Debunking Loftus: Setting John Straight

To Be or Not To Be a Choir Boy?

2011-10-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

Uhhhhhhmmmmmm..........????????

I Am An Unfriendly Not-So-Famous Atheist Who is Not Preaching to the Choir

ByJohn W. Loftusat10/01/2011

When it comes to famous atheists (i.e., those who have been on the cover of Time Magazine as but one example), many Christians will attack their work and them as people. When it comes to atheists who are not so famous, whether or not many Christians attack their work and them as people depends. It depends on whether or not they are considered friendly or unfriendly to Christianity, and it depends on whether or not they are "preaching to the choir." I find that there are several books written by unfriendly non-famous atheists who preach to the choir that get many glowing reviews from other atheists but are ignored by Christians because they don't consider their works to be informed.

I am an unfriendly non-so-famous atheist who is not preaching to the choir. ;-) So my work and person gets attacked more than other non-famous atheists. I would hope atheists would understand this. Many do.

Actually John, to your own credit you are semi-famous, but I think you try to say that you are "not-so-famous" so that you will actually convince people you are a humble person. Lee Strobel and Matt Wittelberg both mention on occassion and know you by name. So you do have a celebrity, you're just more along the lines of being the Tom Cruise of New Atheism.

And you're not "preaching to the choir"? REALLY? How exactly do you have anything groundbreaking to offer people? Many people including myself haven't seen anything new. You spend more time piggy backing other people's celebrities (atheist and theist) to make a name for yourself or to get your face out there. How is that not preaching to the choir?

You write books where most of the content is written by other people, and yet you still pass yourself off as the main author. You're not preaching to the choir, John?

Your OTF argument is your brand name for an argument that is fairly common amongst anti-theists. You know John Hick after all, I have one of his books for a philosophy class I'm currently taking. In his work Philosophy of Religion (which was published in the mid to late 1980's) he writes: "If I had been born in India, I would probably be a Hindu; if in Egypt, probably a Muslim; if in Sri Lanka, probably a Buddhist; but I was born in England and am, predictably, a Christian...Thus Hume laid down the principle "that, in matters of religion, whatever is different is contrary; and the that it is impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China should, all of them, be established on any solid foundation."" (pg. 110). David Hume lived in the 18th century, Johnny boy. What's that about you not preaching to the choir, again?

Wait...stop. He's absolutely right. He's not preaching to the choir because the majority of his audience are people who (as I like to say on one of my other blogs) prefer to wear the words "critical thinking" as a fashion statement rather than acknowledge it for being an individual pursuit that can take many different shapes and forms.

John the Seer

2011-09-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

"Human beings will evolve into different sorts of creatures, perhaps like the Na'vi of James Cameron's movie Avatar. Then the Bible will clearly be an antiquated book. The salvation of the human race and the incarnation of the second person of the trinity will have no relevance for the creatures we are yet to become. Christianity will fall into the dustbin of history just like all other dead religions. Too bad this assured end is far off into the future. But it WILL happen, just as assuredly as I am writing this today in the year 2011." - John Loftus' prediction for the future fate of Christianity, as can be found here.

I guess John's enchantment with high-budget CGI blockbusters has caused him to believe that there is some truth and reality to the fictional universe of James Cameron. What really sticks out to me as an eye-opener is this bit: "Human beings will evolve into different sorts of creatures...." Yes, evolutionarily speaking, and if you are convinced that everything should still be in place for that long, we will at some point evolve into "different sorts of creatures." But John gets the strange notion that we will eventually end up like an alien species of tall blue and stalky tribal people. Hmmm......

I'm not even exactly sure what such speculation this seems to serve or to what good productive informative purpose this post is directed towards. What is the point? A million different things and outcomes could occur. Who is to say we won't be wiped off the planet before the next thousand years pass? Quite frankly unless we have some sort of imminent knowledge and the resources to act, who cares?

And by stating that the Bible "will clearly be an antiquated book" does John mean to say that it will be regarded as a relic or as a piece of meaningless garbage? Of course we can probably place our bets on the latter, but I would personally "predict" that the Bible will continue to be known as a renowned piece of literature (at the very least) for millenia to come.

In his emotional plight with his "Christian" past, John seeks to mainly give Christianity a bad name almost to the point of speculating and downplaying Christianity's end. Of course religions have come and gone but the unique thing about Christianity and indeed modern times are a few things to be noted:

1. For one thing, it is almost undeniable that Christianity has been perhaps the most influential religion in the world for the past two thousand years.
2. Its influence on the world whether by European colonization and conquered land or through modern technological means and networks such as the internet have given it a global-wide presence that has been unlike any other religion in known history.
3. Given population growth, the rich historical influences Christianity has had on almost every Western nation and civilization in existence, and its global presence through technology and extensive membership is likely to ensure that Christianity will remain a permanent piece of civilized history, however long civilization should prosper.

Even in the event that Christianity should "fade out" in its "validity" or membership does not necessitate that it will be forgotten or even merely regarded as just another "dead religion." Again, John's speculation here comes from wishful thinking. It would seem his past has clouted his objectivity that what he once accepted in his mind is simply unacceptable or most definitely will be for the rest of the living world.

But it seems to me that while people like Loftus would like to hope for the downfall of the Christian religion, reality will paint a different picture. The best indication anyone has of the future in this instance is that Christianity will likely remain a part of mankind forever in some shape or form, even if it loses its institutional endorsements.

Don't Say We Haven't "Told You So"

2011-06-10T15:40:00.000-07:00

Remember when I made the prediction that John would continually fall for his own formula with such predictability? A while back I had posted this before John went ahead and decided to work on The End of Christianity:

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?

This I posted a week ago right around when John revealed the time that The End of Christianity would finally be published:

It's a sheer disappointment John can't present a work that doesn't:

A. Piggy-back the publications of other, more well known celebrity figures.
B. Start from a point of reference that isn't initially reactionary or an attempt to strongarm the opposing side.

Let's face it though, this is what we have gotten in the past and this is what we are going to receive from John. His whole purpose here is to go out on a limb against Christianity (at least, that's the tentative purpose and it works on the assumption that his blog truly deals with such). Make no mistake my readers, this will be an ongoing pattern to come.

And now:

https://sites.google.com/site/christianityisnotgreat/

Hmmm...right before John releases his newest book, he starts work on another (again, with the title derived from a atheist figurehead much more widely known and respected than himself). Is this not an indicator of immense desperation?

Eventually John will run out of inspirational material and will be forced to come up with something from scratch. The question is not whether this is a likelihood or a possibility, but if John has the capacity to execute this task when the time comes.

Does John have enough to muster an offensive force by himself, like he would have you believe? I suppose in John's mind the rapid rate and frequency by which these books are published would communicate to the world that John is a formidable opponent in the academic world. He can take on anything. He's dedicated to the finish and he won't rest until he sees things through.

He lays out his "goal" quite succinctly on the home page to the site for The End of Christianity:

My goal as an atheist author and editor is to help provide the intellectual underpinnings of the New Atheist movement with regard to the Christian faith. As best as possible I plan on leveling broadside after broadside after broadside against the Christian faith in hopes that together we can help sink the good ship Christian in this century. As a former evangelical myself I also wish to introduce my evangelical friends to these skeptical authors.

I think skeptics who are genuine critical thinkers would beg the question: If John's books are based on other people's books which have the intent on changing the mass' minds in regards to religion and faith, then what good do these books serve?

If the books John pens due to their ability to incite inspiration already effectively achieve the objective of demonstrating to many that religious faith is a bogus scam, why does John need to get out there and "contribute" in such a manner? If John needs to do this, then there should be at least one individual out there for every single religion known to man, right? We need an atheist or former believer to write books attacking Islam and the same goes for Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, paganism, voodoo, Judaism, Anglo-Saxon Norse mythology, etc., etc., etc.

Realistically, we are faced by more of a threat from radical Islamic terrorism than we are any other ideology at this point, and on a world wide scale. This is almost indisputable fact. Is the religious right in America a problem for our political system? Yes. Does the Religious Right manipulate and deprive people of their finances and quality of life? Arguably so. These problems do exist and are concerning. But they are not to the extent of such forces as Al-Qaeda, who will stop at nothing to see our climactic demise.

So with that said, I say John is doing a greater disservice on behalf of the community than he is doing a service. In essence, he offers nothing that his audiences aren't most likely already convinced of and are aware about. It's just that many of them would rather cling on to a published work which reaffirms these beliefs more and more and more. That's it in a nutshell.

And as far as John goes by being diplomatic with those he desires to persuade, it seems that he is again reluctant to acknowledge his own vices:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/06/if-this-isnt-deluded-person-then-no-one.html

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/06/more-from-my-old-deluded-friend.html

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-old-friend-and-i-are-no-longer.html

As I see it, John is utterly and direly confused my friends. He confuses competitive teen-like angst as constructively handling his relationships with others and thinks that he is helping to fortify houses by toppling bricks on top of roof tiles.

We can only wonder if and when John will ever learn his lesson.

Motives of Disingenuousness

2011-06-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of going on a full out crusade against an individual (unless of course, you were Osama bin Laden, prior to getting shot in the noggin ;)), and it's certainly no one's business to point out whenever someone gets caught lying or trying to commit other such "sins" on a 24 hour basis. Some people (like Arnold Schwarzenegger and yes, even Mel Gibson) need to be accepted for being human and thus imperfect.

Almost consistently we have attempted to outline a framework detailing the motives of John Loftus. I'm not a fan of Freudian psychoanalysis either, and despite the claims and suggestions of some who have posted here in the past, I'm not obssessed with John Loftus as a subject of study. No, my intent is on unveiling the true substantiated contents (if they could be called such) which are an extension of John Loftus' bodies of "work", so to speak.

That means if John Loftus is going to lie to make a point about an organization that lies to get their way, I would like to clear things up for people that aren't going to notice it at first. This is not based on an opinionated bias as John has admitted in the past (and sorry, you'll need to search through our archives if you're not familiar with the information I'm alluding too) that lies and deceptional tactics are irrelevant to what the goal or objective is. In that sense, John is very much of a utilitarian mindset.

As regulars have probably noticed whenever I log on here I catch a glimpse of news over at Debunking Christianity, just to see if I could venture even slightly into new material for this blog. Sure enough, I found another post in which there are glaringly loose ends that need some serious fastening:

I am against sexism, most emphatically, without any doubt at all. In fact, one of the main reasons I do what I do is because of what religion has done and continues to do to women. I argue against religion for that reason alone. There are a lot of women bloggers for which I am truly thankful. But it seems as if there are few women scholars to link to in the blog world. Several of the ones PZ Myers links to have not yet earned a college degree, or they have just entered into a master's program. Oh, I know, the women atheist scholars of tomorrow are with us today in training, so yes, let's encourage them by all means. But where are the women atheist scholars of today? We need your voices more than ever. Help us, please. We are mere men.

It seems to me that anyone with basic brain functioning would easily pick up on another pattern John has used, and it's no surprise it deals with partial truth (in essence, constituting lies). Is this really why you have a bone to pick with Christianity John? Doubtful. You've blamed your devestation of faith on a woman you chose to have an extra-marital affair with and you hardly own up to any responsibility on your part. Yet you are seriously suggesting that the reason why you are opposed to faith is because it promotes sexism?

For argument's sake it would be a pleasant luxury to actually trust what John relays to people myself included. But it seems he is only capable of producing face-palm tragedies.

Honestly John, what do you really hope to accomplish with this?

Enlightening others to the realization that Christian is false?

Promoting your name to establish a legacy amongst the New Atheist movement?

To alter the cultural perceptions of "religion" as you would call it?

To convince people that atheism is more of a beneficial philosophy to the mind and body of the individual than theism is by comparison?

These goals are more distinct than I think people would like to acknowledge, especially with regard to the culture wars. And more like a professional politician, it would seem that John will make as many stabs as he can at issues which have little to do with each other and string them together to rally support for himself and the establishment of his own legacy. At the end of the day, as has been established in numerous different contexts and in the not-so-distant recorded past, it still stands to reason that actions speak louder than words.

I am not a prude, nor a feminist (at least in a strict sense), and I am not suggesting that John is a mysognist. But this is fishy to say the least, as are most of John's claims about similar issues. John, you cannot essentially put the responsibility of your deconversion on a seduction which you did not have the willpower to overcome and then expect to at the same time be a champion for the cause of female atheists. Because if your deconversion is based mostly on the actions of women that were involved in your life, how can you be combatting religion on the basis that it is sexist against women? Isn't accusing Linda (your partner in the affair) of being nearly wholly responsible for that point in your lifetime sexist by itself?

John and friends miss the point when I bring such things to light in that they will no doubt interpret this as a mallicious strawman or ad hominen tactic. But this is important to discuss nonetheless. If John is truly concerned with being open, honest, truthful, and rational with his intended audience, he would address these issues at some point. Unless he makes the assumption that they are too stupid to figure these tidbits out for themselves.

And of course, if the latter is true, it is not enlightening to suppose that this would make John out to be more like the enemy than even he himself realizes. Suppose that he addresses sexism in order to illicit ranks from an additional demographic that he has only had slight affiliation with in his writing career. If that is the case and he thinks he can get away with this without being caught, then he would indeed be more of a sexist than he would probably be willing to admit.

And while we're at the heart of this therapeutic breakdown, we might as all well be asking John one simple direct question:

Can you tell us how you really feel?

The End of Innovation

2011-06-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

It's a sheer disappointment John can't present a work that doesn't:

A. Piggy-back the publications of other, more well known celebrity figures.
B. Start from a point of reference that isn't initially reactionary or an attempt to strongarm the opposing side.

Let's face it though, this is what we have gotten in the past and this is what we are going to receive from John. His whole purpose here is to go out on a limb against Christianity (at least, that's the tentative purpose and it works on the assumption that his blog truly deals with such). Make no mistake my readers, this will be an ongoing pattern to come. Here's another promo for his third upcoming release in what seems to be in a line for his second series of sorts:

This book has taken a year and a half from conception to find its way into your homes. It's been a lot of work but worthwhile nonetheless. It went to press and will be available mid-July. Tell others about it. It's a pretty damn good book, named after Sam Harris' The End of Faith.

Expect the smear campaign to start soon afterward on Amazon, as it happened (and continues to happen) to my other two books. It's a war over there from deluded believers who think what I'm doing is a much more serious threat to their faith than most others, whether that's true or not (hey, they're deluded so why should we think they know who best to target?).

John, I know I've spoken about this thousands of times before but, this is actually very counter-productive to what you are hoping to accomplish through all of your efforts. You have to accept and come to terms with "smear campaigns". Do you know anybody that has published anything that has gone uncriticized?

And with that said, by utilizing the "deluded" categorization, you are being excessively forceful with your message, and the means by which your package is presented only confirms this and even seems to reveal your desperation for getting others to take you seriously.

I would contend that a true artist and visionary does not go out of his way to promote their works, they let the works speak for themselves. They are not vicious and adamant or invested into getting "into the fight", and doing whatever it takes to win. This seems ridiculous to New Atheists because they perceive their circumstances as likened to a civil rights movement, and civil rights movements are not typically won by being passive. But think about the case of Gandhi, who did not advocate physical retaliation against the oppressive forces of his time.

Tactics can only be successfully counteracted by tactics, and the tactics used in counteraction should be chosen wisely. It is almost never in the case that using the same tactics as the enemy will bring you victory, you must devise a means of circumventing the traps and expectations the enemy has planned for you to bring you to your defeat, and this is still an issue of tactics, except that they are not drawn up in a sloppy fashion.

It is unwise for instance, to stoop to the anticipations of the enemy by playing out your counteraction strategy by going with full head on force, this should be a contingency of sorts you rely on as a last resort. Therefore John, your campaign must be one that innovates, and you have yet to do anything of the sort.

Perhaps you will come to terms with your flawed approach and learn this lesson for the next installment. I would actually be interested if you do start becoming more creative and original. But seeing as you would currently rather mock and choose to ignore your critics suggestions and takes, this could only be considered a pipe dream.

John's Psychoanalysis

2011-03-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here's one trend that's becoming common over at John's circle, and it involves a great deal of attempts at trying to encompass the mentality and mindset of Christians and reduce it to psychological terminology. While seemingly parroting this trend from the likes of folk such as Richard Dawkins, John Loftus seems fond of pointing out that a great deal of the Christian opposition is "deluded" and does so with the same flippant regard as Dawkins:

Many Christians treat skeptics like me as if I am the enemy to be debated and not a fellow human being interested in the truth. That is surely one of the marks of a brainwashed or deluded person too.

This is deliciously ironic. Seeing as John spends his time venting about how primtive and superstitious it is to subscribe to the tenets of Christianity, is it any mystery that he would, to some degree, be perceived as an "enemy to be debated"? In fact, the existence of DJ's blog doesn't really indicate he's interested in anything else but debating with Christians. He aims at trying to conjur up arguments and push the envelope of controversies in many cases. Now the question is, what is his aim when he writes posts such as these?

Perhaps it requires going back a little further in time to the original post John alludes too:

Below in no particular order are what I consider the ten marks (or characteristics) of a deluded person. I think even educated Christians will agree with most of them.

The fascinating thing about this line of reasoning is that we see it stemming from individuals totally without credentials in a psychological field, and yet nonetheless, these individuals (some of them highly respected and credible scientists like Dawkins) proceed to make psychological assessments. At first this seems harmless, but the effects of such statements and their influence on the impressionable (which in modern times seems to be the majority of the worldwide web) have dangerous and detrimental implications. The definition of delusion used here by John is defined on his own personal parameters, which in turn translates to his own opinionated viewpoint, not based on anything that mental health professionals deem to be "deluded." In essence, such a wreckless use of words means that anyone may call someone "not in tune with reality" delusional because they derived the defintion from Answers.com or other such similar means.

You might want to consider from this checklist how many of them apply to you. To the degree that more of them apply then the more likely you are deluded by your faith. Now it's quite possible that Christians can be deluded and yet their faith is true, in the same sense that a person might be brainwashed or indoctrinated into believing the truth. But the point is that if you're deluded then you have no reason to believe.

Overall, John is correct. And as a matter of fact, many Christians believe in their faith for no other good reason than they were brought up in those traditions, or it just so happens to be the religion of choice because they are most familiar with it. Not because they have examined and analyzed different perspectives or compared their own faith to other religions. Not because they have considered the possibility that they might be dead wrong. In other words, no critical thinking is included in the puzzle.

But now that we've already established the opinionated bias for this defintion of what it means to be delusional, what follows is going to be rather suspect. In the same light of John's opening statement here, it is also true that John may arrive to the right conclusions all for the wrong reasons (is John delusional perhaps?).

A deluded person is more likely than not one who...

2) As an adult never adopts nor cultivates the adult attitude of doubt. All adults must revisit the religious faith taught to them by their parents since #1 above is undeniably true. That means they must doubt. Doubt is the adult attitude.

This is of course dependent on the presence of a "religious faith" by which one has to be brought up in, unless of course John is meaning to imply that atheism, agnosticism and deism can be included in the list.

Furthermore John needs to establish the extent by which doubt is necessary to cultivate "the adult attitude of doubt." Is it more wise to be a skeptic or a cynic? Is doubt needed with regard to everything or only in the cases of religious faith? How can John except people to follow along with this reasoning if the words being used are not defined in specific terms?

3) Never reads widely or is exposed to other points of view in the media. I'm talking about non-fiction works about the sciences, different cultures, different faiths, and those written by skeptics or non-believers. To escape from being deluded, believers should read books that are written by people within different cultures and faith communities, and watch programs on the History Channel, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, PBS, 60 Minutes, Dateline, and yes, YouTube.

Very nice John, well done. This means we can pretty much classify those living in third world countries without access to the internet, television, print, and the media as "deluded" for having the beliefs that they do. Let's also not forget scientific illiteracy. After all, it is the fault of the people in these given nations for not boning up on their organic chemistry and quantum physics, even if it might mean certain death for them at the hands of their own government or socioeconomic class. Bravo, bravo.

4) Does not travel widely including travel into different cultures. A deluded person only experiences a small slice of the pie. One must experience the world to see how others live. The more the better. Such a person basically stays within the social confines of like-minded religious people. The Amish are the extreme examples of this. Many believers only have believing friends. Even if believers cannot travel the world they can still step outside their social grouping to meet other people who think differently. Most believers do not trust people of different faiths or non-believers. Seek them out. Attend a freethinker's group meeting. Get to know them. Become friends with them.

More of a reiterated version of the previous point, and one that still doesn't do much justice for itself, let alone serve as sound advice on the behalf of others. Again, third world countries? What about India and the Caste System? If you are an untouchable, what then John? They are restrained to their own delusional prison imposed on them by government sanction and thousands of years of tradition?

5) Never studies deeply into the nature of his or her adopted faith. The more you know the less you believe, the less confident you become, and the more you doubt.

A reiteration of the first point (which we have already addressed) in that one is deluded by subscribing only to the faith they were brought up in. I tend to agree completely with John on points like these, but the only problem with this is that John must demonstrate that it is universal that the more one knows about their faith, the less they believe in it. This is not always true, and it may be that one chooses to study the "nature" of their faith and becomes even more convinced of it, even if it is contrary to common sense and logic. Allot of it just depends on the person more than what the person has studied and how much they know about their particular religion.

6) Lies in order to defend one's faith. There are plenty of examples of this, from faking stories about finding Noah's Ark, to fudging the truth when there is no reasonable response, to making up personal healing stories, to claiming a conversion from a position of intellectual atheism (versus a practical atheism) to Evangelical Christianity like Lee Strobel and David Wood, to personal and unjustified attacks on anyone who questions one's faith in order to poison the well against them, to debate tactics like the ones used by Bill Craig and Dinesh D'Souza who as debaters, just like boxers in a ring, are out to win the debate no matter what must be said in order to win it. These are liars for Jesus to various degrees. If you have to lie to defend your faith then you need help.

Trashing the name of your "former mentor" again are we John? It is funny that John has continued to push for a debate with Dr. Craig, but yet behind his back he chooses to make as many fatal jabs as he can.

Maybe there is something here which might indicate John suffers from a projection complex, now that we are referencing the subject of psychology. Because it is certainly the case, as we have often discussed in the infancy period of this blog, that John will also lie to save face, even when his position is without defensive merit. Need we dig up the past once more?

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?97534-Doubting-John-He-Still-Lies-Today!

And John's truthful and intellectually honest response:

Technically, I didn't lie.

Prove to me I did.

Besides, it doesn't matter that you know I started the Blog. I don't care. People will still visit there regardless, and I will continue sending people there.

You are the dishonest one.

Hmmm..very interesting. John certainly seems like he's qualified to point out the delusion of lying for a position that clearly can't be defended, even through lying. That's because of course, despite the age of the incident itself, John is guilty on all counts of this himself.

Moving on...

7) Preaches to people who think differently rather than rationally engaging them. I am constantly amazed, bewildered, frustrated, and bored with the kind of responses I see from believers who comment here at DC. They come here preaching. They pontificate. They quote mine from the Bible. They even say we're going to hell with glee. Many of them merely mouth the words of the creeds and affirm what they believe, rather than actually engaging us with a rational discussion about the basis for believing in the first place. They come here preaching to us from an ancient superstitious set of texts rather than showing us why we should believe them in the first place.

Well John, again, that is really reflective of the type of atmosphere you create. You play mostly on the emotional aspects of Christianity rather than rationally engaging believers. Your blog is a treasure chest of arguments on how the existence of suffering negates an omnipotent and caring deity. You point to recent disasters (like the earthquake in Japan) as reasons for why God can't and doesn't exist. You hardly ever address things besides. You do not explain why calamities in the present support your arguments and yet those of the past do not matter so much (and this is not to say that your point isn't realized, I understand you do this to communicate to believers) and most importantly, you never address the fact that the people of ancient times were well aware of natural disasters simply based on the fact that suffering is a common theme throughout the Bible, and natural disasters have persisted forever.

8) Claims he or she does not need evidence to believe. Take notice Alvin Plantinga and Bill Craig! This is utterly delusional thinking especially when we consider all of the things they must take as properly basic beliefs coming from the witness of the Holy Spirit. As someone said, "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Anyone who claims his or her faith does not need evidence, even if true, ought to take a reality check.

Fair enough, but this means that the skeptic "community" can no longer define fatih as "belief in something without evidence." Right?

9) Must be convinced that his or her faith is impossible before seeing it as improbable. Time after time believers will claim I have not proved that their faith is impossible, and so lacking this kind of proof they still claim to have a reason to believe. However, we're always talking about probabilities. So even if it's still possible to believe in light of a number of problems for faith, it's still an improbable faith and that should be good enough.

Shaky grounds here. There are plenty of skeptics who would pick at aspects of religion (like the resurrection of Jesus) as impossible, and they play on this to suggest that without some sort of possibility factored into the equation, we can automatically reject the faith.

So this is a matter of whom you are addressing. And of course, it's one-sided and directed only at believers of faith.

10) Must denigrate the sciences in order to have faith. This is what I see time after time. Believers denigrate the sciences in a number of ways in order to believe. That's because faith demands it. Some believers don't even know what I'm talking about. Since science tells us prayer doesn't work then it doesn't work. It tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old. It tells us we evolved. It tells us there was no Israelite Exodus from Egypt. It tells us the Nativity stories in the Gospels could not be true. It tells us virgins do not have babies. It tells us that dead people do not bodily rise from the grave. Christians must denigrate science in order to believe. Science or Faith? Science has a track record. Faith flies planes into buildings. Science all the way, hands down. End of story.

And now ladies and gentlemen, the jaw-dropping unanticipated climax to John's rant on psychoanalyzing religious believers.

Science tells us prayer doesn't work? Science says virgins don't have babies? All of this is of course in light of the fact that John moans about how believers don't engage him with rational discourse. Well, if one were to put faith into a box comprised of denial and refusal to consider evidence, and defines faith as a reliance on these aspects yet expects believers to back their faith with evidence, then it stands that John would have believers do the logically impossible. Contradict their own stances while somehow maintaining them in a non-contradictory fashion.

Clearly someone doesn't take the time to work out the kinks to their own arguments and assessments of mind.

