Even though I'm a godless atheist I say this. Don't quote me though, at least not without my explanation. I'm not speaking about a godless ethic, that supposedly atheists do these kinds of deeds, and/or that they have no ethical standards to condemn such terrible senseless acts. I do have an ethic and I do condemn these kinds of deeds. That's a topic for another time so don't derail what I'm saying with irrelevant comments. What I'm saying here is something different.
Of all the religious groups in America, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are probably the most zealous missionaries.Chances are that one will knock on your door or approach you on the street to hand you a Watchtower or Awake magazine. Most of these missionaries are pleasant and well-groomed individuals, and they would like nothing better than to discuss their literature with you. What these Witnesses don't often know is how poorly researched their literature is.
This email by Anson Rainey was his answer to my question over his conversion to Judaism. (One likely reason most Israelis would have let John Strugnell’s comments pass.) [Click on the email to enlarge for reading.]
It’s been two months since Professor Frank Moore Cross (1921-2012) died on October 17. Cross was Hancock Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages at Harvard from 1958-1992. In 1991, Hershel Shanks, the powerful editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, called him “one of the world’s leading Biblical scholars and probably the most influential.”
Much
has been said about his life and work, and I have left it to others to assess
his enormous contributions to the study of ancient Hebrew poetry, the
composition of the Deuteronomistic History, and many other areas of biblical
studies.
Here,
I aim to place his work in perspective for those interested in the secular
study of the Bible. In addition, I was the only openly agnostic/atheist
doctoral student that he had as far as I know, and I completed my doctoral
thesis under his supervision in 1991. Therefore, I may have a different
perspective on the implications his work for secularism.
Although
Prof. Cross was no atheist activist, his work contributed much to undermining
traditional Christian views of the Bible even if that was not always his intention.
This lecture was delivered by Col. Robert Ingersoll in San Francisco Cal., June 27, 1877. It was a reply to various clergymen of that city, who had made violent attacks upon him after the delivery of his lectures, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child," and "The Ghosts." Thanks once again to Julian Haydon for sending me this.
We've been talking with David Marshall who denigrates and/or denies science in favor of his ancient holy book. So in order to highlight what we're talking about, Maria Maltseva, of Skeptic Ink Network (SIN), recently interviewed Dr. Donald Prothero who speaks to that issue. He tells us of some "scientific illiteracy and science denialism that are appalling enough by themselves, but even scarier is the thought that they come from the members of the House Science and Technology Committee!" Enjoy.
Actually, John, I would say that almost all scientific evidence COMES TO US as historical evidence. Science is, in effect, almost a branch of history, as it transmits knowable and systematically collected and interpretted facts to our brains.
What then? Does the fact that you're not a scientist, and therefore have to trust what scientists say, entail that you don't have to trust science when it contradicts what you find in an ancient pre-scientific holy book based on the supposed historical evidence? Historians do not have at their disposal very much evidence to go on in many instances, especially the farther back in time they go. A miracle cannot be investigated scientifically since if it happened then the past is non-repeatable. Science however, progresses in the present with experiments that can be replicated in any lab anywhere on the planet. The only reason you want to bring science down to the level of the historian's very difficult but honorable craft is because you need to believe your faith-history is on an equal par with scientific results, only you place it above science because you say science is a branch of history, and not the other way around. You are therefore an ignorant science denier. You could become informed. You could visit a lab. You could notice the consensus of scientists on a vast number of areas. But no, you'd rather stay in your ignorance in order to believe in talking asses and that a sun stopped and moved backward up the stairs. Science or faith it is, and you choose faith. I choose science. The divide could never be more clearer.
This was first spotted by Beth Ann Erickson at Skeptic Ink Network. According to the editors,
The Queen James Bible seeks to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible as it pertains to homosexuality: We edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible.
When I say there are all kinds of Christianities I mean it. *chortle chortle*
Can you judge people by the company they keep? It depends. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.
Just the same I'm very grateful that someone thinks I'm to be included in this company. Now if Greg would include a picture of the revised WIBA then that would be perfect.
