"I'm increasingly convinced that the point of Christian apologetics is not to defend the faith, but to create the illusion that the faith is defensible."
Russell Blackford and Udo Shuklenk's excellent book, 50 Great Myths About Atheism, is now available in paperback. I've commented about it here, where in it they recommend my books. Get it. NOW!
I really like Kenton Sparks personally, and I enjoyed working with him a bit when he was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sparks was even gracious enough to thank me in one of his previous books (Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and their Expression in the Hebrew Bible [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998) for helping him get started on that work.I think that book still represents good scholarship.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the the same for his recent book, Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture (2012), though I give him credit for acknowledging that the ethical problems of the Bible are real.
Otherwise, you can read my full review recently published in the Review of Biblical Literature.
Flannagan said: "As to the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) you'll see I have pointed out that argument is incoherent." Really? For a refresher on the OTF see this and the links to follow. Over three years ago I asked Flannagan to respond to five questions. So far he hasn't done so. Here they are again:
"British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was catapulted to fame in 1976 with his first book, “The Selfish Gene.” It revolutionized Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution with the idea that genes are the keys to natural selection. Dawkins was the first professor for public understanding of science at Oxford University. And he is one of the world’s most outspoken atheists, author of “The God Delusion.” His latest book is the first volume of a two-part memoir titled An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. It covers his childhood in Africa through his mid-30s."
I don't think there is a way to break through the thick skulls of many Christians on this, but let's try again. When it comes to morality, overwhelming numbers of people hold to basic ethics (as opposed to dilemma ethics), expressed even by C.S. Lewis in his book, The Abolition of Man (even though I disagree with his conclusions). What best accounts for this? Certainly not any given provincial deity. Otherwise everyone should embrace the rest of the moralities commanded by these deities. Yet they conflict with each other over a wide assortment of moral issues (theocracy, homosexuality, marriage and divorce, chauvinism, war), and religious issues as well (praying five times a day facing Mecca, genuflecting, washing in the river Ganges, wearing burkas, eating habits, fasts, hair length), since after all, they are also required by these same deities. Moreover, within the Christian tradition itself, the one I know the best, there are serious disagreements in justifying a specific kind of Christian morality that go beyond what most everyone accepts as basic morality. In order to become informed of this there is no better book to read than J. Philip Wogaman's Christian Ethics: A Historical Introduction. You see, Christians cannot come to an agreement about ethical theory much less the additional moral duties themselves.Come on, before you spout off the phrase "Christian morality" again, look at the facts. Stop your special pleading. Stop begging the question. There is no such thing as "Christian morality." Never has been. Probably never will be.
Do non-believers have a basis for saying some things cause harm? I think so. Just look at a burning child. We have a computer that computes the steps. Our brains. Such things cause harm. It's obvious. The basis for morality is empathy. The divine command theory has no room for it. If God is thought to command killing witches then empathy be damned. While there are two greatest commandments the only one that counts is the first one. Christians need not be concerned with the plight of human suffering, only loving the god in one's head.
In this video, we witness a host organism (the priest) whose infection with the God Virus has progressed to an extreme state. He is performing a wedding ceremony for two living, breathing, human beings, but all he can think about is how offended his Invisible Friend must be by the photographers who are documenting the wedding.
“This is not about the photography, this is about God.”
Uhhh, no Reverend Douchebag. This is about the couple getting married, and their happiness. They hired the photographers that you are trying to run off, to capture memories of what should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22: 6
Jesus said: Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10: 34
Raised by his fundamentalist Bible believing grandmother who required him to attend church and read the Bible daily plus memorize Bible verses, as an adult, Charles Manson was captivated by the blood, gore and prophecies in the Book of Revelation and saw himself and The Family as true believers ordained by God who would arise to rule a new post-apocalyptic world.
In a new biography, author Jeff Guinn looks at the strict religious world Charles Manson grew up in and how the Bible along with popular culture of the 1960’s created a religious psychopath.
An NPR audio interview with author Jeff Guinn about his new biography can be heard HERE
I don't Twitter and I don't make YouTube videos. On Facebook I post links to this blog but sometimes I post some personal stuff too. Today's my 59th birthday. Join me on Facebook to see the shenanigans.
While I was still a believer, I found myself drawn to Greg Boyd’s books, in large part because he seemed willing to wrestle authentically with the tougher questions which challenge Christianity. In particular, I enjoyed his books Letters from a Skeptic, and God of the Possible.
Now Greg has a new book out: Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty and Rebecca Held Evans has interviewed him, regarding it. Partway through the interview, she asks him about the violent portraits of God found in the Bible, and how he would recommend that believers deal with these.
