Dr. Hector Avalos Has Died. He was a one man demolition machine when it came to debunking Christianity!

My heart just broke at the news that Dr. Hector Avalos just died. He was a Harvard trained biblical scholar, my friend, and team member here at DC. He died after a battle with cancer. Here is his obituary He'll be missed greatly! I wept at the news. 

My heartfelt sympathies go out to his wife Cynthia and other loved ones and friends. I loved this man. I loved his scholarship. I loved him for his support of my work. I loved his demeanor and resolve. He was the greatest scholar I've ever personally met and known. He should go down in history as the greatest biblical scholar in our generation. You may disagree but that's my assessment. He made a huge difference. He will be greatly missed.

This pic of us together was taken in 2011 in South Bend, Indiana, when Hector was in my area giving a series of talks on religious violence. It was during a very short period of time when I had shaved off my goatee. His wife Cynthia took it.

Here's what I wrote about him in the dedication to my book, How to Defend the Christian Faith, as one of the scholarly friends who greatly influenced my thinking:

I dedicate this book to Hector Avalos who is expertly leading a second wave of atheist biblical scholars following the first wave of new atheists. His writings are multidisciplinary in scope (covering biblical, scientific, ethical and political issues) utilizing a variety of venues (scholarly books, journals, blog posts and newspapers), and cross-cultural in scope (in both English and Spanish). He is a one man demolition machine when it comes to debunking Christianity and its influence in today’s world. 

I first gained Hector's attention when I highly recommended his book The End of Biblical Studies. Then he joined the team of writers here at DC. Here are a few of his early posts. He was relentless in countering ignorance when he was maligned. He responded with scholarship, firmness and as a gentleman. I liked how he would almost always ask his opponent a few hard questions to answer at the end. 

We had a mutual admiration for each other. He came to my defense several times when I was under attack, for which I was thankful. Imagine having a biblical scholar defending you as a verbal pit bull!  

In honor of his legacy I'm asking people buy up his books. See the marquee of his books pictured at the header of this blog. Get his flagship book, The End of Biblical Studies, plus Slavery, Abolition, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship, then The Bad Jesus; The Ethics of New Testament Ethics, and also The Reality of Religious Violence.

To see how he supported my work, below is the Foreword Hector wrote for my book Christianity is Not Great: Why Faith Fails. I share it to let readers know what he thinks is important. He thinks my work is important. If you value his opinion perhaps you should too. 

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Christian “Truth” in Shreds: Epic Takedown 3

“…the greatest prank in history.”

 

It’s almost entertaining to watch liberal Christians squirm out of the clear messages of the New Testament. John’s gospel declares that Jesus is “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Jesus inherited that role as a human sacrifice after animal sacrifice had come to an end with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.  So this idea is firmly anchored in Christian doctrine by John’s gospel—and elsewhere, of course—so Christianity is stuck with it. Yet, in a 20 April 2019 article in the New York Times, Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, said: 

 

“The pervasive idea of an abusive God-father who sends his own son to the cross so God could forgive people is nuts.”

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Where Was God When This Happened? Part 16

The scandal of divine incompetence

In the face of massive human and animal suffering, Christian apologists offer tired clichés:

·      God works in mysterious ways

·      God has a larger plan that we cannot see or know about

·      To preserve our free will, God chooses not to interfere

Yet no hard evidence is offered to back up these speculations to exonerate God. They are mediocre theological responses to crises in the real world. 

In fact, Christian theology itself undermines any credible concept of a good, competent God. God is watching carefully, i.e., Christianity is totalitarian monotheism. 

Nothing we do escapes his notice: “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:36-37

Moreover, prayer works because God can even read our minds. Christians believe in, love, worship, and sing songs to this God who pays such close attention to every human being.

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A terrifying new theory: Fake news, conspiracy theories [and religions] as an evolutionary strategy

Hat Tip to Robert Conner for this news item. Here are a few snippets:

"Human beings have an evolutionary history, and deception is commonplace in the animal world because it confers evolutionary advantage. There's good reason to believe we're not so different, other than the fact that humans are ultra-social creatures. In ancestral and evolutionary terms, being part of a successful social group was every bit as essential as food and water. So deception among humans evolved from group conflicts."

"So what we're trying to understand is, why people believe things that must be false. The traditional narrative is, 'Well if you believe false things, then you must be stupid. It must be because you haven't really made an effort to actually figure out what is going on." But over the last few decades, more and more research has accumulated that suggests that's not the case. In fact the people who are responsible for spreading misinformation are not those who know the least about politics. They actually know quite a lot about politics. In that sense, knowledge doesn't guard against believing things that are false."