David Marshall opines, “Those who make wild claims about the scientific method often base their arguments not on good human evidence, but rumor, wild guesses, and extrapolations that would embarrass a shaman.” [From The Truth Behind the New Atheism, pp. 28-30] This sentence of his expresses a such very low view of science and its method that one wonders if he is Amish. People of faith must denigrate science in at least some areas, simply because science is the major threat to their faith. That’s the nature of faith. People of faith must deny science. To maintain their faith believers must remain ignorant of science. Yes, scientists have made mistakes in the distant past, but Marshall cannot possibly say this with a straight face about modern science. Yet he did.
Dr. Randal Rauser objects to the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) among other reasons, because he thinks it lacks one of the key intellectual virtues, that of being open-minded. As a refresher, the OTF is expressed in the following words: "The only way to rationally test one’s culturally adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider, with the same level of reasonable skepticism believers already use when examining the other religious faiths they reject." I'm working on the edits for a book on this test right now, which can be pre-ordered: The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True.Below is an excerpt where I respond to him:
I found an interesting discussion about the differences between atheism, agnosticism, gnosticism and theism which can be seen here. The "arrangement is an attempt to clarify and classify these words, so that their rogue meanings no longer confuse and muddle religious debate," we're told. The horizontal axis concerns what we think or believe (I don't have any beliefs). The vertical axis concerns what we think we can know. I found it unhelpful to truncate this graph like the author did later in his post, because there are people who think outside of it. In any case I placed a blue dot where I stand. The position of that blue dot has changed over the last few years since I'm becoming more and more of a gnostic. Where do you stand?
As a Christian, I heard the Bible verse of John 3:16 run into the ground about how “God so loved the world that he gave His only Begotten Son” to die for us because He loved us so much.
Randal Rauser is at it again. Maybe I should just go along by playing his game? After all, he's invited me to his seminary in May to help promote our book, God or Godless? It looks like he wants me to do this pretty badly. He wants us each to say the "top three biggest problems that we face with our worldview," only now, it's "the things that keep us up at night." If he wants me to say what keeps me up at night, then it's some sort of sickness, or worry, or deep thought about something. But worry about unbelief? No, never! I do wonder about a lot of things though. Let me play his game by suggesting the three things I wonder about and show why they don't bother me in the least. Ready. Set. Go!
This Wikipedia article looks very well-written. In the "See Also" part of it just before the "Notes" there is a link to a "List of Atheists." When you click on it and then click on a "List of Atheist Authors" yours truly is not there. Oh, well, maybe next time. I keep hoping! ;-) Some people like Dr. James Lindsay think my contributions "are often-overlooked." He said:
John Loftus blogs for Debunking Christianity, one of the biggest blogs dedicated to the task of examining faith versus relinquishing it, and his posts are nearly always deep, insightful, and well worth reading. This blog, however, is a far cry from why I think John Loftus is perhaps the most underrated author in this entire field. In my opinion, Loftus holds the honor of having come up with the most sterling silver bullet in the discussion since David Hume, surpassing, if I might suggest it, even greats of the early twentieth century like Bertrand Russell and and those of the late nineteenth like Robert Ingersoll. Link.
He's speaking of The Outsider Test for Faith, blurbs for my book on it can be found here. I'll have to await the judgment of history on these things (Hint: it'll be somewhere between 0 and 100 on that scale). For now I'll take whatever I can get. Perhaps one of the reasons I'm often overlooked is because I keep beating the evangelical horse that has been beat to death so many times before from all angles that most educated people don't care anymore. Until it completely morphs into liberalism as the New Orthodoxy evangelicalism has no chance of winning its case in the free marketplace of ideas.
They don't! Not most of them anyway. All they do is defend God not matter what. It's like they are defending themselves or something, and people always do that whenever threatened. We know people create their own religion, their own gospel, and their own God in their own image. We know this! Whatever they believe then God agrees with them about everything. Do you doubt it? Then read this study. So no matter what the problem is they will defend their God because they are defending themselves. Why? Because they are God. God is them. They are one with God anyway. They think the same things. They feel the same things. Argue against God and we are arguing against them. So they take it personally. And nothing we say can penetrate that 200 foot thick impenetrable castle wall around them to fend off attackers. Not even a bunker bomb. Want more proof? Here 'tis.
