Loftus Atheist Error #6: Is God “Love” or a “Moral Monster”?

Trinitarianism & Christology

2026-06-05T23:54:35-04:00

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Loftus Atheist Error #5: Origins, Flew’s Deism, Anthropomorphism

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:54 pm By Dave Armstrong

Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. . . . I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. . . . Do you accept my challenge?

I declined at that time, mainly (but not solely) for the following stated reason:

If you send me your book in an e-file for free, I’d be more than happy to critique it. I won’t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. . . . You railed against that, saying that it was a “handout.” I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.

When the history of Christianity’s demise is written (it will fade eventually away, as do all religions), your name will feature prominently as one who helped bring the world to its senses. Your legacy is secure and is much appreciated.

The words of John Loftus will be in blue.

*****

John Loftus’ chapter 4 is entitled, “Does God Exist” (pp. 79-102)

The atheist maintains that the material universe either popped into existence out of nothing, has always existed, is self-caused, or is just a natural brute fact arising form the laws of physics. . . . Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith claims that our universe came “from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing.” He argues that the universe caused itself to exist. (p. 79)

This is one of the very best arguments against atheism (simple and elegant). Even Loftus concedes on the same page that this view is “extremely unlikely — or possibly absurd.” Granted, he also thinks the view that “Something — anything — has always existed” (which would include an eternal God) can be described in the same way. But it’s quite notable and in my opinion, a huge concession in holding that atheist explanations of the existence of the universe are no more plausible or likely than the traditional Christian belief in creation of the universe (all things) by God.

Thanks, John! I’ve been making the same argument for at least 30 years: contending that both competing views of the origin of the universe (theistic and atheistic) cannot be absolutely proven, and require axioms: in effect, “faith.” Atheists routinely claim falsely and groundlessly that their view of ultimate origins is rational, “scientific,” and requires no faith, whereas ours (here it comes!) is irrational, anti-scientific (or at least non-scientific / non-empirical) and requires unsupported blind faith. Loftus cuts through that pretense, and I appreciate it. It’s a breath of fresh air. Both sides necessarily entail unproven axioms and non-empirical (purely philosophical and/or religious) starting-points.

[the classic ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments (dealt with in pp. 81-97) are far too involved to delve into for my purposes, and others do a far better job, anyway, so I will leave the defenses of these three classic arguments up to them. Loftus mostly summarizes both espousals of these arguments and criticisms of them (i.e., he does little more than “survey the literature” from a thoroughly biased atheist perspective). I agree that none of them absolutely prove God’s existence. But considered together, I think they raise many troubling objections for the atheist to consider, and that the cumulative evidences suggest that God’s existence is far more probable and plausible than His non-existence]

I’m not certain some kind of god doesn’t exist. I just don’t think so. (p. 97)

Fair enough. There is still a little door open to convince him of God’s existence, then.

[T]his [the teleological / design argument] was the same argument that convinced a possibly stroke-affected Antony Flew to become a deist before he died, after being possibly the leading atheist thinker of the last century. (p. 97)

I’ve been looking and looking, with all the search capabilities of the modern Internet, and I can’t find anything about Flew having had a stroke at all: let alone one that would affect his reasoning, so that he would become a deist. I’d love to know where Loftus discovered this alleged bit of information, and how verified it is. The closest I got was a reference in the Wikipedia article about Flew, that referenced “an article in The New York Times Magazine alleging that Flew’s intellect had declined due to senility, . . .”

Following the link to the article (dated 4 November 2007), I see that the words “senility” or “senile” never appear in it; nor does “dementia.” It makes passing references to his “memory failing” / “his powers in decline” / “halting” diction and a mind “in decline” (he was then 84). But all this — even if true — is far, far from alleging the serious claim that a stroke affected his philosophical reasoning ability. So where did Loftus acquire such a belief: even if it is only speculative?

The same article notes that well-known atheist Richard Carrier wrote to Flew in 2001, and that Flew replied on the 3rd of September: “I have for a long time been inclined to believe in an Aristotelian God who (or which) does not intervene in the Universe.” He was at that time 78, so whatever “a long time” means, it is clear that the essence of his change of mind was not “before he died” (implied: right before; stroke or no). Nice try!

Thus, to uphold this hypothesis, one would have to establish that Flew suffered a stroke before whatever year his “Aristotelian god” inclination began (a “long time” before he reached age 78: so he himself stated). It doesn’t look very hopeful. But atheists had to come up with something to discredit Flew’s newfound belief (I documented a good deal of this at the time in a discontinued paper of mine), and so Loftus gives us this nothing burger.

[following an argument from Richard Dawkins] Of course, if evolution is unguided, then God doesn’t exist.” (p. 97)

This doesn’t follow at all, and is a strikingly weak argument to make. There is no necessity that I can see for God (if He exists) to be compelled to “guide evolution.” If God is only a deist-type god, a la the “late period Flew” or David Hume (who accepted a form of the teleological argument), then by definition He would not guide it, since deism posits a God Who creates and then withdraws from any governance or supervision of His creation (His providence and sovereignty are denied). But even a full theistic and biblical God wouldn’t have to literally guide evolution (however such a thing is construed). He could simply have put the potentialities into matter that would enable it to evolve and bring about all that we see today. St. Augustine was pondering that live possibility 1600 years ago.

This God . . . had a body that needed to rest on the seventh day and was found walking in the “cool of the day” in the Garden of Eden . . . Still later, the God of the Bible was stripped of physical characteristics and became known as a spiritual being (John 4:21-24), although he may have been thought of as an embodied God when impregnating Mary . . . (p. 102)

Loftus, like probably 50 other atheists I’ve interacted with, doesn’t have a clue about biblical anthropomorphism and anthropopathism. This is part of the profoundly ignorant (almost universal) atheist misunderstanding of the many biblical literary genres and ways of expression. It’s all the more case if an atheist came out of fundamentalism, since they never understood or fully understood these factors even as a Christian.

This also gets into the related involved topics of theophanies and the angel of the Lord [see section II, part 3 in the link, and see also a second article] as God’s representative, which I have written about. It’s not likely that Loftus has much of an understanding of these matters, and the standard Christian / biblical view that God the Father is invisible: at least not from these particular out-to-sea “parting shot” statements in this chapter. We’ll see if he exhibits any better understanding of these more advanced matters in theology, as we proceed through the book.

It’s beyond ludicrous to claim that Christians ever believed that a supposedly physical God the Father impregnated Mary (best I can tell, this is what Loftus meant). In Christian belief from the start, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18: “she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit”: RSV): and a spirit is what it is. The Holy Spirit is immaterial and He has no body. So this is truly beyond the pale. Bringing about a miraculous pregnancy in Mary no more requires a “physical” God the Father or Holy Spirit than creation does. Loftus is just pulling these things out of a hat.

Lastly, Loftus is getting way ahead of himself in bringing up trinitarianism in a chapter about the theistic arguments, since virtually all Christians would readily agree that those arguments do not establish a trinitarian God (though they are consistent with that). Rather, the Holy Trinity is revealed in God’s inspired revelation: the Bible. It’s not the conclusion of a philosophical argument.

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Photo credit: John Loftus at SASHAcon 2016 at the University of Missouri; Mark Schierbecker (3-19-16) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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2019-09-07T12:07:24-04:00

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Atheist David Madison Rationalizes His Intellectual Cowardice

Last updated on: September 7, 2019 at 12:07 pm By Dave Armstrong

. . . and Ignoring of 35 of My Critiques of His Anti-Christian Polemics

Here’s how he does it (posted on 9-6-19):

This is a time of distress for Christian apologists. These are the die-hards who brag that they are devotees—in a professional capacity, no less—of the ancient Jesus mystery cult. They feel compelled to defend it at whatever cost. But times are changing, and they face challenges unknown to earlier apologists. . . .

So the burden of the apologist has become heavy indeed, and some don’t handle the anguish well. They vent and rage at critics, like toddlers throwing tantrums when a threadbare security blanket gets tossed out. We can smell their panic. Engaging with the ranters serves no purpose—any more than it does to engage with Flat-Earthers, Chemtrail conspiracy theorists, and those who argue that the moon landings were faked.

The five stages of Bible grief provide opportunities to initiate dialogue. I prefer to engage with NON-obsessive-compulsive-hysterical Christians, those who have spotted rubbish in the Bible, and might already have one foot out the door.

It’s a foolproof method: simply ignore any critic of your criticism on the grounds that they are panicked, hysterical ranters who merely throw temper tantrums, and are on the level of flat-earthers and fake moon landing kooks.

Poisoning the well and ad hominem at its finest . . .

