Stephen Law On the Use of Mockery

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[Redated, originally posted on 10/31/12] I really recommend Dr. Law's book, Believing Bullshit. In it he lays out eight key strategies that immunize believers in weird things from rational criticism by creating "a veneer of faux reasonableness." Number 6 is pseudoprofundity, which is "the art of sounding profound while taking nonsense." One of the most effective methods of disarming pseudoprofundity "is to translate what is said into plain English...clarity is likely to unmask them." Mockery and satire can have a role to play too. He writes:

How the Gospel of Luke Transformed Jesus’ Spoiled Brat Image

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In the earliest Synoptic Gospel of Mark 11: 12 - 13 ( = Matt. 21: 18 – 22) we are informed that, after leaving Bethany with his disciples, a hungry Jesus sees a fig tree in the distance. Jesus (followed by his disciples) makes a beeline to it thinking he’s going to get some tasty figs for lunch. But ironically, this all knowing Son of God has screwed up big time! The fig tree has no delicious figs to feed his ravenous appetite; but only leaves. Mark even amplifies Jesus’ mistake in noting that: Hey, it’s not the season for figs, Jesus (you dummy)!

Quote of the Day On Christian Logic, by Steven Carr

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For a long time Carr was focused on arguments for a mythical Jesus. It was his one note song. I am so happy to report he's using his wit and intelligence on other issues. A Christian recently said we atheists cannot condemn anything or anyone. Here is how Carr responded, that it's
A bit like somebody saying that, as nobody can say that passing plays in football are more effective than running plays (football plays are a matter of subjective opinion), you are in no position to condemn a quarterback who fumbles the ball on every play. After all, if one coach likes one system, and another coach likes another system, neither can condemn a linebacker who never makes a single tackle.

Richard Dawkins On Religion

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On How to Answer a Presuppositionalist

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Tim Shaughnessy is posting at DC a one note song. It doesn't matter what tune we sing, his song remains the same:
Christianity only has ONE presupposition. We presuppose the truth of the bible. God and his word cannot be divorced and are synonymous with one another so we could also say that we presuppose the God of the bible as true.
Okay then, let's sing this note. Let's presuppose the Bible and the God in it, yes! But let's first understand the Bible and the God in it. Q.E.D.

World Distribution of Religion and Science

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The following two maps have been placed in the Appendix of my book, The Outsider Test for Faith:

The 2015 Debunking Christianity Challenge

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Seven years ago I challenged Christians to take the Debunking Christianity Challenge and I've been doing so ever since. Just like previous years I'm proposing twelve reasonably priced college level books to read, one per month. You can read them in any order you like but read them!

My challenge is for Christians to read our books and test their faith to see if it can withstand our arguments. As I have argued most believers do not seriously question their faith. Do you want to be different than other believers? Do you want to do what most of them don't do? Then take the 2013 DC Challenge. I challenge you! Hey, what do you have to lose? If the books cause you to become stronger in your faith that's good, right? But if your faith cannot survive our assault then we've done you a favor. No more soundbites. No more reading one blog post at a time. Sit down for yourselves and read through whole books written by the skeptics.

Jeff Lowder is the Devil in Disguise

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[Edited in November of 2015: Read the following link to see how my disputes with Jeffery Jay Lowder ended up. I finally came to the opinion that Jeff Lowder is a dishonest person and a hypocrite. Other posts of mine about him can be read by clicking on the tag "Lowder" below. I think people should beware of him. You can see these traits only partially in what I wrote in the post below. I know he appears to be a nice guy. But appearances are deceiving. He's not. He will step on people to get his way. I never expected how true it was to say Lowder is the devil in disguise. He disguises himself for the purposes of almost pure self-promotion and financial gain. It took a personal conflict between us for me to see who he really is, but sometimes it takes that when someone such as he disguises himself so well as to persuade intellectuals that his motives are pure and that he's their equal when he is not.]