New Sister Site: Introducing the WBC Watchdog

2011-03-11T14:07:00.001-08:00

This may not interest anyone who reads this, but I've finally made the committment to create a website on the Westboro Baptist Church and stick with it. You'll find the link on the sidebar.

The catch to this blog is that, while it does not show any sympathy for the Phelps' extremist views, it also dispells the popular myths surrounding the church, and will attempt to document facts about them and their philosophies in order to better "know thy enemy".

If you happen to be interested, go and check it out. It's of course still a work in progress, but with the passing of time I'll be adding more material and beefing it with more resources.

Thanks anyway.

- TBT

"Evidence"???

2011-03-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

Nick (ApologiaPhoenix) a somewhat contributor here and frequent moderator over at TheologyWeb, brought this to my attention as I was skimming the March 2011 Screwballs thread:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/03/devastating-tsunami-hits-japan-you-want.html#disqus_thread

If you've kept up on any recent news lately, you'd know perfectly well that John is talking about the tsunami mass earthquake which hit Japan sometime mid to late evening yesterday.

Now it's not so much that I disagree with John's viewpoint on the nature and extent of these disaster and their implications for theological beliefs. It's just, well...

Check out the title: Devastating Tsunami Hits Japan. You Want Evidence There Isn't a Good Omnipotent God? Here it is.

*Sigh*....does this sound like anything new from Debunking Christianity? If you answered no, then you would most certainly be correct. Anything bad that happens in the world on a major scale is likely to get pinned down by John and like-minded folk as evidence that there is no good omnipotent God.

Except when these arguments turn into a formulated pattern, and become a franchise just like the majority of John's other arguments and propositions, then where does there effectiveness lie? Where is the substantial content? Where is this "evidence" that John speaks of. At some point it becomes an "argument" which relies on your emotional suggestiveness. Does it actually address anything on a cerebral level? Does it provide anything of coherent structure? NO. It's really quite similar to the tactics used by one of my favorite and often mentioned domestic terrorist groups, PETA. I have compared John to people who endorse PETA (even though I cannot state as a matter of fact that John would be amongst those who do) because he relies mostly on the power of suggestion rather than the power of reason. What does PETA do to convince people that eating meat is wrong and abhorrent? They compare eating chicken McNuggets to the Concentration Camps, they prey on children with videos of the horrific and illegal torture of endangered species. Do they at all attempt to explain such statements as why eating meat is "wrong" for humans to do? Never.

In the same sense, does John provide anything of content beside videos and soundbites, news clips, and rehashed arguments? We await the day that John could commit to actual substance. That is a hope and anticipation of ours here on this blog. And if somehow John could explain in this particular instance, how its implied significance is different or moreso than in other previously mentioned cases, then we will afford John that merit.

John writes just above the embedded video:

"Here it is. Try explaining this rather than explaining it away."

And in conjunction with a comment made this very morning:

johnwloftus Today 09:10 AM in reply to Mike B.

"Mike, I written about tragedies before and every time I do some people say I'm insensitive. But if I wrote about a distant event in the past it would not be fresh on people's minds."

Well John, maybe you could look at this way: You do make a fuss about just any type of calamity that comes to your attention. You have a tendency like that of the media to skew these events to fit your perspective, just like the media's allegations that Jared Loughner was a right-wing conspirator, not a registered Independent with severe psychological problems not related to religious affiliations or even politics.

And something else you fail to touch upon is what I've already brought up in this post: You fail to explain how the recency of an event makes it much more signficant than those of the past. What does this earthquake prove about anything? What could it possibly indicate? You leave these questions hanging in the air for the individual to decide. That's employing the same reasoning used by Creationists, John. What does this prove that couldn't somehow be proven from the distant past?

Keep in mind that because calamities have always been a fact of life, such instances were happening even during the time the Bible was being written. Does this make the Bible true? No, not by necessity. But it does show that it is a very small probability that ancient people were ignorant and oblivious to natural disasters. The key is to pinpoint what the ancients were conveying about their world at the time that they wrote this material which is now affecting our contemporary society. John makes no effort really to address any of these topics. This is why his arguments fall flat on their face.

Our Mission Statement

2011-01-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

You know almost every organization has one in some form or another, and while we aren't some large online corporation or business group, I think what YouTube user Anekantavad (however you pronounce that :P) said in his most recent reply to famous internet atheist celebrity Pat Condell sums up the mission and intended purpose of this blog as a whole. Given that I am a non-Christian staff member/founder of this blog, this is what stands out from our typical rants against Debunking Christianity. We are, in more or less terms, dedicated to providing critical analysis of the New Atheist movement and its various forms. Pat Condell being amongst one of many notable individuals within the movement itself, serve as an example to what I am specifically referring too.

Let this speak for itself. Enjoy:

Are There Really Atheist/Skeptic Apologetics?

2011-01-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

Guest commentator Morrison recently wrote that we have become inactive here with our posts and updates while John Loftus of Debunking Christianity ups his level of "aggressiveness." While this means very little in terms of significance to myself and JP Holding (because what we are usually faced with is what John has discussed plenty in detail before and it can only become irritatingly repetitive), I figure what the heck as usual. This blog exists for a reason. Keep in mind, however, the reasons for such sporadic intervals in updates is simply based on two major factors: 1) This blog is not our lives and neither is John Loftus, believe it or not, and 2) There are, admittely, more important priorities at stake other than debating on the internet. I'm sure even our detracting critics can agree with these sentiments, even if they don't believe for a second they apply to us the staff. This blog is somewhat fun to manage and it also gives us a medium for calling out John's material in a way he despises and would preferably censor [except when he attempts to do so here, he gets bitch-slapped, not us ;)], it's not a career job for us and this blog has made very little in terms of profit and income. After all this is Debunking Loftus, not Debunking Christianity (:P), and our approach to these subjects of discussions stems from an entirely different even if somewhat similar rationale.

The title of this post was prompted by John's self-defense against a skeptic's critique of his infamous but ineffective and shortcoming OTF (otherwise spelled out as "Outsider Test for Faith" for you noobs). To those of you that have kept up with this blog since the exact date of inception, what you are about to skim over is probably not something that will keep you too terribly interested or will really stick out in your mind as intriguing or intellectually stimulating, but we'll take a jab at it anyway.

John Loftus: I will offer a brief response to Thrasymachus who claims that the Outsider Test is a failure.

I'll place his words in blockquotes:

I’m not a believer, but I’m also not convinced that the OTF is the rhetorical silver bullet it is made out to be. I hope to clarify and augment the OTF to avoid some of the more common criticisms, and hopefully cut through some of the confusion between Loftus and his detractors. In the final reckoning, though, I will show the OTF isn’t a significantly persuasive force for Atheism.

The OTF is no silver bullet. There are no silver bullets. If that is the standard then all counter Christian apologetics fail.

Our commentary: There are no "silver bullets" lurking around that you might be able to spot John? None at all? If there are no "silver bullets" than by what term or labeling reference do we ascribe to the intent of bolstering confidence in your arguments, your colleagues' arguments, or even the arguments of New Atheists in general? If there are no arguments out there that stand out from the rest, then isn't it a rehashing of old and limited materials to defend a worldview/cause not worth defending?

As I penned back in 2010 in one of the entries to my logic series concerning John's favorite forms of argument, I specifically listed the fallacy of equivocation (i.e., double meaning for a single, specific word) as one argumentative pattern trait we can attribute to this line of reasoning. To what exactly am I referring too? John's strung together sentence of "counter Christian apologetics."

Now I may appear to be a pain in the ass for going here, but why should a "counter Christian" worldview (more specifically in this case, atheism/agnosticism/skepticism) need apologetics at all? Again, atheism according to many belonging to the New Atheist movement and related groups state with fervor that atheism is merely the disbelief in the existence of God or a god. What exactly is there to defend here?

And of course, without having self-recognition or introspection in mind, John has argued this too. So, it would seem quite strange that one would be an apologist for a worldview that espouses nothing more than a disbelief in deities, wouldn't it?

There's an interesting trip wire that never seems to get answered/resolved by John and the like. Instead, it usually boils down to dealing justice against Christians because they are running the spinwheel like a high speed car chase, and someone needs to put them in their place.

And let's just take away atheism from the picture for a second. Now what are we left with exactly? "Counter Christian apologetics" conveys unspecified and undefined meanings. It fails for explaining things. Are we rooting for pagans? Muslims? Jews? Buddhists? Hindus? Oh, none of the above?

So what is it really? It's the defense of a negative, a position not swayed or determined by the tenents of any faith or doctrine. It's just intended to counteract the nonsense of religion and its grip on society.

What’s the test?

What exactly is the outsider test? “to test their own adopted religious faith from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism they use to evaluate other religious faiths” isn’t entirely clear. This lack of clarity – both from Loftus and his critics – makes the argument very hard to dissect indeed.

John Loftus: I'm sorry, what isn’t clear about it? I first proposed it on a blog post and have refined it since then. What matters is how I articulate it now.

Our commentary: Yes and no, John. If you are going to put forth a faith-shattering argument, it should account for any potential loopholes. Even if you are a human being and therefore incapable of constructing the perfect argument, your goal is to bring a religion down to its needs and then sever its head from the rest of the body. And Thrascymachus did specify what wasn't clear about your argument. You boldy propose that the primary mechanism for getting your argument off the ground is to create more doubt in one's religious beliefs by cross-examination. However, this falls flat on its face because you are making an erroneous assumption about individuals based on groups. You are defying categorical logic.

John Loftus: I have defined the outsider as the consistent skeptic, a person who uses the same level of skepticism to evaluate all religious faiths.

Our commentary: Again, you spell your defiance and reluctance to embrace categorical logic in spades with this statement. Your argument is improbable by its very first premise, and by this it cannot lead and follow into subsequent premises and is deprived of a valid conclusion. You tread into deep territory with this one, because consistency once again varies from individual to individual, and furthermore because humans are fallible and without a constant system of checks and balances of the self, you run short on ammunition as to what a "consistent skeptic" is (think 9/11 truthers, many of whom may and do have valid political points about the government, yet are relunctant and unwilling to see the reality of September 11, 2001: That is to say, it was not plotted by the United States government, it was a successful terrorist attack employed by Al Qaeda).

Now it's time to go back to the drawing board. I'm sure many of you will enjoy ripping this to shreds, but I need to do more important things now. Until my next post...

HIC!

2010-10-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

It's nice to know that with all the serious problems with alcoholism in this country -- the broken homes, the fatal and dismembering auto accidents, the abused spouses and children, the climbing rehabilitation costs, and so on -- John is once again setting a fine, sober example by bragging about how "sauced" he was at one of those freethought meetings. How 'bout it, John?

"Who, me? HIC!"

Thanks, John.

John the Marketing Maven

2010-09-07T12:22:00.001-07:00

Oh wow. John has hit a new low (awful hard for him) when it comes to narcissistic product marketing, with this "Outsider Test for Faith" coffee mug.

Now all he needs is an "I Can't Understand the 7th Commandment" t-shirt.

Maybe He Needs an Outsider Test?

2010-08-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

John just committed unintended irony #5,764,382 with this one...

Quote of the Day by a Christian Named Marcus McElhaney

By John W. Loftus at 8/27/2010

" Emory and Greg, I concede that the Bible is indeed confusing...to both of you! Other people don't agree with you[r or] Greg's thoughts on how confusing the Bible is. Maybe you just need to study harder."

This quote is utterly ridiculous to the nth degree. If we study harder then we'd come to Marcus's conclusions, right? Right! With thinking skills like the ones Marcus displays here at DC, no wonder he believes. If Marcus is the example then we need to be almost brain dead to believe.

Uh....but who was it who said in defense of his "Outsider Test" that the main sign of whether you pass is that you come to believe the same things John Loftus does?

The more John talks, the more he helps us out!

Another Moral-Cesspool "Christian" for Loftus

2010-08-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showpost.php?p=3052496&postcount=442

And be sure to check out Stark's reply, which sounds an awful lot like something Loftus would say. Separated at birth?

Quote of the Day by John Loftus

2010-08-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

John seems to have decided to turn himself into one of those goofy desktop calendars over at DC, as he posts some "quote of the day" from some rabid fundy atheist friend of his that he no doubt thinks is somehow profound -- which is a way of saying, it's something he might not even understand, so he's impressed by it.

So how about we do a feature like that here -- only each day, it will be something profound by John?

Let's see -- how about this one?

"I'm sorry but it's very hard for me not to just lash out at you with all kinds of phrases that indicate your very low intelligence level."

Or this one?

"You are an idiot. Anyone who will take the time to read through the thread “Is There Such a Thing as an Honest Doubter?” Will see that. I cannot discuss anything with you because you simply cannot understand a mildy [sic] complex argument. You shouldn't even be on this website until you finish your high school level degree. Anything I say gets twisted by you (probably this post as well), so there isn't even a basis for a discussion at all, and I have better things to do. If you were even a half-wit thinker you could answer every one of the questions you asked of me. "

Or even better:

"I recently noticed another blog that apparently started up in March which is very critical of J.P. Holding, here. I personally do not like Holding, but I'm probably not going to waste my time on him, except to point out what others are saying about him."

Maybe the best of all though:

"Seventh commandment? What seventh commandment? It's not clear."

Well, OK, that wasn't a direct quote, but still...

Anyway, Cowboys Who Talk Through Their Hats is coming along nicely. You'd think John would try to make it harder on us....

John Loftus for PETA?

2010-08-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

"Since human beings have evolved from the lower animals we would expect the lower animals to exhibit some of the traits we have developed more fully. There is plenty of evidence they can remember, have emotions, and feel compassion. They also know in limited ways that they are doing wrong. I see this in my cat every day. When we say no he throws a temper tantrum. Some dogs poop on the carpet when neglected to get our attention, if we're gone too long. This evidence bolsters the claim that morality evolved and it also presents theists with what I call "The Darwinian Problem of Evil.""

It just so happens that I've picked up on another trait of John's that is common with his DC articles, and this time it is a matter of self-referencing. In an effort to look smart and creative, John coins some fancy schmancy term that has been probably been used elsewhere in the past or is a rip-off of something he most likely found in a philosophy book. Anything to make himself look like he is actually a doctor in the subject. But that is neither here nor there...

The more enlightenment John has to shed about the Animal Kingdom the more and more convinced I become that John just might endorse the animal rights extremist group, PETA. What reasons do I have? Well...

John advocates that a "perfect" hypothetical world would be one without any predation, where every living being (excluding plants of course) would be vegetarians.
John obsesses on animals, and continually points to the Animal Kingdom as a source of argumentation against the theist worldview.
John assumes that the emotional displays and gestures of animals are almost exactly the same as humans, hence:
John comes up with some rinky-tink term like "The Darwinian Problem of Evil" with many several philosophical errors. First off, do animals have a concept of evil? Do they even view suffering in the same way that humans do? If they don't, then there is no "problem of evil" because it does not apply to animals who are without a concept of good and evil.

There is no beating around the bush that humans are animals just like non-human animals are animals. We share what are called sets of basic instincts. But beyond this, it is not surprising that our minds work differently because of our occupational niche'. Believe it or not, the niche' is what in turn molds us into how we look at the world. If this were not true than it would not be the case that the American economic system has been able to pick itself up even in the midst of crises, such as the one we are currently facing now. In America, people are allowed to build a career out of their passions, in turn offering vitality and strength to the American economy. When concerning matters of evolution, you must never disregard the niche', it is a powerful driving force.

On some common denominator animals can relate to us and foster connections even if we are a different species, such as dolphins having the altruistic ability to save drowning household pets. But again this is almost purely reliant on basic and natural instincts. Keep in mind as animals we share the same genetic code as everything else in life, but what makes the difference is how our genes are expressed, i.e., how they conform to our environment.

If we were to take John's philosophical argument seriously even for just a minute, what would stop us from feeling sympathy for flies and insects when we kill them? What about ants? Spiders? Ticks?

And just like PETA, John assumes that animals have a concept of morality in the same sense that humans do, despite that almost no non-human species out there uses reason or logic to their advantage. Just as PETA suggests that animals out to be treated humanely, without thinking of what it means to be humane.

"Why do they suffer so much if a perfectly good God exists?"

Oh, and, another thing, how do animals suffer in the human sense, John? Do apex predators suffer or something?

The Debunking Loftus Challenge

2010-08-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Many people come onto this site with a sympathetic view of John Loftus, the founder and manager of Debunking Christianity. Some individuals, like Sarah Boylen, have admitted to their own ignorance of the issues between the ongoing Holding/Loftus fueds despite the fact that she automatically assumes with Loftus and immediately classifies Holding and myself as antagonists:

"I don't know much about Loftus or Holding.

...From what I can tell Holding has been at this for more than ten years and yet he's still less than a small fry. He appears to be an unrepentant internet bully and cheap insult artist

...Your left handed "Loftus is worse" defense is pretty darned shallow. Especially for a self-important anointed man of God.

...Maybe his piddly little ad hominems and backdoor character assassinations are keeping him right where he belongs. Dancing to the same old worn out children's song.

Again, I'm not very familiar with either of them but unlike Holding, Loftus seems to have learned a lesson. He's getting some positive attention. That must get Holding's ample panties in big old bunch."

Linky: http://debunkingloftus.blogspot.com/2010/08/james-mcgraths-clouded-moral.html?showComment=1281401592161#c1800474317537251355

Doing only the slightest of research and objective measuring of the issues doesn't seem to serve very many people all that well these days. So instead of reciting the same old collected evidence point for point, I am now issuing a challenge to all of those who would rather take Loftus' side than ours, and would rather trust in his judgment rather than actual rationality.

So now it's time to issue our own "challenge" to those of you (and you know who you are) in the audience that are inclined to such a backwards perception. Apparently you guys take the time of day to post on this blog with your comments, surely it must be important enough for you guys to prove to yourselves whether or not Loftus is the lesser of the two "evils."

Put aside your viewpoints, philosophies, and biases for a moment and actually try striking up a challenge to how John runs the show. It's that simple. You owe it to yourself and would be doing a disjustice if you didn't do so. You might want to ask John exactly what he means when he says he isn't insulting the disabled, when he does in fact bring up derogatory references to disabled people not once, but in fact, twice.

Fundamentally speaking, however, only those who are not completely swayed by Loftus' rhetoric will be capable of successfully partaking in the challenge. This is especially geared towards those who choose to sit on the fence and must decide for themselves. The issuance of this challenge is not meant to garner endorsements from participants. It is to hear what your experiences are afterwards. If it can be substantiated that John Loftus is a morally good and sane person, then feel free to show us, then you may lather us all you want with accusations of character assasination and the like.

Until then, as it is often said in these here parts, "put up or shut up."

Oh, and, here are some resources you can use to guide you along in the process:

Procedures of Moral Justification

The Will Theory Approach

KNOWLEDGE, JUSTIFICATION, AND TRUTH

The Cowboys Who Talk Through Their Hats

2010-08-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

2010 is the official year of the new decade.

On August 31, the Internet will once again be exposed to another entry in the "Contra-Loftus" series.

Featuring James Patrick Holding of Tektonics.org, Nick a.k.a. "ApologiaPhoenix" of TheologyWeb, amongst many others old and new.

Introducing:

The follow-up and subsequent entry to 2009's "The Cowboy Who Wasn't There", this time serving as a reponse to one of Loftus' latest releases, The Christian Delusion (early 2010).

James McGrath's Clouded Moral Loftusvision

2010-08-09T06:54:00.000-07:00

It’s become clear that James McGrath, who wrote an ill-advised endorsement of John’s book The Christian Delusion, has a wee little problem with the practice of truth-telling. What we mainly have here is someone who doesn’t tell the whole story and then behaves like the child who has been caught pocketing Skittles at the five and dime. I’ll comment on a few other things as well.

McGrath: I was astonished at the level of ire from someone with whom I had never exchanged e-mails or otherwise communicated at any previous point. Is it just a sign of my old age that I think people would normally be properly introduced before attacking one another?

I don’t know about “old age” but it is definitely a problem of narrow perspective. This idea that you have to be “properly introduced” before you can go critique people’s work is a peculiar fancy, one that seems designed to shut down deserved criticisms by hedging them in with a host of contrived rules and regulations.

McGrath is a person with a public record (as am I). I attacked/addressed nothing but the contents of that public record: His book, his endorsement of Loftus’ book. The contents of these things are hardly of insufficient depth for a criticism to be unwarranted.

For years I have been “attacked” by atheists who have never “properly introduced” themselves (whatever that might be defined as this week). I never complained of it on those terms once. Nor have countless other apologists, whether Christian, Mormon, etc. I can’t imagine Daniel Peterson of FARMS, for example, making such a transparently contrived excuse. He and I have had our moments both ways, but neither of us has complained that the other had not been “properly introduced” to us.

If McGrath can’t stand the scrutiny of being a public figure who issues comments on matters of public interest, he should stick with Twittering and stop writing books and book endorsements.

Throughout history, criticism has been leveled by perfect strangers against one another. Jesus and the Pharisees did not hoist beers together before Jesus let them have it. Paul didn’t sit down for hot dogs with the pro-circumcision party before he blasted them. From the other side of the fence, Robert Ingersoll certainly didn’t sit down with the authors of the Bible before he wrote all of his works taking them to task.

McGrath needs to stop making up rules that are obviously designed to stop him having to endure the rigors of criticism.

I found it particularly ironic because this individual's main complain (sic) was that, by suggesting that Christians could learn from reading a certain book by multiple authors that presents atheists' viewpoints, I had associated with a person (the editor of the volume) who is, in this apologist's words, ‘of such disreputable character.’ Since when did writing something like this (just click through and search for my name) constitute an endorsement of the behavior of a volume's editor?

McGrath here is hiding much of the truth. I did far more than simply point out the disreputable character of Loftus with a mere vague phrase. I gave some rather concrete examples – this is exactly what I said in the email:

Your endorsement of John Loftus' latest book, The Christian Delusion, is something I found exceptionally disturbing. Apart from the fact that the quality of the arguments he and his crew produce is exceptionally poor, he is an unusually despicable character who has an extended track record of dishonesty. He is willing to do anything to promote or justify himself; in particular, he debated a friend of mine on an online forum, whom he afterwards derided as a
‘handicapped Wal-mart clerk’ after the consensus emerged that he had lost the debate. He gave his own earlier book a glowing 5-star review on Amazon, which he later erased, and later denied having written. That is just the tip of the iceberg and not the worst of it.

I can forgive McGrath for not realizing that TCD is composed of poor arguments, since it is clear that he isn’t much of a critical thinker himself. But he has continued to refuse to acknowledge the specific serious moral lapses of Loftus that have been presented to him, both in this message and in subsequent postings by others on his blog. This is not honest.

If McGrath would simply have replied to my email by saying:

“I was not aware of these things. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.”

..it would have been enough. But no: He has chosen the route of disingenuous self-justification instead.

As for the last bit, I have never directly said that what McGrath wrote was an endorsement of Loftus’ behavior. However, it may as well be in practice.

Generally, it is recognized that when a person is of a certain level of moral degeneracy, they are supposed to be isolated and cut off from normal human interaction. To use an extreme example for illustrative purposes, no one with any moral sense would write an endorsement of a book written by Pol Pot, even if it were on the subject of tomato gardening. The excuse would not do (as McGrath tried) that the purpose was to encourage others to listen to others’ viewpoints. As I also pointed out to him, but to which he has never replied:

Good point about listening to a range of atheist viewpoints. How about you next write one for say, Kenneth Humphreys, so that we can have a ‘useful opportunity’ to ‘listen to a range of viewpoints’ about how Jesus didn't exist? Better yet, there's a UFO cult I know of that would love to have others get a "useful opportunity" to "listen to a range of viewpoints" about how we can all get a UFO ride to Paradise. Can I put you in touch? And if you're really bold, maybe Prometheus can get you to write one for one of their X-rated videotape guides. A lot of people find those ‘viewpoints’ to be ‘useful’.

In a nutshell, McGrath here puts utilitarianism above moral consideration. The only real question is whether Loftus has done enough to be placed in the category of a moral offender serious enough to be shunned.

He is no Pol Pot of course, but major figures have been shunned for far less serious offenses than denigrating the disabled publicly, or creating fake blogs. (Funny too: McGrath is on about those who conduct “anonymous” criticism on the Internet – that’s exactly what Loftus did with his fake blog about me.)

McGrath: Or do we live in an era in which, before writing a blurb for a book, one is expected to first spend time searching the internet for evidence of inappropriate behavior?

To put it in a nutshell, yes. The Internet has made it possible to do this, and it takes no more than five minutes – McGrath spends more time than that on Twitter each month. He also has a huge blogroll listed, and a huge list of “interesting sites,” as well as offering listings of interesting blog posts he is reading. He can’t take a few minutes from this busy, important list of tasks to check out the background of someone for whom he is writing a book endorsement – one that will appear in a book that will be purchased by, say, at least a dozen people? (wink)

Perhaps all of this chatter on McGrath’s blog is a sign that McGrath has become one of Foreman’s “pancake people” – “spread wide and thin, as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.” In that case it is quite understandable that he is not up to the task of being a responsible information broker.

In this day we have even fast-food employers scouring online looking for prospective employees’ Facebook pages. When it comes to responsibly brokering information, we should expect no less from a reputedly serious scholar like McGrath.

If we're supposed to search online and get to know those we interact with, then there is still further irony, since it was clear that this apologist had never read my blog (since he sarcastically asked whether I would endorse someone who says Jesus does not exist.)

How would this make any difference? McGrath wrote the endorsement for a book of atheists, which implies that he didn't have any objection to writing endorsements for books he had such wide disagreements with. His lack of epistemic consistency means that I have no reason to think he would never endorse a Christ-myth book. Even a direct profession that he would not wouldn't prove he would not at this point.

I’ll leave McGrath’s further comments about alleged hostility aside; I have some comments on those on TheologyWeb, save to point out that McGrath isn’t really succeeding in obscuring his own passive-aggressive hostilities. His own posting is an act of “war” by his own definition. Just because he decorates his gun with perfumed flowers doesn’t mean he isn’t shooting to kill.