It rather spectacularly confirms a point that I’ve made for a long time, about actively polemical, “preachy,” anti-theist atheists. I wrote, for example, in July 2017:

Many online atheists are extremely insulting towards Christians. Atheists love to interact with dumb Christians: it confirms to them that they were right in rejecting Christianity (baby-bathwater stuff, but still . . .). Atheists have a vested interest in thinking that Christianity is stupid and that Christians are imbeciles.

This refers, I should say, to the large strain of anti-theist atheists. Not all atheists are anti-theists: those who spend their days and nights gloating about how supposedly stupid and gullible all of us Christians are. But many, many are of this mindset, and they are clearly predominant in online atheist venues.

So Dr. Madison’s game is very apparent and transparent: he’s out to propagandize and brainwash Christians to forsake their faith, just as he did. He has no interest whatever in intelligent, respectful discussion with any Christian who actually can put up a fight and offer substantive criticism of his arguments. It doesn’t further his purposes (to put it mildly) if his readers ever see that he is wrong in an argument, or that a lowly, idiotic, fairy-tale believing Christian presents a much more plausible case. It can’t possibly happen (atheists being so intellectually superior to us), so he makes sure that it never happens by excluding and refusing to enter into all such dialogue (including replying to my 35 critiques) from the outset.

That ain’t part of the agenda. So what does a guy like him do? He does exactly what we see above: lie about the critic and paint him in the worst possible light, so as to dismiss him and act as if his challenge is nonexistent. Apologists for Christianity like myself are panicked, hysterical ranters who merely throw temper tantrums, and are on the level of flat-earthers and fake moon landing kooks. That’s me, down to a tee, isn’t it?

John Loftus, who runs the Debunking Christianity site where Madison posts, used the same unethical tactic in the last few weeks: for him (i.e., how he deludes himself and pretends, to maintain his game) I am a relentlessly “angry” person who “hates” anyone I disagree with. If you dare to disagree with anyone today, you get immediately pegged as a hater. What they call “hatred” and “anger,” I simply call honest intellectual differences and constructive dialogue.

These guys have no interest in actual dialogue, and so they have to smear those who advocate it and who threaten to overturn their nice little anti-theist atheist apple cart: who dare to pull back the curtain and expose what the Great Oz really is like.

I’m critiquing John Loftus’ book, Why I Became an Atheist now. There is no sign that he will be any more willing to interact than Dr. Madison, or Bob Seidensticker, who has also ignored 35 critiques of his stuff that he himself challenged me to write.

The game is up with all these clowns. Whatever one thinks of their atheism, wholly apart from that, they demonstrate over and over again that they are intellectual cowards, unable to defend their own positions, and lacking the courage of their convictions.

Small fry like me should be the easiest thing in the world for Madison, Loftus, and Seidensticker to dispose of: if indeed they believed their own triumphalistic, flatulent rhetoric and hideously inflated and exaggerated claims to supreme confidence in their own opinions. But they don’t. They name-call, lie, and flee for the hills. It’s obvious why they do it. They’re not fooling anyone who isn’t already a blind faith true believer in their pitiful cause of “proving” to the world that God doesn’t exist.

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Photo credit: No Swimming (1921), by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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atheist intellectual cowardice

David Madison

2026-06-05T23:54:35-04:00

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Loftus Atheist Error #4: The Outsider Test for Faith

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:54 pm By Dave Armstrong

Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. . . . I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. . . . Do you accept my challenge?

I declined at that time, mainly (but not solely) for the following stated reason:

If you send me your book in an e-file for free, I’d be more than happy to critique it. I won’t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. . . . You railed against that, saying that it was a “handout.” I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.

When the history of Christianity’s demise is written (it will fade eventually away, as do all religions), your name will feature prominently as one who helped bring the world to its senses. Your legacy is secure and is much appreciated.

The words of John Loftus will be in blue.

*****

John Loftus’ chapter 3 is entitled, “The Outsider Test for Faith” (pp. 64-78).

Loftus summarizes this argument of his as follows:

(1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and shared cultural heritage.

(2) [T]o an overwhelming degree, one’s religious faith is causally dependent upon cultural conditions.

From (1) and (2) it follows that:

(3) It is highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.

Given these odds we need a test, or an objective standard, to help us determine if our inherited religious faith is true, so I propose that:

4) The best and probably the only way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism one uses to evaluate other religious faiths.

. . . I’m not arguing that religious faiths are completely culturally relative and therefore all false because of religious diversity. I’m merely arguing that believers should be very skeptical of their faith because of these cultural factors. . . . (p. 65)

If you were born in Saudi Arabia you would be a Sunni Muslim right now. . . . If you were born in the first century BCE in Israel, you’d adhere to the Jewish faith, and if you were born in Europe in 1200 CE, you’d be a Roman Catholic.. . . In short, we are overwhelmingly products of our times. (p. 66)

At the very minimum, believers should be willing to subject their faith to rigorous scrutiny by reading many of the best-recognized critiques of it. For instance, Christians should be willing to read this book of mine and others I’ve published. (p. 68)

[T]hey can no longer start out by believing that the Bible is true . . . nor can they trust their own anecdotal religious experiences, since such experiences are had by people of all religious faiths who differ about the cognitive content learned as the result of these experiences. (pp. 68-69)

If after you have investigated your religious faith with the presumption of skepticism, you find that it passes intellectual muster, you can have your religious faith. It’s that simple. If not, abandon it. (p. 71)

I answered an earlier version of Loftus’ argument in September 2007. The following draws heavily from that article of mine.

I fully agree with the “rational self-examination” core of this argument. It’s a major reason why I do apologetics. Religious views need to be held with a great deal more rationality and self-conscious analysis of the epistemological basis and various types of evidences for one’s own belief.

I believe everyone should study to know why they believe what they believe. On the other hand, I deny that there is no religious knowledge or evidence other than these hard proofs from scientific inquiry. There are also highly complex internal or instinctive or subjective or experiential factors that have been analyzed at great length by philosophers like William Alston (see Alvin Plantinga (“properly basic belief”). Those are huge discussions, but not to be dismissed as irrelevant to the present line of inquiry.

Many (and probably most) Christians never do the recommended self-examination of their faith and its basis; I agree. Again, this is among the many reasons why I have devoted myself to apologetics. I would say, though, that there is a version of this “become whatever your surroundings dictate” argument that can be turned around as a critique of atheism.

Many atheists — though usually not born in that worldview — nevertheless have decided to immerse themselves in atheist / skeptical literature and surround themselves with others of like mind. And so they become confirmed in their beliefs. We are what we eat. In other words, one can voluntarily decide to shut off other modes and ways of thinking in order to become “convinced” of a particular viewpoint. That is almost the same mentality as adopting a religion simply because “everyone else” in a culture does so, or because of an accident of birth. People can create an “accident of one-way reading” too.

My position, in contrast, is for people to read competent advocates of any given debate and see them interact with each other. That’s why I do so many dialogues. John Loftus wrote these papers and books, and they might seem to be wonderfully plausible, until someone like me comes around to point out the fallacies in them and to challenge some of the alleged facts. Inquirers need to read both sides and exercise their critical faculties (not just Christians or only atheists). The most fruitful, helpful debates are those where both sides know their stuff and have the confidence to defend themselves and the courage and honesty to change their opinions if they have been shown that truth and fact demand it.

It’s true that most people believe in the religious view that they were born into. But of course, some (many?) change their minds later on. And we must also take into account variations within religions. In my case, for example, one could say “sure, you’re a Christian because most Americans claim to be so.” True enough on one level, but it is false insofar as it would presuppose that I am a Christian only because of this factor and no others.

In fact, I have made up my mind as an individual and often changed my opinions. I was born into a liberal Methodist family. I never resonated with that much, and stopped going to the Methodist church when I was ten. I then became a “secularist” or “practical atheist” for about eight years. That went against my background because both parents and all four grandparents were Methodists. I then converted to evangelical Christianity at age 18. There wasn’t much of that in my larger (mostly Canadian) family, either. And at length I converted to Catholicism at age 32. There were virtually no Catholics in my extended family. So I was making decisions on my own regardless of what folks around me believed (particularly in my Catholic conversion). Therefore, this whole analysis doesn’t really apply to me, if we examine it closely and take it a step deeper and out of the broadest generalities.

I’m not saying that my type of path is anywhere near the norm, but I am saying that there are (who knows how many?) folks like me to which this “test” doesn’t apply. We didn’t adopt our religious views simply because of what the majority of people around us believed, or because it was what we were raised in. We thought it through and came to our own conclusions.

Another relevant factor to consider is that many beliefs in other religions are similar or identical to Christian ones. This would cause this argument to have to be qualified, since the “diversity” is not as great as it may seem at first glance. All religions and indeed ethical systems (whether religious or not) have great commonalities. This was a central thesis of C. S. Lewis’s book The Abolition of Man. Anyone can word-search the free online version for “Appendix Illustrations of the Tao” to find many examples of commonalities in ethics. For example, Lewis found the Golden Rule in the Analects of Confucius: “Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.”