Jeff Lowder has been dogging my steps so to speak, first by commenting on Vincent Torley's response to a post of mine, saying: "It seems to me that Torley clearly has the upper hand in this exchange so far. As a debate judge, I would 'flow' the entire 'debate' to Torley up to this point." What exchange? An exchange demands a response then counter-response. Up until that point I had merely written one blog post. And just as I counter-responded that Torley couldn't even read, neither could Lowder. What gives? Now he's over at Randal Rauser's blog playing the "devil's advocate" against me. Let me state for the record that I despise the devil and his advocates. The devil should advocate for himself.

So I want to respond to Lowder and issue an open challenge to him. Victor Reppert once placed my approach between the extremes of PZ Myers (a new angry atheist) and Jeff Lowder (an old respectful atheist). I think Reppert is right. I am the golden mean between two extremes. I'm golden ya see. ;-) And I want to pull Lowder in my direction in what follows.

John and Charles Wesley on “the lesser Breeds” (Indians and Negroes)

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While moving my library, I came across a booklet containing the 1987 lecture for the Inaugurating of The LeRoy A. Martin Distinguished Professorship of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga by Professor Thor Hall (PhD, Duke University) entitled Tradition Criticism: A New View of Wesley

Does the Size of the Universe Lead to Atheism?

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Take a look at this video posted by Randal Rauser, who argues that the size of the universe does not lead to atheism:

How do you solve a problem like Herod?

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I've been absent from here for some time. Let me re-enter the fray with a seasonally topical post. Over on a previous post and thread at SIN, one (Christian) commenter declared that the likes of JP Holding and Jason Engwer had basically dealt with all of the harmonisation issues within the context of the historical problems in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and their infancy accounts. I will now, as Randal Rauser did in our recent debate, refer to the accounts as M and L.
In my book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination, I did not really deal with the work of Holding and Engwer other than a few passing comments and a reference to Engwer in relation to the spectrum of Christian approaches to the exegesis of these accounts, from the literal and historic approach of Engwer (and Holding) to the more theological approach of scholars like Raymond Brown.
Engwer, on his Triablogue blog, carries many posts and articles which seek to solve the insoluble. I would like to look at the issue of Herod, and see what Derek, from the other thread, has to offer in rebuttal. So what are the issues with Herod, in the context of M and L.

With Mounting Debt and Declining Enrollment, Bob Jones University is Giving Up on God

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Since 1948, the conservative Christian station in the Up State of SC has been Bob Jones University’s WMUU. The station’s call letters stood for World's Most Unusual University.

Superstition, Part 2 by Robert Ingersoll

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As before, Julian Haydon is sending me these excellent excerpts. Enjoy.

On Leaving Christianity...All Religion

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That was the title of an email from Casey S. Smith. With his permission here is what he wrote:
Since April 6th, 1997 I've been serving Christ. I have studied and visited just about every Church in Christendom. I went to Criswell Seminary for three years, studied Church History, but my main passion was textual criticism. However after almost 16 years of trying to find "The Truth" I'm done. There are apologists for every Christian denomination including those considered "cults" or "heresy". Every denomination says they have the truth using the same Bible. My question to you however is how does one live at peace or in tranquility without a God? What meaning does life have? Or worse, what if we're wrong and there is a resurrection and us "wicked" are separated from this loving God?

Sincerely: One who is scared and burnt out!
Mr. Casey S. Smith
I responded as follows.

Dr. Vincent Torley, Please Learn to Read!

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I had previously argued that given a godless universe the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting is What We'd Expect Would Happen. Dr. Vincent Torley over at the Intelligent Design blog Uncommon Descent wrote a long response to it. Now it's my turn.

The Fallacy of Understated Evidence

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Jeff Lowder has produced a helpful chart that illustrates Paul Draper's "fallacy of understated evidence." According to Draper, proponents of a theistic arguments are guilty of this fallacy if they "successfully identify some general fact about a topic that is antecedently more likely on theism than on naturalism, but they ignore more specific facts about the topic, facts that are more likely on naturalism than on theism. Check it out.