Bottom line though – it’s not hard to see why he wrote an endorsement for Loftus. He has the same problems telling the whole truth.

Triablogue Makes Loftus Soup

2010-07-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/07/infidel-delusion.html

I'll be starting my own rebuttal of The Christian Delusion next month, but meanwhile, here's one written by the team at Triablogue. This is a descriptive blog post; there's a link to a PDF of the 250+-page rebuttal within.

"Reality Check" Series Coming Soon

2010-07-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

In light of my most recent post The Scronny-Brained Scholar, I have decided to come up with a third series of posts on this blog which will help bolster its intended functional purpose. In addition to the series on logic and the yet-to-be-introduced series on ethics, I am also instating a response-series to John's "Reality Check" (which supposedly lays out the criteria for the hypothetically assumed reality we would be stuck with in the event Christianity was true. I invite every contributor on this blog to participate). Introducing:

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if John Knows Anything about Debunking Christianity?

I hope the majority of you like it.

More to come.

- TBT

The Scronny-Brained Scholar

2010-07-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

It shouldn't surprise anyone that actually knows about our subject matter here but John shot himself in the foot again. Here we've run across an interesting admission on John's parts. All it takes is for one to connect the dots, using only John's own words and claims, to make a pretty substantial conclusion about his work ethic.

Though it's not usually the case (like with everyone else) that they will come out and say something which may be revealing of one of their weaknesses/vices in a such a way as it is impossible to conclude otherwise, it requires very little psychoanalytical effort to examine the meaning behind many of John's assertions. There is also no difficulty in assuming that we can take on John's perspective for just a second, to see that his claims and his viewpoint leave us with only one dead end: John just doesn't care about true authenticity of genuine sincerity.

Not surprisingly, others have made observations of John's weaknesses in his methods of attack. Someone (presumably Christian) writes to John's blog saying he needs to deal with intellectual "heavyweights", something John seems eager to dismiss:

In my opinion there are no heavy weights for Christianity just as there are no heavy weights for Scientology or Islam or Orthodox Judaism or Hinduism. It's all improbable to the core and I see no reason why one religious myth's scholar is any better than another.

Oh, and did I mention logical inconsistencies, as well? We can clearly see this being the case, that John does disregard Christianity as superstitious nonsense and won't even bother dealing with its various shades. It's all stupid and without merit. Period.

But somehow John seems bent on debunking it. He seems bent on ranting about William Lane Craig and clearly has an obsessive interest.

Again, why John, do you insist on debunking something that is stupid and outdated and superstitious in the first place? Aren't you preaching to the choir when you do this? You don't even want to handle the complex arguments being put forth in defense of Christianity. You admit to this.

But when the opportunity arises for showmanship, you can guarantee John arrives to the scene. He eagerly and hastily flaunts his debates with notable Christian figures like Dinesh D' Souza. He wants to broadcast his name in show lights. He cannot deny this.

There is no mistaking the fact, however, that John admits to his intellectual laziness, even if he doesn't think so:

My specific target audience is conservative "Bible believing" fundamentalist evangelicals. In order to do an effective job of debunking religion one must specialize, you see. So I do. Since I know the most about Christianity I focus on that. And even that's not specialized enough. The Christian religion is too large to take aim at because no matter what I write there will always be Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, or liberals who will come along and claim I'm not saying anything against REAL or TRUE Christianity--their version of it.

My goal is a negative one. I aim to push evangelicals off dead center so they will have to start thinking for themselves rather than proof-texting from an ancient canonized set of barbaric and superstitious writings. While I do point Christians in the direction of atheism I leave it to others to take up where I left off. Keep in mind that I'm not ignorant about liberal versions of Christianity. I was once a liberal myself after leaving evangelicalism then drifted toward agnosticism and ended up being an atheist.

Cheers,
John W. Loftus

John reads our material? NO WAY! Far out, dude!

It's funny though, John, just how intellectually lazy you are and everything. Let me see if we can put to test your claim of how "specialization" is required to debunk a set of kooky beliefs:

Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True? (#28)

That God's punishments are good, right, and just, even though it means sinners are thrust into a surprisingly dangerous world and in death will be blindsided by an eternal punishment in hell, which is "Christianity's most damnable doctrine." In this world how do you think human beings first learned that venomous creatures like certain kinds of spiders, snakes, ants or scorpions could kill us? People/children had to die, lots of them. How do you think human beings first learned that polluted water or lead poisoning could kill us? Again, people/children had to die, lots of them. It was inevitable since God never told us what to avoid in order to stay alive. We had to learn these kinds of things firsthand. The same thing can be said for hell. People do not know their choices will send them to an eternal punishment in hell. For if we knew this, and if it was possible not to sin at all, we wouldn't sin. Do you doubt this? Then consider that if you knew with certainty that by crossing a line drawn in the sand you would get beaten to a pulp by a biker gang, you would not do it!

Now personally speaking, based on my lack of life experiences and short-lived time here on this planet, I can say that I know of NO evangelical non-denominational apologist who would agree with this in any sense that it is being said. No apologist I have ever read has argued along this line of reasoning, but rather, the exact opposite. From my knowledge of general Christian apologetics, the argument goes that those ignorant of Christianity cannot be held accountable for their particular beliefs, even if they run counter to Christian theology.

Time to add some meat to those bones, girly man...

What Cartoon Character Does John Remind You Of?

2010-07-02T07:48:00.001-07:00

Hmmm. John is a self-promoting narcissist who treats women badly, thinks he's cool, and chooses black as his color theme....who does that remind you of in the cartoon world?

Dang. I think I have an idea for a new comic series...

How to Construct a Cash-Cow Franchise

2010-06-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

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?

Is John Truly Ignorant of His Ignorance?

2010-06-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

*Sigh*....here we go again. John doesn't have anything new to say and goes on with another defense of his "knowledge" of the topics on which he speaks: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/06/am-i-truly-ignorant-about-christianity.html

Without going through the painstaking yet unbearable simplicity of quoting John word for word and then providing commentary, I'll just paraphrase here. It's not like much of anything we haven't heard before, but John is once again rambling about how Christians say he is ignorant because of his atheism and because he broke away from the faith and believers just can't accept that. Well...

A fundamental error in this calculation is that John neglects there are non-Christians who will call him on his ignorance, like myself. So if there are criticisms of John's ignorance coming from non-Christians, then John is in trouble.

It's not even as though John proves that he isn't ignorant, so what reason do we have to believe him when he says he is not? If John makes a statement generalizing about world religions such as "there isn't a single religion that I know of that has a nebulous god" that is an example of IGNORANCE. Hinduism is one religion that comes to mind where Brahma is a very nebulous deity force.

So the conclusion then is that John is simply ignorant of his own ignorance. And we could beat it in his head that his blog doesn't really offer anything different from a Joel Osteen type church: It relies on personal testimonies, pleads for money donations, and literally rants in circles with little to no new material. Just like your typical cash cow church.

Will John ever realize this reality? Chances are probably not, because if John were to realize his own ignorance, the existence of Debunking Christianity might be never more.

TWeb Disclaimer

2010-06-06T23:35:00.000-07:00

Getting away from the usual Loftus and Debunking Christianity subject matter (don't worry, there is another post I will be finishing up here soon), I think it's somewhat of an important issue to get this out here and in the open.

Many people will get the impression that because this website is run by myself and JP Holding, who has assisted me in most of my major web projects thusfar, that I am probably a Christian myself or that I am part of what might be considered the 'typical' TheologyWeb mindset. I'm here to put these myths to rest to establish what the purpose of this website is and why it is important. Not that I haven't done this before, but this takes on a slightly different degree of shading.

The issue of rampant and unjustified censorship on the part of the TheologyWeb forums has generated a great deal of complaints in the past from both atheists and Christians, as well as other theists. The management behind TWeb has all the right in the world to impose restrictions it sees fit, but the point is that many of TWeb's rules are just flat out ridiculous, and in saying this I am making explicit that I have no official endorsement of TWeb's policies nor do I agree with many of them. I am primarily referring to TWeb's restriction on citing sources that may contain profane or extremely offensive language, even if it is not directly quoted within the citation. For a website like Theology Web, it is noble to uphold standards that make the site "family safe", however....

The internet is the internet. My generation and those to follow are literally surrounded by electronic devices and the conveniences the internet now provides that didn't even exist more than a decade ago. TWeb fails to account for the accessibility of information across a wide range of topics, and it's always important to remember the internet does not filter its own content. It is what it is. Ultimately it is the responsibility of one's self or their caring social environment (i.e., family and friends) to dictate whether or not someone should have the means of accessing adult materials or coming across "profane language" even it will indeed threaten their wellbeing within the respective environment.

Think about this for a moment: If profanity is of such a concern to upholding family values, then maybe it is time to consider whether using a keyboard contributes to anything positive for families to begin with. How far would universities get if they were to instill standards limiting students and faculty to quoting and citing references authored only by individuals who have never made any known offensive statements in their work and in other related entries?

No message board that exists has the capacity to do a complete background check and to verify the age of a user who has several different ways of remaining anonymous. It's silly and completely unreasonable to restrict the citation of sources which may contain "adult" language, only because somewhere down the line, someone who shouldn't be exposed to such intense materials will discover them out of a type of rebellious nature. Prohibition, anyone?

There is perhaps some truth to the statements about non-Christian discrimination at the TWeb boards as well, even though in most cases they stem from the bickering of individuals that have certain extremist strides within them, and seek only to be divisive and difficult to deal with. I am not one of those individuals. But I am one of the many who has been slapped on the wrist many times at TWeb for committing arguably petty offenses. "Blasphemy", (a crime of which I have been apparently guilty of) can consist of simple postings phrased in manners such as these: "Oh my God! etc., etc., etc...." Yet to classify these as blasphemous is without logical merit. It is not being charitable to the intent by which the words were arranged within the post, and it unreasonably demands that individuals of a different belief system act according to a religion that doesn't apply to them or that they would otherwise never adhere too in their daily lives.

Many of whom I would call my bretheren on sites such as these hail from TWeb and may even call it their cyber home. But make no mistake that much of my activity is limited on the forums simply for reasons such as these and more. My blog was created to assess and evaluate the rationality behind the mindset of such prominent philosophies such as the ever-growing New Atheism, more specifically a blog which has gained popularity within the New Atheist movement. Being the founder of this blog, I want to make clear that I do not take sides with the management or concept of TheologyWeb, just as I do not take sides with the management or concept of Debunking Christianity. My motive can be derived from a philanthropic desire to spread the true faculties of reasoning onto the rest of the world, but doing so in a conservative fashion. Yes, I am a political conservative, but I am also for the progression of ideas and the betterment of a society. I refuse to side with the extremists. I do not endorse extremist viewpoints, whether they are generally maladaptive and harmful or if they simply mistake censorship for righteousness.

It should also not go without mentioning to say that individuals who venture onto cyber-space should not be allowed free reign to the extent that potential predators and unwanted websites and organizations start retrieving information and or gaining control over your computer and confidential data contained therein. But these are simply matters of the law, and the law is different from aspects of ethics. The law in the simplest of terms can only be used as a successful tool for maintaining order and structure, it cannot be used to control and to persuade. Those are determined by the willpower of the individual alone.

As a prospective philosopher the world must be acknowledged for what it is, and I do not doubt for a second that various world perspectives, whether religious or political, can come to this understanding and find commonality. The world has always had its dark aspects in reality, but we are now living in a time where globalization has a overwhelming involvement with about 98% of our daily activities. We can no longer expect ourselves to resolve our crises and overcome challenging obstacles by giving into our egos and letting our ideologies rule our lives. Now is the time to come together in a true and fruitful manifestation of progressivism. We cannot let the future become a world where the majority will profess logic but will disregard ethics as lovey dovey nonsense. We also cannot override logic with our emotions. We must seek the doctrine of the mean. If you do not seek balance in virtue, then the only expectation is that you will seek out vice.

Going back to TWeb I fear that it misses the degrees of extremity and contextual meaning behind certain things much in the same way that Loftus is blinded by his own embitteredness that on some level he is unable to recognize his highly flawed arguments or even his own condemning hypocricy. For TWeb, it is much like a parent restricting a child from having any exposure to nudity as if nudity was the same as pornography. Many TWebbers would undoubedtly be quick to point this out as being an extreme and misrepresentative analogy on behalf of the policies established by TWeb management because it is not as though the people at TWeb are oblivious to such things. But this point still remains: You cannot strip reality of all of its horrors and truths, because as soon as you do, you only set yourself up for delusions and a mentality of fear.

Places such as TWeb and Debunking Christianity may attempt to be forums of open and healthy exchange, and even while TWeb is the lesser of two evils (in a more or less sense), it remains that both are unfortunately based in insecure fragility. Period.

The Loftus Delusion

2010-04-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not ladies and gentlemen, but a new book titled "The Loftus Delusion" was not written by any of us here at DL. Sure enough as always however, John was tempted to comment on how "respectfully" well written it was:

I’m honored that some college professors use my book Why I Became an Atheist (WIBA) in their college classes, like Dan Lambert, at John Brown University, and Richard Knopp, at Lincoln Christian University, as I mentioned earlier. I’m also honored that David Reuben Stone has decided to write a book against WIBA, called The Loftus Delusion. While I do not like the title of the book, which is misleading for a few reasons, including the fact that Stone does not deal at all with my most recent book, The Christian Delusion (TCD), Stone's book is a respectfully written one.

Would John like to tell his audience what is misleading about the book's title? I mean John, aren't you delusional?

To reiterate, isn't someone who denies evidence contrary to their claims in delusion? Like this, for example?

http://theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?p=1973384#post1973384

Now I do actually agree that the book is a little misleading. Take a look at it briefly and you'll see that the book, at least from the subtitle on the cover, addresses issues pertaining to Messianic Zionism vs. the New Atheists. That is perhaps misleading. But it is not misleading to rebut John on his assertion of possessing whatever special knowledge and insight is required into debunking the Christian faith.

Because John is far from qualified from debunking or arguing anything worth serious consideration. Instead, John offers arguments about a hypothetical world in which every living being was a vegetarian and we were all created to be pacificistic flower-frollicking hippies which is somehow to be automatically assumed as a perfect universe that only a perfect sovereign creator would spawn into existence.

Yep, that's about it as far as John's intellectual depth goes.

The question we ought to be asking here is not if the book actually backs up the meaning of its title. What we ought to ask is whether or not Loftus is delusional and if this can be verified outside of any published materials. And we certaintly think it has and can be verified and always will be verifiable.

Stone considers his book “the definitive critique of the anti-Biblical atheism of John W. Loftus” (seen on the back cover of his self-published book). [And to think, people don’t like my self-promotion ;-) ] Is he right? Not even close. He asks me for a response to his critique in the interests of a “charitable dialogue” that “could benefit us both in our search for truth" (p. 162). Okay. Here goes, very briefly.

And look, it didn't take long for us to spot something. John clearly seems to think people like myself have a problem with John because he promotes his own works. WRONG. The more accurate response is that we anti-Loftuscites don't approve of dirty political tactics in order to promote one's book. We don't appreciate an obsessiveness with oneself and trying to make themselves sound like an objective third-party source. And so on.

So John, its time you learned how to grasp that concept and actually come up with something real and supportive. Instead of trying to oversimplify the issue, you could say "People don't approve of my methods" and you might actually have a leg to stand on.

But then again...

Stone begins his book with a “newly discovered mathematical proof” of a critical component of the intelligent design (ID) thesis in chapter one (which can be seen on Amazon). Don’t get me wrong here. I can do the math. It’s just that it takes time to work through it; time that I must think is worthwhile if I’m going to want to do so. It’s just that I have lots of reasons for thinking it’s not worth it, so I didn’t. This chapter is the kingpin of his whole book. It’s Stone’s natural theology. If he’s right about it then he seems to indicate the rest of his case follows. If he’s wrong then his whole case fails. It’s that simple.

John is in the right here but can he apply this argument introspectively? John's book Why I Became an Atheist would rely entirely on John's personal testimony of his experiences managing churches and related groups. So, if John at first states that his reasons for leaving the faith are unconventional and did not rely on reason, John cannot state the exact opposite ahead of time:

"...Some former believers rejected their faith based upon the evidence itself. My initial arguments for rejecting the Christian faith are not the same ones that others have had..."

Later on...

"Nearly two years later, I came to deny the Christian faith. It required too much intellectual gerrymandering to believe.."

So, does John's case rely on his personal experiences or on his ability to interpret evidence? If John can't make up his mind, does he even have a case?

He criticizes my “Outsider Test for Faith” (OTF) and proposes an alternative called “Stone’s Test Of Neutral Evidence” (STONE). He criticizes the OTF for arguing for on behalf of skeptical agnosticism rather than for neutral agnosticism. He thinks we should be neutral agnostics rather than skeptical agnostics. Rather than starting our examination of the evidence “from above” with the assumption of God, or in starting “from below,” with the world, STONE argues we should start “from the middle,” even though he grants with me that “utterly pure and complete neutrality may be impossible to attain with respect to all belief systems.” (p. 73) Now this is all high sounding rhetoric, but rhetoric it is. It’s the democratization of extraordinary miracle claims that Bob Price criticizes so effectively in TCD. Stone, just like Boyd and Eddy in The Jesus Legend, wants us to take seriously all claims no matter how bizarre or outlandish so they can smuggle in their own extraordinary Christian claims. This so-called middle position of theirs is a strange land to stand on. They never started on this piece of ground in the first place. No, they were born into a Christian culture and accepted what they were taught to believe in this culture. There is no middle position. Human beings are not Spockian type creatures. We are given our religious worldviews. They are inherited; caught, not taught. The question the OTF asks us is how can we properly test the ones we were given. Given the fact that we are born into them, and given the fact that the odds are that ours is wrong from the geographical distribution of religious faiths, we should test our handed down faith with skepticism.

This is what John would call a "case study in cognitive dissonance reduction" because he seems to be incapable of answering the mounting criticisms there are against the OTF and why its limitations are perhaps its greatest weakness. If high-profile institutions such as the CIA relied on John's material for guidance instead of intelligence research, we might all be dead by now:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/13/american.qaeda.message/index.html

Saying that religions are merely by-products of enculteration is narrow-minded and ignorant. Sociologically speaking, we can view religions as various different items within a collective marketplace. Individual "consumers" pick and choose what religion or religious ritual best fits into their own lifestyle. Predominantly religious countries such as India are starting to make economic progressions and are realizing their place in the world despite having been affected by the detrimental caste system for many thousands of years. If John were correct in his thesis, then we would suspect that nations which are predominantly religious have little to no hope of ever improving their status on a worldwide scale. And yet they do, and will continue to do so. The notion that even theocracies are permanently static in their progress is a cariacture itself. The Islamic world can be credited with many advances in practical fields such as algebra, and yet the Islamic world has been dominated by a strict adherence to ritual and and a constant reverence for Allah since its inception. In fact, Islam is the only religion, according to comparative religion scholars, that delibrately fuses politics and theology with each other.

Oh and, in deductive logic, theism and atheism are both positions rooted in what is known as the Appeal to Ignorance Fallacy.

The most amazing thing about Stone’s book though, is that after he argues against my skeptical control beliefs he dismisses the second part of my book in ten pages (139-149). He says so. “Loftus’ unjustified Biblical perspectives may be dismissed due to their logical grounding in those unjustified controls beliefs.” (p. 139). The second part of WIBA criticizes the Bible and its foundational miracle claims and doctrines. For instance, since he thinks he’s undermined my skeptical control beliefs then without so much as trying to answer my arguments with regard to the atonement he basically says that since my control beliefs have been shown wrong I am unjustified in rejecting the doctrine of the atonement.

Ahhhhhh.....now I get it. Materials exist which finally do get at addressing what you bring up in your book, but they're obviously not good enough because they never got to "part 2"!

John, John, John, you are no logician. You use equivocation, appeals to ignorance, red herrings, straw men, and amphibolies to make your points about 98% of the time you make an "argument." If you were to specify what you meant by certain terms in the context that they get used, or if you were to elaborate on what it is you are actually trying to say, people would take you less seriously than they already do now. And of course, you and I both know this. Which is why you rely on logical fallacies rather than on true sound reasoning.

Wait just a minute, Stone. I was once an insider. The second half of the book describes why I could not remain a Christian GIVEN a believing set of control beliefs. It’s the considerations of the second half of WIBA that caused me to reject the Christian faith and led me to my skeptical control beliefs in the first place. So until or unless you actually deal with the arguments in the second half of my book, you have done nothing to support your natural theology project. And until you actually flesh out for us what it means to treat all religious truth claims “neutrally,” as you claim to do, then you must examine in detail the arguments in the second half of my book. You cannot merely say that with your neutral stance you would accept these biblical doctrines and claims. That’s NOT being neutral, you see, or very critical as a thinker. You need to show us from a neutral starting point why you would accept the claims of an incarnation, the atonement, or the resurrection, and you did no such thing.

Again, its time to place the microscope back on yourself, Lofty. No one else can or should have to do that for you. When it comes to actually coming up with something tentative, your primary tactic is to beat around the bush.

So John, from what I can tell, you do not acknowledge the evidence that is out there contrary to your assertions. You make no real attempts to address the criticisms of what you believe to be your most well constructed and hard-hitting arguments. When you've been backed into a corner, rather than man up to your flaws, shortcomings, and wrongdoings, you will divert the attention onto someone else, something else, or change the subject entirely. You are an individual that prefers to plug his ears when he is removed from any hint of the shadow that is their comfort zone. You are, quite evidentially, delusional.

Loftus Logic (Part 2)

2010-04-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

I haven't been regularly updating the site for a couple of months now and decided to get back into a slight trend of things once more. So, in checking up on updates over at Debunking Christianity, I found another recent example of which to write another addition to my series here on logic. See for yourself:

Fallacy #3 - Appeal to Unreliable Authority

Definition: This would apply to someone who is actually a biologist pretending to be an expert in physics and so on. However, the fallacy itself also extends to those who rely on themselves to be an authority on things not objectively measurable.

Example: Case in point:

http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Delusion-Why-Faith-Fails/product-reviews/1616141689/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

As with John's last work, Why I Became an Atheist, he offers a review of his own book for the second time in a row:

I really like this book. Dan Barker recently described it as a "powerhouse of a book" in an interview he did with me. It is. And not just because I compiled it and wrote four chapters for it. Let me explain why.

Notice, that much of the remaining review contains little to no substance about the book's actual content. Observe:

The book was made to have eye appeal. It just has a good look and feel to it. When holding it in your hands at 422 pages, it makes you see that there is a lot of information in it for the price.

Nothing could be more explicit to how pathetic the book itself probably is. This is like giving unalienable authority to the KJV Bible because of the elaborate designs on the front cover.

The authors are experts in the areas they write about. Let me give you a few examples. Who is better to write a chapter arguing that Christianity is a cultural phenomenon than cultural anthropologist David Eller? Who is better than psychologist Valerie Tarico to write on Christian belief and cognitive science? Who is better to write a chapter on Biblical cosmology than Ed Babinski, who has spent years studying this topic? Who is better than Biblical scholar Hector Avalos to write a chapter on the barbaric tribal God of the Old Testament? Who is better than Robert Price to write a chapter on what we can know about Jesus? Who is better than Richard Carrier to write a chapter on the resurrection of Jesus? The three last chapters in the book on morality by Eller, Hitler by Avalos, and the origins of science by Carrier, are each by themselves probably worth the price of the book.

These are all subjective statements about the quality of content in John's book. They make no critical analysis or assessment as to why we should believe the contributors offer more than their own slanted bias when coming into the framework of things. This is also a perfect example of another fallacy: Begging the Question - "X is true because X says so." Circular reasoning, as it is more commonly identified. The conclusion is the same as the assumption, and there are no other reasons to suggest or think otherwise. We have no other standard in this review to assess the credibility of any of these contributions other than John's heresay and those already convinced by the writings of these individuals. It does nothing for the individual interested in gaining a fresh new perspective.

And the flow of the book is good too. Most skeptical books dive right in on the arguments. But not this one. In the first part of the book we show how believers first adopt and defend their beliefs. We show that believers are not rational to accept what they first learned in this Christian culture on their mama's knees. Jason Long shows in his chapter how believers cannot reasonably think they have truly examined their adopted faith. And I close that part out with the Outsider Test for Faith, in what I consider my most mature defense of it ever.

We've examined the Outsider Test for Faith on here before, and have pointed out its anadequacies. Mainly, the problem with the "test" itself is that it leads us to the inference that someone can separate themselves from their culture to the point where beliefs are non-existent. Otherwise, if this is not Loftus' intent by crafting such a "test", then it remains that because someone happens to be Muslim because they were raised that way, it is irrelevant because of several different possibilities and explanations:

1) Not everyone raised in a particular culture is destined to believe in their cultural ideals and childhood background for life. Indeed, such cases arise where a Muslim may convert to Christianity, and vice versa.

2) Differences in cultural beliefs do not automatically lead to the conclusion that anyone who might have a belief based on their cultural background is necessarily wrong in their belief, just as they are not necessarily right by appealing to their culture.

Then there are the many glowing blurbs from Christian as well as atheist/agnostic scholars to be found on the back cover and inside pages. Here are three of them:

From Dr. Michael Martin, professor of philosophy emeritus and author of The Case Against Christianity and Atheism: A Philosophical Justification:

"John Loftus and his distinguished colleagues have certainly produced one of the best and arguably the best critique of the Christian faith the world has ever known. Using sociological, biblical, scientific, historical, philosophical, theological and ethical criticisms, this book completely destroys Christianity. All but the most fanatical believers who read it should be moved to have profound doubts."

From Dr. Dale C. Allison, Jr., author of Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters:

"Forget Dawkins. If you are looking for a truly substantial, well-informed criticism of the Christian religion, this is your book. Defenders of the faith will do believer and unbeliever alike a disservice if they do not rise to the challenge and wrestle with the thought-provoking arguments of Loftus and company."