1. There was a talking snake in Eden that talked (in Hebrew) to Eve.
2. Joshua made the sun stand still.
3. Jesus arose from the dead.
4. St. Raymond of Penyafort had a Sailing Cloak.
Most Christians today would be condemned by Luther and Calvin, who themselves would be condemned by Aquinas and Anselm, who would be condemned by Athanasius and Augustine, who would be condemned by Paul, who would be condemned by James, who would be condemned by the Christ of John's gospel, who would be condemned by the synoptic characterizations of Jesus, which would all be condemned by most versions of Yahweh in the Old Testament, who himself would be condemned by yet older versions of the deity.
Faith, he argues, is "a form of cognitive bias that tends to overestimate the probabilities that the hypotheses in which faith is placed predict the evidence (of the world) while underestimating the probabilities that alternative hypotheses predict the evidence we have." Or, in other words he says:
Here is Richard Carrier's case against the resurrection. He comprehensively debunks the typical apologetics (based on the Pauline epistles) used by people like Gary Habermas and Mike Licona.
Howard Mazzaferro is a Jehovah's Witness scholar of sorts who comments here at DC. Harry McCall puts his culturally adopted faith into perspective with what I consider required reading. What I find interesting is that evangelicals reject the JW's but would accept everything Mazzaferro writes in defense of faith, the reliability of the Bible and of the miracles we read in it. Why is it that people of faith cannot agree? It's because that's the nature of faith. When faith is the foundation for knowledge anything can be believed. As Dr. James Lindsay says, faith is "a form of cognitive bias that tends to overestimate the probabilities that the hypotheses in which faith is placed predict the evidence (of the world) while underestimating the probabilities that alternative hypotheses predict the evidence we have." In any case, Mazzaferro did a good job of defending the indefensible so let's take a look.
To me, being a naturalist means that you don't believe in anything supernatural... the arguments against Randal [Rauser'] supernatural beliefs are identical to his own disbelief in myths past and other superstitious or far-fetched ideals. Not knowing a natural answer is not a good reason for plugging in a magical answer!-- And all religions plug in magical answers. They feel like answers to the believer, but they don't really explain anything. And there's no way to tell a true supernatural answer from the infinity of competing supernatural answers that would be false if ANY supernatural answer was true. So even if naturalism wasn't correct-- there is no method for distinguishing a true supernatural answer from a false one... no way to tell a true prophet from a false one-- or a real god from a demon or advanced space alien or tricky fairy or a myth! People who believe in these sorts of things tend to be people who were indoctrinated to believe such things --people who have a vested interest in believing those things-- and people who are afraid they might be punished if they don't believe such things. If there was actual evidence for any of these things than scientists would be testing, refining, and honing that evidence for their own benefit... especially if there was actual evidence that there was life after death. But how can one be alive or conscious without a brain? It makes no more sense than concluding a rock is conscious! Can one have a debate or discussion as to the problems with not believing that rocks are conscious? How is Randall's suggesting any more coherent than his being asked to demonstrate the problems with his non-belief in rock consciousness?
Christianity is one of the major religions of man a washed in a history of contradictions and confusion. Like cancer cells, Christianity not only mutates over time, but reinvents itself to deal with its new context both socially and theologically. This often entails receiving new revelations from God to make one flavor of a Christian faith appear as God very own favorite in a sea of competing Bible truths. Since God can’t be contacted for direction and the fact that Jesus is said to have gone back to where he had come from two-thousand years ago, believers are left to being creative with the Bible and often must receive new revelations form God.
I like new tests for faith, and I have written about three of them before. Randal introduces a new one as far as I can tell, the Ideologue Barometer Test, and guess what? After taking the test I am one. No, not a barometer silly, an ideologue. So?
Randal has graciously invited me up to his Seminary in May of 2013 to Edmonton, Canada, in order to help promote the release of our co-written book God or Godless. I'm pretty excited about this too. So, being the creative person that he is (after all, he creatively defends the indefensible), he suggested we do something new and different rather than the normal "he said she said" type of debate. What he suggested is this:
each of us talk on the top three biggest problems that we face with our worldview. I’d explain the top three conceptual or evidential problems with being a Christian and John would talk about the top three problems with being an atheist.