Christians Debunk Themselves! There's Nothing Left for Me To Do But Report What They Say!

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What is there about ancient documents that can be interpreted in so many different ways by people who think they are divinely inspired? If Christians cannot agree with each other inside the house of faith, how can they possibly expect the textual evidence of the Bible to lead anyone outside the faith to accept the resurrection of Jesus? I recommend every Christian get all of the following books. Read them for yourselves. Opposing Christian scholars dismantle and effectively critique each others views leaving no reason to believe any of them. All. Get. Them. Now!





Happy New Year Everyone!

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Here's to the people who made it into 2013 alive. A few of the ones who didn't make it fell short by just one day. At this time I like looking back into previous years, so you might start with CBS's review of 2012. It was a good year. It was a bad year. Aren't they all? Then to see other years in review click here and enjoy. I also like to predict what will take place this year in advance, so without further ado here are my predictions:

Sin: An Imaginary Problem with an Invented Solution

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Picture right is the typical Salvation Gospel Tract found at bank ATM’s, left on tables at restaurants and ironically, in restrooms. This one was left under a wiper blade on my wife’s car at work by Freedom Baptist Church (as stamped on the back) located just a quarter mile from where she works.

The Irony of Faith And Serving God

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Evangelist Dr. Oliver B. Green (Feb. 14, 1915 – July 26, 1976) was the president and founder of The Gospel Hour (still on many Christian stations today) who loved good fundamentalist Bible theology and defended the King James’ Version of Bible. Rev. Green preached solid Baptist's truth backed by eternal salvation for all true believers and eternal Hell fire for all non-believers. (I used to listen to him in the early ‘70s on my way to college where, as a Christian, I majored in Bible.) His website states:

What is Superstition? by Robert Ingersoll Part 1 of 4

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Again I thank Julian Haydon for sending me these items from Ingersoll.

Lawrence Krauss on Caveman Common Sense

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Prayer is NOT the Answer to Gun Violence

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The Des Moines Register has published my latest editorial on the relationship of prayer to gun violence: Des Moines Register editorial.

Jerry Coyne on the Odd Couple: Why Science and Religion Shouldn't Cohabit

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Why Randal Rauser is Impervious to Reason

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To the left is a typical discussion with Dr. Randal Rauser on his blog (click to enlarge). It concerns how poorly he defended the historicity of the nativity narratives in the gospels against Jonathan Pearce. This isn't to deny he did a superior job of it, because he did. It's to say that at even at its very best this was a poor attempt. So I asked him why he really believes and you can see the result. At the end I linked to what he's doing, which can be found here.

Rauser is an epistemological solipsist just as I argued with regard to William Lane Craig, a second post of which can be read here. I had previously argued Rauser is impervious to reason. This is why. If anyone is living in a house of delusion they are. They are both impervious to reason. They are epistemological solipsists. I don't really care if they are, and I like them both, but so long as this is true I'll keep pointing it out to more reasonable people.

Too bad for Christianity if this represents its best defenders.

William Lane Craig, The Last Great Christian Apologist We'll Ever See!

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The Trouble with Christmas

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At this season let me leave you with some study material on Christmas.

For great reading on the history of Christmas see Thomas Flynn's book, Trouble with Christmas.
See also the Wikipedia Article on it. Check out Richard Carrier's essays on The Date of the Nativity, and The Problem of the Virgin Birth Prophecy at the Secular Web. Happy 25th!

Jonathan Pearce vs Randal Rauser Debate the Nativity Narratives

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why_does_mary_look_like_a_dude
Jonathan Pearce debated Randal Rauser who co-wrote God or Godless?with me. They debated the historicity of the birth narratives found the gospels. The format was a 20 minute opening, 15 minute rebuttals, and so on. To the left is the amusing picture that Justin Schieber did at Reasonable Doubts, who hosted it. The link to the debate is right here! Jonathan writes at Skeptic Ink Network and wrote a good book on this topic: The Nativity: A Critical Examination.