Greg answers that since Jesus is the ‘supreme revelation’ of God, then:
“…whether we can explain the violent portraits of God in the OT or not, it would be unfaithful for us to ever allow anything we find in the OT to compromise what we learn about God in him. “
This of course, is a very convenient hermeneutic tool which allows Christians to distance themselves from, and override, distasteful content in the Old Testament. The writers of the New Testament shamelessly used their ‘new revelation’ to recycle, reinterpret and supersede the Jewish scriptures - as the occasion requires.
Greg basically pats the troubled Christian on the head, and says, “There, there. Don’t worry about those nasty Old Testament scriptures. Just keep your eyes on Jesus. He’s all that matters. He’s what God is really like.”
There isn't any difference at all between people who are deceived by psychics and theistic believers in the pew. The common denominator is that they have a need to believe. They don't really want to know the truth. Yet they deceive themselves into thinking that they do.
My book, The Outsider Test for Faith, came out in March where I responded to all of the criticisms coming from Christian apologists Matthew Flannagan, Norman Geisler, Mark Hanna, Steve Lovell, David Marshall, Rados Miksa, Randal Rauser, Victor Reppert, David Reuben Stone, and Thomas Talbott. Here it is, six months later, and no response has been forthcoming from them or their supporters, with the exception of Marshall's ignorant non-response in a review on Amazon. It's hard not to conclude I have silenced them.
“He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female” (Genesis 5: 1c – 2a)
"The child was born with intersex condition --
sexual anatomy that fits the definition of a male or female."
"Court records indicate that at birth, M.C.
was identified as a male. During a reflux surgery, female organs were
discovered. Doctors at the Greenville Hospital System concluded the baby was a 'true hermaphrodite.'" State Sued Over Hermaphrodite Child Sex Surgery
This is a very very thorough explanation of a huge amount of research into why Loftus chose to become an atheist. I was expecting a much more personal account but this is extremely academic. Very very lengthy, only for the very studious mind. Lots of great info, but too much. This covers philosophy, history, anthropology, biblical studies, you name it, this book is the mega thesis.
---------
When I say it's my magnum opus I really mean it. Randal Rauser didn't read it before inviting me to co-write "God or Godless" with him, and he has still not read it. Is it just too big of a book for him, too academic, outside his expertise, or what? ;-)
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3
Well Jesus, this was silly because you revealed too much (kind of like a magician telling how he does his tricks). A childlike mentality, and childhood conversions are the fuel on which Christianity runs.
Kids are trusting, uninformed about life, and unskilled in the art of reason. The line between fantasy and reality is blurred for children. It’s not unusual for them to have invisible friends, which makes them perfect victims for spiritual salesmen!
Most readers of Debunking Christianity have been deep enough into Christian theology at one point or another to appreciate a nuance to the evolution vs. Christianity conflict that is significant but little discussed: How could the half-human, half-divine nature of Jesus possibly be rationalized scientifically? As this excerpt from Robert and Edwin's book Evolving out of Edenmakes clear, the whole idea of a virgin birth is utterly foreign to modern science, based on ancient, paternalistic ideas about fertilization. The book goes on to explain what a theological mess believers are left with, even if they can make that impossible leap of faith: Jesus would’ve had all the supposedly sinful natural inclinations that Christianity gives humans so much grief about—lust, anger, etc.—because he carried Mary’s human DNA and a supposedly divine portion that would have needed to be defective by design in order to match up with it.
Looks like I've joined a great cast of growing interviews here. I haven't listened to it yet. I'm interviewed about my new book, "The Outsider Test for Faith." Check it out. Now I'm off to a bicycle beer run. Seriously!
Whenever you see posts titled like this one always consider the source and the intended target audience. How widely read is the person recommending these books? Is he or she a former believer? Which type of Christianity do the recommended books target? On what level of scholarship do the books deal with? Are the recommended books philosophically oriented, biblically oriented or scientifically oriented, or general ones? Take for instance the recommendation to read the Bible itself. A fundamentalist won't deconvert upon reading it. A Catholic like Julia Sweeney did. Remember, Isaac Asimov's famous quote is this: "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." The question is which books help which readers properly understand the Bible? That's my focus, my specialty. My target audience are educated evangelicals in the pews and colleges. So with that let me whittle down my list of recommended books to just five (excluding my own):
Raphael Lataster is bright young scholar from Australia. In 2012, he submitted a Master's Thesis on Jesus Mythicism that was approved by the University of Sydney. As such, he may be among the first to have a thesis sympathetic to Jesus Mythicism approved by a world-class university. Now, Lataster has used that thesis as the basis of a new book, There Was No Jesus, There is No God, to be available shortly on Amazon (Kindle version already available).
