I'm tired of getting hit with, "Hey, that doesn't describe me." Okay, I get it. Nonetheless, I have a good Seventh Day Adventist friend whose vehicle wouldn't start. So yesterday we tried to get it running. I'm not much of a mechanic but we did figure out it was his fuel pump located in the gas tank. He's a painter so he decided to finish a job over the weekend in order to get the needed money to fix it. I deviously suggested his vehicle broke down because God was punishing him in advance for working on Saturday (which is forbidden by his sect). The funny thing is that he seriously considered this. I had a good laugh with him about it. Maybe so, I said, who knows? ;-)
We all grant for the sake of argument a few things from time to time. The reason we do so is to reach across the great divide between Christians and ourselves. But we should not grant too much, depending on the argument. How do we know if we have? I have a five-fold answer.
I started to write something and realized I had already done so. There are over 4000 posts in the archives with a really good search engine in the sidebar. Try it. Do a search for "The Accommodation Theory of the Bible." See, that was easy. Now do another one for "The New Evangelical Orthodoxy." Do other searches. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat again.
As the ages march on, it is a delight to find fewer attending churches and more making time to sit around doing other, more enjoyable things come Sunday. But even while classes full of growing students are satiated in going to their professors for answers instead of their priests, the age-old debate on the existence of God / validity of [insert religion here] somehow still rages on. The question should by now be settled, but those states where the collective IQ hasn’t exceeded 57 still have people who are clinging tightly to mom and dad’s hard-shell faith to define us.
However, it is a breath of fresh air to know that the seeds of doubt are first planted, not by scholarship or by secular parenting, but by common sense questions and healthy brains at work. Below are 5 biblical mentions that are in that camp known as “It don’t take no gosh-darn edjamucations to see this ain’t right.” Some things in God’s holy book are wrong simply because they defy any real level of sense. We begin the countdown with...
Previously I argued there isn't a bad personal reason to reject the Christian faith. Christian apologist Dr. Vincent Torley understood my argument fairly well so I'll use what he wrote to describe it (edited for brevity without the digressions). Then I'll comment on it.
MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD
Oscar winning filmmaker Alex Gibney examines the abuse of power in the Catholic Church through the story of four courageous deaf men, who in the first known case of public protest, set out to expose the priest who abused them. Through their case the film follows a cover-up that winds its way from the row houses of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, through the bare ruined choirs of Ireland's churches, all the way to the highest office of the Vatican.
He asks us to consider two scholars, Chris the Christian philosopher and Alan the atheist philosopher.
Alan writes a new paper in which he argues that God does not exist based on the problem of evil. He sends a draft to his friend Chris and asks Chris for feedback. Chris reads through the paper and identifies a serious problem. Chris writes a critique in which he identifies the problem and identifies a way to make the argument much stronger. As a result Chris has a reasonable ground to believe that many people may read the revised paper and come to the conviction that God doesn’t exist based in part on the alterations suggested by Chris. However, Chris still believes God does exist and that anybody who concludes that God doesn’t exist will have adopted a false belief about a very important issue. And so Chris must accept that based on arguments he has fine-tuned many people will adopt false beliefs about a very important issue. Has Chris done anything wrong by offering that critique to Alan?
Hundreds showed up at the Pickens County school board meeting Monday night begging the board to keep its routine invocation despite a Wisconsin-based organization asking them to refrain from prayer.
To see what I've been arguing recently read Part 1, and if so desired read Part 2. Now for Part 3 where I'll attempt to deal with another objection, this time coming from Matt DeStefano, an atheist who is a philosophy student in a master's level program. I remember those days myself a long long time ago in a far away galaxy. I hope you're enjoying this period in your life Matt, because you will probably look back on it as the best time in your life, as I do. DeStefano presents a scenario that is supposed to be the exception to my blanket claim that there isn't a bad personal reason to reject Christianity. If an exception can be found then my blanket claim is false. So let me say first of all that if DeStefano's counter-example works then it doesn't undercut anything else I said, only that there is an exception or two or three. I can live with this if so. Nonetheless, I don't think his scenario works.