"But because we humans are exceptionally complex, another way to signal our loyalty is through the beliefs that we hold. We can signal loyalty to a group by having a certain set of beliefs, and then the question is, "Well, what is the type of belief through which we can signal that we belong?" First of all, it should be a belief that other people are not likely to have, because if everyone has this belief, then it's not a very good signal of group loyalty. It needs to be something that other people in other groups do not have. The basic logic at work here is that anyone can believe the truth, but only loyal members of the group can believe something that is blatantly false." LINK.

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A New Testament Profile in Fanaticism

Please STOP calling him “saint” Paul

Astute readers usually want to know an author’s sources, especially if they’re reading history. Professional historians cite their sources, commonly in extensive footnotes and bibliographies. It’s also satisfying to know how novelists have been impacted by personal trauma or just ordinary experience: what fires their imaginations?

 

But the church—in so many of its manifestations—has managed to blunt curiosity about stories in the Bible, which is passed off as “word of God.” The awkward, alarming texts are treated as metaphor, symbolism, hyperbole…all meant, the folks in the pews are assured, to convey spiritual meaning. There is little prodding or encouragement for laypeople to ask, where did this story come from? And this is a necessary first step in trying to determine if the story is true. Is it fact or fiction? Is it fantasy, and is the claim that it has spiritual meaning simply a dodge? There’s little incentive to get to the bottom of things.

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Where Was God When This Happened? Part 15

The scandal of divine incompetence

In the face of massive human and animal suffering, Christian apologists offer tired clichés:

·      God works in mysterious ways

·      God has a larger plan that we cannot see or know about

·      To preserve our free will, God chooses not to interfere

Yet no hard evidence is offered to back up these speculations to exonerate God. They are mediocre theological responses to crises in the real world.

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How To Avoid Definitional Apologetics

I see Ben Watkins joined Jeffery Lowder and Johno Pearce [The Tippling Philosopher] in calling himself a "Philosopher." I have resisted calling myself a philosopher because I have held to a higher standard. No more. I am a philosopher. You can call me that. If they are then I am. If my degreed educational credentials and years of college teaching and published books on philosophical issues doesn't call for it then something's wrong. I don't say this to demean them. I say this to join them, especially when it comes to any and all disagreements on the PoR that we may have between us [See Lowder Ignorance Tag below]. In fairness, a lot of philosophers disagree with me on the value of PoR and the use of Bayes Theorem, so I'm not asking for agreement, only a discussion between philosophers in addressing what I say. I think internet atheists who are addressing PoR questions should stop what they're doing until they read my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End. Full Stop. 

My case in point today concerns how to avoid Definitional Apologetics.

Over the last decade I have found that one bastion for Christian apologists has been philosophy, especially the philosophy of religion. The scholars have honed their definitional apologetics in such a fine-tuned manner that when engaging them in this discipline, it’s like trying to catch a greased pig. Or, to switch metaphors, trying to chase them down the rabbit’s hole in an endless and ultimately fruitless quest for definitions. What’s an extraordinary claim? What constitutes evidence? What’s the definition of supernatural? What’s the scientific method? What’s a miracle? What’s a basic belief? What’s a veridical religious experience? What’s evil? They do this just like others have done over questions like, “What is the definition of pornography?” And then they gerrymander around the plain simple facts of experience. I would rather deal in concrete examples like a virgin who supposedly had a baby and a man who supposedly was raised from the dead. [From Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End, p. 28]

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Theology Inflation and the Disappearance of Jesus

The Gospels are a big part of the problem

[This is the text of my presentation to the eConference on The Historical Jesus held 24-25 July 2021, sponsored by the Global Center for Religious Research.]

 

Yesterday we heard John W. Loftus’ presentation, “The Jesus We Find in the Gospels Never Existed.” [Some of the highlights here.] In it he mentioned the skepticism that would greet any golfer who bragged that he just made 18 holes-in-one in a row, and had flown like superman from one hole to the next. No one would believe him. That’s not how the world works. Yet many of the people who would laugh off such bragging accept fantasy stories in the gospels: Jesus healing blindness using spit and mud, feeding thousands with a few scraps of bread and fish, raising the dead, changing water into wine. 

 

Loftus’ point is that this Jesus in the gospels certainly didn’t exist—no matter if there was a real Jesus. How did we end up with the exaggerated, fantasy gospel-Jesus?

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Where Was God When This Happened? Part 14

The scandal of divine negligence

In the face of massive human and animal suffering, Christian apologists offer tired clichés:

·      God works in mysterious ways

·      God has a larger plan that we cannot see or know about

·      To preserve our free will, God chooses not to interfere

Yet no hard evidence is offered to back up these speculations to exonerate God. They are mediocre theological responses to crises in the real world.