Although I am not a Jesus mythicist, I do think that Lataster makes a good case that one cannot simply dismiss all versions or all aspects of Jesus mythicism. His work addresses the work of Bart Ehrman and W. L. Craig, among many others. See Book Description. Here is also another link that may be more useful: Alternative link.
I have a confession to make. Over a decade ago, I took my family to a Ken Ham creationism event. My kids were taught that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, a few thousand years ago, and they also learned a magic phrase – one guaranteed to stop evolutionists in their tracks. More on that later.
In a presentation for the adults, Ken talked about how evolution attacks the very foundation of Christianity – the book of Genesis. After all, if Genesis is not literally true, then there was no Adam and Eve, no Fall of mankind through eating a forbidden fruit. No Original Sin. No need for a savior. This is something which I actually agree with Ken on.
As my readers know, I recently visited Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky and wrote about it here. Ken Ham responded with a post of his own, to which I responded, and I'm sticking to my story despite his claims otherwise. Now I want to dispel a couple of other things he said. He wrote:
I recently posted a Facebook comment about this man (me), with the title, “Atheist debunking—or an advertisement for the Creation Museum?” Like most atheists who write negatively about their museum experience, he simply described some of the exhibits and, with lots of hand-waving, just said we were wrong. His lengthy piece really offered no real rebuttals of the scientific displays. He mocked the exhibits more than anything.
First off, I went to Ken Ham's Facebook page and posted a link to my first response. Guess what? It was deleted within a couple of hours. Looks like he won't stand for a free debate and/or discussion. So much for him having the evidence on his side such that he can allow it to win in the marketplace of ideas. He can do what he wants there, of course. But that should be the first clue he is not being intellectually honest. Secondly, I want to show why his views are ignorant and delusional, not just tell what I saw at the museum. So here goes.
We can keep this simple. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was God incarnate. In John 17, Jesus prayed that his current and future followers would have the kind of unity that he and his heavenly father enjoyed. He requested this so that the world would have a basis to believe that God had sent him.
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:20-21 (NASB)
That was the prayer.What kind of results did the self-proclaimed Son of God get?
On April 2, 2013, Hemant Mehta published the following letter to the secular community. Let's all compare how we're doing after six months. If you've read my blog posts then you know that two of my biggest beefs are with divisive people within the secular community and atheists who embarrass the rest of us. That does not make me a divisive person or an embarrassment. I'm responding to them. I can only tolerate the tolerable and this isn't tolerable to me. I think I can tolerate a great deal more than most others though. I know there are reasonable people who disagree with me, who are not ignorant or irrational, simply because I have read widely and experienced a great deal in my life. So I support the following statement as well, with the caveat that I don't want the frustration and headache of moderating every comment. Shall we try again?
[Michael Shermer responds. Edited further on 8/25/13] What do you do when someone pulls the pin and hands you a grenade? I'm dyin’ here, people. It’s like people trust me or something. So I've decided to say what I think. There is a great deal of infighting going on between atheists and has been for some time. I could provide a fairly long list of issues that have divided us along with a number of people who have been trashed on both sides. There is one common denominator to this divisiveness, PZ Myers. I'm not saying he is the cause of it all. He's not. He has, however, conferred a measure of authority and power to other atheist bloggers by giving them a large audience, who would never have gained such an audience on their own. Many of them are divisive too, following in his steps. As far as I can tell, you either love PZ Myers or you hate him. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground among most atheists who are aware of him. PZ Myers is a polarizing figure, hands down, no ifs ands or buts about it. He is divisive whether people think he's usually right or usually wrong. When PZ Myers declared he was leaving the skeptic movement in May of this year, professor Massimo Pigliucci even rhetorically asked, "should we care?" Now this is some real divisiveness, apparently cutting ties with the large and influential James Randi Educational Foundation and like-minded skeptics around the world. Who does he think he is? So I got to wondering about the characteristics of a polarizing person and did some searching online. This is what I found:
"A 37-year-old diesel mechanic,
Yahle said he had no awareness of what happened until family members told him.
He said he did not have any afterlife experience that he can recall."
“I have no memory of anything. I
went to bed … woke up five days later in the hospital.”
LINK. What took them so long to admit this? I wonder why this is the case? Could it be that their arguments were lame and based on an ancient superstitious pre-modern book? ;-)
This is a must read. Look at the spin he puts on it. No matter what happens Christians always think it's good because they blindly believe God is in control. Spin doctors them all, and pathetic!