From Dr. Keith Parsons, Professor of Philosophy, University of Houston, Clear Lake, and author of the book, God and the Burden of Proof:

"For nearly two thousand years apologists have striven mightily to show that the dogmas of Christianity are rationally defensible. For much of the Christian era critics have sought to debunk those apologetic claims. In that long tradition of criticism, there can have been few works as effective as The Christian Delusion. The essays are incisive, rigorous, and original, shedding new light on old issues and boldly exploring new paths of argument. The selection of topics is outstanding--at once both comprehensive and innovative. For fresh insights into an old debate, The Christian Delusion is strongly recommended."

Much more credibility is afforded to the review based on these excerpts. However, John closes with:

I think every skeptic who wants to understand Christianity and/or who argues with Christians should get it. I think every Christian apologist worthy of the name should get it. I think every believer who is having questions about his or her faith should get it. And I can only hope every devout believer will get it too.

"Worthy of the name"? To what John may be referring too, we cannot be certain. This could be constured in terms of how popular and well-liked someone is, but it says nothing about the truth value of their arguments or if in fact they tell the truth.

That's enough for a while now. Hope you've all enjoyed this so far. But alas, I have more important matters to attend too.

Loftus Logic (Part 1)

2010-04-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of a new series of tactics I'll be using to analyze the strength and validity of Loftus' arguments. John, our title subject, thinks nothing less of himself than a philosopher. Not only that, John considers his writings and ideas to be major contributions to the field of religious philosophy.

John's credentials amount to three master's degrees (an impressive feat, no doubt), but they are nonetheless irrelevant to whether or not John actually qualifies for having a doctorate-level understanding of his subject matter, which John seems to claim he has on the basis of these master degrees.

In giving John the benefit of the doubt, we'll suppose that John is a philosopher who can hold his own. Yes, on many on the many instances we've cited before it has been shown not to be the case. But we will temporarily assume that no such instances exist, or have been taken out of context. In this series, we will employ a set of methodologies using the tools and resources John least expects of us, most of which come out of a very important philosophical discipline.

Logic.

There is no more of an effective manner to demonstrate John's grasp of a field in which he either professes to apply quite extensively in his arguments than to test his materials against the basic and bare minimum principles of logic. For the sake of categorization, I may decide to make other "series" evaluating the depth of Loftus' arguments when they apply to other philosophical disciplines such as ethics. For now, we will just cover a few examples of where John fails to live up to a logical and reasoned mindset. Some minor but important issues we will need to clarify before we get going:

Statements: "There is a purple whale in my backyard that eats chickens."

- This can either be true or false.

Arguments: Collections of statements. Hence:

- Arguments are not of true or false value because the statements which make up arguments are either true or false in and of themselves. The coherency of the statements and their relation to each other either lead to validity or invalidity. A completely valid argument (one in which all statements are true and guarantee the conclusion that follows) becomes a sound argument.

We will begin this series with some brief information on the informal fallacies often committed when trying to make arguments. I'll start by using a fairly recent example and how perfect it is in showing how invalid and non-sequitir John's argumentation really is. For the second time on this blog, we'll use John's article God, Sex, and the Orgasm as a "case study":

Logical Fallacy #1 - Equivocation

Definition: Equivocation is a fallacy because it creates ambiguity. It refers the "double-meaning""of a particular word even when that second meaning does not apply directly to the word itself, or the context in which the word is being used.

Example(s): "The power of the orgasm is so strong it motivates some married people into infidelity; some men to rape women; some Catholic priests to direct these urges toward molesting children..."

Being a Catholic priest does not by necessity mean that you go out and molest children. In fact, why can't this example be used in regards to other religions? That's only because Catholic priests have been the ones most commonly identified in our culture for gaining notoriety for child molestation. But in this case it is inappropriate and unwarranted, because John could just as well have said "The power of the orgasm is so strong it motivates...some (child molesters/rapists, etc.) to direct these urges toward molesting children..." which would have been more to the point and indeed, supportable. Neither Catholic priests nor child rapists are motivated solely through orgasm, and it may be based entirely a control factor, such as deriving pleasure from a moment in time in which they are dominating someone or something that lacks basic autonomy and a willpower to resist their advances.

"So why did God make our sex drive so strong? Why didn't he make the the orgasm less pleasurable? The pleasure of the orgasm is just too strong as it is. We all know this. With an evolutionary hypothesis this is what we'd expect to find, for our sex drive is good for the survival of our species. But under a theistic hypothesis it makes no sense."

Here is a perfect example of where John should know better. Had something been used by a creationist and it went along the lines of comparing evolution with theism, John would have ridiculed it for confusing matters of dichotomy. Theism and evolution are completely different categories and trains of thought. Evolution by itself does not imply atheism, and many atheists (including John) would argue this. Comparing the two does not provide for a consistent logical formula.

Fallacy # 2 - False Dilemma

Definition: The positing of a premise that sweeps away any other possible alternatives. Considers the situation at hand to be a matter of "either X or Y, but nothing in between." Basically the foundation for all extremist and black-and-white thinking.

Example: "If the pleasure of the orgasm was reduced there would be fewer sex crimes, and less infidelity. Or, the orgasm could've been created so as not to be pleasurable at all. God could've made the sex drive to be something of an instinct where we only want to do it when we want children, and then also created our desire to have children periodically. If this is what God had done instead, then with divine commands to populate the world, heterosexual people would only have sex for the purpose of bearing children in fulfillment of his commands, and that's it."

Sadly enough, this is highly inadequate reasoning.

1) First, John infamously assumes that "Without X, there would be less Y" without taking into consideration various other variables which may contribute to sex-related crimes.

2)Also consider that if the orgasm drives many to commit sex crimes, wouldn't the orgasm be some sort of instinctual drive towards sex-fulfillment? Sex crimes are often a means of gaining control based on psychological studies of many serial rapists. Having sex is not the main motive for going out and raping another individual.

3) If the orgasm was made to have no pleasurable incentive, then why create the "orgasm" to begin with? Even in such an implausible hypothetical world, without some sort of incentive the "drive" itself would be totally useless and hence, not a drive of any sort. Certainly not one which could be used for procreation.

4) John also argues that God could have created a world in which heterosexuals would only have sex for breeding purposes. But why stop there? Why would God allow the existence of homosexuals if orgasm and sexual desire only led to reproduction? Homosexuals would never have the desire for sex, thus homosexuals would be non-existent (therefore, the use of the prefix "hetero" would be unnecessary).

That's all for today folks. Stay tuned for more additions. ;)

The Mouse That Coughed

2010-04-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

Over on TWeb, I'm conducting a poll on whether I should put together a rebuttal to John's new book:

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=137785

Come on over and cast your vote. As of this moment, the yea votes outdo the nays by a sliver of one cipher.

The pros:

It'll really tick John off and may even send him once and for all to Arkham for treatment. Just check his promo post on the book. You'd swear that he was taking it to bed with him every night and cuddling with it. (Cigarette, John?)

It'll provide great entertainment.

The cons:

It'll take some time to compose a rebuttal. Say, 3-4 days all together. After all, it's not like John or his friends have anything new to say, and his contributors include some of the nuttiest people on the planet, like Jason Long and Dan Barker and even Hector Avalos.

John will take it as a sign that his book is so good it is in need of rebuttal. Of course, John has this way of putting "spin" on any reaction to his books such that it means something good. If Norman Geisler used it as toilet paper, John would consider that as a positive because it meant Norm was so engrossed in the book that he was even reading it while he was on the toilet. With John, if you rebut it, it's because it was so good it needed rebuttal; if you don't rebut it, it's because you were scared to do so and knew it was unbeatable.

Naturally, John is quite deluded to think such a thing. It remains that I've had absolutely ZERO requests to rebut John's book, and as noted in a prior entry, the same could be said of one of the world's largest apologetics ministries. In contrast, I've received dozens of requests to refute Zeitgeist. Apparently, if we use John's logic, Zeitgeist is a better rebuttal to Christianity than anything he's written. How 'bout that.

Of course, there's a mediate position too, which I plan to use if the vote ends in a tie, which looks possible right now.

I can always turn the rebuttal over to this pretty face....

John on Chocolate

2010-03-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

You know you like it. Sometimes, like me, all you can think of is chocolate. Come on. You know this is true. Sometimes it dominates your thinking. You cannot wait to have it. You fantasize about it. You must have it. It is probably the best natural high we experience.

So why is chocolate such a powerful motivator? It's not like we need it. We just want it. The power of chocolate is so strong it motivates some thin people into obesity; some kids to waste allowance money; some chefs direct these urges toward disgusting recipes like chocolate-covered ants; and it drives the candy and dessert industries, including Betty Crocker cookbooks.

Chocolate just does not look like something that a divine being would create. It is way too powerful of a motivator. The three masters of suspicion, Nietzsche, Marx and Freud all argued respectively that the three motivators in life are Power, Money, and Sex. But they forgot to add chocolate. Yum. (SNARF, chew chew chew chew….burp.)

So why did God make our desire for chocolate so strong? Why didn't he make the taste less pleasurable? The pleasure of chocolate is just too strong as it is. We all know this. It can’t possibly be my own self-control that’s the problem. With an evolutionary hypothesis this is what we'd expect to find, for our desire for sugar energy is good for the survival of our species. But under a theistic hypothesis it makes no sense.

If the pleasure of chocolate was reduced there would be less obesity, and less health problems. Or, chocolate could've been created so as not to be pleasurable at all. God could've made the desire for energy to be something of an instinct where we only want to do it when we want energy, and then also created our desire to have energy periodically. If this is what God had done instead, I wouldn’t have to hear all that crap about me needing to behave myself, have self-control, and having to do something about all that unsightly drooling. It’s God’s fault. I’m not the least bit responsible.

Moreover, the urge for chocolate seems to be too strong for most of us to overcome it. So why would God create us with this powerful urge and then make it so we got fat and unhealthy if we gave in to the urge too often? I mean, is God nuts, expecting us to actually control our behavior? To consume too much chocolate certainly involves gluttony, does it not? But Jesus is found to prohibit gluttony. What about eating too much chocolate? What's wrong with that? Most people in today's society, even Christians, eat too much of it at times and barf all over the carpet, like I do. And what about diabetics, and people allergic to chocolate? Why would God create this strong urge for them and also make it so they can’t eat it? This too makes no sense on a theistic hypothesis.

Hey, I'll even bet all this talk about chocolate will cause some readers to do a search right now for a chocolate bar in the pantry, even Christians. Say it isn't so. Christian, you go to the candy store. Yet you feel guilty about it. The problem is that any prohibitions that make you feel guilty about this do not come from God.

The bottom line is, God is an idiot if he expects us to actually monitor our own behavior and become responsible on terms of the management of our health and welfare. If He really existed, He’d encase us all in plastic bubbles and never let us out.

Now excuse me, I’m going to go stuff myself with an 18-wheeler’s worth of “Special Dark”.

Does Anyone Really Give a Hoot About John?

2010-03-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

We had lunch yesterday with a leading member of one of the largest apologetics ministries in the world. While I had the chance, I asked him how many requests they've had to deal with John Loftus' works.

They've had as many as I've had -- ZERO.

The hilarity of this is that for the longest time on TheologyWeb, John was boasting about how we'd better be sure and refute his book, because we'd be getting a lot of questions about it.

We didn't. Not one.

This apparently hit John in the ego pretty hard, because despite his profession that I could now be "safely ignored" he just HAD to respond to the above on TWeb:

BTW: That's a good thing. My books just might be sleepers and change many minds before a leading apologist decides to deal with them. You are clueless about the impact they can have to my target audience: Christian university students.

Um, no, John. Both myself and this other ministry hear from plenty of "Christian university students" -- and not one has asked us to refute you. NONE. Though several I hear from do consider you to be a really bad joke -- especially after that heroic showing you put in against D'Souza and Wood, where you sounded nearly as you characterized that guy as being with a disability, which you made fun of some months back. (Remember, the story on that is at http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=132208.)

The reality is that for anyone who knows apologetics well, and who knows atheist arguments, John has had nothing new or special to offer since he first popped into TWeb and made a fool of himself. He seems to think his latest volume does better, and has managed to convince a credible Christian or two to say so, but having already seen the names of the contributors and what they write about, I know better -- and so does everyone on TWeb who has seen John's postings. You can be sure he wishes he could erase that sad chapter in his career, but it's going to come back to haunt him again and again.

We'll make sure of that.

I wrote a full refutation of John's last book, by the way, and have had all of (cough) ONE person ask for it by a special order -- and they asked for a lot of other stuff I had, too.

Will I write a refutation of this one too?

Chances are....I (and some friends) already have -- because John has never had anything to say that hasn't already seen the light of day.

The Perpetual Delusion: Why Loftus Fails

2010-03-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

John informs us once again about another wonderful update to his latest upcoming masterpiece slated for a release sometime next month. Anybody who has been keeping up with the times knows that this book has little chance of being any different than John's Why I Became an Atheist drivel. He constantly hammers away at attempting to be persuasive in his arguments which boil down to "Christianity is a religion and therefore it's bad for you."

Worst of all, John has already revealed that most if not all of his rails against Christianity are directed at conservative and fundamentalist crowds, not any type of sophisticated theology or Christian philosophy. If John is trying to persuade the masses that fundamentalist and ultra-right wing Christianity is bad for society, then he has already attained victory. But once you start breaking away from the typical Christian soundbites, cliche' remarks, and outdated arguments, then Loftus is probably without any limbs to stand on. In fact, if you have deviated from most of Loftus' attempts at convincing you how great his arguments are by addressing the things he almost never brings up, you quickly discover Loftus is without a starting platform.

Why should I even begin to point out that the "Why faith fails" premise is a stupid one? If Loftus, like so many others, defines faith as "believing in things without evidence", then why is he writing books supposedly full of substantial evidence to disprove the validity of faith?

One could say that The Christian Delusion is an unclever takeoff on The God Delusion which seeks to demonstrate the delusional precepts of theistic beliefs, just as John is trying to do with Christianity.

My predicition is that when push comes to shove, nothing contained in The Christian Delusion will provide any insight. It is a rehashing of sentiments put forth by those much more experienced than John, and perhaps it is the case that John knows this. There is nothing wrong with making a name for yourself: That is the American dream. Yet, it is wrong to sell something you probably know doesn't work to someone who is expecting a lot more in return. No ethical person is a snake-oil salesman.

So, much like how McDonalds calls its food "nutritious in value" and how Taco Bell tries to pass itself off as the new Subway, we can probably state with reasonable expectational standards that The Christian Delusion is another repackaged remake of things that stood out much more in the past than in the present. More people are apt to have the iPhone than any other smartphone out there, but that doesn't stop Google from making its own product, albeit slightly fashioned after the Apple's original design. Hence, an apparently obvious principle of marketing is that you can't get people attracted to something they expect is already in existence in terms of function and intended purpose. Instead, you take concept A, dress it up, make a few rearrangements to it, and then pass it off as concept "B".

DC post link: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/03/christian-delusion-books-have-been.html

When John's Arguments Make Sense

2010-03-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

These days its hard to tell between when John is debating live and posting -- either way it comes out as a bunch of meandering, slurred speech, as though he composed it while on mushrooms. Case in point. This posting:

Why Do My Arguments Not Convince Devout Believers?

I merely offer up good arguments against their faith. That's all I can do. Devout believers (my target audience) won't seriously consider them until such time as they have some sort of crisis in their lives that cannot be adequately explained by a good God. They'll seriously consider them at that time. My arguments are like seeds of doubt ready to sprout if and when they experience that crisis. Since many believers do experience some kind of crisis in their lives there will be a certain percentage of believers who, having been previously exposed to my arguments, will leave their faith at that time. It's a waiting game.

Apparently, Loftus is too dull to realize that was he is saying here is that his arguments are most persuasive when people are in a state of mind that is not calm and rational. You have to be afflicted by some sort of emotional turmoil -- at a time precisely when your critical thinking and objectivity is at its lowest -- to be convinced by what he says.

Well, that's what we've been saying all along, isn't it?

"Everybody was Loft-us-ci-zing".....

2010-02-01T06:38:00.000-08:00

Hypocricy About Haiti???

2010-01-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

Anyone who bothers telling you that atheists and "skeptics" are not subject to group think is clearly lying through their own teeth. With the recent Haiti earthquake being a hot-button issue, Richard Dawkins made a few commentary points on the controversial remarks of Pat Robertson, who noted that the earthquake in Haiti was due largely in part because of Haiti's "pact with the devil". And in another one of his efforts to show that modern day Christians don't have the slightest clue of their religion's beginnings (which is only for the mostpart true, as even Holding would argue), John uses Dawkins' article to lend credibility to his site. But what else is new, even if we are in a new decade?

I was thinking of doing my own post on this topic. I have heard Christians say Pat Robertson is a moron for suggesting the Haitian disaster was a divine judgment for too long now. No, they are the morons. Pat Robertson represents Christian tradition, not them, as Dawkins said in a Washington Post column:

Haiti and the hypocrisy of Christian theology By Richard Dawkins

We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, un-premeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery.

The religious mind, however, restlessly seeks human meaning in the blind happenings of nature. As with the Indonesian tsunami, which was blamed on loose sexual morals in tourist bars; as with Hurricane Katrina, which was attributed to divine revenge on the entire city of New Orleans for harboring a lesbian comedian, and as with other disasters going back to the famous Lisbon earthquake and beyond, so Haiti's tragedy must be payback for human sin. The Rev. Pat Robertson sees the hand of God in the earthquake, wreaking terrible retribution for a pact that the long-dead ancestors of today's Haitians made with the devil, to help rid them of their French masters.

Needless to say, milder-mannered faith-heads are falling over themselves to disown Pat Robertson, just as they disowned those other pastors, evangelists, missionaries and mullahs at the time of the earlier disasters.

What hypocrisy.

Loathsome as Robertson's views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition. The agonized theodiceans who see suffering as an intractable 'mystery', or who 'see God' in the help, money and goodwill that is now flooding into Haiti , or (most nauseating of all) who claim to see God 'suffering on the cross' in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, those faux-anguished hypocrites are denying the centrepiece of their own theology. It is the obnoxious Pat Robertson who is the true Christian here.

Where was God in Noah's flood? He was systematically drowning the entire world, animal as well as human, as punishment for 'sin'. Where was God when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed with fire and brimstone? He was deliberately barbecuing the citizenry, lock stock and barrel, as punishment for 'sin'. Dear modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christian, your entire religion is founded on an obsession with 'sin', with punishment and with atonement. Where do you find the effrontery to condemn Pat Robertson, you who have signed up to the obnoxious doctrine that the central purpose of Jesus' incarnation was to have himself tortured as a scapegoat for the 'sins' of all mankind, past, present and future, beginning with the 'sin' of Adam, who (as any modern theologian well knows) never even existed? To quote the President of one theological seminary, writing in these very pages:

"The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God. This is true for every cell in our bodies, even as it is for the crust of the earth at every point on the globe."

You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson's suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the devil. But you worship a god-man who - as you tell your congregations even if you don't believe it yourself - 'cast out devils'. You even believe (or you don't disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the 'devils' in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class. Pat Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?

Educated apologist, how dare you weep Christian tears, when your entire theology is one long celebration of suffering: suffering as payback for 'sin' - or suffering as 'atonement' for it? You may weep for Haiti where Pat Robertson does not, but at least, in his hick, sub-Palinesque ignorance, he holds up an honest mirror to the ugliness of Christian theology. You are nothing but a whited sepulchre.

The entirety of John's post can be found here: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/01/richard-dawkins-on-haitian-disaster-pat.html

What I'm about to follow through with will address the views of Loftus and Dawkins directly. The issue of "hypocricy" might seem convenient given that most Christians today have little vested interest in the laws of the Old Testament. But in order to sift through the context in which Pat Robertson made his remark, we shall have to look at the picture as a whole:

If you listen to Pat's words closely enough, you will notice that he deliberately makes a comparison between Haiti and its neighboring islands. He blames Haiti's misfortunes on its voodoo practices. Unfortunately for Robertson's logic, most if not all of the Carribean islands and their neighbors are guilty of practicing some remnant form of voodooism. In light of this, you have only two options:

1) Pat Robertson speaks out on a topic he knows very little about (as always).

2) Pat Robertson is trivializing the tragedy in order to make his movement more widespread.

All theology aside, there is no hypocricy on behalf of Christians for pointing out Pat Robertson's misconduct here.

The Validity of Personal Testimony

2009-12-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

Occasionally John gets things right from time to time as does everyone else. The catch is that we are all probably subject to the same rules and standards of unawareness to the point where our own factual statements eventually catch up to us.

There's also another thing to keep in mind: How one applies these statements and whether or not they choose to make generalizations which make reflect badly on one's self. For instance:

When I went to Bible College I was not educated. I was indoctrinated. While other believers will protest that their Christian college was different, I wonder if that's true. In order to test this let me explain my experience, compare it with what a good education is, and see what you think. Okay? (emphasis added).

Hmm...John's point is a valid one, up onto the impression that John somehow broke free from this indoctrination. Well, the man has three masters degrees, so how did he obtain these if by earning his "bachelors" he was indoctrinated to begin with?

I sense a logical loophole here. John will push his fans and critics towards anything that gives him credibility, and while doing so, he is not hesitant to use his Bible College "education". Apparently John did not only obtain his bachelors through indoctrination, he also managed to pull off a masters in theology.

What does John mean by "Bible College" anyways? If a Bible-based education (which is far from an education in my personal opinion) is so bad, then why advertise a degree in theological study?

Many atheists across the board have argued that theology is essentially a form of baseless indoctrination. It cannot be substantiated like science, and for that matter is deificient in providing concrete answers for many of its core values and assumptions (and these vary depending on specific religions).

John's obsessive compulsiveness never ceases to fail expectations. Another tale of a close Christian friend props itself which is then soon followed by a *cough* self-recommendation (via Dan Lambert) of his book *yawn*.

Dan is forcing his students to think through my book. Some of them come from Bible thumping backgrounds and are a bit annoyed by it. At the end of his classes he schedules a conference call with me answering questions from his students. Many of them are a bit nervous about that part of the class because they picture themselves talking to Satan, or something like that. But afterward they realize I'm just a human being and even a bit funny. Most Christians stay inside the conclaves of church circles and never meet or talk with a known atheist. It's eye-opening to them. They can no longer demonize me.

Yes, it is no surprise to some that many Christians are extremely close-minded. Many of them do not willingly cross the boundaries of faith and venture into alternatives which might give them an advantage in how they deal with criticisms and or would mold their faith perceptions or...dencovert them to atheists.

Someone can prove me wrong if they dare, but I'd say I am fairly self-consistent on matters of ideologies. For me, it isn't about whether someone "converts" or "deconverts", but if they are in fact of a sound mind.

At Lincoln Christian Seminary it was different, of course, and I wrote about that experience in my book. But by that time with the indoctrination I received from Great Lakes Christian College I was aligned with my conservative denomination on most points of doctrine, and I was never asked to seriously question my faith.

And it still remains that the transition from indoctrination to education is a tough one to make out.

Let's make sense out of this: John argues against the gospel's validity concerning supernatural phenomena supposedly "witnessed" by Jesus' disciples. John's background is one he admits of indoctrination. Is John not committing some sort of pothole for himself when he uses these personal arguments to deconvert others?

What would be the point in writing such a book if not to deconvert? Or, how can John expect to educate others when he blindly appeals to his personal experiences, and dismisses the experiences of the disciples?

As I have said before, if a Christian reads through my book and his faith is strengthened then it did him no harm. In fact, it did him good. If however, reading through it destroys his faith, then that faith was not worth having in the first place.

So by his own admission, John's faith was not worth holding in the first place (after all, communal rejection is not good enough reason for rejecting a belief system; this is similar in nature to holding guns responsible for murders where firearms where employed). Which, by the reasoning of anti-religious atheists, should put John in a state of compromise about his intellectual depth. By his own admission, John confesses that his faith was emotionally based, not reasonably based. All the more to ponder why such an individual would be qualified to instruct on such issues to begin with.

The Younger Generation: The Clueless Future

2009-12-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

My first semester of college is nearing its end and it's always a good thing when you have free time on your hands to spend it checking up on things that don't really affect you personally, except that they may highlight the overwhelming stupidity of the human race and the majority of this previous election's voters. John just so happens to be an embodiment of the overwhelming stupidity. His work and online establishment are a disgraceful insult to the university system of awarding degrees and certificates based on competence, merit, and true understanding, none of which apply to John at all. In fact, despite having three masters, John forms arguments like these:

The Power of the Internet on the Younger Generation

By John W. Loftus at 12/03/2009

Parents beware! The younger generation is rejecting the faith of their fathers and the rise of the internet is making a great impact on them. Today's music, movies, and video games are also making an impact.

My goodness. Three masters and yet as stupid as one of today's preteens. But let's see, what valid points does John make here?

The Internet: Oops, no, sorry...John is as wrong as a fish without a fishbowl. Unless you interpret this "great impact" of the net as dumbing down the communication skills of preteens and Jonas Brother fans into texting abbreviations and slang.

Music: Yes, it has changed but not for the better. Today's music is overrun with rap (crap) and when it just couldn't get any worse it does: with the magic of auto-tune! So not only do you have music which is predominantly materalistic in an already overwhelmingly materialistic culture, but you also have that same music transformed into an atrocious noise which sounds like a suppository is being rammed up a robot's ass.

Movies: Today's movies are either all action no plot, all gore but no point, and all the same recycled, redone, remade version of a classical movie which contained the two former.

Video games: No big changes here. Video games are still as violent as before but with better graphical details.

Just yesterday a young friend told me that in a newly released very popular video game players are shocked to find on the last level they must kill the Pope! ;-) Hint: This game! Is that not the hoot? Also, the movie The Invention of Lying contains an atheist message. Robert Price has even argued that the changing morals of the younger generation will be the undoing of evangelicalism, seen here.

And popular films such as The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia have Christian messages to them because they were both written by Christian authors.

And let's just quickly examine recent events concerning the "changing morals of the younger generation":

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/13/florida.teen.burned/index.html

That is to say, if they have really changed (which I'm not saying they haven't).

What other signs have you detected? There are plenty others.

One sign of detection concerning you John is that you have clearly confused correlation with causation.

Once more from the words of George Carlin (3:01)

Good day to you sir.