Read more »

John Beversluis, "The Gospel According to Whom? A Nonbeliever Looks at The New Testament and its Contemporary Defenders" 2

I'm posthumously posting six chapters from an unfinished book sent to me for comment in 2008 by the late John Beversluis (see Tag below). Here is chapter two. As you will read, John conclusively shows that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. This alone destroys the credibility of Christianity and its miracle claims due to the fact that miracles, by definition, require more than mere hearsay testimonial evidence.

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God and Horrendous Suffering

This is a helpful post for readers deciding whether to get my anthology on god and horrendous suffering. Please share. Link to it. Thank you!

--Book Cover. 

--Summary.

--Introduction.

--Contents.

--Blurbs.

--Order this book today!

 

To learn about all 12 of my books, I described each one of them for a series in 2022 called 12 Days of Solstice.

--------------

John W. Loftus is a philosopher and counter-apologist credited with 12 critically acclaimed books, including The Case against Miracles, God and Horrendous Suffering, and Varieties of Jesus Mythicism. Please support DC by sharing our posts, or by subscribing, donating, or buying our books at Amazon. Thank you so much!

The Case against Miracles

This is a helpful post for readers deciding whether to get my anthology on miracles. Be Kind. Please Share. Link to it. Click on the Tag. Thank you!

--Book Link to Amazon.

--Link to Blurbs.

--My Introduction.

--On Promoting The Case against Miracles.

 -Foreword: "On Miracles and Truth" By Michael Shermer.

Part 1 Miracles and the Abject Failure of Christian Apologetics
1| Miracles and the Challenge of Apologetics, By David Corner
2| God Would Not Perform Miracles, By Matt McCormick
3| Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence, By John W. Loftus
4| Properly Investigating Miracle Claims, By Darren M. Slade
5| Assessing Keener’s Miracles, By Edward T. Babinski
6| The Abject Failure of Christian Apologetics, By John W. Loftus
7| Why Do Christians Believe in Miracles?, By Valerie Tarico

Part 2, Properly Investigating the Miracle of Biblical Revelation
8| Why the Romans Believed the Gospels, By R. G. Price
9| How NT Writers Helped Jesus Fulfill Prophecy, By Robert J. Miller
10| The Prophetic Failure of Christ’s Return, By Robert Conner
11| 5 Inconvenient Truths that Falsify Biblical Revelation, By David Madison

Part 3, Properly Investigating Key Biblical Miracles
12| Evolution is a Fact! By Abby Hafer
13| OT Miracle Genres as Folklore and Legend, By Randall Heskett
14| Science, Miracles and Noah’s Flood, By Clay Farris Naff
15| Jesus Christ: Docetic Demigod, By Robert M. Price
16| Miracles of the Christian Magicians, By Robert Conner
17| Credulity at Cana?, By Evan Fales
18| The Resurrection of Jesus Never Took Place, By John W. Loftus
19| “If we went crazy, it was for God,” Paul’s Christianity, By Robert Conner
Epilogue
About the Contributing Authors
Appendix: "Hume On Proof and Mathematical Probability" by John Loftus

To learn about all 12 of my books I described each one of them for a series in 2022 called 12 Days of Solstice.

--------------

John W. Loftus is a philosopher and counter-apologist credited with 12 critically acclaimed books, including The Case against Miracles, God and Horrendous Suffering, and Varieties of Jesus Mythicism. Please support DC by sharing our posts, or by subscribing, donating, or buying our books at Amazon. Thank you so much!

On Promoting "The Case against Miracles"

As of this writing all of the typos have finally been fixed in The Case Against Miracles, thanks not to Hypatia Press but to William Kelly, a 42 year old who lives in South Carolina, self-described as a "Vegangelical Atheist who loves science and philosophy." Things might change with the upcoming anthology Varieties of Jesus Mythicism, so we'll see.

Kelly as you might guess, is a fan of my work. I recently thanked him profusely for his efforts and sent him the corrected PDF of the book as a way of saying thanks. [On July 20th I asked Hypatia Press when buyers can expect to get the corrected version, but I still haven't heard back as of today.] 

Kelly wrote back, saying:

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My Talk at the GCRR e-Conference on the Historical Jesus

The conference was fantastic! You should attend other virtual eConferences put on by the GCRR! You should also help support what it does by becoming a member.

Below is the first part of my talk, in note form. The rest of my talk was a summation of why reasonable people shouldn't believe any of the miracles in the Bible. Hint: There's no objective evidence for any of them.