It's always amusing to read these synopses and critiques of the problems of fitting inconvenient aspects of reality with the nature of an omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent god. I find my patience wears thin after a short read and I want to scream at the authors, "can't you see? you've demonstrated the absurdity of your god, can't you understand that the simple and most reasonable resolution to all your problems is that Your God Does NOT Exist?"
Why does God not reveal himself more often? Simplest answer: because he does not exist. Why does God allow evil? Simplest answer: because he does not exist. Why does God allow believers to lose their faith (hi John!)? Simplest answer: because he does not exist. Why does God not heal the sick? Simplest answer: because he does not exist. Why is the Bible inconsistent? Simplest answer: because God didn't write it (because he does not exist), rather these are human fables and tales.
Yet apologists and religious philosophers prefer to construct rivers of fabulating argument to try to shore up their Fortress of Faith on the Island of Insanity that is the Crumbling Church of Christianity. Faith is their defense against reason.
Steve Wells has put out two books that look very good:
He probably doesn't know Hebrew and Greek. It would have been very helpful if he did. People may forget, or not know, that before The Skeptic's Annotated Bible there was Isaac Asimov's massive work, Asimov's Guide to the Bible: Two Volumes in One, the Old and New Testaments.Asimov was not a biblical scholar who knew Hebrew or Greek either. Nonetheless, these books are very helpful in highlighting why we are non-believers, atheists. Check them out.
As a graduate student at Columbia Theological Seminary in
the mid 1970’s, I had the honor of being involved with two seminaries that shared
faculties on a regular basis. The other
school was Candler School of Theology at Emory University and this is where I
first got to know John Hayes.
Thus, when John Hayes and Maxwell Miller came out with a new history of ancient Israel and Judah , I bought
a copy and made sure I was there when they introduced it at the 1986 SBL
meeting in Atlanta, Ga.
(While both Hayes
and Miller answered questions on their new book, I noticed there was a
professor from the University of Sheffieldchallenging them on their
information; Philip
R. Davies. I remember Hayes was
trying to answer one of Davies criticisms of their book with “Well, maybe it
happen like this . . . “, to which Davies quipped, “Well, maybe it didn't. So what have you really said? Nothing!” That really made an impression on me.)
The god of the Bible sure has a lot of self-appointed press agents.
In the Old Testament, Moses and the prophets spent a lot of time talking about what their god hated and loved. They detailed what behavior he expected, the loyalty and sacrifices that he demanded, and the ways he would retaliate if not obeyed. They revealed who god wanted killed, and under what circumstances. Whenever God was upset, feeling betrayed, or benevolent, his spokesmen let be known, as if they were divine mood rings.
That's the thing about fundamentalists; they are the least introspective people on the planet. Try to explain that their version of God is a projection of their own fractured psyches, and they'll either look at you like a deer caught in the headlights or launch into a tirade about carnal mind, inherent depravity and not wanting to be held "accountable".
As I keep saying, arguing with these people is a complete waste of time. Manage them, marginalize them, vote them into irrelevance - but don't try to change their minds. The ones who want out of that world will come to you with questions. The ones who only know how to repeat what their pastors tell them are a lost cause.
This is a pretty bleak assessment isn't it? But even if Cipher is partially correct, and he is, this is the power of a delusion on an indoctrinated mind, a brainwashed mind. Just yesterday I offered a copy of my book God or Godless?to a good friend. He said he was not interested, even though I told him that his side was represented in the book by Dr. Randal Rauser, an evangelical Christian apologist. His mind is closed.
I finished God or Godless?I have a hard time believing that I used to be like this Randal guy, so often avoiding answering his critics tough questions even though he thinks he is answering them. It was like he was in the ring getting beaten up but he didn't realize it. It is hard to believe I used to be like him, but I know I was.
Joshua: Can you prove that there's not a god, cheers
John W. Loftus: Why should you require this in the first place? Such a demand is utterly unreasonable and should be the first sign you are blinded by faith. Can you prove Tom is your father? Can you prove anything? I can show your faith in the God of the Bible has an extremely low probability to it. So here's a challenge. If you are really interested in reading why I think your particular faith is probably false then read my book, God or Godless?If you are unwilling to do that then you are not really interested in my answer. The unwillingness to read that book should also be a sign you are not open-minded and thus blinded by faith.
I thought I would repost this since it centres around John's excellent book.