John's Overwhelming Stupidity

2009-11-18T06:45:00.001-08:00

John seems to have a hard time deciding whether he wrote his book with the intent to debunk Christianity. Right now it seems he's leaning towards that. But in terms of how, this was a pretty hilarious commentary:

My goal was to overwhelm the believer. I learned this from my mentor James Strauss at Lincoln Christian University, Lincoln, IL. He did this to his Seminary students. The syllabi he handed out for each one of his classes were sometimes books in and of themselves. They included extensive bibliographies. Sometimes they were annotated bibliographies. In his classes he was able to remember and refer to these works quite fluently, and he expected us to get many of them for his classes. We were overwhelmed by him and his arguments because of his wide ranging knowledge of the relevant literature.

There's something ironic and pathetic about this expressed methodology by John.

1) It is clear from this that John himself was "overwhelmed" by work at seminary. As we've noted more than once here, John's mental horsepower is mostly aptly described in terms of a hobby horse.

2) It is also clear why John got his backside plastered at places like TWeb, where folks like me and many others do NOT find such work "overwhelming". In fact, this is a lot like Farrell Till used to do when he tried to overload people with rhetoric. John does it a little differently: He tries to overload his opponent with data -- which he hasn't even bothered to sift through or understand himself, which is why he's always lost when you have an elephant to hurl back at him.

In fact, he as much admits he's just parroting things without any real understanding:

Besides, since in order to overwhelm the believer I had to question every key belief of Christianity, my problem was that as a mere mortal I could not have a scholar's grasp on every topic in it. Science is actually my weakest area, especially the creation/evolution debate. So sometimes I merely refer believers to what scholars in their respective fields of research have argued. No one can have a scholars grasp of God and the universe using the disciplines of science, philosophy, theology, ethics, history, the Bible, and apologetics. No one. So I constantly refer my readers to the scholars who argue my case for me.

So in other words, even if John hasn't got the slightest idea what all this vain babble he plasters around means, he'll use it anyway, just to try to "overwhelm" his Christian readers. Now that's honesty in a can for you.

Little wonder he runs like a little girl from TWeb. We've known this about him since the first week he got there.

Taking the Turkey to Town

2009-11-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

John wanted to start off the Thanksgiving month by demanding that his readers start giving him thanks for his "services" by asking for donations to help fund his trip to a convention held by the Society of Biblical Literature (details below):

As previously announced I've been invited to participate as a respondent on a panel for the prestigious Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in New Orleans, which meets November 21-24. As you'd guess I'm very honored. They will show the movie Religulous by Bill Maher Sunday evening and then the panel will discuss it the next day at 1 PM. The participants include professors Hector Avalos, Dennis MacDonald, Carol Exum, Randall Reed and yours truly. I am to respond to the other four papers. Here is the link. While we're there several of us including Hector Avalos, Jim Linville, and Ken Pulliam will be having a meeting to discuss a non-religious group within the Society of Biblical Literature, which should be interesting and exciting.

Most institutions of learning pay for these scholars to attend the SBL by covering their expenses. Since no institution will pay my way I'm conducting a fund drive to help my wife and I travel there so I can participate. I calculate that we'll need $1,000 to cover the costs of gas, food, and six nights stay in hotels (four while there and one both coming and going). It might be more, but $1,000 should be good enough. To answer your question in advance, yes, we will go regardless of whether or not we raise the needed money. But it is needed nonetheless, lest we go deeper in the hole than we already are financially.

More donations, John? There seems to be a donation for everything these days over at Debunking Christianity. There's a 'Donate' button located on the newly designed homepage, and that usually goes towards funding John's housing expenses, because, according to John, he only makes 75 cents for every one of his books sold.

If John is the honorary guest to this banquet I would suspect that those who had sent him the invitation would have been voluntarily payed his way, albeit to exclude his wife's additional expenses. Furthermore, John clearly displays a Rook Hawkins ignorance when he classifies the SBL in his own words as "prestigious." It has been said before (not on this blog) that the SBL is not a high-end membership club. Just about anyone can get in if they're willing to pay or give some contribution back to the organization. Here is the page that SBL uses to outline their membership criteria: http://www.sbl-site.org/membership/joinnow.aspx

Membership rates are:

Full Membership: $65.00
Student Membership: $25.00
Associate Membership: $45.00

What are the benefits? Vendor and online retailer discounts.

How does one join? By providing their first and last name/e-mail address and creating a password for their SBL account.

Therefore membership with AAA (I do indeed fit into this category) would make one a certified auto mechanic. It's sixty or seventy bucks annually, you know. But you get benefits on basically everything. It's got to be for something merit-based.

OR John thinks that spending a few bucks to join a club is what gives his life meaning. He "belongs" to a community, and he has to, as it would be impossible for him to do otherwise and not get the recognition he believes he so deserves.

Maybe in John's world, money really can buy everything.

Could it be?

Happy Halloween 2009

2009-10-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

Halloween is here and with that being said its the perfect time to kick off a toast to our good friend, John W. Loftus, for being such an amazing inspiration. We couldn't celebrate our first-ever Halloween holiday without involving the person in the world we happen to cherish the most. So as a part of our commemoration to John's admirable qualities, here is his picture below. Opportunities for demonstrating certain specific points only come once in a lifetime. Take a good look at it. Notice anything in particular? Look again. Behold the piercing eyes as he gazes at the camera performing the snapshot (but be warned, don't look too much further than this, it isn't meant for the eyes of children):

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from Debunking Loftus.

Tit for Tattle

2009-10-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Boy oh boy has John been up to no good lately. But hey, what else is new? We've tried to be reasonable in our approach, sometimes we'll admittely get a little cheeky and facetious, but it's all in good fun, right?

Not for John it isn't. He'll crucify you just for pointing out the error of his ways. But we are now at a point in time where John's reactionary status is only good for "entertainment value" as Holding once put it. And what could possibly be the latest you ask? Well...

Turns out John has been "reporting" some of our pages and posts here to make a point to all Christians apologists that JPH should simply be "ignored" and is not to be taken seriously. Within the past month or more, Loftus wanted to garner support for his anti-Holding rantings. He just doesn't insist on ever quiting, does he? Now when he knows that his control of this blog is at a minimum to non-existant degree, he tries other methods to throw us out of the sandbox for good. I truly and sincerely believe he's out to crush our morale. Tisk, tisk, I say. John's lack of warfare tactics will leave him crippled and disabled and helpless in the end. Just watch and see what we do. We dare you, John.

If you have followed the countless times we've been on John's trail, you already know that if you smell a strange scent abrewing, it's probably because John is a complete skunk. Not the cute Loony Tunes type either, although he may be loony.

Being that that's the case and in the event that you agree wholeheartedly, then we don't need to mention or cite examples of where this is the case. Therefore, you probably have also acknowledged that John's moral radar is badly damaged. Here's just a brief list of the absurdities John has tried to rationalize and justify:

1) The creation of a false blog account, and soliciting it to his readers who were not made aware of its falsehood, in order to rally forces against Holding (Response: "Technically I didn't lie. Prove to me that I did.")

2) Making a posting at the time of his 55th birthday making light of an individual's possible mental defect, and thinking nothing of it except that the person in question, who was taped signing in front of his congregation, was a poor-quality singer.

3) Publicly expressing himself in an insubordinate manner to theme-park employees who were simply doing their job, AND must abide by guidelines established by the park's owners and managers. This was more than likely a juvenile publicity stunt that would later give John bragging rights, but in reality demonstrate how simple minded he just really is.

4) Having the notoriety of making outlandish blog entries, whether out of pure anger or mindnumbing stupidity, and when called out on those, chooses to get rid of their proof of existence FOREVER (however, Dumbass John clearly can't see that many of these deleted pages are quickly 'Cached' and can be viewed by the public even after they've been removed).

5) Taking advantage of his fellow contributing authors, respecting them only in the sense that they help put ink on the pages to his books.

John is the Good Samaritan, now isn't he? So let's experiment. How about we get into contact with John's official publisher, Prometheus Books?

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/?main_page=contact_us

There's the link to their contact form. Be sure to give them your full name and e-mail address so that they can respond and it will eventually get to you. Don't worry about providing your P.O. box number or your physical home address, that won't be neccessary, and these people have allot of time on their hands producing the materials that go into making copies of John's books. Let John know we care by letting them in on his credibility and revered social reputation. He'll thank you for it.

And John, we thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak on your behalf. :D

The World's Smallest Violin?

2009-10-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

The lesson to be learned on both sides of the fence is that you never know who you might piss off. They pissed off the wrong guy. - John W. Loftus (8:03 AM, 10/23/09)

As always, John makes the fundamental error that our like are concerned with ceasing his production of books and the modification of his arguments. It goes without saying he clearly has missed the point. Our concern is getting to the meat of the issues he discusses, his honest integrity, and how he deals with other individuals in the online world. I could give a rat's ass on how many books John has authored or intends to author. This only becomes relevant if he is trying to downplay others to make himself look good, like in the example of *cough* William Lane Craig.

John has a new upcoming book entitled The Christian Delusion which will be released sometime in April of 2010. We may of course take the trouble in pointing out that the title for the book is probably based off of Richard Dawkins' bestseller The God Delusion, but that contention is another matter entirely. What needs to be recognized is how strange it is that prior to The Christian Delusion having been released, John is already in the mood for another book. And...why?

I'm Editing Another Book

By John W. Loftus at 10/22/2009

There are a few unnamed Christian wannabe apologists out there who viciously attacked me when I first came online before starting this Blog. I was repeatedly told I was stupid, ignorant, and even brain-dead in so many ways it took me by surprise. I was lied about and verbally maligned with everything I said. The treatment I received from them was absolutely appalling. In fact, they still do that to me. But all I just wanted to do originally was to reasonably discuss the issues that separate us. I did not set out to debunk Christianity. I merely wanted to find a place to discuss the issues in a respectful atmosphere.

Oh...that's right. John is upset. Again. *Yawn.*

For reference purposes, I will continually point readers in the direction of the chapter I wrote for The Cowboy Who Wasn't There just so people know the truth about John's B.S.

Had they done this I'm almost certain I would not have started this Blog and I would not have become so passionate about debunking the very faith they use to justify their treatment of me. If you want to motivate me call me stupid. I told them that doing so was like pouring gas on the fires of my passion but they laughed some more. Even now they still laugh. I dare say that they would've lit the fires that burned me at the stake in a previous generation. So I got to thinking about the people who died so that I have the freedom to speak out, and I dedicated my life to making sure I did not trample on their blood by not doing so. I also realized that since I had the means to effectively argue against the Christian faith I could not simply walk away from what I've learned without also sharing it with others who can benefit from it. So there is no turning back.

Although I'm not particularly impressed by these statements, I think I might be becoming a little worried over them. John's bursts of anger are almost comparable to the anger held by Eric Harris and Dylan Kebloid of Columbine High and the Asian man that had killed 32 students at Virginia Tech back in 2007. I'm serious. Who else but a psychologically deranged man would use figurative language in the context of gasoline building upon a flaming heap of rage?

It would be ludicrous to imply that John wants to go out and kill random and innocent people. But what exactly does he want to accomplish, and how does he plan on going about it to accomplish what he wants? Seung Hui Cho, the 23 year old who was responsible for the Virginia Tech murders, wrote a paper for an English class which described a fictional teenager attempting to shove a banana bar through the throat of his sexually abusive stepfather.

Clearly these murderers were about as whacked out as you can possibly get. Survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre have revealed that Hui Cho was not bullied or intimidated in the slightest. Yet he killed. He did what he had threatened to do. Would you be convinced of the sincerity in this man's face when he videotaped himself making these threats (?):

Notice how similar the language is: "I didn't have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled. But no. I will no longer run." (1:27-1:35). Would you take this person seriously? But he was very serious, mind you. He meant every word. He was so self-absorbed he saw himself as a victim. He made himself a victim. And in the end, he made others victims. Everyone else was the enemy. There were aggressive factors involved which didn't exist. Could the same, to a lesser extent, be true in John's case?

I'm not done yet. I'm editing another book.

Given that you're motive is so incredibly simplistic, I don't expect that the topic content will vary that much or differentiate itself from your previous works. We can only imagine what the next book could possibly be about.

Arguing With Online Apologists: Responses to the Criticisms of the Outsider's Test for Faith and Debunking Christianity

While I am just now in the beginning stages and even though some things might change, several authors have agreed to write chapters for it, for which I am honored and excited, including: Richard Carrier, David Eller, Taner Edis, Ken Pulliam, Keith Parsons, Matt McCormick, Valerie Tarico, Jim Linville, and still others. It'll be good, I promise.

I'm happy that they have so much important things to do like help you mass produce books, John! I think we could probably name about most of these guys as authors to your previous upcoming book, yes?

But in the midst of this all, does John not go against his principle of ignoring "sewer rats" and "trolls"? Does he not end up giving us more popularity and recognition when he does not set out to do this? Wouldn't this be in the same exact sense as John thanking us for creating a blog that uses his name?

It's a shame that there isn't a psychiatric test which measures hypocrisy.

John Recommends Tekton!

2009-10-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

" [Loftus has]s gotten so used to pwning that now he has to pwn himself."
- ApologiaPhoenix on TheologyWeb

Poor John Loftus. Here he just posted a poll where he declares I can be "safely ignored," and what does he go and do?

He goes and gives me even more positive attention.

Here's the setup. In a recent post, Loftus brags about how Ian Boyne of "The Jamaica Gleaner" thinks the atheists are winning the debate war:

I must confess that I find many Christian attempts to rebut criticisms of Christianity pathetically weak and disappointing. I generally find that the atheists and agnostics argue much more soundly and are more intellectually rigorous. I find that the atheists, and especially the agnostics, ponder things more deeply and more profoundly than believers and that they are usually more sophisticated and nuanced in their analyses.

We can debate Boyne's assessment, but there's a point to be made here. John was so excited about this comment that he apparently forgot to read further down (emphasis added):

I think I have read the best of the atheists and agnostics and the best of the theists, and I generally find the former far more intellectually engaging.So when I recommend some Christian thinkers, take me seriously. For while, in my view, the Christian philosophers, theologians and apologists are outclassed by the unbelievers in terms of intellectual rigour argumentation, there are some very serious believers who are very sharp and who meaningfully engage the sceptics.

On the internet, for example, if you go to Christian Think-Tank, you will find highly reasoned, seriously-researched essays dealing with many critical questions about the Bible. Bothered by texts seemingly to justify slavery and genocide? Bothered by texts from the Old Testament which seem to have antiquated and repugnant social law and customs? Shocked by the ethical practices of the Old Testament particularly? Go to that site. There you will find the best scholarship on these matters. These fellows really engage in high-quality apologetics and unlike many apologists they take sceptics' questions seriously and really engage them.

Another excellent site which keeps abreast of every sceptical piece of writing, every atheistic and agnostic scholar or popular writer and which seeks to debunk them is Textron Evaluation and Apologetics Ministry. Bart Ehrman, who is the leading and most-quoted biblical scholar who attacks the authenticity of Scripture, is challenged seriously by these apologists who take him to task over what they term his sloppy scholarship.

Now of course, either Boyne or his spell check got the name wrong (he also called Loftus "John Lotus") but clearly, this is props for my very own ministry here. So I'd like to say, thanks, John! I can now add your endorsement to those from Strobel, Geisler, Eddy and Boyd, etc. and it'll look great on the bottom of my resume'.

You know, sort of the same way you think Geisler recommended YOUR book, right?

The Results Are In

2009-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

Is John an egoist? You decide:

My Point About JP Holding is That He Can Safely Be Ignored.

By John W. Loftus at 10/16/2009

I'm probably not going to leave this post up for long since I don't want to give him any more attention than I must do in order to make my point. My point can be found in the percentages in the poll I conducted in the sidebar for two weeks, not the actual number of votes themselves (most visitors to DC by far didn't even vote). For if I left the poll up for another two weeks or months the percentages of votes among people who are interested in the God-hypothesis on the web would probably be the same, except that he would run out of ignorant Christian friends who voted as they did (he cultivates them). Look at the poll and the percentages with me:

What Do You Think of JP Holding?

1) One of the best apologists around (I’m an ignorant Christian) 47 (10%)

2) An average dime-a-dozen wannabe apologist 59 (13%)

3) An obnoxious hack who is an embarrassment to Christianity 137 (30%)

4) I don’t know of him 207 (46%)

Sure I slanted the poll by how I phrased the questions, but I did give people the option to vote positively if they wanted to. Of the people who know him 81% don't think he's important enough to engage (from 1-3), while 56% of this same grouping think he's a total embarrassment to the faith he seeks to defend. Still an additional 46% of the people who voted don't even know he exists (from 4). Add them together and that means nearly 90% of the people interested in the God-hypothesis don't know him or care to hear about him (from 1-4). That's why I usually ignore him, because if we subtract the 25-30 votes from his ignorant Christian friends who cannot think for themselves who voted for him (from 1, and come on, that is the only reasonable explanation for many of these votes since only ignorant Christian friends who do not know of Swinburne, Plantinga, Craig, Copan, Moreland, and others, would vote that way), then he can be safely ignored. He is no threat to skepticism. My goal is to marginalize him, and I will.

That is, until he becomes better educated and also comes up to the adult world of respectful discourse.

Consider this: John admits to slanting the questions in order to produce presupposed answers, and based on this fact now argues that the voting participants deliberately and purposefully voted against JP. We ask you rational people, is this an honest inquiry or is it meant to personally attack and demean?

"It's Not Personal, Really!"

2009-10-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about a man that just can't keep to his own word. What's even more of a shocker is that people actually listen to such a person and actually take his claims and assertions seriously. This alone is enough to compel someone to lose faith in all of humanity, a boat that has long sailed as far as I'm concerned.

Readers: Is there anything peculiar about this(???):

What do you think of JP Holding?

	One of the best apologists around (I’m an ignorant Christian)
	An average dime-a-dozen wannabe apologist
	An obnoxious hack who is an embarrasment to Christianity
	I don’t know of him

This poll literally came out of nowhere. The last post prior to the poll was this.

In fact, it was only a couple of days ago this week where John added a little intro tidbit into one of his latest here. That particular tidbit reads:

I have usually ignored JP Holding for the most part this past year or so and I was just wondering what people thought of him. Check out the following redated post and the poll to the right in the sidebar. Until he comes out of the sewer and up to the adult civilized world of discourse my plan is to ignore him. I call on both Christians and skeptics to do likewise.

Hmm...that's....odd, to say the least. What did Holding do this time to upset John?

Is it this post right here? http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=132208

Funny that post is a result of John's own stupidity. JP is only guilty of posting the thread documenting his idiocy. It's not JP's fault that John is a total asshat.

In response to the poll, Holding posted a parody comeback on TWeb here: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=132677

And so it is in these regards John thinks it's appropriate to bring up Holding's name, for the millionth time.

John's followers seem to be too stupid to figure it out for themselves: Why would Loftus make a spontaneous poll about JPH and then argue that if Holding somehow doesn't change his ways, he's going to be put on "ignore" (something Loftus has said countless times)? Furthermore, why would we CARE??? John isn't and has never been that important. Anyone who thinks that Holding does it just to get Loftus' "attention" is just about as deranged and deluded as Loftus is himself.

What's clear is that John suffers from delusions of grandeur, or delusions of an exceedingly high and undeserved status of significance and worth. But his followers keep lapping it up. They are oblivious to the patterns of behavior. There is simply no good reason that Loftus should have posted the poll in the first place other than Loftus' inability to deal with his own shortcomings when they are made explicit by someone else.

What's the difference between what us TWebbers say and do to what John says and does? The answer: We don't claim to ignore anything John has said or continually says. This blog wouldn't be here if our main objective was to ignore him. It's here to point out what should be obvious to the general public, but the gene pool has determined otherwise. The only claim ever made by this site which even remotely reflects what John has said is in offering civil discussion and debunking the claims coming from the other side. But everything else is a matter of words and actions, and how well the two line up with each other.

John complains about the superstitiousness of modern-day people, and yet his followers don't know or even want to willingly consider the lies and half-truths that John has thrown out to the world under the guise of free speech and civility. He really is just as bad as the Pat Robertson types, and about as intelligent. I would suspect that these claims would eventually end their cycles of repetitiveness and redundancy, but it's best to realize that John is a broken record. We should expect more of these instances to come in the future and we should also expect that John will blame his own faults on what Holding has to say or what he has done in the past. This is just standard Loftus-protocol.

Recently Mike Huckabee (trust me when I say that I would not normally quote this man) said the following on his show:

"You know it's foolish for us to act as though our point of view makes us always right and the other guy always wrong. Having different views is a good thing. But having different standards is not. If something is right, it's right. And if it's wrong, it's just wrong. Diversity is a good thing, but duplicity is not."

The primary error in John's thinking is that this blog is going to disappear and vanish long before Debunking Christianity actually "closes shop" for real. But the truth is is that even after Debunking Christianity goes bye bye for good, we will still be here.

So John, it's time for you to accept the fact that you're not that special. Deal with it.

John Loftus on "Enlightenment"

2009-10-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

John posted a new video today featuring his second interview with Andy Diekroger on The Enlightenment Show. To count, there have been many "problems" John has brought up that somehow need immediate reconciliation with Christian orthodoxy and belief in a benevolent God, ranging from the "problem" of evil, why every living thing on the planet should have been created a vegetarian (because vegetarianism doesn't consume living life forms), how the God of the Bible condones animal abuse (???) and encourages that those made in "His image" should take advantage of the environment. And now, John strikes at another angle using the same premise: "The Problem of Pain":

The Enlightenment Show: John Loftus and the Problem of Pain from FreeThought Fort Wayne on Vimeo.

As always, John makes extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence:

1:28 "Even bad people don't need to suffer as much as they do." Why? And what specifically here are we defining as "suffering"? If good people suffer too much, why should bad people suffer less???

One such example of a "bad person" that comes to mind would be in the case of serial killer and well-known cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. During his killing spree, Dahmer is known to have lured young homosexual men into his apartment complex, drug them, mutiliate them, and then dump their limbs into a tub of acid or refrigerate them for later consumption. In the year of 1994, while Dahmer was in prison, he was murdered by one of his fellow inmates as he took a swing at Dahmer's temple with a large freeweight. The man who killed Dahmer claimed it was God who had been giving him direct and specific orders. But that's beside the point. What really matters here is how you go about comparing the fact that Dahmer cannibalized his unsuspecting victims to his own murder at the hand of a dumbbell. Did Dahmer suffer too much, Mr. Loftus?

5:59 John Loftus on The Passion of The Christ: "The film itself was...uh...brutal...uh...I could not reconcile how any person would deserve that kind of punishment for ANYTHING that they did. Even my worst enemy (and I had one at the time). I would NEVER wish that upon her [presumably Linda the stripper]. I would never wish that upon anybody which was so gruesome. I thought to myself 'That's ignorance.'" Ignorance? Maybe I'm ignorant for failing to understand why this is the case. Or is John ignorant for failing to understand the purpose and function of Roman crucifixion? Indeed by modern standards, crucifixion and flagellation are primitive standards of punishment and carrying out justice, based on primitive standards of criminal criteria. But this is also a somewhat ethnocentric projection of Western society and values. The standards held by other distant and foreign nations of the past are what was simply acknowledged and understood by the general populace at the time. Usually a "normal" individual doesn't go out and commit third-degree murder for the same reasons that a citizen in a predominantly Muslim nation does not go out and steal bread or publicly criticize Islam in a derogatory manner. Ignorance applies only in the sense that Loftus doesn't understand or fathom the what and why for the topic he is discussing, therefore no one else does or can, either...

7:17 John on his book, Why I Became an Atheist: "If Barbara Walters can write a 'tell-all' book where she tells about having sex with so and so, and doing this with so and so, why can't I? This is a book of 'tell-all'. This is a 'tell-all' era. So, I tell all, you know [laughs].?" The first chapter "My Christian Conversion and Deconversion" is something I have commented on in my chapter contribution to The Cowboy Who Wasn't There. See if you think that John wrote the book for tell-all purposes.

9:36 Returning to The Passion of the Christ: "I had already decided that such a view was ignorant. But when I saw how well the movie did, when I saw the numbers, when I saw people flocking too it, when I saw churches literally buying blocks of seats just so everyone could go see it...that was just too much for me. What I did was decide to come out." Oh?...

11:36 On Criminal Punishment: "What is the relationship between punishment and forgiveness? We all know of people who have been punished for their crimes where the victim still doesn't forgive him. And likewise, we know of people who have never been punished for their crimes, where a victim has forgiven him, even though he has never been punished. There is no logical relationship between forgiveness and punishment. There is no reason that you have to be punished that I can forgive you. I should be able to forgive you even if you have never been punished." A valid point to be made for modern society. However, as stated before, this is being argued for modern society and not taking antiquity into account. It is also disingenuous to state that the Bible argues that forgiveness and compassion are achieved only through bloodshed. Biblical narratives and analogies today would be considered simplistic as Western modernism would seek out more practical resolutions and not resort to barbaric depictions or violent alternatives. But again, this was the spirit and passion of the age by which people made their cases clear. This was their means of communication and language, and therefore, this is what society operated on as it was best in tune with cultural traditions and responses to the environment. Language evolves like everything else. Therefore it might be said that the violence and barbarism in the Old Testament exists because it was reflective of the environmental conditions of the age, not because people were deranged in their mentalities. Two examples from the Old Testament include:

1 Kings 3:16-28

Genesis 22:1-12

22:44 John's Reiteration of his Outsider's Test for Faith: "The number one place we get our biases from are our parents and our culture. We grow up adopting them. That's why when you are grown up in a Muslim culture, you will see things from a Muslim perspective. Just like a pair of glasses. And the same thing with a Christian culture or a Hindu culture or any other culture. In fact, if you grew up in some places in America you'd grow up in a snake-handling culture." In fact, religion isn't exclusive in this sense and there is no good reason for John to treat it like it somehow is. This might not be his goal in mind exactly, but consider that cultural academics are more likely to view things holistically (as in wholly) rather than by a culture's individual components. So someone growing up in a Muslim culture not only has a "bias" in showing favoritism to Islam, they probably are also in favor of the economic and political systems of that particular culture as well. Everything from how you eat, dress, speak, walk, and bathe are all a part of one's relative cultural background.The Outsider's Test for Faith tries to break up culture into different segments where they simply cannot be neatly segregated into sections. They are intertwined to some degree or another, but never entirely independent.