He's mentioned this to several people and the response has been "overwhelmingly positive" he reports. But he's not happy that I objected to it. So now he's taking his case to the streets, er, the blog world. He said we'd try to work things out. I didn't know this is how he wants to do it. Okay, I guess.
Let's have a four -five -six views book with this as a question: "Why are there so many ways to interpret the Bible?" A proposed title might be this: "Five Views on Why Christians Disagree," or something like that. Then invite me as a contributor. I've written on this issue, calling it The Problem of Divine Miscommunication. See here.
Doug Geivett, a Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at Talbot School of Theology strongly recommends against it. Now isn't that interesting? Why would he do so? He doesn't explain. He refuses to explain. Here's the story:
The Reverend De Witt Talmage, head of the Presbyterian Church in America, was so incensed by Ingersoll, that he devoted six sermons denouncing him as "The Great Blasphemer." Robert Ingersoll answered these seriously; and then followed up by satirizing the teachings of the Reverend in what he called The Talmagian Catechism. Here is the Final Part, sent by Julian Haydon.
Keep in mind these are chosen from what I wrote, not from what others wrote. In some of them are links to other things I've written on the same topic. For now I’ll just list them in order of appearance.
I'm happy to have lived long enough to see that evangelicals are now embracing Karl Barth. I've personally seen how theology evolves. Back in my seminary days one issue of interest was Neo-Orthodoxy, stemming from what most people think is the greatest theologian of the last century, Karl Barth. Wanting to be on the cutting edge I did my master's thesis on his doctrine of the word of God, since Barth sparked a debate among evangelicals over inerrancy. Harold Lindsell's book, The Battle for the Bible, was heavily discussed among us. Evangelicals did not like Barth and neither did I. Due to the onslaught of nineteenth century biblical criticism Barth was forced to deny natural theology and basically argued that although the Bible contained myths and legends, God still speaks through it. For Barth, the word of God was not to be located in the Bible itself. No. Rather, God speaks through it. God's word, his revelation, takes place when God speaks to his people, and he can do so through myths, legends, and even a Russian flute concerto. It was described as the New (or Neo) Orthodoxy. It was all he could do to maintain his faith. To read up on those good old days see Robert Price's Inerrant the Wind: The Evangelical Crisis in Biblical Authority,where he made some predictions at that time which have proved to be true.
Let's say you believe that because of our "deceptive misinformation" and influence we're leading people to hell, and you either cannot argue us down or you want to silence us. Well, then, buy this blog and do with it what you want. Can you raise the funds? Are there any serious takers? Then look at the price calculated by Worth of the Web which "estimates the traffic of a given website or blog by calculating the cost of advertisement." Guess how much you'd have to pay to get DC?
Let's say you're making a YouTube video about God. Aren't you tired of all those other cheesy pictures to choose from? I haven't seen one yet that truly represents God. So let me introduce you to God. Here's a snapshot of him I took the other day. Want to know what God looks like? This.
[Note: In light of my post tomorrow night dealing with the Jehovah Witness’s New World Translation and one of the Witness’ leading apologist, Howard Mazzalerro,
I am reposting my December 2008 topic of four years ago on the Book of Mormon.
This section was a part of a longer paper I delivered to the South Carolina Academy of Religion at Clemson University around 1989 entitled Translating and Revelating The Word of God: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.]
The Reverend De Witt Talmage, head of the Presbyterian Church in America, was so incensed by Ingersoll, that he devoted six sermons denouncing him as "The Great Blasphemer". Ingersoll answered these seriously; and then followed up by satirizing the teachings of the Reverend in what he called The Talmagian Catechism. Here is Part 2 of 3. Part 1 can be read here. Thanks to Julian Haydon for these excerpts!
People have said my work is pretty damn good. But not even I would say some of the things said of it, and I like me best! Dr. James A. Lindsay, author of a book you should get, God Doesn't; We Do: Only Humans Can Solve Human Challenges,recently blew me away with some very high praise for which I'm extremely humbled:
John Loftus blogs for Debunking Christianity, one of the biggest blogs dedicated to the task of examining faith versus relinquishing it, and his posts are nearly always deep, insightful, and well worth reading. This blog, however, is a far cry from why I think John Loftus is perhaps the most underrated author in this entire field. In my opinion, Loftus holds the honor of having come up with the most sterling silver bullet in the discussion since David Hume, surpassing, if I might suggest it, even greats of the early twentieth century like Bertrand Russell and and those of the late nineteenth like Robert Ingersoll.