Whilst on holiday I finished reading John Loftus’ The Outsider Test for Faith which I greatly enjoyed and will be reviewing in a short while. There is much to talk about within the pages, not least some of the excellent quotes he has gathered from other writers which he uses to defend his own positions on various topics.
We cannot allow the divine or the supernatural because it is not observable, measurable, quantifiable, repeatable, or objectively verifiable. We can't test it, study it, or falsify it. It is for all intents and purposes MAGIC, which is precisely NOT SCIENCE.
But let's say we ignore all of that and allow 'magic'. Why should we allow the 'magic' of Yahweh or trust in the 'magic' of the story of Genesis, over the creation myths of any other god in human history? How can you tell which 'magic' explanation is more accurate, if you can never measure, observe, or verify magic ever? Because then we're back at square one, in an unending game of he-said-she-said, and with no way to determine who is right. It's all a push.
Or, we can accept that science has a proven history of working and figuring shit out, unlike magical explanations. Science, it works bitches. LINK.
A comment here from Stephen argues that "At the beginning of every mythology, every cult, every religion in history, is a con-artist who figured out how to sell a racket so that he could get rich while doing "god's work.'" [Full Text below] I think this can be shown with regard to L. Ron Hubbard and the rise of Scientology, as well with Joseph Smith and the rise of Mormonism. In my book WIBA, I argued that the empty tomb story probably started with the Gospel of Mark, who was a liar for Jesus. Don't think so? Think again. In fact, liars for Jesus abound.
This YouTube clip is at the end of one in which Lawrence Krauss exposes William Lane Craig for misrepresenting him at best. Look at the clip (from 7:50 to 8:23) and comment on whether Christian believers really think they will see their dead loved ones again. Link.
These five myths about Jesus are largely accepted in the scholarly literature:
I've commented about it here, where in it they recommend my books. Get it. NOW!
Sparks was even gracious enough to thank me in one of his previous books (Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and their Expression in the Hebrew Bible [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998) for helping him get started on that work. I think that book still represents good scholarship.
Come on, before you spout off the phrase "Christian morality" again, look at the facts. Stop your special pleading. Stop begging the question. There is no such thing as "Christian morality." Never has been. Probably never will be.
While I was still a believer, I found myself drawn to Greg Boyd’s books, in large part because he seemed willing to wrestle authentically with the tougher questions which challenge Christianity. In particular, I enjoyed his books Letters from a Skeptic, and God of the Possible.
makes clear, the whole idea of a virgin birth is utterly foreign to modern science, based on ancient, paternalistic ideas about fertilization. The book goes on to explain what a theological mess believers are left with, even if they can make that impossible leap of faith: Jesus would’ve had all the supposedly sinful natural inclinations that Christianity gives humans so much grief about—lust, anger, etc.—because he carried Mary’s human DNA and a supposedly divine portion that would have needed to be defective by design in order to match up with it.
, The End of Faith
). We have inspiring books by prominent atheists who have liberated themselves from religion (Godless
, Why I Became an Atheist
). We have books on specific issues, such as the traditional claims that are often at odds with science (A Universe from Nothing
, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning
, Why Evolution Is True
). There are books that expose some of the more horrifying aspects of the Bible (The Skeptic's Annotated Bible
), there are books that question the truth of the Biblical sources (Forged
), there are books that raise questions on methodology (The End of Biblical Studies
), and there are books advocating a religious-but-not-religious way of life (The Good Book
, Religion for Atheists
). There are even books on the seemingly irrelevant issue of Jesus’ possible ahistoricity (Proving History
, The Christ-Myth Theory And Its Problems
, The Christ Conspiracy
). So why would I, a scholar, throw one more into the mix, when traditionally, academics keep to themselves?
Raphael Lataster is bright young scholar from Australia. In 2012, he submitted a Master's Thesis on Jesus Mythicism that was approved by the University of Sydney. As such, he may be among the first to have a thesis sympathetic to Jesus Mythicism approved by a world-class university. Now, Lataster has used that thesis as the basis of a new book, There Was No Jesus, There is No God, to be available shortly on Amazon (Kindle version already available).
We can keep this simple. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was God incarnate. In John 17, Jesus prayed that his current and future followers would have the kind of unity that he and his heavenly father enjoyed. He requested this so that the world would have a basis to believe that God had sent him. 
Asimov was not a biblical scholar who knew Hebrew or Greek either. Nonetheless, these books are very helpful in highlighting why we are non-believers, atheists. Check them out.
to a good friend. He said he was not interested, even though I told him that his side was represented in the book by Dr. Randal Rauser, an evangelical Christian apologist. His mind is closed.