44:03 Historical Validity of the Old Testament: "Even evangelicals like Peter Ins, Kenton Sparks, and John Walton, three bona fide evangelical Christians, are now saying that the Old Testament mythology is borrowed from Mesopotamia...They're admitting that these stories were borrowed myths from their day and age. So Adam and Eve never existed." Gasp! John implies this is some sort of problem. It isn't. The evidence of this issue clearly points to the Jews refining the story of Gilgamesh to make their own unique point clear. John apparently also isn't aware that there is evidence of a flood which occured prior to Gilgamesh being transcribed. Of course, he probably isn't arguing against this as a "possibility." But the point being made is that the story was taken from Mesopotamia to build on the original authorship of Gilgamesh with some intentional reformations in mind. The original myths themselves are considered by historians to be based on somewhat factually historical information but exaggerated for the simple purpose of creating a captivating narrative for the masses. It is to depict them in a positively symbolic painting. The Jews took this and used it to convey their own philosophical beliefs. The only problem with this argument of John's is if you do in fact choose to believe it as a literal historical account.

The rest of the video consists of philosophical and theological arguments against God, which I try to distance myself from as it does not pertain to my subject area of study.

A Tale Told by an Idiot

2009-09-21T06:51:00.001-07:00

John Loftus must have at least 20 feet, because it seems like he has a whole lot to put in his mouth. In a post titled "History, Faith and the Real William Shakespeare" poor John used Wikipedia as a reliable source -- which is dumb enough as is -- to support the even dumber argument that "there is a great amount of doubt about who he [Shakespeare] actually was..."

What this is, rather, is yet more evidence that John Loftus doesn't do serious checking on anything whatsoever before he opens his big fat yammer.

As James Hannam wrote for me in Shattering the Christ Myth, there is NO doubt about who Shakespeare was -- except among fringe loony tunes, the sort of people who would edit Wikipedia. I'll quote liberally from Hannam (you can find this at http://jameshannam.com/christmyth.htm)

**

Deep inside the vaguely fascist edifice of the University of London’s Senate House is a room that the university authorities view with some embarrassment. It forms part of the library and is mainly used for seminars and evening studies. I spent many happy hours there myself learning how to read Anglo Saxon manuscripts. Before class began, I once took the opportunity to scan the spines of the books that line the room’s walls. They formed an incoherent collection relating to late Tudor literature, textual criticism, cryptology and William Shakespeare. I learnt from the professor who took our class that the books all belonged to a certain Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence (d. 1914) who donated them to the library, with a substantial sum of money, on condition that they remained together in their original cabinets. The library was not too keen on the books but it wanted the cash so the deal was struck.

You almost certainly haven’t heard of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence and neither had I until I found myself sitting in his room. So, why is the University of London embarrassed about him? Well, imagine if the library at Yale had a Graham Hancock Room full of books devoted to proving the existence of Atlantis. Or that Princeton accepted the Dan Brown Collection, containing the source material for the Da Vinci Code. That is how most academics feel about the life’s work of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence – for he set out to prove that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare.

In fact, you could fill a fair-sized library with all the volumes from the subgenre devoted to showing that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare. It is not just Sir Francis Bacon who is fingered. Christopher Marlowe is the current culprit of choice, even though he died before most of Shakespeare’s plays were written. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was a blameless Tudor aristocrat who was no more capable of penning King Lear than I am, but several ‘researchers’ have produced books claiming that he did just that. There is even a special name attached to those who deny the blindingly obvious fact that Shakespeare wrote his plays. They are called anti-Stratfordians.

Capacious though the output of the anti-Stratfordians may be, it has evinced little or no reaction from mainstream Shakespearean scholarship. Most critics do not want to give the harebrained idea any more exposure than it receives already. However, Professor Sir Brian Vickers, in the guise of a book review of the latest anti-Stratfordian tome, gave the whole lot of them a good blasting with both barrels in the Times Literary Supplement in 2005. And Professor Jonathan Bate (1958 –) devoted a chapter in his excellent book The Genius of Shakespeare (1997) to trying to understand the reluctance of so many people to give the Bard his due. It is worth mentioning that Vickers and Bate, eminent scholars that they both may be, agree on almost nothing apart from the absurdity of the anti-Stratfordians. Indeed, I would be reluctant to have them both of them around for tea at the same time in case their disagreement on the virtues of the First Folio descended into physical violence.

Bate suggests there are three reasons why people are prepared to believe that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays. The first is the lack of any original manuscripts. We tend to make a fetish of a certain kind of physical evidence and when it is not present, become unreasonably sceptical about everything else. As it happens, several documents signed by Shakespeare do exist but these not include any of his plays.

The second reason is that most people do not have a sufficient background in the subject to properly evaluate the evidence. Anti-Stratfordians tend to be amateurs who have not read enough on Elizabethan theatre to see just how wildly implausible their ideas are. Let me give you an analogy. I can recognise the difference between a Yorkshire and Lancashire accent without very much trouble because I am English. I would never mistake an Irishman for a Scotsman. On the other hand, when I was living in New Jersey, I was frequently assumed to be Irish and had no idea that Californians sound different to Texans. Distinguishing accents isn’t something you tend to be taught. Rather you learn it by experience and by being immersed in a particular culture. It’s the same with history. If you have been studying a period for long enough, ideas like the anti-Stratfordians’ are as obviously incongruous as a baseball bat on a cricket pitch.
The third reason that Shakespeare is frequently denied the credit for his plays is that after he died, he was deified. His reputation today is so stratospheric that it seems implausible that a grammar school boy from a small town in the Midlands could have achieved what he did. Much is made of the fact he never went to university or that he had bourgeois origins. Surely the man who reached such heights of greatness must have been born of the nobility or at least attended Oxford or Cambridge. The normality of Shakespeare’s life trips us up. He was a successful business man and professional actor as well as playwright whose career we can trace quite accurately. Furthermore, he was recognised as extremely gifted during his lifetime. It made him rich.

... The nature of the evidence brought forward by conspiracy theories is much the same whatever the subject. There is a false belief that we have relatively little contemporary evidence for the life of Shakespeare or Jesus. In fact, we know far more about both of them than almost any other personage of their times, barring military heroes and royalty. Likewise, the theorists tend to present contrived readings of the relevant texts, claiming they provide clues that simply do not stack up to careful analysis. Furthermore, the perfectly good testimony we do have for the orthodox view is rejected by the conspiracy theorist for bogus reasons. For Shakespeare we are told that all his fellow actors were in on the deception. While with Jesus, we are told we cannot trust any Christian text. In other words, the people most interested in both Jesus and Shakespeare, their followers and colleagues respectively, should be debarred from giving evidence.

**

John makes the idiot statement, "The answer to the question of who wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare depends on which scholar you read and accept. Different scholars on this question will place different probabilities to their own suppositions." NO, JOHN. No "scholar" believes any of this anti-Stratfordian crap -- not any scholar who knows anything abotu Shakespeare. This is yet another example of John's uncritical stupidity (as if relying on Wikipedia was not enough evidence). He has no sense of sifting through authorities critically. That's why he keeps getting gigged for using con artists like Spong as sources. There is NO doubt, here, John, except among, ignorant people. Meaning YOU.

John closes his post with the whiny-whine, "....it is barbaric of God to send people to hell if they get a historical question wrong!" Well, John, keeping in mind that I believe hell to be a state of shame and disgrace, not fire and pitchforks, I don't find it barbaric at all for God to send someone there who is as irresponsible with the facts as you are -- not to mention someone like you who lies constantly, insults and mocks people with disabilities, and can't admit error until you've had all your limbs torn off.

Do you get my point, John?

John W. Loftus, Friend of the Disabled

2009-09-18T07:25:00.001-07:00

I'll start with an admission of bias: I'm someone who has been around people with disabilities for a long time. My stepfather and grandfather were totally blind. My mother was a teacher of students with disabilities for many years. I married a wonderful woman who is legally blind and has other minor health issues.

That's why John Loftus is about to get his can kicked again by me here, for his birthday post titled, "At 55 Today I'm Wondering If I Can Book This Guy in Advance to Sing at My Funeral! LOL"

In case he takes it down....John links to a YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1ZU3YpLM18 in which a man in church with some sort of speech impediment works his way through Amazing Grace. The video title (and whoever posted it this way deserves as much scorn as John does) implies that the man is a former crackhead, though it's far from clear that he is. He may have some type of disability; a speech impediment like this one could have any number of causes. But regardless of the cause, to post such a thing in mockery is a disgrace, and for John to make fun of it this way is triply disgraceful.

Let's be reminded that John has a record for mocking people with disabilities. As Truth be Told, our host here, noted in his chapter for The Cowboy Who Wasn't There:

***

Perhaps one of the most shameful moments for Loftus came after a time after he debated TWeb member "ApologiaPhoenix" (Nick Peters) on the problem of evil. The consensus of TWeb members was that Nick handily defeated Loftus in debate. To set this up, it should be noted that Nick has a disability (Asperger's Syndrome, with some autism). After realizing that he was not the recognized winner of the debate, Loftus wrote:

No one but the ignorant would claim that I am ignorant.

To me Nick is just like a very bad Karaoke singer but doesn't know he is one, so he continues to badly sing out his song of arguments

Because he's handicapped, Christians here won't tell him otherwise. He's going to study to be an apologist, but he will fall flat on his face. There are a great many people in ministry who will fall flat on their faces because no one told them the truth that they should not pursue such goals. Nick is one of them. But since Christians believe God can make clay into gold they encourage him in faith, even though deep down inside they really don't believe it.

Tell him the truth! Save him from pursuing what will be a dead end career for him.

Nick, when you realize you don't have the brain power for being an apologist and your hopes and dreams are dashed, and possibly even you faith, remember who told you the truth. It was me.

Do something else with your life, and I'm serious.

For the record, it should be noted that even at this early stage in his career, several notable names have recognized Nick's talent in this area, notably Norman Geisler.

***

Although John's arm was twisted to the point that he issued a half-hearted apology for this commentary, it is obvious from this last post of his that he hasn't learned his lesson. I often say that fundy atheists like John retain a certain amount of bigotry from the fundy past, and this is a classic example.

And of course, typical of John, he can't even own up and makes excuses when called down. "Rob R" gave John a good lashing for this that deserves to be noted:

Do we know that this guy actually damaged his mind on drugs? He could've been born with mental retardation.Careful John. You know what scripture says about those who mock the poor (and it would seem the same logic of that consideration applies to the poor of mind).So just what human dignity and worth can we say that he has in a materialistic picture?

Loftus' reply speaks for itself in terms of his arrogance and ignorant bigotry:

You're a killjoy Rob. It's my birffday and I can have fun if I want to. So there.

You're absolutely right, John. It's your birthday. Go out and have some fun. Why don't you celebrate some more by pulling crutches away from people with polio, giving blind people the wrong bill back for change, and kicking Stepen Hawking's wheelchair down a steep incline? How about you start a show titled America's Funniest Disabilities? You'd be the perfect host since you obviously have a very serious one. Unfortunately, there's no cure or medication for the one you have, which is outright bigotry combined with magnified stupidity.

Happy Birthday, John, you jackass.

Changing Shifts

2009-09-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Today's important news to note: The Cowboy Who Wasn't There has finally been published for the internet to see. My own chapter and a few of JP's can be viewed for free as sample chapters. Although it was against my intentions of having the book available only to Tektonics subscribers (what I'd consider sort of preaching to the choir), JP compiled the project himself, I merely contributed. Go out and get subscribed if you aren't already if you'd like to read the whole thing yourself, although I'm sure with time it may go onto Amazon.com or even into print (JP has no current intentions of it going into print at this time).

On other things, akakiwibear has returned from his blogger dormancy and has requested to be removed from the list of blog staff here at Debunking Loftus. I have respected his wishes and he has now been removed as a contributor to this blog. It is also worth noting that because akakiwibear made this public on his own blog, John determined that once akakiwibear was removed, he could once again comment on Debunking Christianity. I can only make that out as John trying to remove as much vocal opposition as possible, because as much opposed as this blog is to John, I still permit him to comment here.

Harry McCall has also returned in new form: That is, he has severed ties completely with Debunking Christianity because of John's overbearing narcissism. I have been considering the possibility of bringing him onboard to replace our old friend kiwi because McCall is a former DC member and can shed some light on things most of us here wouldn't even know about. Not to mention John's attempts at silencing opposition would be further thwarted. ;) McCall can accept or decline the informal invitation if he so chooses. In the event that McCall does join us, I am hoping that we might be able to bury the hatchet in areas where it has been most prominent, and we can all start on a new foot.

On other non-blogging related updates, Patrick Swayze, the star of "Ghost", "Roadhouse" and "Dirty Dancing" died yesterday after having fought a two year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. Swayze knew he was dying and that his death was inevitably in the near-future, but nonetheless is it a tragic loss for the light of the world. R.I.P., Patrick (1952 - 2009).

Our Gift to John

2009-09-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

As was expected, John had been venturing around TWeb anonymously scanning traces of his name to and fro to find something good he can pick at and inflate his ego to newer and more lengthier heights.

Earlier today John added a music app titled "Godless songs" fashioned after the music app I put up on your right, which contains the featured song "Sad, Sad Doubting John" written by JPH and sung by TWebber "Andius" a new favorite of mine. What made this suspect was that the app John had uploaded was from the same exact site mine is: http://www.mixpod.com There would be no reason to be alarmed over this if it weren't for the fact that only after a couple of days of embedding it here, John proceeded sometime either this late morning or mid-afternoon to follow suit. That's just one of many reasons, at least, to suspect that watching eyes are upon our community, even if John claims otherwise.

Now to be truthful here, I did personally send John an e-mail notifying him of the YouTube video version of the song to your right. And was it done in the manner of "sticking it to him"? Almost so. I just happen to know that the outcomes and reactions coming from Team Loftus are almost always of predictability, and I want Loftus to know that he can't just waltz through arenas without first being challenged by a gladiator or two.

Contrary to the first impression you might have from this newest post, John has known for at least a week now of our upcoming plans for him. This isn't necessarily news. And another thing, if John really had so much disdain for TheologyWeb, why does he go through its threads? (Case in point):

JP Holding promises to write a rebuttal to my work. He (or someone with his approval) wrote:

"John W. Loftus continues to be one of the most well-known internet celebrities of atheism ever since the publication of his collective biography entitled Why I Became an Atheist. In it, he argues that he was once a champion of Christian moral values but was later ostracized by his local faith community for committing adultery and was subsequently overwhelmed by intellectual arguments in which he advocates that by these arguments alone Christianity hangs by a very thin rope. For these past years since the publication of his book, Loftus' writings have remained unchallenged, or at least, have been challenged inadequately."

Thanks JP. Is there anyone saying the same kind of things about you and your arguments?

;-)

Loftus doesn't even provide a link of where he got that. But the answer is right here: http://thecowboywhowasntthere.yolasite.com That's the companion website, (similar to what Richard Carrier had created for John's new book, The Christian Delusion) to our little "project", by the way. Funny that it had only been created yesterday, while the e-mail I sent out to John is nearly a week old. Loooooks like somebody hasn't been true to their word lately. ;)

Two other points:

A) John expresses his paranoia by supposing that the site was created by Holding, as always. NEWS FLASH FOR THE DAFT: Most of the new Loftus sites that have or are coming out these days (including this one) have been or are created by ME. And another thing, I don't need or require Holding's "approval", Johnboy. Usually what happens in these circumstances is that a website is created first, and I consult JP second. Projecting yourself onto others does the world no good, Johnny...

B) The fact that the paragraph being quoted is only a fragment of what is on the site just makes John out to be a snake in the grass. If that was all that was written, it certaintly would compliment him in such a way as to warrant a boosted ego and sense of self. But here's what John left out for his own convenience:

But like most things with humanity, there is always another side of the story. The upcoming e-book "The Cowboy Who Wasn't There" is a substantial rebuttal (and in some respects, a refutation) to the writings of John W. Loftus and his philosophical arguments against "religion." The Cowboy Who Wasn't There will not only analyze the primary arguments set forth by Loftus, but in doing so will demonstrate how the "New Atheist" movement and their arguments are based on stereotypes and oversimplifications. With a jab of humor mixed in with direct confrontation, the book sets out to convince the reader that emotional stakes can and do run high on both sides of the God debate. This book is not arguing mainly against atheism in favor of Christianity, it also advocates for a middle ground in which both atheists and Christians can have intellectual dialogue safely and respectively. It advocates for the integrity of scholars and the ultimate search for truth despite what may be considered popular and appealing to a specific demographic.

If John had included the rest of that paragraph, there is no way he would have been able to make it look like it was being complimentary, as it was never even intended to be interpreted in such a way. Just because one might describe a person as "well known" doesn't really say that they are of admirable character. Barack Obama won the presidency because he was a popular icon of appeal, not because he was actually a straightforward candidate or the best man for the job. John teaches what again?

At least we now have proof that John just can't let things go. He is always watching for opportunities.

Take Biology Classes Online, With Debunking Christianity!

2009-08-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Joe E. Holman hits up this one as he goes into a nonsensical rant trying to get a valid point across to Christian fundamentalists. As with most of my posts, I give you the link to this grand stupidity which will soon follow:

Imagine you are hiking in the woods. As you pass by a pond, you get a glancing view of some scavenging birds as they fly off some ways away from you. You make nothing of it. You keep walking. Then you spot it in the distance—the reason the birds flew away. A deer comes ripping through the bushes as he’s being chased by a grizzly. You hide quickly as best you can. With any luck, you’ll go unnoticed and that deer will be the thing’s lunch instead of you.

As you've seen, not only is he big, but boy does he move! He's strong too. One good swat from him is equal in force to a small piano (about 450 pounds) being swung from the height of a second story window. You know that if caught, he could literally knock your head off! You’d need a good gun to fend him off if he had his mind set on rending your flesh like the skin off a thigh from Church’s Chicken. But thankfully, you don’t have to go up against him. He’s gone now and so you can forget about him just like humans do all the things on planet earth that God creates which are deadly.

So forget about the bear.

Now imagine you are at the same pond, seeing the same birds fly away. This time, you are startled to see a red beast with big red eyes, with scales instead of fur, and fangs and canines just like the bear. If you will, he has a pointed tale and horns. Hiding, you are hoping that this deer-chasing demon is no smarter or more observant than that bear.

The demon is so different from the bear, but strangely, he’s no more or less terrifying than the bear. Let’s switch them; let’s say the bear was the mythical beast and the demon was the evolved creature. Would the raging bear not be exactly as terrifying or more than the demon? Would not someone who was sheltered from nature’s harsh realities feel the same fear as if that someone saw a traditionally described demon? Of course that person would.

So, let’s say you did see that bear. And let’s say you happen to be a Christian, but then it dawns on you (if you’re a halfway thinking Christian) that all this time you’ve been afraid of the Devil when you should have been afraid of (and prepared to face) things like bears—of things that are real and that you have a much higher chance of encountering, of things that are deadly and everywhere, just waiting to bring your life to an end.

And then, for the first time, it starts to occur to you that you’ve been praising a God for building a world for his people that is full of unspeakable horrors. You are now starting to realize that anything you ever saw on Friday the 13th or Halloween or The Outer Limits is no more horrifying than what God has exposed his people to and that we take for granted on this planet.

"Ooooh boy, it sure is! We live in such a vicious cycle of nature!"

Once more, the chances of someone getting mauled to death by a grizzly is slim to nothing unless a person should cross the path of the grizzly, and almost in deliberate fashion. You still have better chances of getting struck by lightning, as popular statistics have shown and demonstrated. The Great White shark is not the beast portrayed in the movie Jaws. Most predatory animals are not out to get humans for the following: 1) We are organisms foreign to their native habitat, and consequently are not a typical or convenient food source for their dietary requirements, 2) Humans possess industrial and mechanical resources and it follows that most animals would rather stick to their business than go around walking the streets of Manhattan or New York 3) We are the most dangerous animal in the world. No other creature has been capable of what we have done to other humans in the history of the world, to include torture.

It strikes me as appauling that atheists would try to argue based on emotions rather than intellect, something they primarily accuse Christians of doing almost all of the time. In his own little way, Joe is arguing about just how "evil" nature is, especially evolution. Hypocrites, perhaps?

Alright, so it can be pretty much said that Holman, like Loftus, is ignorant of basic zoology. But ignorance is not perhaps the best word to describe this:

Better rocks than other lifeforms, but maybe plants would be a start. Even...hair grease..would be better than having a deity who has creatures killing and consuming other lifeforms for sustainance.

Sounds like Holman has a thing for P.E.T.A., or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I'm much more Ted Nugent inclined myself. And with that said, what I'm about to say will be addressed to both Holman and the idiots who support P.E.T.A.:

It's funny when animal rights activist complain of people eating other "lifeforms", or that animals have the same basic societal rights and priveleges as do humans (that might be even moreso if humans were allowed to defecate in public; oh wait...dammit). Those poor animals. Humans don't need meat as part of their food intake. Animals should just be left alone! We all need to refrain from the ingestion of animals and animal products. We should just eat plants. If that happened, we'd have no more political scandals, wars in the Middle East, or even human genocide. There you go. Problem solved.

I guess it never occurs to this crowd that plants are LIVING? Yes, living. They're alive. They grow, like humans and animals do. Why would you make such a fuss over the consumption of animals and not defend plants while you're at it? Maybe if PETA and Greenpeace got into a confrontation, their philosophies of non-violence would quickly dissappear, ya think? Exactly...

"Who wants to learn more from Debunking Christianity?"

My answer:

NO THANKS, I'll invest my money with employed professional professors, not internet bloggers...

The John W. Loftus House of Horrors

2009-08-25T08:29:00.001-07:00

What with John taking a break (so he says) these days, there isn't much to write about here, but we had to take notice of this picture he posted of water damage, he says, to his living room. If you ask me, it looks more like what happened after he hit the ceiling when he discovered his book sales weren't as good as he'd hoped. Or maybe he got a little TOO excited with that upstairs carpet cleaning job.

But anyway, we just want to encourage people to help John out with the damages. I mean, just look at the OUTSIDE of his house:

On second thought, better wait until Sept. 10 or so. By then we'll have something for John that'll make him blow a few more holes in the roof.

Yes He's Back. Back Again...

2009-08-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

Loftus makes all sorts of promises that he never keeps. This time he says that he "ignores" these types of blogs, usually the types of blogs that criticize and question John on matters that really count. They're direct, you see. Loftus prefers it that his critics keep hush hush about certain details and go about things nicely instead of realistically. Isn't John supposed to be the individual that acts on realism instead of acting on niceness? Well, the best answer to that question is that it's all a facade. It's a fraud. John is a self-serving person. His interests aren't in establishing truth, except that which he considers to be "truth", but it's too debauched to really be considered by the rest of the world as such. Tidbits and pieces don't constitute whole truths. They do, however, settle for half-truths, or LIES.

In order to maintain "consistency" John makes several response posts to this blog without officially calling us out by name or blog title. He figures no one will notice because his audience is stupid and gullible enough to believe it or to justify John for making these responses out of ambiguity. His expectations and standards he sets for his subscribers may not be far off from what is reality, and in that sense we may call John a realist.

So as of early this morning (by the way folks, I shouldn't even be here doing this this early in the morning; I had ROTC class today but missed out because my alarm didn't go off when it was supposed too) John says:

Around the web I have several detractors. They accuse me of a few things which I’d like to take the time to answer. I’m accused of being an egotistical self-promoting control freak who censors comments at DC and kicks off this Blog anyone who disagrees with me. I’m accused of wanting fame and financial gain and that I am cheating the authors in my new edited book, The Christian Delusion, out of their expected royalties.

I’ve tried to resist responding to such drivel. I know that I cannot satisfy the people making such charges as I’ve responded to some of them several times already. I also know that by responding I’ll give them more fodder. But I just want to respond to my readers so they know the truth even if others won’t accept my answers.

You sure have responded to us "several times already" in a very coherent and specific manner, haven't you John? But another thing you won't voluntarily mention is that this is a fairly new and recent charge being brought against you. So you haven't responded to this one yet at all. You are cunning like a snake but as dumb as a box of rocks, my friend. And whowouldathunk, if John didn't go into some sort of self-justifying modus operandi with the complementary victimization complex.

In the first place, even if these accusations are true, which they are not, they do not make me a bad person. Just think of the things Hollywood stars are accused of every day. I’m not being accused of anything like they are. And these accusations do nothing to answer my arguments. I’m told someone will be publishing a book filled with these kind of accusations. I won’t dignify that person by mentioning his name, but he thinks the justification for doing so is because Elijah, Jesus and Paul railed against their opponents. Leaving that bogus justification aside, the truth is that Christians have accused their detractors of some of the most heinous crimes merely because they attacked their faith. So I stand in a long line of skeptics who have been falsely accused simply because I’m doing so. The real question is why they are focusing on these things rather than answering my arguments. I suspect it’s because they can’t respond to my arguments. If they could do so, then why don’t they?

You never learn, do you, John? But you're preaching to the choir here. Your "arguments" are indiscernable from who you just happen to be. You've made this known on numerous occassions. Your "drive" to debunk Christianity comes from your personal feud with Holding, and nothing more. YOU said that. No one else. You have also said that your goal is to debunk JP's "certain faction" of Christianity, rather than the whole picture. Your arguments are not only based on personal issues of seeking revenge against your long-time internet foe, they are limited in scope, and purposely done so. That in itself pretty much goes for "answering" your arguments.

Am I egotistical? So what if I am? Am I a self-promoter? Why shouldn't I be? Do I want financial gain? Why not? Do I want fame? Who doesn’t? An egotistical person is usually in the eye of the beholder anyway, and since it takes one to know one, the person making that accusation is probably more affected by that disease.