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The On-Going Reliance on Razzle-Dazzle

Too many crutches for faith

I think we all—including devout Christians, by the way—sympathize with doubting Thomas depicted in John 20. The other disciples had told Thomas that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to them, but he was skeptical. He wanted evidence: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25) So indeed, Jesus showed up again with Thomas present: “Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you, ’” (20:26) and he obliged Thomas’ request for evidence: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (20:27-28)

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This Weekend is the GCRR e-Conference on the Historical Jesus

Hear the biggest names in Jesus mythicism speak on the historical Jesus this weekend, July 24-25. Both Dr. David Madison and I will be doing so in this virtual conference that you can watch wherever you live! It's only $15 to attend the 2-day academic conference! Please consider becoming an Academic Society Member with a 25% off incentive! To see the full schedule and to get tickets click here!

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Where Was God When This Happened? Part 13

The scandal of divine negligence

In the face of massive human and animal suffering, Christian apologists offer tired clichés:

·      God works in mysterious ways

·      God has a larger plan that we cannot see or know about

·      To preserve our free will, God chooses not to interfere

Yet no hard evidence is offered to back up these speculations to exonerate God. They are mediocre theological responses to crises in the real world. 

In fact, Christian theology itself undermines any credible concept of a good, competent God. God is watching carefully, i.e., Christianity is totalitarian monotheism. 

Nothing we do escapes his notice: “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:36-37

Moreover, prayer works because God can even read our minds. Christians believe in, love, worship, and sing songs to this God who pays such close attention to every human being.

Read more »

Christian “Truth” in Shreds: Epic Takedown 2

Picking the wrong holy hero

These are two of the biggest con jobs pulled off by the church. (1) Convincing its followers that Jesus was (is) the finest, greatest man who ever lived, which is not at all what we find in the gospels. (2) Fooling everyone about the gospels themselves, that they are the greatest story ever told. Anyone who reads them without faith bias can see this isn’t true. 

 

But can the con jobs last forever? Maybe people are catching on. This past Monday, John Loftus posted here the link to James A. Haught’s article, Christianity Is Collapsing, showing the data published by Gallup: “Tall-steeple ‘mainline’ Protestant faiths—once the pillar of WASP respectability—suffered worse, dropping so severely they’re dubbed ‘flatline’ Protestantism. Born-again churches followed. Southern Baptists lost two million members since 2006…Sincere people don’t claim to know supernatural things that nobody can know. They reject religion’s magic claims that lack any evidence.”

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Where Was God When This Happened? Part 12

The scandal of divine negligence

In the face of massive human and animal suffering, Christian apologists offer tired clichés:

·      God works in mysterious ways

·      God has a larger plan that we cannot see or know about

·      To preserve our free will, God chooses not to interfere

Yet no hard evidence is offered to back up these speculations to exonerate God. They are mediocre theological responses to crises in the real world.

Read more »

Christianity is Collapsing!

This is extremely welcomed news!! LINK.

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John Beversluis, "The Gospel According to Whom? A Nonbeliever Looks at The New Testament and its Contemporary Defenders" 1:2

I'm posthumously posting six chapters from an unfinished book sent to me for comment in 2008 by the late John Beversluis (see Tag below). The first chapter is the largest one by far at 10,809 words! It was sent to me in two parts so I mistakenly thought I had seven chapters.

There are five parts to it: 1. New Testament Criticism; 2. The Inspiration and Inerrancy of the Bible; 3. Verbal and Plenary Inspiration: A Semantic Nightmare; 4. What Inspiration Guarantees and Does Not Guarantee; and 5. Back to Thomas Paine. In this installment I'm posting parts 4-5. The "contemporary defenders" he criticizes are Norman Geisler and Josh McDowell.

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John Beversluis, "The Gospel According to Whom? A Nonbeliever Looks at The New Testament and its Contemporary Defenders" 1:1

I'm posthumously posting six chapters from an unfinished book sent to me for comment in 2008 by the late John Beversluis (see Tag below). The first chapter is the largest one by far at 10,809 words! It was sent to me in two parts so I mistakenly thought I had seven chapters.

There are five parts to it: 1. New Testament Criticism; 2. The Inspiration and Inerrancy of the Bible; 3. Verbal and Plenary Inspiration: A Semantic Nightmare; 4. What Inspiration Guarantees and Does Not Guarantee; and 5. Back to Thomas Paine. In this installment I'm posting parts 1-3. The "contemporary defenders" he criticizes are Norman Geisler and Josh McDowell.

Read more »