The Scronny-Brained Scholar

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Again, why John, do you insist on debunking something that is stupid and outdated and superstitious in the first place?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...

How to Construct a Cash-Cow Franchise

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?

*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.