Elementary school logic is not going to get you anywhere from the face of criticism. This is not based on the answerability of your arguments. It's because you're pathetic. You play on the notions of relative perceptions to make justifications for your own immoral actions. You probably would be best described as an anarchist in terms of your political sways. But by playing on relativism, you are digging yourself further into a hole, and sensible people will begin to think less of you. It does not matter whether your "detractors" are atheist or Christian, you'll find something to accuse them of being, while you yourself are portrayed in a honest and ethical light. You're a coward John. Cowards are only good for running, and, as you seem to be a fan of cliches, "you can run, but you can't hide."

The truth about me is that I lack a whole lot of self-esteem. I’m never satisfied with my efforts. I always find fault with them. I continually think I don’t measure up. So when people tell me I did something great I get excited about it. If I appear egotistical then it’s merely because I’m overjoyed and excited that people tell me I did something great. This is what people are telling me about my efforts to debunk Christianity. And fame is a double edged sword, anyway. The more famous a person is the more that person has problems.

We've been saying that all along, John. At least I have if nobody else. But you should probably learn to establish a better self-esteem. I don't have the greatest self-esteem in the world. I certaintly have my own set of potholes. Do I let these things get ahead of my thinking and allow for them to construct personal agendas? No. By your logic, anyone who criticizes you has more problems, or at least they share the load in whatever disease they accuse you of having. So if your "detractors" have a better time dealing with the same disease that you have than you do, it still falls back on your face. You can't escape your inevitable blame here.

As far as financial gain goes, when I got my first (and only) royalty statement for my book Why I Became an Atheist, it said I owe them $1,100. I don't actually owe them any money. It's just that it hasn't produced enough sales to merit any more than the couple thousand dollars they advanced me. Yeah. I’m in it for financial gain…right! I barely make a living as it is. This winter I had some water damage to my house and had to use some of the insurance money to pay long over due bills. I didn't have the money to fix the house completely, so this is what my living room ceiling looks like (see picture). My porch ceiling and a wall in another room look just as bad. THAT’S why I appreciate any financial help I can get from people who click on the donate button in the sidebar.

Alright, we'll give John the benefit of the doubt here. I'm going to check out his donation entry and see what it says as being reflective of this statement. Let's see:

Help me stay alive in these hard economic times. I need your help. I need people who are willing to donate on a regular basis, a monthly commitment if you can. Unless more money comes in I’ll be forced to get a second job. Spinoza ground lenses during the day and researched at night. What if he had to have two jobs? I’m no Spinoza by a long shot, but what if Spinoza never had to grind lenses and could research and write all day long? How much better would his arguments be?

Is it possible for John to get a second job in academia? Expand upon the scholarly credentials perhaps?

Here's what I don't understand: John constantly brags about the reviews his book receives, and now, when it is most convenient, he says that his book doesn't make enough sales. He says that he isn't bringing in enough income due to "hard economic times" (you have your own vote to thank for that one, John). If it is such a matter of difficulty and hardship, why doesn't John just consider free publishing? Does it make him less of a serious author if he were to go with a free publisher like LuLu? I'm not doubting that maybe John doesn't do it merely for profit (although I don't know if I necessarily believe him; how can I trust him about anything he says?), but he could at least make 20 times more than what he does for every book sold. From LuLu's website:

During the publishing process, Users are asked to choose the amount of creator revenue they will receive for each piece of Content sold. If Lulu sells your content, and we receive payment, Lulu will pay you the creator revenue amount you chose. In general, Lulu's service fee is 20% of the gross margin resulting from the sale of Content. The gross margin is the net amount actually received for your Content after freight and manufacturing costs are subtracted.

For example, if a User publishes a book that costs $5.00 to manufacture and chooses to receive $4.00 in Creator Revenue, Lulu will set the price of your book as follows:

Manufacturing cost:	$5.00
Creator Revenue:	$4.00
Lulu service fee:	$1.00
Final price of book:	$10.00

In this example, the gross margin is $5.00, of which you get 80% ($4.00) and Lulu gets 20% ($1.00). Regardless of the foregoing, the minimum mark-up for Lulu's service fee is nineteen cents ($0.19). However, if you choose to make your Content free, Lulu waives its service fee altogether. Exceptions to the 20% margin rule may be applied in the case of special offers or discounts to Users who purchase their own Content in bulk.

Plus, another benefit is that there is no limit to the amount of content in a given project. So, why not go free?

I think John is relunctant because he wants to have the spotlight that Promotheus provides. I say, however, that it would be much better if John were to have a general publisher, instead of an atheist one. Sure his book is much more likely to be found with an atheist publisher, but aside from this I see no merits in doing so. The publishing company is already in agreement with what John probably has to say. Additionally, I wouldn't appreciate my scholarly work being on par with pornographic literature.

I have a few internet stalkers, several trolls here at DC, a few websites dedicated to trashing me, along with one published book against me and two more promised ones coming down the pike. They say you can tell how famous a person is by the number of stalkers he or she has. Well I have some. Woooo! Hoooo! The problem is that people hate me for what I’m doing. I’m not famous. I’m infamous. Yeah, that’s what I want…right.

Stalkers? Where do you come up with this stuff? Where's your evidence? Proof? Yeah, that's right, you have none. Just a whole bunch of paranoia as far as I'm concerned. And until anything is documented and not something that is just your mere speculation, that's all it ever be.

As far as my new edited book goes, I rejected five chapters written by five different authors for various reasons having to do with word limit concerns, deadlines, and content. These were tough decisions, but I had to make them. By doing so I pissed off one person, maybe more. But I still had to do it.

Fair enough. I wouldn't want to make a defense of McCall by any means, unless it concerns moral deviations.

I only “censor” comments here at this Blog by the same standards any newspaper editor uses when deciding whether to publish a “Letter to the Editor.” That’s because I want a civilized and intelligent discussion of the ideas that separate us, or none at all.

Repeating it does not make it so. The use of the world "asshole" when referring to someone who says something in a way you do not like, is also the wrong way to go about it, if that's your genuine intention.

As far as kicking team members off DC who don’t agree with me goes, I open myself up to this accusation because I allow people to become team members here in the first place. This is my Blog. It’s my house. I invite guests here into my house. If they don’t respect me or if they somehow begin to think they own it, there can be problems. It's something like herding cats.

Agreeably understandable. But it doesn't really address anything if the issue concerns disagreement, as opposed to disrespect, which are two entirely different things.

Nearly all of the other Bloggers who have left DC fall into one of two categories. They either did not publish often enough or they asked to be removed for various reasons unrelated to me.

They didn't "publish enough", John? DC seems pretty staffed as it is. Why insist on having a posting quota if you have so many authors that are willing to contribute in the first place? You don't need one to get going. On average there are about 4-5 posts made every week on your blog, with about 1-3 of those being your own? That's just the typical average. I make most posts around here and I believe some members have expressed their desire to be taken off from the list. I haven't removed them yet because things are liable for change. But it's your blog, John. Unlike you, I won't chastize you for running things your own way, even if I question your motives and boundaries.

There are other accusations. Expect them. Just tell my accusers to produce evidence, think about them, and then tell these accusers to try to answer my arguments.

John wants EVIDENCE? Are you kidding me? This isn't a challenge and anyone asking for this "evidence" will be provided with it asap. I'm not going to repost it for the umpteenth time though, as I and others have beaten this to death before in the past. Contrary to what John might believe, the book that is coming out contains a whole compiled chronology of such evidence of the reasons why John isn't very trustworthy. The book will put an end to the question of whether or not the evidence actually exists, which it does. But it's rather surprising, that John, without revealing any specifics to his blog "trolls" would demand evidence of why he shouldn't be trusted. John, don't make this the end of the road for you, for your own sake.

NOTE: Once again, something of our interest coming from John has come up again. In the same post we've cited here, John removed some comments he didn't approve of, most likely after they had been brought to the world's attention through TheologyWeb, a site John claims he ignores as much as possible. The catch? John claims to be on "vacation" and won't return until August 27, meaning that only his fellow bloggers can post comments. Or can they?

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/attachment.php?attachmentid=68335&d=1250901234

In a long past case similar to this, John claimed at the very end to having put on an act to somehow demonstrate the inferiority of his critics. But surely enough, the only thing he seems to demonstrate effectively is his own inferior mentality.

Demagogue Mania

2009-08-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

John's ego must have taken another hit for the worst. I've been occupied with some matters of schooling and will probably only contribute and update the blog on occassion, but J.P wrote me recently on a book project coming out soon that will be based on Loftus and serves as a compilation for why he is full of crap. Yes, I am one of the contributing authors to the final product.

Question of the day: Is John an abusive modern-day demagogue? He absolutely hates dissent when it concerns his arguments, websites, book(s), etc. But another thing not mentioned often enough that John also hates seems to be any sort of dissent from those he appoints to his blog. On numerous occasions over the years, people have come and go from the Debunking Christianity author list, some for different various reasons, most because they have in some way or another, upset John. And he gets his revenge simply by (in the words of Matthew Green) "writing (them) off".

So who is the one individual to receive the boot this time? Is it Ed Babinski? Nope. Even if I were told this, I would doubt it only because Babinski has a subtleness to him, and a tedency to be a real brownose. Dr. Hector Avalos? Good guess, and it probably will happen someday, but for now John would consider him to be a reputable scholar, so long as he doesn't say anything in disfavor of John and his course of actions. So...JUST WHO IS IT? The answer: Harry McCall.

Yes, the same exact Harry McCall that went around here posting perverted and sexually deranged comments. The same Harry McCall who addressed me on this very blog as if he was still a "minsterial student." The same Harry McCall whose picture gave you the sense he might be a child sex offender, or as J.P. used to refer to him as "Chester the Molester." Hey, child rape isn't funny. True, but there's no arguing that Harry was a creep, and did resemble someone who might in fact have those types of "urges."

Someone will have to relay more of the specific details of what happened (although I doubt this ever being the case, mostly because of John's repetetive behaviors and his personality; secondily, for the reasons I will show down below), but it's true. As always, when hearing about such news, I quickly rush to DC or the Google search engine just like any other person would. Currently as of August 19, 2009, Debunking Christianity's list of authors now includes only the following names in their respective order:

Harry McCall is no longer with us. Not just in the land of Debunking Christianity, but it also seems the Blogger community as well:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/08974655354593831851

His short autobiography and personal details have been whiped out completely. Even his "Chester the Molester" face is gone. Why exactly? That's a question I would like to know myself. For now, we'll suppose that Harry's exile from DC has given him the indication that his internet career is otherwise useless without being a component of something in the New Atheist movement. But let's not get on the wrong foot about this issue: This isn't to sympathize or feel remorse for Harry. It's not even so much that John is an egotistical demagogue who makes appeals to a certain demographic for making profit. It might even be in John's moral favor for him to do this. Could it be that the reason why John severed ties is because Harry was a self-admitted stalker perhaps?

Oh wait....

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/08/dennis-collis-aka-dencol-wins.html

DenCol has been banned as an ignorant abusive troll. I'm not exactly sure why he's here or what he actually believes, but for the most part he does not try to interact with us at DC. Once banned he starts another Blogger account and this process starts all over again. He has been banned as Rob, savedbygrace, tyler, Richard2, Rich386 and others. Right now he's commenting as Cool Running. He does not respect our wishes to go away and so he apparently does not think the Golden Rule should be followed when it comes to skeptics...Nonetheless, it's beginning to look to the first time visitor as if we are banning a whole lot of people. It's just one person! Fair warning to everyone. If you engage this troll you will be frustrated. I recomend just ignoring him. Or you can email him at dencollis@juno.com. As you can tell, I don't care for him at all.

Publicly posting someone's e-mail address to carry out retribution out on a supposed "troll"? Yeah John, there's nothing tasteless about that...

ADDED NOTE: JPH sent me this last word from Harry McCall, which sure enough is actually here on our very own blog. I made sure as always, to put emphasis on areas that I think really count:

Nice count Holdie, but as of July 27 I am no longer associated with either John Loftis or his DC blog. There will be no more 10% post from me or any posts from me on his blog; ever again.

My name is removed as a contributor and I have broken all contacts with him and his blog. I told him he could ban me from DC as I don’t give damn! Screw him!

If you two want to bitch and bash each other’s character brains out for a cash first, be my guess!

John and his ego blog are history for me!!

Well, well, well...the evidence just keeps piling up against John, even as he negligently spirals down a path of self-sabotage.

Good News for John Loftus!

2009-08-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=130558

According to this poll on TheologyWeb, there is at least ONE atheist who is screwier than John Loftus.

But I'm sure John will keep working as hard as he can to retain first place!

Sad, Sad, Doubting John

2009-07-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Sadly for John Loftus, his campaign to flatulate in the review columns of my book The Impossible Faith and bring all his friends with him to do the same, seems to have resulted in a spike in sales, if the Amazon sales rank numbers are to be believed. That may or may not last, but in the meantime, it seemed like a good time to offer this here (as well as on TWeb)....

Sing to the tune of Jim Croce's, "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown"

Well the north side of Angola
Is the cleanest part of town
And if you go up there
You better just beware
Of carpet cleaner Doubting John

Now DJ with his hat on
made him stand about two foot four
He’s a storefront cowboy with an ego boost
and a horse bit in his craw

And its sad, sad Doubting John
The saddest man in the whole danged town
Sadder than a stomped-on frog
And meaner than a Dawkins blog

Now DJ he a conman
And he likes to sell his books
And he likes to shine up on their front
With his right-good handsome looks!

He got a blog he posts on daily
Where he puts all his rantings at
He got to sign in there a thousand times an hour
For raisin’ up the traffic stats

And its sad, sad Doubting John
The saddest man in the whole danged town
Sadder than a stomped-on frog
And meaner than a Dawkins blog

Well one day bout a year ago
DJ shootin’ pool
And there on Dee Dee’s forum
There was J. P. Holding
And whoo, John lost his cool

Well he dragged himself on over
And the beating did proceed
And Doubting John had learned a lesson ‘bout a-messin’with
apologists out his league

And its sad, sad Doubting John
The saddest man in the whole danged town
Sadder than a stomped-on frog
And meaner than a Dawkins blog

Well J.P. sent John a -reelin’
And when they went aside to see
DJ looked like a cartoon villain
Who’d been blown up with TNT

And its sad, sad Doubting John
The saddest man in the whole danged town
Sadder than a stomped-on frog
And meaner than a Dawkins blog

And its sad, sad Doubting John
The saddest man in the whole danged town
Sadder than a stomped-on frog
And meaner than a Dawkins blog

Yeah, he was sadder than a stomped-on frog
And meaner than a Dawkins blog

John's Economic Stimulus Package: Gimme More, Gimme, Gimme More

2009-07-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

Alright...alright...alright, so this is going to be another post on the moral descension that Debunking Christianity seems to be progressively making these days. This time, I'm aiming my criticisms at the ever-improving "new look" featuring all sorts of advertisements and gimmicks that John has uploaded in hopes of his readers pouring out their hard-earned cash whether it be business adverts or instant messaging conversations with "the man" himself.

Let me explain: As of the current timing this is being posted, John has uploaded an advert on the top right hand corner of DC's main page which reads "Your Ad Here" with a caption above which also reads "Click the image to find out more." By clicking on the image, you are lead to this link, within (no surprise) Debunking Christianity: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/06/would-you-like-to-reach-potentiallly.html It reads:

Would You Like to Reach a Potentially Huge Audience?

By John W. Loftus at 5/29/2009

Sitemeter informs me that DC reaches over 40,000 visitors a month. We consistently rank among the top Atheist sites on the web too. Unreasonable Faith ranked us 4th, while Common Sense Atheism ranked us 6th.

To find out how you can reach these people with your product or service, no matter what page in our archives they visit here at DC, e-mail me. Serious inquiries only. Send me a description of your product or service, and/or a link to your site or Blog. The cost is reasonable, just ask.

Thanks so much.

I'm a bit lost here with precise logical objective in the adverts: Since when did the business of debunking the Christian religion turn into an avenue for revenue? And it becomes even more confusing when the exact incentive, other than gaining web traffic, is never really specified in having their website advertised on DC.

Well, confusing is actually the wrong word here. It's pretty obvious what this is all about. And me being a skeptic of the Christian religion, I can honestly say there is nothing that would compell me to "advertise" on a site like that run by a man like John. The number of web traffic does not impress me in the slightest, and I don't see why it should appeal to anyone's interests. Neither should the "it's a reasonable cost...trust me" string of reasoning appeal to anyone with the cognition of a chimpanzee. And with that said, it doesn't seem as if this money-making attempt is having even remote success, as there are no advertisements on Debunking Christianity than aren't from John & Friends themselves.

The "Big One" is our next exhibition, which instead of merely providing you with a bogus service for an ambiguous "reasonable cost" offer, John has allowed his readers the opportunity to debate with him for a fixed rate: 75 cents a minute!

Sure...75 cents isn't allot of money when you look at it for its face value. Yet most conversations on average last for much more than a single measly minute, especially instant-messaging. The numbers begin to add up when minutes turn into half hours and half hours turn into full-fledged hours. Obviously the cost will begin to climb exponentially, if you have a brain to realize this. But here is some mathematical evidence to prove my point anyway:

30 minutes: .75 x 30 = $22.50

1 hour: 22.50 x 2 = $45.00

Within one hour's time John has just made a profit of nearly half a hundred dollars, just for having an instant-message chat with someone who just drools over the concept of being able to talk directly with John at instaneous speed. Now, let's suppose that the maximum average time length for these conversations is 3 hours time. Once more:

45.00 x 3 = $135.00

So, is 75 cents asking for a bit much? If you still don't think so, then take into consideration that Alexa Web Trafficking services show that the average daily visit to John's blog is within the 4-5 people a day range (which, not so surprisignly, also happens to be the statistic to this very blog). Soo we'll take the maximum average of 3 hours and multiply it by the maximum number of visitors to John's blog to produce the highest number in profit that John could or does make in a day off of this simplistic gimmick:

135.00 x 5 = $675.00

With that type of money made in a single day while doing minimal "work", John could go out and buy himself a nice stereo or home theatre system for his house. Maybe he could buy a nice lawnmower. Or even an automatic robotic voice-command lawnmower, so that he doesn't get his new suit he just picked up covered in grass clippings.

For the love of logic, why would anyone want to spend 75 cents a minute talking in an instant messaging window just to talk with someone who thinks he's about as important as Joe Rogan thinks he is at being near the top of the food chain? Why would I want to spend that kind of money to talk to John on a live connection when I could just post a response to one of his inane ramblings on TheologyWeb.com for FREE?

There is no rocket science to the money-making desperation that is so Loftus-personality laced. John commits to the biggest culturally universal sin of them all: Greed. And while it's his blog and he does with it what pleases him, there is no reason for any logical person (or even a fan of Loftus) to engage him in IM by paying his lazy-ass money as an alternative to A) Posting a comment on his blog, or B) Posting a response in the TheologyWeb message boards without costing you a penny. And at the end of the day, if you're unsure on whether or not to side with John, would you really give out your hard-earned money to someone who is essentially a "stranger"? You might do it for strippers, but would you do it for someone whose motives you are unsure of? Their intents? What that money of yours that you might be throwing away will end up going towards? And if you don't end up liking this person, even if its for good reason, you're the only person who will suffer afterwards.

Save your money and spend it on something more worthwhile. If you are absolutely dying to speak to John, you can do it in one of two places: 1) John's blog (for the time being while the commenting section is available to you free of charge but with restrictions), 2) TheologyWeb.com, where it's always been free to talk to John, and it always will be...

Been Too Quiet Here? One Reason Why

2009-07-16T13:25:00.001-07:00

Let's face it --- John Loftus has hit the end of his usefulness.

He's reduced himself to linking to childish YouTube videos and re-recommending crappy books he already recommended weeks ago.

I see Loftus wandering aimlessly through the streets on Angola, Indiana, looking under rocks, into sewers and trash cans, hoping for some inspiration for a new post.

He can't find one. And you can only repeat "buy my book" so many times, even to yourself.

It appears that he's broken now and can't be fixed. Pretty soon his moment in the sun will be over -- or maybe it IS over already -- and he'll become one of those long-forgotten freethinkers like Herbert Cutner whose name only appears in bibliographies of books by people who think Ezekiel saw a UFO.

Good night, John Boy.

Freedom of Speech and "Political Correctness"

2009-06-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

I consider freedom of speech and what is considered to be "politically correct" to be hot button issues these days. As a matter of my own personal political stance, I think we are beginning to lose our freedoms and the American manner of lifestyle via the Obama administration, at an alarming rate. Honestly, compared to Bush, it would seem that Obama is triple to the effect. Crazed deficit spending and all of this talk about "creating more alternative energy solutions, creating more jobs and affordable health care" is just that: Talk. So far it would seem that the president is blinded to the harm he is inflicting upon this country and would rather be optimistic than realistic. And it still seems that the president has a high approval rating due to his "personality." Thus the new motto of the times to live by is that personality should replace policy. Vomit.

Moving on, Loftus' latest blog entry is an intersection of what constitutes free speech and how the protectional rights as stated in the First Amendment of the US Constitution apply and don't apply in certain circumstances. The gist of this particular post I'm talking about now is based on a previous post arguing that Edward Feser, a California community college professor, Should Be Fired From His Teaching Post! According to Loftus here, Feser is guilty of comparing the recently slain abortionist, Dr. George Tiller, to the serial killer/sodomozing rapist Jeffrey Dahmer. Loftus argues in this post:

Feser teaches for Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California which is a community college. I call upon that college to fire him for this highly inflamed rhetoric which will probably bring on more murders of abortion doctors. And I ask others to do likewise. No professor should use such inflammatory rhetoric or be so ignorant about some crucial distinctions.

Loftus might have a point here. But he goes about it the wrong way. What we should be asking is whether or not Loftus is in the appropriate position to make that call or put forth such a suggestion? Well, in his latest post, John just so happens to cite a blog post which argues against Loftus on this very point (quoting from the cited blog and not Debunking Christianity):

I’d be the first to call for Feser to be charged if what he’s said rises to the level of incitement, and I certainly believe he should be held accountable for the horrific implications of his argument. But he should be challenged on the poor quality of ideas, not forced out of his job for what he’s said as a private citizen. Feser is most definitely not calling for violence against abortion providers, and while his rhetoric certainly may encourage dangerous people to do horrible things, he is not calling for violence, nor does he appear to be crying crocodile tears: he seems sincere in his view that violence against doctors isn’t okay.

Come to think of it, this guy has a much better handle on things than Loftus does from what I can see. And perhaps that's one in a list of many "crucial distinctions" Loftus should pay attention too when he goes about something either inane or overly exaggerated. So of course, Loftus responds with the latest:

I was claiming Feser ought not to say what he did in the most vocal way I can, precisely because I find it reprehensible in the worst way. How would he feel, as unlikely as it would be, that someone kills an abortionist and upon being arrested quotes him? I think he would feel terrible. That's the point. We must tone down such inflammatory incendiary rhetoric on occasions like these, because of what it could lead to. One is indeed responsible for the repercussions of the rhetoric they use. One must be careful not to use such inflammatory rhetoric when it comes to human beings who simply disagree on the issue of abortion. It’s like pouring gas on the fire.

Now perhaps you were expecting that I was going to express my disagreement with Loftus on this one. But as much as the point of firing Feser is a bit inappropriate, when Loftus himself admits to Feser being against incited violence against practicing abortionists, he does have some valid points here. Still, the issue of firing him is backed by a whole load of bogus sub-arguments, and ones which could be in themselves, detrimental to society.

As far as free speech goes, there have been many people fired for expressing chauvinism, racism and homophobia in academia, as sportscasters, and as pundits. Hate speech is not something the law tolerates, nor do employers. Whether you like it or not this is "politically incorrect" speech, which I applaud. One cannot call an African American the "N" word nor a woman the "B" word, for those words have a history of oppression to them in the English language.

Actually, that whole point about "Hate speech is not something the law tolerates, nor do employers" is, unfortunately, an invalid one. I just returned about a week ago from a trip out to Kansas to begin my documentary film on the Westboro Baptist Church. Several online sources confirm that members of the WBC lead normal lives outside of the church, to include employment. Additionally, the protests conducted by the Phelps are indeed under protection by law enforcement (of course, while we are talking about Tiller's death, this applies in both ways due to the church calling for support from law enforcement to keep the Phelps' protesters at bay). But something I find greatly disturbing is the concept of "political correctness". Does Loftus really want to go there? He could just as well be put up for being "politically incorrect" for being an atheist. Arguing that some action should be taken, or even for that matter, by merely making a point based on the idea of 'political correctness' is to me nothing short of a logical fallacy. It is an invented figment of the imagination which seeks out to replace words such as "hate" with "strongly dislike" and so on.

The same applies in terms of racial and sexist slurs. Although I'm not arguing against the importance of acknowledging the historical context in which these words have been used, I'm also not in favor of advocating that we should just simply keep our mouths shut or NEVER use these words, EVER. It sets things up for a double standard. Why? In contemporary America, the "oppressed" minorities that have been afflicted upon with these words have asborbed these terms into their daily vocabulary. It has now become racially acceptable, for instance, for the majority of blacks to use the word "nigger" when referring to social situations involving primarily the black community. It has become unacceptable, however, for white people to use these words even if they are used in the same context, or, for that matter, are used between whites. And it's also somehow "okay" for racial minorities to use implicitly derogatory names when referring to whites (e.g., cracker, honkey, etc.) and yet no one gets upset, because it's "politically correct".

An argument commonly interpreted as racist yet valid nonetheless is that slavery was abolished 130 + years ago. It is a thing of the past. Women have voting rights in our country, and we have had female candidates for the presidential and vice presidential offices in the past. We now have an African-American president. We need to come to a period in time where we can shed these stereotypes about words. Words in and of themselves have no meaning other than the relative context they are placed into. But to merely say you "can't" say something and equate to (or imply that you are equating) taking radical actions is to instigate a situation of control. Does this mean that Loftus' politics are consistent with his own behaviors, in that they are somehow influenced by his political thoughts?

Another somewhat disturbingly confusing point Loftus makes out is this:

When the government is involved and when we are the government, we have a say in what we want to allow and support.