The Kalam Argument and Counting Backward to Infinity

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One of the philosophical arguments used to show the impossibility of an infinite past, per the Kalam Cosmological Argument, is that if an immortal being counted an infinite number of events we could never find her counting if we counted events backward in time. For no matter how many events we counted, the immortal being would already have finished her count to infinity. I've diagrammed it here. So let's suppose an immortal being has been counting events from the beginningless past. Then it's true that no matter how far backward in time we counted events from the present, she would already have finished counting an infinite number of events. However, there is nothing in the Kalam argument that forces us to think the immortal being stopped counting events. If she continued counting into the present then yes, we could find her still counting events. She could continue counting events into the infinite future too. So unless there is a reason to think otherwise this particular argument fails to show anything about whether the past is finite. It might be. It might not be. But this philosophical argument is irrelevant to establishing the case needed.

Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible

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Professor Gilmour of Providence University, Manitoba, Canada, has listed his favorite zombie imagery of the Bible. See his Top 10 Zombie Scenes in the Bible.

What Would Christianity Have Without Its Myths?

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Christian "truth" is fabricated and propagated by Christian tradition and one of my favorites deals with my experience at Saint George Greek Orthodox Church here in Greenville, S.C.

While attending its annual spring Greek festival, I noticed the church was open so visitors could venture inside to get an introduction to the Greek Orthodox tradition and its icons, so I decided to check it out. As I entered, I was given a brief printed history which included the claim that the Greek Orthodox Church was the ONLY TRUE Christian Church established by Jesus Christ himself. (Wow, and I thought it was the Mormons!)

My Reviewers Reviewed, by Robert Ingersoll

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This is the final part of a lecture delivered by Col. 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 this excerpt].

Three Biblical Spirits of Which One is Likely to Affect People This Holiday Season

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A. The Holy Spirit (The promised “Comforter”, Acts 2: 4)

B. An Evil Spirit (Afflicted Saul, 1 Samuel 16: 14)

C. The Distilled Spirit (Lives in a bottle before possessing humans. Often cohabits with either of the above spirits! Proverbs 23: 31 -32)

May your Holiday Season be a spirit filled one! Harry

The World Will NOT END on December 21, 2012

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The world will not end on December 21, 2012. I guarantee it. This is an easy prediction to make. Those who predict the world will not end on any particular day, month, or year have been right 100% of the time. Those who have predicted that the world will end on a particular day, month, or year have been wrong 100% of the time.  See Iowa State Daily Story.

What Kind of Christianity is This? A Review of Mark Roncace's Book

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Professor Mark Roncace was raised in a conservative Christian church and attended a Christian school for thirteen years. He is now an Associate Professor of Religion at Wingate University in North Carolina who debunks the Bible in his popular level book, Raw Revelation: The Bible They Never Tell You About.His book is bittersweet for me, both a joy and a pain to read, brilliant and, well, ignorant. Yet, I recommend it highly just the same.

In a Godless Universe the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting is What We'd Expect Would Happen

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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.

The Use and Abuse of Scholarship by The Watchtower Society

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         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.

The Late Semitic Scholar Anson Rainey’s Description of Most Jews Living in Israel and Scholarship

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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.]

Frank Moore Cross: A Secularist’s Assessment

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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.

My Reviewers Reviewed, by Robert Ingersoll

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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.

Science Denialism in Congress is Rampant and Appalling

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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.

Quote of the Day, by David Marshall

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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.

Now There's A Queen James Bible! A Gay Bible for Gays ;-)

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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*

Look What Kind of Company I'm Keeping These Days!

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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.

Thanks!

Christian Apologist David Marshall On Science

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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.

An Excerpt From My Coming Book On the OTF

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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:

What Kind of Atheist/Theist Are You?

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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?

Welcome to Eternity Christian: What Heaven is Really Going Be Like!

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{My first post for DC in 2006 (now revised)}

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.

Why Nothing Bothers Me About Unbelief

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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!

The Wikipedia Article on Atheism

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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.