I came to know John Loftus's mind through his extremely clear and effective writing in Why I Became an Atheist... I literally cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone that is interested in the discussion about faith and whether or not it should be left behind, particularly the Christian faith. The book is a true resource, spanning hundreds of densely packed, well-researched pages that truly demonstrate that Loftus is intimately familiar with the foundations of the Christian religion, its scripture, its philosophical defense, what it means to be a serious Christian, and why there is no reason whatsoever to accept or believe the Christian (or any) religion. It is truly incredible...Link.
I had previously argued that science assumes there is a natural explanation for everything it investigates precisely because this is the only way it can work. If natural explanations for events were not possible because God regularly intervened in the world, then science would not be possible at all. To be more precise, I argued that to the degree God intervenes in the universe then to that same degree science is not possible. But given the massive amount of knowledge acquired by science it's crystal clear God doesn't intervene at all. The very basis of science is predicated on a non-miraculous world order. So we must choose between God or science. We cannot have both. Undeterred, Vincent Torley at Uncommon Descenthas written a couple of rebuttals to my continued defense of this. Since I usually try to keep my posts to a minimum I won't be responding to everything he wrote. But I do want to respond with what I consider to be a tour de force argument that should end this whole debate. Think I'm kidding? I'm not.
Rebecca Watson’s talk at Skepticon recently was called, “How girls evolved to shop and other ways to insult women with ‘science.’" Watson ridicules evolutionary psychology pertaining to sex differences, such as differing tastes between men and women in shopping, sexual preferences, and for purportedly favoring the color pink. Her aim was to show evolutionary psychology isn’t science and that its conclusions stereotype and oppress women. However, Ed Clint, who obviously knows something about evolutionary psychology, utterly destroys Watson's presentation which was applauded by the skeptics in attendance. Read his response titled, Science denialism at a skeptic conference. It's really a shame this was allowed at a skeptic conference. No one should accept any argument just because they agree with its conclusion, as I have warned Christians about. I am appalled that simply because she is an internet celebrity for other reasons she is accepted as an expert on anything else. Do we not have credentialed experts who can give talks like these? Right now I'm ashamed of my own community. I can only expect better in the future, and I do.
I think all educated Christians should read the series of four -five -six views books produced by some Christian publishers, like the 32 Zondervan Counterpoint books, and the 18 InterVarsity Press Spectrum Series Books. I myself have read through several of them. They are very instructive. There are others. In some of them liberals are involved in the discussion like the late John Hick, a pluralist, in Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World,and even an atheist like Robert Price, in The Historical Jesus: Five Views.So here's my proposal. Let's have a four -five -six views book with this as a question: "Why are there so many ways to interpret the Bible?" A proposed title might be this: "Five Views on Why Christians Disagree," or something like that. Then invite me as a contributor. I've written on this issue, calling it The Problem of Divine Miscommunication. If you want to read what I said about it you can read chapter 7 in my book, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails.If you cannot find four Christian scholars who want to defend just one reason for this problem you could have me write an opening chapter and include several Christian responses, then let me write a final response. Afterward you can invite scholars on both sides to end the book by reviewing the debate. I'm game. How about you?
A revolution, it seems, is afoot. Scientists are finally coming out and declaring that they can live with the supernatural, after all. What will we see next? Open discussion of the flaws in Darwinian evolution?
The "heads I win tails you lose" trick is obvious. If we say science is closed to the supernatural the apologist will say we are uninterested in the truth. If we say instead it is theoretically possible to detect the supernatural then he can say we should be open to a discussion of the flaws of Darwinian evolution. So when he finds apparent divergent views between us he can say both, pitting us against each other. So let me respond.