As I continue to gather more facts for my forth coming post on the Canonization of the Bible, I became aware that this post on the Bible (like many of my others) will draw negative critics from supposed friendly fire.
Previously I argued there isn't a bad personal reason to reject the Christian faith. This argument is aimed at Christians who believe in the following Doctrinal Statement (DS): An omniscient, omnibenelovent, omnipotent God exists who sent Jesus to atone for the sins of all who believe in him and desires that everyone should be saved with no one lost (See 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). Other believers need not apply. Other beliefs that people have are not specifically relevant to my argument except as they illustrate how bad human beings generally reason about things. In the next few posts I'm going to answer some criticisms of what I had written. Be sure to read my original post to understand what follows.
I've found that the more well-known an atheist becomes then the more often atheists criticize him or her for this, that, or the other. I don't like it but it comes with the territory. It's a sign of some kind of success, believe it or not. Atheists disagree with each other quite a bit anyway, but in my case I have put out thousands of words over the last seven years, so atheists who want to nitpick at this, that, or the other, can find plenty of nits to pick, especially since I like being a provocateur from time to time. One atheist critic of my argument is Jeff Lowder, who has recently been dogging my steps for reasons that totally baffle me.
Anyone who has written a book critical of Christianity sees exactly what Timothy Larsen is doing in reviewing Susan Jacoby's new book, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought. It's what most Christians do when reviewing such a book. They claim the infidel is ignorant or a second class intellectual. As many of you know, Julian Haydon has been sending me essays by Ingersoll over the last few months in order to keep his memory alive. Julian responds to Larsen as follows:
I was asked a few questions for an article by Diana Bridgett on the rise of atheist churches. You can read the result here. Below are the questions and my full answers. I just don't want to waste 'em.
I have been thinking about Christianity for over forty years. I believed it. I preached it. I earned several master's degrees in it. I taught it. I learned to reject it. Then for over seven years on a daily basis I have sought to argue against it. I have written, co-written and/or edited five published books in five years containing the results of everything I have learned, which should lead thinking people to reject it. But I have to confess here and now, up front and center, that there isn't a bad reason to reject the Christian faith. I don't expect people to agree. It's a conclusion I have come to from everything I have learned. Again, there isn't a bad reason to reject the Christian faith. Since there might be one I'll leave it up to someone to suggest it. Otherwise, my claim stands.
So let me merely introduce what appears to be an overly simplistic claim and see what happens from here. As I said, I'm only introducing this line of thought. Christian people have said of me that, "Of the many atheist and theist blogs that I follow I would have to say that you are the best at consistently coming up with interesting topics and arguments even though I disagree with almost everything you say." Okay then, here goes. I want to defend the claim of the title to this post. Let's see if I can by taking an absurdly ignorant argument against Christianity and show why it's still a good reason for rejecting the Christian faith.
Recently, (on SIN) I ran a couple of posts sharing some of the utterly awesome work of Canadian science rapper Baba Brinkman. He is a fascinating guy who has kindly agreed to an interview which I am sharing with you here. Before I get down to the interview, let me share with / remind you of his truly great work:
"A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intention – could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them...Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth? – But perhaps he is a god of goodness notwithstanding – and merely could not express himself more clearly! Did he perhaps lack intelligence to do so? Or the eloquence?...Must he not then...be able to help and counsel [his creatures], except in the manner of a deaf man making all kinds of ambiguous signs when the most fearful danger is about to befall on his child or dog?”
I just got an email that said: "Your blog is great. And for some strange reason, the comments are great too." But there is nothing strange about this at all. Here at DC is where educated people on both sides of the religion question meet to debate. We like it this way. And I am grateful for the people who comment. They are the best around.
Much of Loftus’s revised Why I Became an Atheist book is devoted to refuting the arguments of Christian apologists...Someone had to rebut the apologists, and Loftus has written a definitive refutation that only incurables could dispute—as they no doubt will continue to do. Fortunately the arguments of the “new atheists” are reaching the masses, and religion’s days are accordingly numbered. Without Loftus to pull the rug out from under the incurables, that might have taken longer.