We need not reject all other religions in toto; just aspects of them that we believe to be untrue. For example, we have no objection to Jews following the 613 commandments of Mosaic Law or keeping kosher. Buddhists are often pro-life, and teach about personal asceticism: something not unlike Catholic monasticism. Muslims still have lots of children (like American Christians used to), and are against abortion and premarital sex and pornography. All great stuff . . .

Lewis’ argument, and one often made by Christian apologists, is that such commonality is an an indication of the truthfulness of those tenets which are widely held in common. If virtually every religious (or conscientious atheist) person in the world believes in some form of the Golden Rule, then that is evidence that the Golden Rule is likely true. If diversity suggests much falsehood (as I agree it does), then commonality suggests much truth in play.

I agree that every Christian should have a reasonable faith, that can withstand rational and skeptical examination. I do this myself and I write so that others can share in the same confidence and blessing that I receive as I do apologetics and interact with other people of different beliefs. I have also long accepted the sociological basis of much actual belief, on account of my reading of social analysts such as Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) and Michael Polanyi.

Every person is responsible for his or her own intellectual advancement. The trouble is that public education is so rotten today that young minds aren’t formulated in ways that would further this end. They are spoon-fed secularist propaganda bleached of any Christian influence whatsoever, and then given a massive sophisticated dose of anti-Christianity in college (so that many students lose their faith because they are so overwhelmed and unprepared), as if this were a fair, intelligent way of going about things. They are what they eat too.

That’s why secularists are so intent on removing any vestige of Christianity from education, because they prevail only by people being ignorant of any alternative. I was a thoroughly secularist pro-choice, pro-feminist, political and sexual liberal coming out of high school. I would have repeated the party line impeccably (in marvelously blissful ignorance). But when I started reading some materials with a different perspective during my college years and shortly afterwards (Christian, politically conservative, pro-life), my opinions changed because I had a rational basis to compare one view with another, rather than merely aping propagandistic slogans learned by rote repetition (which is much of liberal, secularist education these days).

But (back to Loftus’ argument) there are no absolutely clean slates. This is where I would disagree, based on the analyses of people like Plantinga, Alston, and Polanyi (the latter almost single-handedly dismantled logical positivism). We can be sure that the alleged “neutral skeptic” has a complete set of predispositions, biases, and even some prejudices: as we all do to one degree or another.

I do, however, believe in being as objective and fair as we possibly can be, even given our inevitable biases and belief-system that cannot be erased merely by playing the game of philosophy and supposed extreme, dispassionate detachment.

There are a number of evidential or empirical tests that Christianity and other religions can be subjected to. The argument from biblical prophecy offers a chance to test by real, concrete historical events whether the predictions were accurate or not. A study of Jesus’ Resurrection, that involved a dead body and a rock tomb guarded by Roman soldiers, provides hard facts that have to be dealt with and explained somehow. The cosmological and teleological theistic arguments offer hard scientific facts and details that are rationally explained as suggesting a God. All miraculous claims can be examined with a fine-toothed comb.

At least for the western religions, there are several tests from various fields of study (natural science, archaeology, textual analysis, historiography, philosophical arguments, etc.) that can be brought to bear. Those from these traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) hold lots of beliefs along those lines in common, and so can compare the relative strength of their religious claims. Eastern religion is another story, and the presuppositions and conception of God is so different that it is difficult to test or examine rationally by these same standards.

In the Catholic tradition, there are many eyewitness accounts of people being raised from the dead (St. Augustine, for example, attested to this). There are all sorts of miracles. For example: the incorrupt bodies of saints. If you can take a dead person out of their grave twenty, fifty years or more after their death, and the body has not decayed, and it is because they were a saintly person, then that is hard empirical evidence that confirms Christian, Catholic teaching. You have the mystery of the stigmata, that could be seen in, e.g., St. Padre Pio, who died in 1968. There is archaeological evidence confirming the claims of the Bible. Etc., etc. I have compiled some evidence for scientifically verified miracles at the Marian shrine in Lourdes, France.

Skeptics thumb their noses at all of this but it is not nearly so simple. There are unexplained phenomena here that have to be accounted for. We have our interpretation, but the atheist puts his head in the sand and claims that it’s all impossible because of their prior axiomatic beliefs that all miracles simply cannot happen because they allegedly “go against science ” (itself a blatant fallacy).

As for believing that the Bible is true: we test it like any other source of history: through historiographical scholarship and archaeology. The Bible has been verified again and again in this fashion and has proven itself highly accurate, insofar as it correctly reports historical, geographical, biographical details, etc.

Wholly apart from religious faith, then, we can establish that it is a remarkably accurate document that can be trusted to accurately report things. That’s the bare minimum. Once supernatural events are being discussed, the argument must be made on an entirely different plane: legal-historical evidences, philosophy, etc. But the Bible is not untrustworthy on the basis of inaccuracy of things that can be empirically verified.

Loftus has never replied to any of these arguments of mine for almost twelve years (except with personal insults towards me). He claims that Christians have offered no good replies to this argument. I believe that I have offered some (that’s for readers to determine).

Bottom line: everyone is in this same boat (as Loftus agrees). We all have to / should / must examine why we believe what we believe. The Outsider Test is almost an apologia for Christian apologetics: when applied to Christianity. In a large sense, he almost makes my case for me. His arguments apply to those who are ignorant of apologetics and rational defense of their views. Loftus even rather dramatically concedes: “If after you have investigated your religious faith with the presumption of skepticism, you find that it passes intellectual muster, you can have your religious faith” (p. 71). I couldn’t agree more!

It’s undeniably true (believe me, I know, in my profession) that most people, whether religious or atheist, don’t think very much about their worldview, and why they believe in God or disbelieve in His existence. Oftentimes, they don’t even know what they believe. This will be the case all the more as western culture continues to become more and more postmodernist, relativist, nominal as to religion and metaphysics and “ultimate questions of meaning,” and subjective. Religion and atheism both are often regarded as merely subjective and “personal” matters: for which (it is falsely claimed) no objective criteria of truth or falsity are relevant or even possible.

Moreover, the same dynamic that Loftus critiques as to Christians is seen in nations that are becoming predominantly atheist / non-religious. Folks who are born into those environments will (statistically, as the trends continue) be far more likely to grow up as good card-carrying atheists (simply due to happenstance and where they were born), who think far more like Loftus does than like I do. Hence, we might observe, as a prime example, what is happening in England. An article in The Guardian (11-14-18) about falling Church of England attendance, noted:

Figures published by the British Social Attitudes survey in September showed that affiliation with the C of E was at a record low, at 14% – and down to 2% among young adults. More than half the population said they had no religion.

So millions who happen to be born in England are far more likely than those born in America, to be nominal about religion or atheist. And the vast majority of these won’t be able to defend their positions against examination, just as most Christians also cannot. They couldn’t care less about discussing it at all. Even atheists who are supposedly able to do so (polemicists or “apologists” for their “cause”), rarely interact with serious Christian critiques. Why?

The entire argument can be thrown back onto Loftus and atheists. Why are they so unwilling (like most Christians) to subject their views to scrutiny? Why do they confine their online discourse almost solely to cheerleading “groupthink” echo chambers: their own comboxes, where they can safely “preach to the choir” and quickly gang up on anyone who enters and dares to dissent form the party line? Why did Bob Seidensticker, who runs the popular Cross Examined blog, completely ignore 35 direct critiques I have made of his arguments (after he challenged me to write them)? Is this being intellectually deficient and/or dishonest, as Loftus charges Christians who act the same way? Does this extraordinary, determined reluctance suggest a lack of confidence in his own views?

Why has Dr. David Madison, who blogs on Loftus’ own Debunking Christianity site, also utterly ignored 35 of my critiques against his atheist articles, that aggressively attack Christian beliefs? The same questions apply to him, just as Loftus applies them to Christians who can’t rationally explain why they believe what they believe. Goose and gander. Meanwhile, I’m here doing exactly what Loftus calls for (and what I have done since 1981, as an apologist): subjecting my views to scrutiny and examination through multiple hundreds of dialogues, and extending the same courtesy to atheists (who almost universally refuse to respond to such inquiries). In other words, they act exactly as most Christians do in this regard.

And if John Loftus also chooses to ignore these critiques of his book (that he challenged me to do way back in 2006, and boldly challenges anyone and everyone to do), he will help to prove my point, too. We have to look at what both Christians and atheists do; not just what they say, and claim to believe, just as Jesus rebuked His proclaimed followers who were being hypocritical:

Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”

Christians have no monopoly on either ignorance or hypocrisy. Loftus talks a good game. He writes well and articulately presents his case. Now let’s see if he can back up his own rhetoric with defenses of his views, as they are seriously examined (just as he examines and rejects ours).