Charles Darwin spent more than twenty years of his life gathering evidence for the theory of evolution. He presented it in 1859 with the publication of On The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, which—drawing on observations of an incredible variety of animal and plant life from all over the world and integrating it with geology, geography, animal husbandry, and the available fossil record—proved the theory of evolution. This says nothing of the observations and experiments of later scientists, which bolstered and expanded the theory.
Faith in “God’s word” is not an intellectually defensible argument against a scientific theory. Isaac Newton, responding to criticisms of his theory of optics, indicated the kind of evidence required to properly dispute a scientific theory:
I could wish all objections were suspended . . . from any [grounds] other than these two: of showing the insufficiency of experiments to prove . . . any part of my theory, . . . or of producing other experiments which directly contradict me, if any such may seem to occur.
Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist in history and himself a religious man, would never have taken seriously faith-based arguments against a scientific theory—and neither should anyone else. Link.
In order to make the Christian faith seem respectable Christians act like lawyers who must try to find any tiny loophole in a contract to get their clients out of it. They must drag down knowledge, reason, evidence and science to their own level of faith (which is always unjustified). They assert atheism is a religion, that atheists worship science, that we too have faith, all of which defy the facts as nothing more than pure semantic games. They poison the well against atheists as much as possible by character assassination. They miscaricaturize our arguments to the point of failing to even try to understand them, or feigning ignorance as to what they are, and/or being willingly ignorant of them. They have lied to defend their faith so much that it no longer has any credibility, if it ever did in the first place. When confronted about the human propensity for cognitive biases they fail to offer any reasonable way to avoid them. It's all a sham.
Hector Avalos and I have been dealing with a person who has totally put aside reality to keep the illogic metaphysical world of Christianity functioning: Meet Howard Mazzaferro
Yoram Hazony is an Orthodox Jew, the president of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, and the author of The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture.This is a book I have but have not read yet. Steven Pinker recommends it highly. Jerry Coyne just linked to an article in the NY Times where Hazony argues God is an imperfect being, which I quote from below. Until I read his book I can't comment much except to say that he is an Orthodox Jew which represents the ultra conservative branch of Judaism, so he's not an ally unless I misunderstand what he's doing. One thing he's got absolutely right though, is that Yahweh, as depicted in the Hebrew Bible, is most emphatically NOT a perfect being. Here's what he said about God:
"'You are my witnesses,' says Yahweh" (Isaiah 43:10). Jesus even prayed that based on the Christian witness the world would know God sent him (John 17:20-23). I think it's demonstrably the case that his prayer has never been fulfilled. It's exceedingly probable it will never be fulfilled in the future either. Even if it will be answered in the future it doesn't change the fact that people all over the world have been sent to hell because it hasn't been answered yet. Christians are not credible witnesses. You'd think if the credibility of what they believe is on the line their God would do something about this. But he doesn't do anything discernible at all. So let's rehearse some of the facts.
Below is an excerpt where I respond to him:
where he made some predictions at that time which have proved to be true.
recently blew me away with some very high praise for which I'm extremely humbled:
... I literally cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone that is interested in the discussion about faith and whether or not it should be left behind, particularly the Christian faith. The book is a true resource, spanning hundreds of densely packed, well-researched pages that truly demonstrate that Loftus is intimately familiar with the foundations of the Christian religion, its scripture, its philosophical defense, what it means to be a serious Christian, and why there is no reason whatsoever to accept or believe the Christian (or any) religion. It is truly incredible...
and even an atheist like Robert Price, in 
So here's my proposal. Let's have a four -five -six views book with this as a question: "Why are there so many ways to interpret the Bible?" A proposed title might be this: "Five Views on Why Christians Disagree," or something like that. Then invite me as a contributor. I've written on this issue, calling it The Problem of Divine Miscommunication. If you want to read what I said about it you can read chapter 7 in my book, 
If you cannot find four Christian scholars who want to defend just one reason for this problem you could have me write an opening chapter and include several Christian responses, then let me write a final response. Afterward you can invite scholars on both sides to end the book by reviewing the debate. I'm game. How about you?
This is a book I have but have not read yet. Steven Pinker recommends it highly. Jerry Coyne just linked to an article in the NY Times where Hazony argues God is an imperfect being, which I quote from below. Until I read his book I can't comment much except to say that he is an Orthodox Jew which represents