My last major post dealt with one solid fact; the reality that is there is no book or even a verse of the entire Bible older than 250 BCE. Even though I offered $30.00 as a reward to anyone who could prove me wrong, my challenge still stands as it did was four months ago . . . totally unanswered.
Randal Rauser has a celebratory post about Harry Blamires where writes:
Back in the early 1960s many people considered Harry Blamires, a budding Anglican theologian and literary critic, to be a younger C.S. Lewis. In his incisive book The Christian Mind: How should a Christian think?(1963) Blamires explores the question of how one’s Christian convictions ought to change the way one thinks. Like all great books, The Christian Mind has aged gracefully and its analysis continues to provide novel insight into the world around us.
Yes, indeed. I agree, but not in the way Rauser does. I think Blamires's book is an indictment on Rauser's ever changing chameleon approach to theology, something I'm sure Blamires would vehemently reject.
I haven't found another blog like DC where intelligent Christians and atheists meet to debate the issues. I like it. Perhaps one of the reasons is because of comments like the one from a Keith R.:
Hi, John, I’m a long time reader and sometime commenter on DC. Of the many atheist and theist blogs that I follow I would have to say that you are the best at consistently coming up with interesting topics and arguments even though I disagree with almost everything you say.
I've heard this from others several times before. There aren't too many people out there who understand the mind of the believer and who blog on a daily basis like the writers here at DC (including Hector Avalos, Harry McCall, Jonathan Pearce, Phil Torres, and the articulate articulett). Just the same, Keith R. disagreed with my recent post, Enough of This Utter Nonsense, On Knowing the Supernatural. He wants us to think of science as a metal detector, and as such, it cannot detect anything that isn't metal. Hence, there are things that science cannot detect, supernatural things. *POOF* Therefore a trinitarian incarnational atoning resurrecting ascending and soon to be returning God exists. Get this? Neither do I.
In the introduction to his new book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, Lawrence Wright writes, "Scientology plays an outsize role in the cast of new religions that have arisen in the 20th century and survived into the 21st."
The book is a look inside the world of Scientology and the life of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986. A recent ad for Scientology claims to welcome 4.4 million new converts each year.
Listen to an interview with Lawrence Wright on NPRHERE
A Christian commented on a recent post having to do with how science could know the supernatural:
Let's posit for a moment that the supernatural does exist. It then follows that science, which by definition focuses on the natural, would have absolutely no means to measure it or detect it. It could thus never serve as a method and no scientific protocol could ever be established to rule it out, regardless of how real the supernatural would be.
Oh my gosh, believers have just pawned us god-hating atheists now, haven't they? *Throws in the towel in defeat.* Wait, on second thought, this is utter hogwash and it should be easily seen. So here goes.
If you want to know why I think William Lane Craig is deluded rather than dishonest, as atheists who lack a basic understanding of the deluded mind claim, it's because of this video:
To hear what might be considered a response to Craig, although not intended as such, watch Peter Boghossian's talk at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) National Convention:
This book offers a passionate and erudite set of important challenges to people of faith, complete with a nice touch of humor and a sense of urgency that we don’t see often in similar books by intellectuals. In it most readers will find some fresh arguments that provoke thought and deserve our attention. Unlike the four "New Atheists" Lindsay, who holds degrees in physics and a Ph.D. in mathematics, understands Christian theology much better than they do. In the end, Lindsay is correct; God doesn’t do anything because he doesn’t exist. Only we can solve our problems.