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Photo credit: John Loftus at SASHAcon 2016 at the University of Missouri; Mark Schierbecker (3-19-16) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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Science: “only discipline that tells us new things about reality” [???]: Scientism or Near-Scientism as a Very Common Shortcoming of Atheist Epistemology [8-9-18]

2026-06-05T23:54:35-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Loftus Atheist Error #3: Scientism & a “Better [Pascal’s] Wager”

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:54 pm By Dave Armstrong

Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. . . . I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. . . . Do you accept my challenge?

I declined at that time, mainly (but not solely) for the following stated reason:

If you send me your book in an e-file for free, I’d be more than happy to critique it. I won’t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. . . . You railed against that, saying that it was a “handout.” I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.

When the history of Christianity’s demise is written (it will fade eventually away, as do all religions), your name will feature prominently as one who helped bring the world to its senses. Your legacy is secure and is much appreciated.

The words of John Loftus will be in blue.

*****

John Loftus’ chapter 2 is entitled, “Faith, Reason, and My Approach to Christianity” (pp. 39-63).

It’s well beyond my purview and purpose in these critiques to tackle all of the various brands of philosophy of religion and strains and varieties of Christian apologetics. Reasonable Christians (and atheists) can differ in good faith about their relative strengths and weaknesses.

So I’ll confine myself to what I think are outright misunderstandings of misrepresentations of Christian views: particularly as expressed in inspired Scripture. I agree with Loftus when he writes (p. 44): “I understand these are complex issues, which unfortunately, I can’t devote the needed space to . . .” He knows that this is a “large and lumpy” area of thinking; so do I.

I maintain a very extensive Philosophy, Science & Christianity web page, if readers want to see how I argue various positions, and how I come down on all the internal differences about how to defend Christianity and larger theism. I summed up on Facebook — in a very “nutshell” way — my overall philosophy of religion:

My Opinion on “Proofs for God’s Existence” Summarized in Two Sentences

My view remains what it has been for many years: nothing strictly / absolutely “proves” God’s existence. But . . .

I think His existence is exponentially more probable and plausible than atheism, based on the cumulative effect of a multitude of good and different types of (rational) theistic arguments, and the utter implausibility, incoherence, irrationality, and unacceptable level of blind faith of alternatives.

In my first installment, I noted how Loftus stated that “I present a cumulative case argument against Christianity. . . . I consider this book to be one single argument against Christianity, and as such it should be evaluated as a whole.” (p. 15; his italics)

I replied:

That’s exactly how I view my body of apologetics (50 books and over 2500 blog articles) in favor of Christianity and (in particular) the collection of diverse argumentation I have set forth in critique of atheism.

Just as Loftus considers his overall case against Christianity long and multi-faceted and complex (laid out in “one single argument” in a densely argued 536-page book); likewise, I consider my case for Christianity and against atheism to be very multi-faceted and complex and only able to be fully understood with very extensive reading of my 2500+ articles and 50 books (not all, of course, but quite a few!).

What our views have in common is that we both regard them as “a cumulative case.” There is no one single argument on either side (I think he’d agree, as I’m pretty sure would most atheists and apologists and philosophers of religion) that is a “knockout punch”. Loftus agrees, on page 54:

When it comes to Christian apologetics, the best approach seems to be the cumulative case method of the late Paul D. Feinberg . . . This best explains why there is no single apologetical approach that will cause people to convert, and it bets explains why there is no silver bullet argument that will convince believing Christians to abandon their faith.

***

Scientific evidence, the evidence of the senses, and reasoning based on this evidence is what counts. (p. 44)

[W]hen I came to see things differently, sufficient evidence derived from science-based reasoning became the only game in town, so to speak, . . . the scientific method is the best (and probably the only) reliable guide we have for gaining the truth . . . (p. 57)

Here is where Loftus runs into what I consider to be insuperable problems, and self-refuting tenets. What he just described is empiricism, which is the philosophical outlook that senses and observations of physical things allow us to discover facts and truth. It’s fine as far as it goes (it’s the fundamental basis of science), but it just doesn’t go far enough or explain everything. There are many different ways of knowing (even mathematics and logic: both basic building-blocks of science, are axiomatic and non-empirical). We readily observe that this very sentence from Loftus is self-defeating:

He makes an epistemological statement about “what counts” [strongly implied, all that counts] in determining truth.

This very statement is not empirical. It is strictly philosophical, or metaphysical: about the relative value or worth of empiricism.

But if empirical observations are all that we can trust, and all that “count”, then his sentence has to be discounted, since it is not an empirical observation.

Ergo, it is self-defeating and self-refuting.

I’ve dealt with this false, misguided, tunnel vision “science only” or “scientism” mentality (very common in atheism) many times and from many different angles:

Atheist Myths: “Christianity vs. Science & Reason” (vs. “drunkentune”) [1-3-07]

Reply to Atheist Scientist Jerry Coyne: Are Science and Religion Utterly Incompatible? [7-13-10]

Christianity: Crucial to the Origin of Science [8-1-10]

Christians or Theists Founded 115 Scientific Fields [8-20-10]

Simultaneously Dumb & Smart Christians, Atheists, & Scientists [10-9-15]

Is Christianity Unfalsifiable? Is Empiricism the Only True Knowledge? [5-6-17]

Science, Logic, & Math Start with Unfalsifiable Axioms [1-6-18]

Rebuttal of Seidensticker’s Anti-Christian Science “History” [8-11-18]

Exclusive Empirical Epistemology?: Dialogue w Atheist [2-25-19]

Dialogue with Atheist: Are Christians “Unscientific”? [5-27-19]

I have never thought that Pascal’s wager was a particularly strong argument: if an argument at all. But it is a clever thought experiment and something to definitely seriously consider. Again, this is beyond the purview of my purposes, so I’ll pass. Though I love Pascal (and Alvin Plantinga, Kierkegaard, William Lane Craig, the Late Norman Geisler, gary Habermas, and others he mentions in this chapter), I’m not here to defend every school and argument of the entire history of apologetics. I’m already devoting what will be many hundreds of hours to this long project. My purpose is to critique errors I see in Loftus’ own views, per my titles: “Loftus Atheist Error # . . .”

On pages 50-51, Loftus develops an interesting (though thoroughly fallacious and weak) “New and Better Kind of Wager.” He reasons that it would be a better state of affairs if God asked us “if we want to be born, knowing the risks involved”: including the calculus and consideration of a possibility of ending up in an eternal hell. “Why wouldn’t God give us a choice in the matter? It seems unethical for him not to do so . . . If I were given the choice, I would simply say, ‘No, count me out! Put me out of existence now.’ “

This stimulates several responses in my mind (which is a major reason why I absolutely love dialogue and back-and-forth discussion: because it can do that):

1) I think it’s foolish to imagine and posit that he himself and many or most people would choose to be annihilated rather than to live a life on the earth. There is no good reason to believe this, that I can see. It’s essentially the view that we would all commit suicide, given the choice in the beginning: except that it would be an assisted suicide, with God’s help. I see no indication — by analogy of how relatively few people commit suicide in this world — that many folks would make this choice.

And if Loftus would have done so, then, by his own reasoning (and a reductio ad absurdum) he would have to argue that people (including he himself) should kill themselves today (if they thought there was a God and a hell, or even that both might exist), since the potentialities and hypotheticals remain the same. Atheist or no, the great bulk of people in the world are simply not that hopeless and nihilistic. Of course, Loftus doesn’t believe in God, and all of this is a mere hypothetical and mind game. But he is attempting to make a reasoned argument against the biblical God, and this doesn’t succeed in that purpose at all.

2) I note in passing (consider this a “footnote”) that it is highly ironic that a person who believes in legal abortion is making an argument that all of us: at the beginning of our existence, should be asked whether we want to live or not. To be consistent, the one who is pro-abortion and who has an abortion, would contradict this: all the more so in the atheist’s case, since they eliminate the only life that baby will ever have (there being no afterlife). If Loftus thinks “it seems unethical for him [God] not to do so” I don’t see how he can possibly favor legal abortion, since it is radically anti-choice for the baby about to be killed (and in atheist metaphysics and ontology, annihilated and made nonexistent forever).

3) I submit that it is absurd for God to ask a question of a human baby (which would presuppose that God temporarily gave them a mind that could reason enough to even have such a momentous discussion) about these things, when there are so many unknown factors. Obviously, in Christian belief, God is omniscient, and He deems it a good thing for human beings to “be fruitful and multiply.” For God, and for us Christians and pro-lifers, who consider life infinitely valuable and priceless, the very scenario is meaningless. Of course, life and creation as a whole is good and wonderful, and it is better to exist than not to. This is virtually self-evident for all who haven’t committed suicide, and the extremely strong instinct to preserve our own lives is evidence of it as well.

