Is this better? It's more like Blogger.
It's about prayer, and this video is awesome!:
I get contacted from Christian friends I've had over the years who want to discuss why I rejected Christianity. Here is a brief email exchange I had with a dear friend from the past:
Jeff Foxworthy's line is "You might be a redneck if.." Below are ten suggested answers to this other line that were emailed to me. Got some of your own?
Christians have faulted the so-called New Atheists with ignorance. They do the same thing with me. If only I knew this or that I would see the error of my way and believe again. But think about this. How much philosophy should Richard Dawkins know to rationally reject religion? How much science should Christopher Hitchens know? How much Bible should Daniel Dennett know? How much theology should Sam Harris know? How much should we know to rationally reject religion? How much? What if we know very little? What if all we know is that God did not save our child and she died from Leukemia? What if a scientist rejects religion because s/he cannot adequately test supernatural hypotheses? What if a historian rejects the claims of a religion because as a historian s/he must assume a natural explanation for the events in the past? What then? Are they culpable for doing so when this is all they know to do? When can it be said that a person can rationally reject a religion? Surely the theist cannot possibly demand that nonbelievers must know all that can be known before their rejection of religion is warranted.
To put it in terms of the Outsider Test for Faith, how much should someone know in order to reject Mormonism, or Catholicism, or Islam, or Orthodox Judaism, to name a few. How much do YOU know of them?
If you're interested in obtaining me for a speaking engagement, please send me an email at johnwloftus dot frontier dot com for arrangements and details.
I'm coming up with 25 hot topics for a Christian scholar and I to discuss in a book. I think I'll separate my questions into different categories: science, epistemology, ethics, history, psychology, Bible, theology (soteriology, Jesus, eschatology, hermeneutics), and so forth. This particular scholar is a new breed of evangelical who won't be caught off-guard with your typical fundamentalist stumpers. Thanks for all your suggestions so far. Don't assume if I use what you suggest that I didn't already think of it.
I had previously mentioned that a Christian scholar and myself are co-writing a book. We've just made it out of the planning stage. We had to have a book proposal with a promise of appealing to readers. Well, we've settled on one tentatively titled "God or Godless? Fifty Five Minute Debates." It will be designed for people who want some short answers (500 words each) to hot topics surrounding the theist/atheist debates. I am to come up with 25 hot topics and he will come up with 25 more. While I don't think short answers get the job done right, they can be interesting and informative just the same. Which ones would you suggest for me?
Watch this if you want to see something spooky:
Christians claim that until skeptics can agree on an alternative natural explanation to the resurrection accounts told in the Gospels that the Gospels should be accepted as the truth. They further claim that by offering other natural explanations to these accounts it shows that skeptics are merely grasping at straws to reject the claims of the gospel. But these accusations are Balderdash! They're not even close...not even in the ballpark...not even on the radar.
Well that's what I've been doing for two months shy of five years here on a daily basis. On day one these Mormons tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, that I was never a Mormon, that I'm not criticizing their kind of Mormonism, that I have not shown their faith to be impossible, which is an impossible standard, and so forth, coming from the scholarly types as well as the kids in Junior High who think they can argue against me. They use non-sequiturs, red herrings, special pleading, begging the question, and either/or fallacies then beat their chests and crow about how they have refuted me and all atheists. Then comes day two, which is more of the same ignorance. Then comes day three. For nearly five years. I'm tired of playing nice. I'm turning over to the dark side. They are buffoons, utterly devoid of the ability to recognize they are brainwashed who repeat platitudes as if they are something new and profound which I have never heard or thought of before.
. His talk can be found there as well. He talked for a bit about sex and the triggers that cause people to believe. In my talk I mentioned Robert Price's essay on sex. Here it 'tis. This was an amazing convention and I highly recommend it for all skeptics. Don't miss it next year. It's put together very well. The people are awesome!
is one I heartily recommend (see my review at Amazon). Time magazine 
by Thom Stark. It's also a request to Christians: admit that the Bible is a mess and stop passing on its toxicity to us.