Dr. David Heddle, an associate professor of physics and the Chair of the Mathematics Department at Christopher Newport University, has recently been dogging my steps. He's a Christian. As far as I know he has not read any of my books. He seems to like me better than some other critics, saying, "John Loftus is a much easier to take (I mean that as a genuine compliment) critic of Christianity (and, by leaps and bounds, a far better writer) than the detestable Richard Carrier." That's nice, I guess, even though for every person who might say this, another would say it's the exact reverse. Oh well, you can't piss off everyone after all, even though I try at times. Let's see what he thinks of me when I'm done here. I just cannot let Richard have all the glory. ;-)
What brings Heddle to say "shit happens" has to do with my comment regarding last month's Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where I wrote:
In a godless universe shit happens without rhyme nor reason. Life is predatory from the ground up. Creatures eat one another by trapping unsuspecting victims in unusual ways, launching surprise attacks out of the blue, and hunting in packs by overpowering prey with brute force and numbers. Sometimes a creature just goes wacko for no reason at all. Humans are not exempt. Sometimes the wiring in our brains goes haywire and we snap. We too are violent and we inherited this trait from our animal predecessors. We also show care and concern to our kith and kin but we can lash out in horrific ways at what we consider an uncaring world.
I've heard many times, especially from scientists, that scientists don't "believe" evolution, they "know" it. I think this involves a bit of terminological confusion, and I think this confusion is bad for the overall discussion about evolution in the public arena. In this article, I'll briefly discuss why scientists do indeed believe in evolution and, in the process, say a few things about the nature of (religious) faith and its relation to knowledge.
Look, debates are all well and good, but being such fervent supporters of the Bible as the Inspired Word of God, why not settle things the good, old-fashioned biblical way?
Hey, I KNOW Christians don't like being mocked. I get that. So it's no surprise they would object to it by saying it doesn't cause them to change their minds, that it makes them dig their heels in deeper, and that it just makes them think less of the one doing the mocking. You would expect them to say this. The facts however are different. Ridicule and mockery have been very effective in any cultural war and they will forever be effective and necessary, despite Jeffrey Jay Lowder, the lone atheist holdout.
Professor Keith Parsons joins with others in advocating ridicule. He advocates this as one response to fundamentalism. He writes:
“A single belly-laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms” said H.L. Mencken. Fundamentalism and fundamentalists should be ridiculed in the media, by comedians, or wherever. You don’t have to worry about fairness, since, as Poe’s Law famously notes, no satire can possibly be more absurd than the real thing. Come on. You just can’t come up with anything more ridiculous than someone who honestly thinks that all human woes stem from an incident in which a talking snake accosted a naked woman in a primeval garden and talked her into eating a piece of fruit. Again, most ridicule would consist of pointedly drawing attention to what they really believe. Nothing could be fairer than that. As a sign admonished on The Simpsons, put the fun back in fundamentalism. Laugh it to death. LINK.
It's not just the so-called "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and PZ Myers who advocate ridicule. I do too (see below). So does Richard Carrier, as does Stephen Law. Keep in mind we don't advocate this as the only response.
William Lane Craig, as we all know, is an apologist with a predilection for the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which goes like this:
1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;
2) The universe has a beginning of its existence;
C) Therefore: The universe has a cause of its existence.
The point I want to make today is about quantum indeterminacy. This is the notion that, at the quantum, microscopic level, things could be indeterminate, or 'uncaused'. This potentially invalidates the first premise.
Disease: 1. An abnormal condition of an organism or part, especially as a consequence of infection, inherent weakness, or environmental stress, that impairs normal physiological functioning. 2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful. (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2ed. 1985)
Ladies and gentlemen, dignitaries and non-dignitaries, believers and nonbelievers, I am honored to briefly speak to you tonight on the inaugural of my next year's term as president and owner of this blog. About seven years ago, almost to the day, I started this Blog. Each year you have reelected me to another term. I have posted something about 1.5 times a day ever since. I have fought many battles with both believers and nonbelievers in order to stay on track with my goal of debunking Christianity in all of its forms. It's been very time consuming but very rewarding work. You already know my goals and what I have to offer, and you also know I have critics on both sides of these debates, but you still reelected me for yet another term here at DC, for which I am very grateful.