4) In making his argument, Loftus smuggles in many notions that are false premises, to start with: thus making his conclusion erroneous or at the very least, dubious and indefensible.

a) He says “we might not be raised in the right Christian family and might therefore be sent to hell because of it.” This is silly, simplistic argumentation. Granted, we all can have good or bad influences in many ways, that was beyond our choice. But in the end, the biblical view is that each individual is given enough grace and power to be saved, if they make that choice, and that each will be individually responsible:

Ezekiel 33:17-20 (RSV) “Yet your people say, `The way of the Lord is not just’; when it is their own way that is not just. [18] When the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, he shall die for it. [19] And when the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does what is lawful and right, he shall live by it. [20] Yet you say, `The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”

Romans 14:10-12 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; [11] for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” [12] So each of us shall give account of himself to God.

We’re not sent to hell, so much as we choose to go there, by rejecting God’s free offer of grace for salvation and eternal life in heavenly bliss:

Joshua 24:15 And if you be unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

b) [T]he odds, according to most evangelicals anyway, are that most of the people who are born in this world will end up in hell.

First of all, Christian theology is not determined by a head count of evangelicals, but by Scripture and unbroken apostolic tradition, passed down. Appealing to what evangelicals think is silly on two levels: 1) it’s the genetic fallacy, and 2) evangelicals are only a portion of Protestants, who are a small minority of all Christians, now and through history (they didn’t even exist until the 16th century).

Secondly, the mainstream Christian position is that we simply don’t know how many end up in heaven and hell, proportionately. Jesus said:

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. [14] For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Luke 18:8 “. . . when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

On the other hand, in a recent argument that I came up with myself, I examined two of Jesus’ parables, which were about salvation and damnation, to see if they provided any clues about this, in a reply to atheist David Madison:

In the next chapter we have the great scene of the separation of the sheep and goats at the last judgment (Matthew 25:31-46). . . . No indication in this text is given of relative numbers of the saved and the damned. In two of His parables nearby, however, He does give indication. . . .

In the parable of the ten maidens with lamps (Matthew 25:1-13), five were foolish and were damned (“the door was shut . . . I do not know you”: 25:10, 12) and five were wise and received eternal life (“went in with him to the marriage feast”: 25:10). . . . It’s a 50-50 proposition.

The parable of the talents follows (25:14-30). Here, there are three servants, who are given five talents, two talents, and one talent [a form of money], respectively. The ones who are saved are the first two (“enter into the joy of your master”: 25:21, 23), while the servant with one talent, who did nothing with it, was damned (“cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness”: 25:30). So this parable suggests a 67% rate of final salvation and a 33% rate of damnation.

Moreover, St. Paul expressly taught that even those who have not heard the gospel or Christian message could be saved, based on what they know (thus leaving open a wide potential for salvation indeed):

Romans 2:13-16 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. [14] When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. [15] They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them [16] on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Bottom line: we just don’t know for sure, but we know that there is grace for all and that there is significant indication that a huge proportionate number will attain heaven. In the end, each of us has to live our life and be judged as to how well we have done, by others, and by God.

c) “God should already know what the odds are and not choose that risk for us.”

This is what free will entails. God gives us all a choice: to follow Him and His moral laws or reject Him and go our own way. He can’t reasonably be blamed if we deliberately reject Him, in our free will. He thought that was better than a bunch of robots who could do not other than what He programmed them to do at every instant. I totally agree! I want free will to choose as I wish; not to have no choice and be totally controlled.

d) “And yet here I am, without any choice in the matter apparently condemned to hell.”

He is not “condemned to hell” at all. He has a free will and choice to repent and become a Christian again, and get on the road to salvation. What he says may be the Calvinist view, but of course they are a minority of a minority (with very few remaining adherents today), and not the be-all of Christianity. They believe in predestination to hell; virtually all other Christians today and throughout history do not. But even John Calvin stated that no one could know for sure who was among the elect. So Calvinists and fundamentalists can’t say John he is definitely hellbound, nor can I, nor can anyone else or he himself. If he repents, he can be reasonably assured that he is heaven-bound, provided he stays the course.

None of us could decide to be born into this earthly life (many now are prevented by abortion and infanticide from even having this life, whether they would have wanted to or not). Sorry, John: your parents thought your existence was a good thing. But we have a full choice as to where we decide to spend eternity., which is far, far more important if indeed we do have an eternal existence, since if that is the case, this life represents only an infinitesimally small portion of our entire existence (like one atom compared to the entire universe):

Psalms 39:4-5 “LORD, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is! [5] Behold, thou hast made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in thy sight. Surely every man stands as a mere breath! . . .” (cf. 39:11)

Psalms 144:4 Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow. (cf. 78:39)

James 4:14 . . . What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

***

Loftus argues (pp. 59-60) that the Israelite worldview prior to the exile to Babylon (after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BC) was polytheistic (just as neighboring cultures’ religious view was). Well, duh! This is why God judged them (through Nebuchadnezzar) in the first place: precisely because they had forsaken Him, and monotheism, and adopted polytheism and idolatry: directly and deliberately against what He had urged and commanded them to do, for their own good.

This was the prophet Jeremiah’s message of warning prior to the Babylonian exile:

Jeremiah 1:15-16 For, lo, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD; and they shall come and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls round about, and against all the cities of Judah. [16] And I will utter my judgments against them, for all their wickedness in forsaking me; they have burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.

Jeremiah 7:9-15 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Ba’al, and go after other gods that you have not known, [10] and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, `We are delivered!’ — only to go on doing all these abominations? [11] Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the LORD. [12] Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. [13] And now, because you have done all these things, says the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, [14] therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. [15] And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of E’phraim.

Jeremiah 11:9-13 Again the LORD said to me, “There is revolt among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. [10] They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words; they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers. [11] Therefore, thus says the LORD, Behold, I am bringing evil upon them which they cannot escape; though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. [12] Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they cannot save them in the time of their trouble. [13] For your gods have become as many as your cities, O Judah; and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altars to burn incense to Ba’al. (cf. 13:10; 16:11-13; 19:1-9; 22:8-9; 35:15; 44:2-6, 15-17)

God allowed the temple to be destroyed because He had had enough of the disobedience and idolatrous compromises and hypocrisy and empty worship of too many of the Jews who worshiped there. They had to learn the hard way (so often sadly true of human beings and whole cultures), and so off they went in slavery to Babylon.

But alas, here comes Loftus “informing”us that the 6th century BC Israelites were polytheistic, as were their neighbors, as if this is some startling new insight unknown to Christians (or Jews)? It’s almost comical. It doesn’t follow at all that the actual teachings preserved in the Old Testament and the very rich Jewish oral tradition were not known and taught back then (which is, no doubt, what Loftus is driving at or insinuating). They were, but they were rejected and not followed.

This, in fact, is the central theme of the entire Old Testament: the continual straying of the Jews, followed by judgment and renewal, and then cycling toward to rebellion again. It was still happening in the New Testament when most of the Jews rejected Jesus, Who was indeed their expected Messiah.

So how is it that this supposedly casts doubt on the Bible: when it is teaching exactly the same thing? I hope that Loftus will explain this if he ever interacts with these series of critiques of his book. I’ve dealt with this nonsense that the earliest “formal” Jewish belief (not what was always practiced) in the times of Abraham, Moses, and even into David’s time (1000 BC) was in fact, polytheistic, in two replies to atheist Bob Seidensticker:

Seidensticker Folly #19: Torah & OT Teach Polytheism? [9-18-18]
*

Seidensticker Folly #20: An Evolving God in the OT? (God’s Omnipotence, Omniscience, & Omnipresence in Early Bible Books & Ancient Jewish Understanding) [9-18-18]

In every case when it comes to my reasons for adopting my skeptical presumption, the Christian response is pretty much the same. Christians must continually retreat to the position that what they believe is “possible,” or that it’s “not impossible.” (p. 62)

[W]e want to know what is probable, not what is possible . . . Probability is what matters. (p. 63)

As I’ve already stated above, this is not my view at all. I’ll repeat my view again:

I think His existence is exponentially more probable and plausible than atheism, based on the cumulative effect of a multitude of good and different types of (rational) theistic arguments, and the utter implausibility, incoherence, irrationality, and unacceptable level of blind faith of alternatives.

One sees nothing of “possible” or “not impossible” here. I’m arguing from accumulation of various arguments and probability (exactly as Loftus advocates) and also plausibility.

***

Photo credit: John Loftus at SASHAcon 2016 at the University of Missouri; Mark Schierbecker (3-19-16) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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2026-06-06T00:40:11-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Loftus Atheist Error #2: 16-Page Deconversion Story

Last updated on: June 6, 2026 at 12:40 am By Dave Armstrong

Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. . . . I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. . . . Do you accept my challenge?