So does John happen to know that the people in our government are put there by electoral vote? That basically sums it up that the government is represented by "us" so to speak because we put them there in the first place. But just because they happen to have the title of "representative" does not make it so. Politics requires that you are a good manipulator. One such example of this being true is Hillary Clinton. So, according to the arguably delusional Loftus, if "we" begin making up the government and therefore the government is enlarged, we will have more freedoms? Whatever happened to less government, more individuality, PERIOD? Loftus' politics are exactly the reason why we are in such a mess today. The government makes all of these proposals to make things better, but their approach is awful. And since when was it ever an American idea that failing companies and businesses should receive financial bailouts? Is there some sort of connection between Loftus' distorted views and the fact that he helped vote Barack Obama to the White House???

And just in case you are not aware, there is no such thing as free speech. It’s a political prize won by the diligent, so argues Stanley Fish, in his brilliant and thought provoking book. That's why there is something called "politically correct speech" in the first place!

Another point I disagree with strongly. If this statement were to be more accurately stated, it would be the other way around. "Political correctness" does not exist. It is a logical fallacy because in many cases, it can be applied in both ways. "Freedom of speech" however, is described in our First Amendment Rights quite clearly, and has only been tainted as the result of "political correctness" having been introduced into the public forum:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of speech is neutral, "political correctness" is based on majority-minority principles and usually involves an ignorance of proper context, or a negligence of freedom of speech rights. This is the difference between the two.

Finally, in closing, to demonstrate my own self-proclaimed wisdom:

Rules Policy

2009-06-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

Recent notable controversial feuds which have taken place here on Debunking Loftus have made it more of an urgency to develop a democratic-means of establishing rules of conduct for this blog's guests and staff.

As founder of the blog, I will make it clear that in no way, shape, or form will Debunking Loftus model itself after the policies of Debunking Christianity. Censorship is a common theme found on John's blog because he is able to control the input of what commentators have said on his blog in order to escape public embarrassment and fatal flaws to his reputation (even though by matter of simple searching, he already has a track record rife with them). Here, at the Debunking Loftus blog, I welcome any guest who wishes to provide their thoughts and opinions on matters even if they are highly disagreeable in the perspective as viewed by myself and the fellow contributors to this blog.

However, it should also be noted that each and every contributing author to the blog has administrative rights. They are capable within their own discretion to remove comments that they find are endangering or grossly inappropriate towards others in a way that reflects badly upon this blog and causes meaningless disputes. It is with this in mind, that instead of providing a long list of dos and donts, of which, a small specific list has already been established by myself, as indicated in the description above the 'Comments' box, the policy regarding proper protocol to the blog will be determined by means of popular vote and suggestions from authors and guests alike. In other words, this sticky post shall be used as a medium and as a reference, for implementing new rules and or emphasizing already existing ones. Anyone authorized to comment on here is given the option to throw out suggestions and ideas for what may be acceptable and or inacceptable. This can be something as simple as specifying what should be within boundaries and what certain behaviors violate them, to listing the name of a specific blogger with a formal complaint. All suggested ideas will go into consideration and will be listed in a voting poll where commentators and non-commentators alike can help determine where the majority vote leans. So even if there is a doubt in your mind if what you have in mind is worthwhile and or sensible, feel free to post it and see where the votes will get you.

Voting polls shall be open to public vote for a total of seven days duration time or an entire week once a suggestion has been inputed. This should be enough timing for regular readers to reach a verdict in correlation with the verdict of the blog administrators, not excluding random or in-and-out guest readers.

Why John Loftus Runs Away from TheologyWeb

2009-06-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

According to recent statistical study, posts over at Debunking Christianity these days can be broken down as follows:

* 87% by John Loftus, consisting of either self-congratulatory rhetoric because he has either deconverted another Christian whose intelligence quotient can be stated in terms of a single-digit number; or, because he has received a good review at Amazon.com from an atheist teenager who is mad that a loving, all-powerful God won’t give him a cell phone.

* 10% by Harry “Obscene Phone” McCall, who is either whining about some Christian being mean to him, or else believing in some screwy Neanderthal-fundamentalist doctrine that Harry himself used to believe, and assumes that all Christians everywhere still do.

*2% by one of the other Useful Idiots at DC, such as Lee Randolph complaining that because he can’t figure out the Bible, obviously no one can.

*1% by Loftus actually arguing something.

It’s not hard to see why Loftus so seldom ventures into that last territory – especially when it comes to “hard data” questions that don’t rely on him sniveling that a really, REALLY good God wouldn’t have caused mosquitoes to exist. Back when he first ventured on to TheologyWeb, I challenged Loftus to defend a number of premises from his first book related to hard, practical issues such as the authorship of various Biblical books. Like a spoiled child, each time I did he said, “Waaah, not interested!”

You can see why based in his June 1 reposting of a scholar’s assessment of the authorship of 2 Thessalonians. As usual in such cases, Loftus just puts his mind on “NUMB” and uncritically swallows whatever he is told – just like he did when he was a fundy Christian. That’s why he ran like a screaming little girl each time I challenged him on such things: He wouldn’t know how to defend such views even if you offered to buy all the leftover copies of his second edition.

Having just completed my own book which includes a serious study of authorship issues, I can tell you that Loftus and his source haven’t got a clue how to arrive at epistemic determination for how authorship of a document – especially an ancient document – is determined. In the main, internal and external evidence of attestation tends to be ignored in favor of contrived, statistically meaningless arguments based on writing style and content that scholars who have the knowledge, but not the ability to process it meaningfully, come up with after smoking mushrooms.

Arguments like the ones Loftus cites would draw little but jeers from persons with a background in serious literary study and/or statistical study (myself included, on both counts). (By the way, I am assuming that he has represented the scholar accurately; but with Loftus, you never know. It could be a fake citation like his fake blog was.)

How so? Let’s look at some examples, but with a preface first.

One of the critical factors in analyzing ancient documents has to do with the presence and use of scribes in the ancient world. Writing was such a cumbersome, tedious business that even fully literate people would hire scribes to do their writing for them at times. As Randolph Richards shows in his classic study on the subject, the role of a scribe could vary considerably based on the trust ascribed to them by the named author. It could range from straight dictation to, “write a letter to so and so about such and such” and letting the scribe do the whole thing, with the author merely “signing off” after reviewing the text.

Many scholars, because they have lived in a society where writing is so simple to do, have failed to appreciate the implications of this factor when it comes to tests of authorship. By itself, it makes arguments based on statistics completely worthless. In the case of 2 Thessalonians especially, we have three people – Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy – credited as authors of the letter. Any arguments against authenticity that fail to take this point seriously themselves do not deserve to be taken seriously.

But that’s assuming that the arguments are even meaningful in the first place, and in this case, nearly all the arguments Loftus quotes are statistically and epistemically meaningless in terms of usefulness for deciding authorship. Let’s look at some examples from the area of vocabulary and style.

We can skip a section after which the scholar quoted rightly says, “Such word statistics allow no firm conclusions.” Indeed they don’t, but the scholar fails to see how this expands to other matters. Here’s one:”Rigaux (1956: 89) called attention to Paul’s development of thought by triadic groupings in 1 Thessalonians. He identified sixteen such triads. But 2 Thessalonians has only one such triad (2 Thess 2:9).”

That’s nice. The question is, “so what?” Triadic groupings, actually, are an artifact of a carefully-crafted oral style. The use of a triadic pattern serves as a memory enhancement and rhetorical device, even today.

Counting noses for this kind of thing, however, is no more worthwhile than counting word uses as a means of determining authorship, in the way the scholar already rejected as valid a few lines before. Paul (or any author) does not have a list of techniques that they have to check off on a list to use, nor do they have any requirement laying out how many times they have to use any particular technique.

At the same time, the most critical aspect of comparing 1 and 2 Thessalonians has to do with their respective situations. 2 Thessalonians was written under far more stressful urgent conditions, with Paul and his friends answering for a crisis that had occurred due to a misunderstanding. In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Paul et al. are not crafting a carefully-structured treatise full of balance and harmony – though not because of the urgency of the situation per see. This is not just a matter of Paul’s own situation, but a matter of the situation of the recipients of his letter.

Paul was well-trained in Greco-Roman rhetorical techniques. He would knew when to use certain techniques and why. Carefully-structured triads would not as well reflect the urgency of the situation, and Paul (or any writer) would know this.

On the other hand, “pleonasm” and “fullness of expression” – which is said to reflect a striking difference between the two letters – would. Paul is anxious to be understood in light of a crisis where it seems he has not been understand. Something like pleonasm is just what we would expect a skilled author to employ under the circumstances. Keep in mind especially that this letter, like all ancient works, would be read aloud to a mostly-illiterate audience – so that it is all the more important for Paul or any writer to get the point across in an effective, memorable way.

Let’s take a second example under the heading “verbal similarity”. It is said:
“Bornemann (1894: 473) already pointed out that the similarity of 1 and 2 Thessalonians went far beyond structure to include ‘sequence of thought, clauses, turns of phrase and expressions.’ Wrede (1903: 3–36) provided massive documentation by presenting the parallels in tabular form, by showing that every paragraph in 2 Thessalonians has a conceptually related section in 2 Thessalonians. He demonstrates that these significant parallels occur in the same order in both letters… Wrede finally concludes in an impassioned paragraph (pp. 29–30) that the coincidence of memory or historical situation is not adequate to explain the similarity.”

That’s nice. Unfortunately, Wrede wasn’t particularly well-versed in ancient rhetorical technique either. Memory and situation are not the answer, no – mimesis is. This was the ancient art of recombining prior written material in a skillful yet seemingly new way. For this reason, it is no surprise to find this sort of similarity between the two letters. It’s exactly what we would expect – even if by the same authors.

Finally, there is what is frankly the most idiotic of the arguments, “Lack of Personal Warmth.” Once again, critics are often clueless to the relative context of these letters. One is reflecting an answer to an urgent crisis situation; the other is not. “Personal warmth” in a crisis letter is the last thing we would expect from someone skilled in the practice of ancient rhetorical composition. This is not to say it could not possibly be found – but the person who did use it in this situation would be a remarkably inept rhetorician. Paul was not one of those.
To indicate the idiocy of this argument, it can be compared by analogy to one saying that Loftus himself could not have written his desperate “I quit” posting a few months back, because so many of his other posts seem so happy-go-lucky. Obviously no one is saying Loftus didn’t write that post because of his lack of “happy go luckiness” (or in his case, Dunning’s disorder).

So in sum, that Loftus uncritically swallows arguments like these speaks for itself – and speaks for his gullibility as well as his lack of academic rigor.

It’s little wonder he doesn’t come to see us at TWeb any more.

The Babinski Lack of Logic - Part One

2009-05-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

James B. Duke Library Serials Acquisitions Assistant Edward Babinski ignores the claims of eyewitness testimony regarding the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This response to his claims is in bold.

"No eyewitnesses to the resurrection" can mean several things.

Apparently Mr. Babinski has difficulty with the English language. Either there were eyewitnesses to the resurrection or there were not. The eyewitnesses say there was a resurrection. The accounts were presented in this post. Babinski ignored the accounts. Therefore Babinski begins by

Logical fallacy #1: arguing from ignorance.

What was the context in which John made the statement?

For some reason, the statement from Brock’s Cleaning Service janitor Loftus, “Even if we assume that there are genuine eyewitnesses to the resurrection, which there are not ...” eludes Mr. Babinski’s mental grasp. Does Mr. Babinski wish readers to think he is stupid?

Nobody was apparently there to see Jesus' corpse rise from the dead.

And if Jesus was dead at point A, and alive again at point B, then resurrection has occurred: res ipsa loquitur.

That is a legal maxim, Mr. Babinski. Are you not familiar with it?

In Latin, it means ‘the facts speak for itself’. It is a legal principle applied in such court cases as Scott v London & St Katherine Docks Co. (1865) 2 H. & C. 596; Ward v Tesco Stores (1976) 1 W.L.R. 810. Examples are given in 1 Starkie on Evidence, p. 498. Wills on Circumstantial Evidence, § 128-129. [pp. 169-170, 1905 edition]

Legal scholar John Warwick Montgomery states this principle is chiefly employed in tort actions (e.g. patient wakes up after an operation and discovers that his surgeon has amputated the wrong leg; sues; and succeeds without the need to provide empirical evidence of the surgeon’s negligence).

Do you accept the principle of res ipsa loquitur, Mr. Babinski? If not, you are guilty of

Logical fallacy #2: Special pleading.

Logical fallacy #3: Double standards.

Logical fallacy #4: Fallacious appeal to authority. You are not above the law.

Simon Greenleaf, Royall Professor of Law at Harvard:

“If it is such as usually satisfies reasonable men, in matters of ordinary transaction, it is all which the greatest skeptic has a right to require; for it is by such evidence alone that our rights are determined in the civil tribunals; and on no other evidence do they proceed, even in capital cases. Thus where a house had been feloniously broken open with a knife, the blade of which was broken and left in the window, and the mutilated knife itself, the parts perfectly agreeing, was found in the pocket of the accused, who gave no satisfactory explanation of the fact, no reasonable doubt remained of his participation in the crime. And where a murder had been committed by shooting with a pistol, and the prisoner was connected with the transaction by proof that the wadding of the pistol was part of a letter addressed to him, the remainder of which was found upon his person, no juror’s conscience could have reproached him for assenting to the verdict of condemnation. ⁶⁶ Yet the evidence, in both cases, is but the evidence of circumstances, amounting, it is true, to the highest degree of probability, but yet not utterly inconsistent with the innocence of the accused. The evidence which we have of the great facts of the Bible history belongs to this class, that is, it is moral evidence; sufficient to satisfy any rational mind, by carrying it to the highest degree of moral certainty. If such evidence well justify the taking away of human life or liberty, in the one case, surely it ought to be deemed sufficient to determine our faith in the other.”

Do you understand that, Mr. Babinski? Are you even capable of understanding that?

The first two Gospels also say that the tomb was empty.

What’s the matter with you, Mr. Babinski? Every single Christian, by definition, from the 1^st century to the present day, says that the tomb is empty! The tomb itself is empty! Just how dense can you possibly be????

For some reason, Mr. Babinski’s brain is unable to fathom the empty tomb was reported in all four Gospels. It’s a simple concept: The empty tomb is the central event of the Christian Gospel, attested by those who spread the Gospel.

and Jesus has "gone before you to Galilee for there ye shall see him." But neither Paul nor Mark, the earliest sources, depict exactly what was seen.

This is a nonissue.

Perhaps Mr. Babinski is unfamiliar with the concept of eyewitness testimony. No testimony will be exactly alike. No reporter will report on an event exactly the same way.

Simon Greenleaf, again:

§ 34. The character of their narratives is like that of all other true witnesses, containing, as Dr. Paley observes, substantial truth, under circumstantial variety. There is enough of discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them, and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction, as the events actually occurred. That they conspired to impose falsehood upon the world is, moreover, utterly inconsistent with the supposition that they were honest men; a fact, to the proofs of which we have already adverted. But if they were bad men, still the idea of any conspiracy among them is negatived, not only by the discrepancies alluded to, but by many other circumstances which will be mentioned hereafter; from all which, it is manifest that if they concerted a false story, they sought its accomplishment by a mode quite the opposite to that which all others are found to pursue, to attain the same end. On this point the profound remark of an eminent writer is to dour purpose; that “in a number of concurrent testimonies, where there has been no previous concert, there is a probability distinct from that which may be termed the sum of the probabilities resulting from the testimonies of the witnesses; a probability which would remain, even though the witnesses were of such a character as to merit no faith at all. This probability arises from the concurrence itself. That such a concurrence should spring from chance is as one to infinite; that is, in other words, morally impossible. If therefore concert be excluded, there remains no cause but the reality of the fact.”⁵⁵

§ 35. The discrepancies between the narratives of the several evangelists, when carefully examined, will not be found sufficient to invalidate their testimony. Many seeming contradictions will prove, upon closer scrutiny, to be in substantial agreement; and it may be confidently asserted that there are none that will not yield, under fair and just criticism. If these different accounts of the same transactions were in strict verbal conformity with each other, the argument against their credibility would be much stronger. All that is asked for these witnesses is that their testimony may be regarded as we regard the testimony of men in the ordinary affairs of life. This they are justly entitled to; and this no honorable adversary can refuse. We might, indeed, take higher ground than this, and confidently claim for them the severest scrutiny; but our present purpose is merely to try their veracity by the ordinary tests of truth, admitted in human tribunals.

§ 36. If the evidence of the evangelists is to be rejected because of a few discrepancies among them, we shall be obliged to discard that of many of the contemporaneous histories on which we are accustomed to rely. Dr. Paley has noticed the contradiction between Lord Clarendon and Burnett and others in regard to Lord Strafford’s execution: the former stating that he was condemned to be hanged, which was done on the same day and the latter all relating that on a Saturday he was sentenced to the block, and was beheaded on the following Monday. Another striking instance of discrepancy has since occurred, in the narratives of the different members of the royal family of France, of their flight from Paris to Varennes, in 1792. These narratives, ten in number, and by eye-witnesses and personal actions in the transactions they relate, contradict each other, some in trivial and some on more essential points, but in every case in a wonderful and inexplicable manner. ⁵⁶ Yet these contradictions do not, in the general public estimation, detract from the integrity of the narrators, nor from the credibility of their relations. In the points in which they agree, and which constitute the great body of their narratives, their testimony is of course not doubted where they differ, we reconcile them, as well as we may; and where this cannot be done at all, we follow that light which seems to us the clearest. Upon the principles of the skeptic, we should be bound utterly to disbelieve them all. On the contrary, we apply to such cases the rules which, in daily experience, our judges instruct juries to apply, in weighing and reconciling the testimony of different witnesses; and which the courts themselves observe, in comparing and reconciling different and sometimes discordant reports of the same decisions. This remark applies especially to some alleged discrepancies in the reports which the several evangelists have given of the same discourses of our Lord.⁵⁷

Edmund Bennett, a probate judge in New York for over two decades and Dean of the School of Law at Boston University for 23 years:

Had all four accounts been exactly alike, the suspicion would have been irresistible that one was copied from the other, or that all were taken from one and the same original. But substantial uniformity with circumstantial variety is one of the surest tests of truth in all historical narratives. The several accounts of many important battles of the world, and of many other historical events, vary in many particulars, and yet no one thereby has any doubt of their occurrence. The four portraits of the Father of his country, painted by four different artists, viz., Stuart, Peale, Sharpless, and Wright, though all taken about the same period of his life, vary so much in expression that you would scarcely know them to represent the same person, and yet the same George Washington undoubtedly sat for them all. The various editions of Gray's Elegy, and of some of Shakespeare's plays, differ as much as do some chapters of Matthew and Luke in their respective accounts of the same transaction. Indeed, what four of us could go away from this meeting, and give exactly the same account of what transpires here? What four witnesses under oath in a court of justice ever describe a transaction precisely alike? And yet their testimony is taken as reliable, in cases involving the most important interests, even of life and death.

Indeed, judges and juries are apt to discredit a cause in which all the witnesses tell a long story in exactly the same words.

Thomas Chalmers, Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation:

If Christianity be not true, then the first Christians must have been mistaken as to the subject of their testimony. This supposition is destroyed by the nature of the subject. It was not testimony to a doctrine which might deceive the understanding. It was something more than testimony to a dream, or a trance, or a midnight fancy, which might deceive the imagination. It was testimony to a multitude and a succession of palpable facts, which could never have deceived the senses, and which preclude all possibility of mistake, even though it had been the testimony only of one individual. But when, in addition to this, we consider, that it is the testimony, not of one, but of many individuals ; that it is a story repeated in a variety of forms, but substantially the same; that it is the concurring testimony of different eyewitnesses, or the companions of eyewitnesses—we may, after this, take refuge in the idea of falsehood and collusion; but it is not to be admitted, that these eight different writers of the New Testament could have all blundered the matter with such method, and such uniformity.

Do you understand, Mr. Babinski? Or is it your desire to engage in:

Logical fallacy #5: Special pleading.

Logical fallacy #6: Double standards.

Logical fallacy #7: Fallacious appeal to authority. You are not above the law.

In fact there is no first hand depiction of what anyone witnessed,

Once again Mr. Babinski demonstrates

Logical fallacy #8: Argument from ignorance.

He ignored the relevant verses given here.

John stated he was a witness:

John 21:24
This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true.

Peter told the crowds, who also witnessed Christ’s post-resurrection appearances:

Acts 2:32
This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

Acts 3:15
and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.

We know the apostles were witnesses:

Acts 4:33
And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.

Peter acknowledges himself with the eyewitnesses:

2 Peter 1:16
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

These were posted here but for some reason you’re being deliberately ignorant. Do you believe being deliberately ignorant demonstrates rational thinking?

every story is second hand (the Gospels are second hand),

No, Mr. Babinski. Matthew and John are first hand; Luke and Mark are reportage of first hand testimony and are acceptable as evidence in a court of law under the rules of legal evidence.

except for Paul who says briefly in first hand fashion that the Lord "appeared" to him (with no details given).

Logical fallacy #9: Argument from ignorance.

The details are provided in Acts 9, Acts 22 and Acts 26.

And that was enough to make Paul in his opinion, an apostle equal to the rest.

It was more than Paul’s opinion. He was recognized as an apostle by the other apostles, by the church, and by God.

Therefore...

The use of the word "witness" as you dug up, is not the central point,

Logical fallacy #10: Argument from ignorance.

Reread the verses at

http://debunkingloftus.blogspot.com/2009/05/loftus-loft-of-ignorance.html and try to comprehend this time.

and certainly not the point John was alluding to.

Logical fallacy #11: Argument from ignorance.

What part of “Even if we assume that there are genuine eyewitnesses to the resurrection, which there are not ...” do you not understand?

Unless of course you feel that by repeating in typical ancient Near Eastern fashion such hyperbolic phrases as "we are surrounded by a vast sea of witnesses," or,"the Holy Spirit witneses," or, "God as my witness," is your point.

Logical fallacy #12: Argument from ignorance. Could it be you don’t know the meaning of these words?

Oxford English Dictionary:

witness, n.

2. a. Attestation of a fact, event, or statement; testimony, evidence; evidence given in a court of justice. See also 10.

6. a. One who is or was present and is able to testify from personal observation; one present as a spectator or auditor. (Cf. EAR-WITNESS, EYE-WITNESS.) Usually with of, occas. to.

10. to bear witness: (said properly of a person, a book, etc.) to give oral or written testimony or evidence; hence fig. to furnish or constitute evidence or proof; to testify, witness to (occas. of). to bear (one) witness: to corroborate one's statement or be a witness of one's action. (Cf. ON. bera vitni, OF. porter temoin.)

eye-witness

1. One who gives testimony to what he has seen with his own eyes. Obs.

2. One who can give testimony from personal observation; one who has seen a thing done or happen. Also attrib.

3. The result of actual observation; a report made by one who was present. Obs.

Does Mr. Babinski’s inability to grasp such a simple concept demonstrate intelligence, or stupidity?

Thomas Chalmers, Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation:

We know that, in spite of the magnitude of their sufferings, there are infidels, who, driven from the first part of the alternative, have recurred to the second, and have affirmed, that the glory of establishing a new religion induced the first Christians to assert, and to persist in asserting, what they knew to be a falsehood. But (though we should be anticipating the last branch of the argument) they forget that we have the concurrence of two parties to the truth of Christianity, and that it is the conduct only of one of the parties which can be accounted for by the supposition in question. The two parties are the teachers and the taught. The former may aspire to the glory of founding a new faith; but what glory did the latter propose to themselves from being the dupes of an imposition so ruinous to every earthly interest, and held in such low and disgraceful estimation by the world at large? Abandon the teachers of Christianity to every imputation which infidelity, on the rack for conjectures to give plausibility to its system, can desire, how shall we explain the concurrence of its disciples? There may be a glory in leading, but we see no glory in being led. If Christianity were false, and Paul had the effrontery to appeal to his five hundred living witnesses, whom he alleges to have seen Christ after his resurrection, the submissive acquiescence of his disciples remains a very inexplicable circumstance. The same Paul, in his epistles to the Corinthians, tells them that some of them had the gift of healing, and the power of working miracles; and that the signs of an apostle had been wrought among them in wonders and mighty deeds. A man aspiring to the glory of an accredited teacher would never have committed himself on a subject where his falsehood could have been so readily exposed. And in the veneration with which we know his epistles to have been preserved by the church of Corinth, we have not merely the testimony of their writer to the truth of the Christian miracles, but the testimony of a whole people, who had no interest in being deceived.

Had Christianity been false, the reputation of its first teachers lay at the mercy of every individual among the numerous proselytes which they had gained to their system. It may not be competent for an unlettered peasant to detect the absurdity of a doctrine; but he can at all times lift his testimony against a fact said to 'have happened in his presence, and under the observation of his senses. Now it so happens, that in a number of the epistles, there are allusions to, or express intimations of, the miracles that had been wrought in the different churches to which these epistles are addressed. How comes it, if it be all a fabrication, that it was never exposed? We know, that some of the disciples were driven, by the terrors of persecuting violence, to resign their profession. How should it happen that none of them ever attempted to vindicate their apostacy by laying open the artifice and insincerity of their Christian teachers? We may be sure that such a testimony would have been highly acceptable to the existing authorities of that period. The Jews would have made the most of it; and the vigilant and discerning officers of the Roman government would not have failed to turn it to account. The mystery would have been exposed and laid open, and the curiosity of latter ages would have been satisfied as to the wonderful and unaccountable steps by which a religion could make such head in the world, though it rested its whole authority on facts, the falsehood of which was accessible to all who were at the trouble to inquire about them. But no! We hear of no such testimony from the apostates of that period. We read of some who, agonized at the reflection of their treachery, returned to their first profession, and expiated, by martyrdom, the guilt which they felt they had incurred by their dereliction of the truth. This furnishes a strong example of the power of conviction, and when we join with it, that it is conviction in the integrity of those teachers who appealed to miracles which had been wrought among them, it appears to us a testimony in favour of our religion which is altogether irresistible.

Does any of this information penetrate your brain, Mr. Babinski?

***

The rest of Mr. Babinski's diatribe is addressed here.

Enjoy.