So my heartfelt thanks goes out to the various writers who have been team members at DC over the years, most notably Hector Avalos, Harry McCall, and more recently Jonathan Pearce. Thanks also to my readers for seven years of comments and debate, especially my peeps, including the amazing and indefatigable articulett, also a team member. You have helped to make this blog one of the top places to discuss the best arguments for and against Christianity. This means a great deal to me personally. Without you I would've thrown in the towel a long time ago out of fatigue, discouragement and/or financial ruin.
Johnnie Moore, vice president at Liberty University, writes of how he astounded his colleagues by suggesting that Jesus may have stopped to take a crap by the side of the road, on the way to Jerusalem. Granted, he didn’t use the word ‘crap’ but more provocatively, he also posited that Jesus may even have suffered the ravages of diarrhea. His article goes on to point out that Christians often don’t think of Jesus as fully human. I would heartily agree.
Now I suppose that Professor Moore’s musings might seem edgy and possibly even blasphemous to the average evangelical fundamentalist, but I would like to suggest that he is playing it way too safe.
For what it's worth, at least I'm not the only one who thinks Jeff Lowder's arguments don't work against my particular case. Here's Carrier from page 290 of my anthology, The End of Christianity:
Lowder and I are at odds with each other. I don't like it. He may not either. But we are. Perhaps he's liking the attention. I, however, don't need it. People who don't blog have no idea how that by using Ads it increases the desire for more hits, but it does. In a few recent posts and comments I have repeatedly said I respect Lowder. Not once has he said that of me. So let me use Lowder as a potential example of how badly people reason, all of us, and how that ulterior motivations can cloud our judgments. Then I'll issue a challenge to him.
On August 29th, 1984, Austrian Josef Fritzl drugged his eighteen- year-old daughter Elisabeth and imprisoned her in a secret dungeon beneath his home. Over the next twenty-four years, he physically and sexually abused her. Repeated rapes resulted in one miscarriage and the birth of seven children. The details of this nightmarish and horrific story can be read here. The indomitable human spirit and will to survive, under the most extreme circumstances is truly amazing. When one of her daughters became ill and had to be hospitalized, Elisabeth managed to convince her father to allow her out of her subterranean prison. Shortly thereafter, the truth was uncovered and Josef was arrested.
Like so many around the world, I've been deeply saddened by the unfathomable, horrific gang rape that recently occurred in India. After the initial shock wore off, I got to thinking once again about how much worse Jesus' suffering and death, as described in the Gospels, could have been. I have a brief discussion about this at the end of A Crisis of Faith -- it's a point that I've heard few atheists make, but it seems to me quite compelling.[1]
James Lindsay has been doing some great blogging on how to apply Bayesian reasoning to model John Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith (or OTF).
Formulating and extensively defending the OTF is Loftus’ greatest contribution to the philosophy of religion and atheism. His best and most thorough treatment appears as chapter four in The Christian Delusion (a book I always recommend anyway as it contains lots of great chapters by great authors; and two by me). He is writing a whole book on it now. It should be out this year (I’ve seen advanced drafts and it’s good; I’ll blog it when you can buy it). The OTF is featured at Iron Chariots (which provides examples of looser expressions of the concept throughout history) and Loftus discusses it often at Debunking Christianity.
The basic idea is that you can only have a rational faith if you test it by the same standards you apply to all other competing faiths; yet when you do that, your religion tests as false as the others, and the same reasons you use to reject those become equally valid reasons to reject yours. Though this idea has been voiced before, Loftus is the first to name it, rigorize it, and give it an extensive philosophical defense; moreover, by doing so, he is the first to cause a concerted apologetic to arise attempting to dodge it, to which he could then respond. The end result is one of the most effective and powerful arguments for atheism there is. It is, in effect, a covering argument that subsumes all other arguments for atheism into a common framework. Link
and the one I reviewed on Amazon and liked the best, 
On Amazon.com Jason just reviewed my revised book, 
saying,
(1963) Blamires explores the question of how one’s Christian convictions ought to change the way one thinks. Like all great books, The Christian Mind has aged gracefully and its analysis continues to provide novel insight into the world around us.
it would be, 