I declined at that time, mainly (but not solely) for the following stated reason:

If you send me your book in an e-file for free, I’d be more than happy to critique it. I won’t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. . . . You railed against that, saying that it was a “handout.” I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.

When the history of Christianity’s demise is written (it will fade eventually away, as do all religions), your name will feature prominently as one who helped bring the world to its senses. Your legacy is secure and is much appreciated.

The words of John Loftus will be in blue.

*****

John Loftus’ chapter 1 (pp. 21-36), is entitled, “My Christian Conversion and Deconversion.”

I could only wish that Christian apologists who write their apologetic books would do the same thing. I want to know what personal experiences they have had and how they interpret them so that I can be able to judge why they believe the things that they do. But they don’t generally do this at all. (p. 21)

Once again (as with this very series), I provide what Loftus himself calls for: extensive ruminations on my own past and why I came to believe as I did. On my Conversion and Converts (Catholic) web page I have many many papers about my change from evangelical to Catholic Christian, and also a ten-part, 75-page version that discusses my entire life with regard to my religious beliefs (and other ones), drawn from my book, Catholic Converts and Conversion (2013). I welcome anyone to analyze these conversion stories mine, provided they are civil. I would be more than happy — delighted — to interact with such efforts.

I . . . grew up . . . in a nominal Catholic home . . . Our family went to church, but we were a nominal churchgoing family, for the most part. I never experienced true faith growing up . . . (p. 21)

We’ll see how much he understood Catholicism before he rejected it. This is all he says about Catholicism (at least in this chapter), and later he recounts how he “accepted Jesus” (p. 23) as an evangelical and Pentecostal. I grew up in a nominal Methodist home, as I have written about in my 75-page account. I didn’t go to church at all for 12 years: from age 10 to 22.

He mentions (p. 23) that he read Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict and Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth around 1977: both books that I read, too, between 1977-1981, and that had a huge influence on me (especially the first one, which essentially launched me on my apologetics career). Then he mentioned (p. 24) that he read many books by Francis Schaeffer and C. S. Lewis (both heroes of mine as an evangelical, with Lewis remaining my favorite write these past 40 years or so). He says (p. 24) that he later came to reject all this.

So he was reading some solid apologetics (minus Lindsey, which is but one version of eschatology and Bible prophecy speculation). I commend him for that. Most Christians never even get to that point, of reading why they believe what they believe (if they even know and can describe the “what”). He doesn’t give the reasons why he rejected these writers’ arguments. That’s okay; he’s just summarizing here. We’ll see if he does, later on, and how compelling his reasons to reject them are. He has to provide some reasoning in order for me to interact with and disagree with the reasoning.

Loftus states that there were “three things that changed my thinking“ (p. 26). One of these was an affair that he had while married. The woman later accused him of raping her (I’ll take his word that this was a false accusation). He takes the blame for it and says he did wrong, and I accept that, too. But I don’t accept his take that God was at fault for his own sinful actions. This is convoluted (not to mention, blasphemous) thinking. He wrote:

The biggest question of all was why God tested me by allowing her to come into my life when she did — if he knew in advance I would fail the test. (p. 28)

On the same page he says that he was “devastated” by “God not seeming to care about his wayward soldier.”

Why didn’t God do something to avert these particular experiences of mine, especially if he could foreknow that I would eventually write this book and lead others astray? (p. 33)

When God gave us free will, He did! It means what it means. A = A. He doesn’t orchestrate everything that happens from heaven, as if we are all robots and puppets. He doesn’t overrule our free will decisions (including evil ones). But He does take bad things and bring good out of them:

Genesis 50:20 (RSV) As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Romans 8:28 We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

For Loftus to blame God for his own free will actions that were wrong, is outrageous. It’s as silly as people wanting to blame God for the Nazi Holocaust, when it was entirely the fault of naive, foolish human beings, and could easily have been prevented if folks had simply listened to the warnings for years of one Winston Churchill: who foretold the German military build-up and disastrous implications of same under the Nazis.

Loftus does rightly blame himself, too. But he feels that he has to blame God, too, and that’s just wrong. God had nothing to do with what he did. He’s not some cosmic puppet master with sinister intentions. So this becomes yet another of the innumerable confirmations of the saying, “all heresy begins beneath the belt.”

Note that I am not judging John Loftus personally, in the sense that he was already beyond all hope, etc. He mentions that Christians did that. If he says he repented and was sorry, I take him at his word, and am quite happy to extend forgiveness (as God would be, too; though many Christians may not do so). I object to his unfairly judging and blaming God. To me, it appears to be an unwarranted rationalization in order to reject God, as if Loftus were reasoning, “If God would do this, He is not worthy to be followed and worshiped.” But God never did it in the first place. That’s the lie.

While he [his cousin Larry] didn’t convince me of much at the time, he did convince me of one solid truth. When it came to the age of the universe, I could trust what science tells us, and it was undeniable that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. (p. 28)

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether Christianity is true or not or whether God doesn’t exist, so it has no bearing on any serious reason to deconvert. The choice is supposedly between Christianity and science? That’s a fallacy. Most Christians accept this standard geology and indeed most even accept the theory of evolution in some form.

Two corollaries of that idea [the true age of the universe] started me down the road to being the atheist I am today. The first is that in Genesis chapter 1 we see that the earth existed before the sun, moon, and stars, which were all created on the fourth day. This doesn’t square with astronomy. So I began looking at the first chapters of Genesis, and as my thinking developed over time, I came to the conclusion that those chapters are folk literature – myth. . . . (p. 29)

Here we have something that can be analyzed, to see if it is any sort of legitimate rationale for rejecting Christianity. If Loftus is correct, Genesis has a glaring contradiction. If he is not, then a big reason he gives for his apostasy is shown to be much ado about nothing. I will now proceed to show why I believe the latter is the case in this instance.

Loftus assumes (as so many do) that Genesis was intended to be presented in some rigidly (modern) scientific, rationalistic framework, including a literal chronology of events, as it is written. But is this required by the text we have? No, not at all. And herein lies his fallacy and disinformation. He shows poor hermeneutical skills here. This never had to be a “reason” to make him start doubting the inspiration of Holy Scripture.

John H. Stek, in a book whose purpose is to examine the biblical account of creation from a scientific perspective, wrote about Genesis 1-2:

As representations of what has transpired in the divine arena, they are of the nature of metaphorical narrations. They relate what has taken place behind the veil, but translate it into images we can grasp – as do the biblical visions of the heavenly court. However realistic they seem, an essential “as if” quality pervades them.

. . . He stories “events” that are in themselves inaccessible to humans, inaccessible not only as information (since no human witness was there) but conceptually inaccessible.

. . . From the perspective of this account [Gen 1:1-2:3], these seven “days” are a completed time – the seventh day does not give way to an eighth . . . because this narrative stories unique events in a unique arena and a unique “time,” the lack of correlation between the chronological sequences of 1:1-2:3 and 2:4ff. involves no tension.

. . . The speculations that have continued to fund the endless and fruitless debate have all been triggered by concerns brought by interpreters to the text, concerns completely alien to it. In his storying of God’s creative acts, the author was “moved” to sequence them after the manner of human acts and “time” them after the pattern of created time in humanity’s arena of experience. (Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World’s Formation, Howard J. Van Till, Robert E. Snow, John H. Stek, & Davis A. Young, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1990, 236-238)

Charles E. Hummel, in a similar book, further elaborates:

Our interpretation of a passage should also be guided by its structure. Narrators have the freedom to tell a story in their own way, including its perspective, purpose, development and relevant content. The importance of this principle comes to focus in the Genesis 1 treatment of time. The dominating concepts and concerns of our century are dramatically different from those of ancient Israel. . . . we automatically tend to assume that a historical account must present a strict chronological sequence. But the biblical writers are not bound by such concerns and constrictions. Even within an overall chronological development they have freedom to cluster certain events by topic. For example, Matthew’s Gospel has alternating sections of narrative and teaching grouped according to subject matter, a sort of literary club sandwich. Since Matthew did not intend to provide a strict chronological sequence for the events in Jesus’ ministry, to search for it there would be futile.

By the same token our approach to Genesis 1 should not assume that the events are necessarily in strict chronological order.

. . . Our problem of how the earth could be lighted (v. 4) before the sun appeared comes when we require the narrative to be a strict chronological account.

. . . The literary genre is a semipoetic narrative cast in a historico-artistic framework consisting of two parallel triads. On this interpretation, it is no problem that the creation of the sun, necessary for an earth clothed with vegetation on the third day, should be linked with the fourth day. Instead of turning hermeneutical handsprings to explain that supposed difficulty, we simply note that in view of the author’s purpose the question is irrelevant. The account does not follow the chronological sequence assumed by concordist views. (The Galileo Connection: Resolving Conflicts Between Science and the Bible, Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1986, 203, 209, 214)

So this “problem” that caused Loftus to begin an unbelieving, skeptical descent culminating in atheism, is in actuality no problem at all. He just didn’t look into the passage in the depth that it required.

