Picture in Need of a Caption
Sam Harris' Recommended Non-Fiction Reading List
And guess who's on it? See here. There are two pages to it.
Thomas Talbott's Critique of the Outsider Test for Faith
I am honored that Christian universalist Philosopher Thomas Talbott, of Willamette University, has offered a critique of my Outsider Test for Faith. Which can be found here. I plan on responding but I might not get to it for a month (it's not on my high priority list given the other projects I'm involved in right now). [Edit, sorry to say I didn't find anyone's criticisms to deserve the book I had offered for the best one.]
Thom Stark: "Is God a Moral Compromiser? A Critical Review of Paul Copan’s “Is God a Moral Monster?”
Remember when William Lane Craig held up Paul Copan's book, Is God a Moral Monster?
, during his debate with Sam Harris? Remember?
Now take a good hard look through Stark's review of it. Any questions?
, during his debate with Sam Harris? Remember? Now take a good hard look through Stark's review of it. Any questions?
Books like Copan’s will only take Christianity ten steps back-wards. In the name of inerrancy, the truth is trampled. Contemporary popular apologists tend to look for any way to salvage the text, no matter how unlikely or untenable the argument. They’ll use scholarly sources selectively, or pounce on one scholar’s argument and run away with it, without any concern for the fact the vast majority of scholars haven’t been persuaded by it. They’re not interested in what’s plausible, only in what’s “possible,” if it serves their immediate purposes. They trade in eisegesis, wild speculation, and fanciful interpretations, reading into the text what isn’t there, indeed, what’s often contradicted by the very passages they cite—something Copan himself does not infrequently, as we’ll see.
The question is whether or not Copan realizes he’s stealing home before the pitch. Is he aware that he’s presenting selective evidence, taken out of context, from sources that completely disagree with him? Is he aware that by ignoring certain questions and discussions, he’s able to give the impression that the evidence he loves to allude to (without citing) actually undermines his position? Perhaps he is. Perhaps he isn’t. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to believe that he isn’t aware, but I’ll reserve judgment and leave the question open-ended. Ultimately, however, whether Paul Copan is or is not a moral apologist, the fact of the matter is that he has failed, thoroughly failed, to demonstrate that the God of the Old Testament is not a moral monster.
Bart D. Ehrman on the Historian and the Resurrection of Jesus
[Written by John W. Loftus] Here's what Ehrman wrote:
brdeadite99 vs GearHedEd on Ken Ham/Kent Hovind
GearHedEd in response to brdeadite99:
Bring it, Shuggoth!
Time Magazine Cover: Is Hell Dead?
Christians have been reinventing their faith from the beginning. It won't stop. That's my prediction. So what will become orthodoxy in 20-30 years? This will. The orthodoxy of today started out as the unorthodoxy of yesterday.
Arizona Atheist: The Truth Behind the New Atheism: A Refutation
Since David Marshall comments here perhaps he'd like to discuss a review of his book here too.
Link.
Link.
Johann Hari: "Christianity Has Lost the Argument...It Will Go Into the Dustbin of History"
These are clips from the BBC documentary "Does Christianity Have a Future?" The full 60 minute documentary can be found here.
The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science, by Chris Mooney
We're not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.
In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined end—winning our "case"—and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial. Link.
On God Answering Prayers Retroactively
Christians like C.S. Lewis and recently William A. Dembski in his book The End of Christianity, claim God can answer prayers retroactively. Kevin Timpe explains by saying "past directed prayers, as I understand them, are requests for God to have done something at a time prior to the time of the prayer." And he argues like Lewis and Dembski that God does in fact answer these prayers on most accounts of God's foreknowledge. ["Prayers for the Past" Religious Studies (2005) 41, 305–322]. This raises some interesting problems and allows me to propose a scientific test for prayer.
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:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)