Everything these days seems to be packaged for marketing and selling. Everything. One example many people might be familiar with is the godawful Twilight series, which has managed to rake in profits like none other based on purposely low-budgets. Cat-like vampires and cuddly werewolves take precedence in these books, and apparently there is much fixation on the romantic entanglement between a century-old vampire named "Edward" who has the hots for a teenager named "Bella". As if the character's names weren't bad enough to make for a crappy story.
The point? John is coming out with another book like he promised us all. It's none other than a follow up to his latest work, and is merely an expansion of what he's written thousands of times in the past. What I mean to convey here is that John's venue of attack lacks tactical professionalism. It's unoriginal. It's redundant. It's a cash-cow franchise.
Just like Twilight, John compiles together a book from the simplest of resources at his disposal to pass off works like WIBA, The Christian Delusion and his upcoming latest, The End of Christianity.
Previously I had elaborated on how The Christian Delusion is unoriginal in and of itself, and now, it seems, John is continuing down the same erroneous path deliberately ignorant of these criticisms in what he sees as beneficial (yet realistically damaging) to his cause.
Again, the title of the book. In the post I allude too here I had pointed out that The Christian Delusion is perhaps John's own specialized version of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. John probably doesn't want to hear this, but he ends up doing the exact same thing with his new book.
The End of Christianity, John? Why, where have we heard of such a title before? Does Sam Harris' The End of Faith ring a bell?
Books of this type of nature are very much reflective of their titles, and this is intentionally so. John's premise for The Christian Delusion is to quite simply demonstrate that Christianity is based in delusional thinking, not an accurate assessment of reality. Just as well, The End of Christianity is meant to imply that Christianity is a dying movement.
But wait, Sam Harris' book The End of Faith is of the same exact vein. So what grounds does John have for claiming originality or the production of new contributive works?
Is this ultimately the best John has to deal out? The title of his next book might as well be Christianity is Not Great: How Christianity Distorts Everything. This is all in an attempt to divert attention away from the original publication of where this title (and subsequently the premise) is based from, and it seems as if John is fulfilling this predicted line of reason rather unsurprisingly but in a manner which already adds insult to self-inflicted injuries. Sort of like how Stephanie Meyers writes a series of books about old concepts and mythological creatures yet can't get it together to the point of where the story is actually engaging to the reader, or why the reader should even care to begin with. In simpler terms, what does John bring to the table that can't be found elsewhere?
Well our friend John, are you capable of finding a way out of the rat's maze?
Friday, June 25, 2010
5 comments:
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Just seems like if any kind of outspoken atheist adopts any kind of business model in regards to the cultural war they believe in, Christians will find some way to misconstrue that as a scam because they disagree with the arguments (cuz, duh: they're not atheists). That's not terribly convincing. And when positions are reversed and atheists are slandering your favorite apologist's business model with equally biased accusations based on nothing other than circumstantial evidence and disagreement, you probably wouldn't take their claims seriously either. Or are we supposed to swallow all the contents of this blog as mindless backlash?
ReplyDeleteBen
TBT,
ReplyDeleteA lot of people (including some Christians) might admit that institutionalized religion provides a host of opportunities for developing sacred cash cows.
Take the Catholic Church's art collection, and their own Vatican bank. Or take mega-churches and the contemporary Christian music industry.
Not to mention the Christian inspirational book industry. Not counting all the Christian bookstores in the U.S. just drop by the nearest Barnes and Noble or Boarders and measure the shelf space devoted to Christian Inspiration.
And if you thinks it's such an effortless breeze to get a publishing house to pay you to write/edit a book, go out and do it yourself, and start raking in the cash.
John is now bragging that his latest book will "sink" Christianity by the end of this century.
ReplyDeleteHe further claims that he is going to provide the "intellectual underpinnings" of the New Atheist movement...indicating to me that they lack intellectual underpinnings in the first place.
Of course, given John's age he will have passed on from natural causes long before the end of this century, and thus does not have to be worried about being exposed as Delusional...a term he likes to use so much.
He is definitely suffering from a Delusion of Grandeur, in his own mind attributing vast powers to himself.
Look, the guy could not even finish his Ph.D.
And men far more intelligent than him, with power to back up their ideas, could not destroy Christianity. Just think of Lenin and Trotsky, men who had the power to imprison, torture, and murder believers...which they did by the MILLIONS. (The Nobel Prize Winner Solzhenitsyn proves beyond doubt that the Dialectial Materialists killed believers BECAUSE OF their atheist motivations.)
And yet, even with the machinery of the State Propaganda apparatus behind them, they FAILED.
So will the New Atheists.
So will John Loftus. In fact, although he does not realize it yet...although hints of his depression over this are beginning to appear on his blog...he already has.
You know, War on Error, it helps to get some perspective about where I'm coming from with this, because I think you are repeating the error of once again assuming my non-existent Christianity.
ReplyDeleteSo you might call it purely circumstantial, yet the patterns involved are fairly obvious and follow a line of predictable thought. Based on John's own words, his motives are petty and have very little merit worth. By John's own admission, he writes books because of his experiences at TheologyWeb, and in addition writes books which are rip-off titles of older and more popular atheist books. So I think that might shatter whatever your rebuttal here consists of, because we don't need a smoking gun as proof that John's pieces are cheap and unoriginal. This can be demonstrated by John's own handiwork.
Alright Edski, let us go through the statements you have addressed:
ReplyDeleteA lot of people (including some Christians) might admit that institutionalized religion provides a host of opportunities for developing sacred cash cows.
What is wrong with you people!? Get over this whole thing about what members of a specific religion do or say and find something else more important to address, like the intent of individuals who subscribe to specific groups. Christianity this, atheism that. Go take a hike.
Take the Catholic Church's art collection, and their own Vatican bank. Or take mega-churches and the contemporary Christian music industry.
Yeah, Edski? Not to be cheeky here, but isn't all of this because the Catholic Church is deeply rooted in the histories of Western civilization?
And among other things, again, WHAT IS YOUR POINT EXACTLY? I do not subscribe to Christianity, I could care less.
Not to mention the Christian inspirational book industry. Not counting all the Christian bookstores in the U.S. just drop by the nearest Barnes and Noble or Boarders and measure the shelf space devoted to Christian Inspiration.
Being a frequenter of the local Barnes & Noble store, Ed, I also happen to know for a fact that there is just as much equal shelve space devoted to New Age spirituality and occult subject matter, as well as Eastern religions like Buddhism.
Are these the best you have for divertional tactics? You never hit the point; it's almost as if you deliberately miss.
And if you thinks it's such an effortless breeze to get a publishing house to pay you to write/edit a book, go out and do it yourself, and start raking in the cash.
Once again Edski, I might be a little bit more aware of my generation than you are, seeing as at your age you probably come from a generation that would have difficulty trying to configure an iPhone or a Blackberry.
Now to hammer this into people's skulls: TWILIGHT. It's a horrible story. Yet it has raked in MILLIONS. The films are all pretty low budget for "epic" pictures, and yet they are almost guaranteed to make a box-office profit.
None of this was accomplished in a "breeze" like fashion because most publishers realized that Stephanie Meyers is a sad and pathetic author. But eventually, after much dedication and commitment to her own literary garbage, she managed to get a publisher and is now laughing her way off to the bank for writing a ridiculously pisspoor romance novel series. So let's say for instance that John works his ass off to get into one of the prime atheist publishers out there, and his works sell through the roof. Does that prove that John is an actual authoritatively reliable and trustworthy source, whose accuracy is spot on? Absolutely not. Case in point.