The second corollary for me at that time is this: If God took so long to create the universe, then why would he all of a sudden snap his fingers, so to speak, and create human beings? If God took his time to create the universe, then why wouldn’t he also create living creatures during the same length of time? (p. 29)

Speed is not indicated in the creation account of man. Genesis 2:7 says that “the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground . . . ” I see no necessary requirement that this be instantaneous. It is not inconsistent with longer periods of time or possibly evolution. The text then says that God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life . . .” This might be taken to indicate that man had a soul (unlike the animals): “breath” being a common biblical metaphor for “soul”. One could therefore take a view that what became man could have possibly evolved and then God decided to create a soul in man that set him apart (and made him truly man, which would be a quick process as far as it goes).

Christians believe that this supernatural soul is a direct creation of God. You can’t see it in a microscope, etc. In any event, a quick creation is not required by this account; nor do all Christians believe that. As long ago as St. Augustine and later St. Thomas Aquinas, Christians theorized about a creation somewhat akin to an evolutionary process. so this, too, is much ado about nothing. If this is one reason why John rejected Christianity, it is an illogical one. He only rejected one small brand of Christianity.

God can do whatever He wants (whatever is logically possible). So why should this be a reason to reject Christianity, pray tell, or the accuracy and inspiration of the Bible? There is nothing here. Loftus assumed that a quick special creation was necessarily what the Bible teaches. It is not. His “objection” is one long irrelevancy.

***

Photo credit: John Loftus at SASHAcon 2016 at the University of Missouri; Mark Schierbecker (3-19-16) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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2026-06-05T23:54:35-04:00

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Loftus Atheist Error #1: Intro: “Why [He] Became an Atheist”

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:54 pm By Dave Armstrong

Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. . . . I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. . . . Do you accept my challenge?

I declined at that time, mainly (but not solely) for the following stated reason:

If you send me your book in an e-file for free, I’d be more than happy to critique it. I won’t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. . . . You railed against that, saying that it was a “handout.” I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.

When the history of Christianity’s demise is written (it will fade eventually away, as do all religions), your name will feature prominently as one who helped bring the world to its senses. Your legacy is secure and is much appreciated.

The words of John Loftus will be in blue.

*****

I shall now make some replies to the Introduction (pp. 11-18 in the 2012 revised paperback).

In every chapter I have added to and strengthened my case, sometimes significantly. . . . In other words, it’s a much better book. (p. 11)

Excellent. Maybe this is the ultimate reason — in God’s providence — that I didn’t reply to the original edition. It was to be revised and improved twice. And I want to take on the best arguments that Loftus and atheists have to offer.

Unlike some skeptics who think that Christianity has been debunked so many times before that it’s now time to ridicule it, I still treat it respectfully. (p. 11)

That’s utterly apparent in his comment in his article dated 1-23-17: “I’ve kicked this dead rodent of the Christian faith into a lifeless blob so many times there is nothing left of it.” Looks like his views have, um, “evolved” since 2012. Lots of “respect” there, huh?

[B]elievers who honestly want to know if their faith is true should read the works of those who don’t think it is. You owe it to yourself to read firsthand what someone like me has to say.

Yep. That’s what I’m doing. But I’m a professional apologist, with 38 years’ experience of intense and committed apologetics, including long and extensive interaction with atheist anti-theist polemics. If the average (often woefully theologically uneducated) Christian is to do so, I think it is wise and sensible that they read both sides simultaneously.

And of course, that is what I provide in my dialogues (and articles like this series), with massive input from my dialogue opponents. Only then is it fair and not a stacked deck. Then they can exercise their critical faculties to decide who presents a better and more plausible case. Loftus agrees that such a person should also read the Christian apologists too.

I would turn the tables on this sentiment and also note that it works both ways. To use his framework and switch it around: “atheists who honestly want to know if their rejection of Christianity is correct should read the works of those who don’t think it is. You owe it to yourself to read firsthand what an experienced Christian apologist who responds to your own challenge by critiquing point-by-point — which you claim that you welcome — has to say.”

Loftus talks a good game and would seem to agree with this in principle. But the proof’s in the pudding, isn’t it? The “pudding” is how he reacts when he starts to observe the scores of articles that will be in this series: vigorously but cordially taking on his best arguments, instead of fawning over them as unquestionable Gospel Truth: as he is treated on his own website among his fan club and echo chamber (the “choir”).

If he follows his own noble, high-minded rhetoric about open-mindedness and evidence, etc., he would necessarily have to interact. But if those are mere empty words, only for show, he won’t. Time will tell! I’ll be reporting as to how he has responded or not, as I go along.

Loftus describes (pp. 14-15) how he started out Catholic, then moved through the positions of fundamentalist, moderate, liberal, deist, agnostic, an atheist, and that in the book he “roughly” focuses on evangelical Christianity.

Duly noted. I was an enthusiastic evangelical for 13 years and maintain my great admiration for that sector of Christianity, notwithstanding the usual principled disagreements that a Catholic would have, so that works for me. I will be incorporating Catholic distinctives in this series only where absolutely necessary to make a needed and effective counter-argument that Protestants would disagree with. This is my standard policy in dealing with atheist arguments.

Some of these chapters contain philosophical arguments while others are biblical in nature. (p. 15)

Cool! I love both, so this will be a good mixture.

I present a cumulative case argument against Christianity. (p. 15)

That’s exactly how I view my body of apologetics (50 books and over 2500 blog articles) in favor of Christianity and (in particular) the collection of diverse argumentation I have set forth in critique of atheism.

I consider this book to be one single argument against Christianity, and as such it should be evaluated as a whole. (p. 15; his italics)

This is precisely what I am doing. Obviously, most people wouldn’t have either the time or motivation (even if they had the ability) to deal in such comprehensiveness with a 536-page book, and I highly doubt that anyone has done so, for these reasons. But I have all those things — by God’s grace –, as a full-time apologist.

Loftus notes (pp. 15-16) that many Christian professors have struggled with significant doubts and crises of faith.

This comes as no big news flash. We’re well aware of that and most of us (including myself, but only very rarely, by God’s grace) experience it, to various degrees. St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) had long and agonizing stretches of the “dark night of the soul.” So have many other Christians. C. S. Lewis (in the view of most Christians, the greatest apologist of the 20th century) wrote almost an entire book about it (A Grief Observed). The book of Job is devoted to this very thing.

This is one major reason why apologists like myself do what we do: we grapple with the doubts and objections seek to provide acceptable and plausible answers or solutions to them. We help Christians to have a stronger faith, to know and to be able to defend their faith (1 Peter 3:15) and “survive” objections such as those that Loftus will be hurling throughout his book.

Atheists tend to view us apologists (to put it mildly) as mere rationalizers, sophists, and special pleaders (i.e., fundamentally dishonest), but what we do is every bit as intellectually honest and legitimate as what Loftus feels he is doing in this book. He is sincerely arguing a perspective of doubt against Christianity, and we are sincerely maintaining that Christianity is both true and rational, and can be fully, confidently accepted by “modern, civilized, scientifically literate people”: the same ones whom he claims ought to reject it (p. 15).

It’s all about (in apologetics and atheist anti-theist polemics) the arguments and their relative strength. Bring them on! I am interacting, and will with counter-replies. But we don’t know yet how Loftus will react.

The major reason why I have become an atheist is because I could not answer the questions I was encountering. (p. 17; italics his)

One of the major reasons why I became an apologist is to offer solid Christian answers to questions such as these, that are causing some folks (like John Loftus) to lose faith and to forsake Christianity.

***

Photo credit: John Loftus at SASHAcon 2016 at the University of Missouri; Mark Schierbecker (3-19-16) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license]

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2026-06-05T23:54:35-04:00

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Biblical Hyperbole, Masturbation, & Intransigent Atheists

Last updated on: June 5, 2026 at 11:54 pm By Dave Armstrong

Atheist and former Christian Acalibre commented on my paper, Masturbation: Thoughts on Why it is as Wrong as it Ever Was., and I replied. His words will be in blue.

*****

Why stop there, Dave? In Matthew 5.30, where he’s speaking in an entirely sexual context, Jesus advocates cutting off one’s right hand if it ‘offends’ you. He’s clearly talking about masturbation, as well as other sexual sins. You ignore him at your peril; he wouldn’t have issued this command if he hadn’t meant it.

Learn about biblical hyperbole. Here’s some help for you to do that.

