two questions that changed his life, as he tells us:
Surprise, Evangelicals Are Divided!
Yep, see what it's about this time. Where is the Holy Spirit? Again it looks like he's failing to do his job. Par for the course. He should be fired! ;-)
Quote of the Day, by Bart Ehrman
Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle — Peter, Paul or James — knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.
Most modern scholars of the Bible shy away from these terms, and for understandable reasons, some having to do with their clientele. Teaching in Christian seminaries, or to largely Christian undergraduate populations, who wants to denigrate the cherished texts of Scripture by calling them forgeries built on lies? And so scholars use a different term for this phenomenon and call such books “pseudepigrapha.” Link. This is based on his book Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.
Quote of the Day, by Richard Swinburne on Faith ;-)
I suggest that, if the probability of the existence of God on someone’s evidence is not too low after adequate investigation, it would indeed be a best act to worship and repent before God. After all, if you receive a very expensive and much-desired present and it is unclear who has sent it, it would be bad not to write a very grateful letter to the person most likely to have sent it (even if it is not very likely that that person has sent it). You might express your gratitude in a conditional way (‘I’m assuming that you sent this’), but not to express any gratitude at all would be a bad thing. And if you have damaged the present, it would be bad not to apologize. A fortiori, if—although it is unclear who (if anyone) gave you life but the most likely candidate is a God—it would be very bad indeed not to express a very great amount of gratitude, and very considerable repentance.What's this about sending a letter to thank someone for a gift who is not very likely to have sent it, but the most likely to have done so? What's that mean? What does it mean to think the probability is "not too low"? How low can you go? Is this considered good apologetics? Oh, and one more thing, since we're talking about god here, which one? Usually believers will just conclude that they should thank the culturally dominant one. ;-)
--From the 2nd edition of Faith and Reason, page 223.
Dr. Mano Singham on Why Atheism is Winning
I met Professor Singham in my travels recently. He is a delightful man. We traded books. He has a great deal to share and I look forward to reading his blog as often as I can. He has written eleven blog posts on why atheism is winning that I think are great (seen in reverse chronological order). In his concluding post he writes:
Why atheism is winning is because when a belief structure has no empirical basis, it only survives by everyone agreeing to maintain the illusion that it makes sense. It is the emperor's new clothes syndrome. But such beliefs are highly prone to sudden collapse as soon as it begins to be pointed out that there is nothing there. Once a tipping point is reached, changes in unsupported beliefs (whether it be god or racism and homophobia) can occur very rapidly.
The communication revolution, in addition to spreading the ideas of modernity to an ever-widening audience, will create a greater awareness, especially among young people, that one's religious beliefs are largely a product of where one is born and brought up, and not because they are self-evidently true.. Once you give up the idea that your own religion is obviously true, it is a short step to not viewing religion as a source of truth at all.
On the level of simply ideas, religion is losing because fewer are converting into religion than are converting out, especially amongst the young. That is the demographic time bomb that is going to doom religion
Religion is clearly on the defensive partly because the new atheists have taken the arguments against god out of the academic and philosophical and theological arenas and put them out in the public sphere and into the hands of ordinary people, and they are able to confront believers much more confidently.
My Interview With "Think Atheist Radio Show"
I was told the interview will air at 5 PM PST (or 8 PM EST) today. I have the honor of being their first guest. This is where you will find the episode. Enjoy.
Professor Matt McCormick's Morality Test for God
If a human did what God is allegedly doing right now, would we consider that a morally good action?...If God is good, then why doesn’t he do the things that we consider to be good?...The failure of God on the morality test gives us strong prima facie evidence against God’s existence that weighs heavily against these alleged independent grounds. LinkSooooo, we have The Outsider Test, The Morality Test, and The Defeasibility Test. Faith fails!
Great Reading While I'm Away
I'll be back Sunday but in the meantime some of the best stuff here at DC is from Dr. Hector Avalos and Dr. Jaco Gericke. (On Hector's posts click at the bottom of the first page for "Older Posts" to see more). Enjoy and comment below at will.
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