I like that Jesus words are always hyperbole or metaphor when you don’t like what he’s saying. I guess ‘treat others as you like to be treated’, ‘go the extra mile’, ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘give to all who ask’ are similarly hyperbolic and can also be safely dismissed.

That’s how you see it. In fact, there are such literary genres and figures and one can intelligently determine when they are present in Scripture. It takes study, and people like you have no interest in that if it establishes traditional Christianity and morals (it goes against your agenda), so you simply bloviate without knowledge, as you have done.

No, I simply ask you how you know when Jesus is speaking metaphorically or hyperbolically and when he should be taken literally; how do you distinguish?

Surely the one who said to have faith like a child does not expect years of study simply to know when to take him seriously.

That’s a completely different thing. He was saying (proverbially), “be trusting of God, rather than always being cynical and questioning, as is too often the case with adults.” It’s a different principle from the notion of studying Scripture in order to better understand it.

We have to study more because we are in a “rationalistic, post-“Enlightenment” Greek-influenced, post-scientific culture, whereas the Bible was written in a pre-scientific, pre-philosophical, agricultural, Hebrew, ancient near eastern culture, rich with poetry and non-literal literary devices and expressions. Because we think very differently than they do, we have to learn about their culture and how they thought and wrote. They were not “stupid” and “primitive”: as atheists are always making them out to be: just different and further back in time.

They thought very differently, for example about time and chronology, and had notions such as “block logic” (very unfamiliar to us in our culture and ways of thinking today): both of which I have written about.

To the casual observer it does indeed seem that when believers like yourself don’t like what Jesus is telling you to do, you decide he’s using hyperbole, and when he’s not placing too much of a demand on you he can be taken literally. Demonstrate how this is not the case: are commands like ‘go the extra mile’ and ‘turn the other cheek’ hyperbole or not? And how do you know?

Those two are proverbial: which are general exhortations that hold in a broad sense, but which allow exceptions. I recently wrote about “turn the other cheek”.

We know by becoming familiar with the different forms of non-literal expression in biblical times. It’s through practice and study. And by cross-referencing.

So, for example, I was writing about how Jesus said, “if you don’t hate your family, you’re not worthy of me.” This is hyperbole: the extreme contrast. But in another Gospel, Jesus gives the literal meaning, which is how the hyperbole is interpreted: “if you love your family more than me, you’re not worthy of me.”

And that brings to mind another principle of biblical interpretation: “Interpret the unclear or difficult verse in light of related ones that are more clear and more easily understood.”

We learn all this by studying Bible commentaries and linguistic aids, and the rules of hermeneutics and exegesis (Bible interpretation). At the link I provided (about hyperbole) is mentioned a book about figures in the Bible. I quote:

Bible scholar E. W. Bullinger catalogued “over 200 distinct figures [in the Bible], several of them with from 30 to 40 varieties.” That is a statement from the Introduction to his 1104-page tome, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (London: 1898). I have this work in my own library (hardcover). It’s also available for free, online. Bullinger continues, in the Introduction [now I quote it directly]:

All language is governed by law; but, in order to increase the power of a word, or the force of an expression, these laws are designedly departed from, and words and sentences are thrown into, and used in, new forms, or figures.

The ancient Greeks reduced these new and peculiar forms to science, and gave names to more than two hundred of them.

The Romans carried forward this science . . .

These manifold forms which words and sentences assume were called by the Greeks Schema and by the Romans, Figura. Both words have the same meaning, viz., a shape or figure. . . .

Applied to words, a figure denotes some form which a word or sentence takes, different from its ordinary and natural form. This is always for the purpose of giving additional force, more life, intensified feeling, and greater emphasis.

[Bullinger devotes six pages (423-428) to “Hyperbole; or, Exaggeration”: which he defines as follows:]

The figure is so called because the expression adds to the sense so much that it exaggerates it, and enlarges or diminishes it more than is really meant in fact. Or, when more is said than is meant to be literally understood, in order to heighten the sense.

It is the superlative degree applied to verbs and sentences and expressions or descriptions, rather than to mere adjectives. . . .

It was called by the Latins superlatio, a carrying beyond, an exaggerating.

[I shall cite some of his more notable and obvious examples (omitting ellipses: “. . .” ):]

Gen. ii. 24. — “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.” This does not mean that he is to forsake and no longer to love or care for his parents. So Matt. xix. 5.

Ex. viii. 17. — “All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt”: i.e., wherever in all the land there was dust, it became lice.

I Sam. xxv. 37. — Nabal’s “heart died within him, and he became as a stone”: i.e., he was terribly frightened and collapsed or fainted away.

I Kings i. 40. — “So that the earth rent with the sound of them.”

A hyperbolical description of their jumping and leaping for joy.Job xxix. 6. — “The rock poured me out rivers of oil”: i.e., I had abundance of all good things. So chap. xx. 17 and Micah vi. 7.

Isa. xiv. 13, — “I will ascend into heaven”: to express the pride of Lucifer.

Lam. ii. 11.— “My liver is poured upon the earth, etc”: to express the depth of the Prophet’s grief and sorrow at the desolations of Zion.

Luke xiv. 26. — “If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother”: i.e., does not esteem them less than me. So the verb to hate is used (Gen. xxix. 31. Rom. ix. 13).

John iii. 26. — “All men come to him.” Thus his disciples said to John, to show their sense of the many people who followed the Lord.

John xii. 19. — “Behold, the world is gone after him.” The enemies of the Lord thus expressed their indignation at the vast multitudes which followed Him.

Gary Amirault highlights more biblical examples in a similar article:

[T]is verse is a hyperbole, an exaggeration for effect:

“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matt. 23:24, NIV)

It is not too difficult to determine that this is a hyperbole, an exaggeration. Because the English language is full of Bible terms and phraseology, this Hebrew idiom has become part of the English language. Therefore most English speaking people know the real meaning of that phrase: “You pay close attention to little things but neglect the important things.” [Dave: or, “you can’t see the forest for the trees”]

However, here is a hyperbole that the average Bible reader may miss and formulate doctrine from which may end up being harmful to themselves and others.

“Everything is possible for him who believes.” (Mark 9:23b, NIV)

The Bible is full of exaggerations like the one above which are not to be taken literally. Careful attention, comparing scripture with scripture, knowing the Bible and its author thoroughly, making certain not to necessary apply things to ourselves which weren’t meant for us individually and some basics about the original languages are needed to prevent us from misinterpreting various scripture verses like this one. . . .

“If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out…” Matt. 5:29 (I met a Christian who actually tried to pluck out his right eye because he had a lust problem. This is an example the kind of problem a Bible translation can cause if one is not informed of the various figures of speech found in the Bible.)

[The literary device of antithesis, or contrast also seems more specifically applicable to the verse we are considering. Bullinger writes about this in his pages 715-718:]

A setting of one Phrase in Contrast with another.

. . . It is a figure by which two thoughts, ideas, or phrases, are set over one against the other, in order to make the contrast more striking, and thus to emphasize it. [footnote: “When this consists of words rather than of sentences, it is called Epanodos, and Antimetabole (q.v.).”]

The two parts so placed are hence called in Greek antitheta, and in Latin opposita and contraposita. . . .

It is called also contentio: i.e., comparison, or contrast. When this contrast is made by affirmatives and negatives, it is called Enantiosis, see below. The Book of Proverbs so abounds in such Antitheses that we have not given any examples from it.

***

I guess ‘treat others as you like to be treated’, ‘go the extra mile’, ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘give to all who ask’ are similarly hyperbolic and can also be safely dismissed.

These are not hyperbolic. The golden rule is literal ethical advice that applies to all situations. If we want to be treated lovingly, we should also do the same with other people. This is a principle present in virtually every ethical system in all times and places (as C. S. Lewis documented in his book, The Abolition of Man).

“Give to all who ask” is also a general ethical principle, but has a proverbial element in that it isn’t always literally possible to do so. The idea is that we should have a giving heart and be willing to help the less fortunate, insofar as we are possibly able to do so.

Clearly hyperbolic passages would be, for example:

Mark 11:23 (RSV) Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, `Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Matthew 7:3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Matthew 19:24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

‘Clearly’ they’re hyperbolic? How so? I thought knowing this involved study? Now it appears it’s self-evident.

I see. So you think Jesus talking about having a log in your eye is being literal, huh? How ridiculous are we gonna get?

Nevertheless, Jesus’ point is that with faith, seemingly impossible things are possible. Why don’t we see these things being realised by his followers today?

Many times we do witness extraordinary things. But people like you dismiss them out of hand, because you can’t allow the possibility that Christianity is true (having rejected it as an apostate). There are healings, but there are not always healings, and not healings at command, as if God were our genie.

And why, despite his other ‘literal ethical advice’ (‘advice’?), do we not see all Christians actually doing what he suggests? You’ve turned his words into mere textual exercise, his commands into optional bits of ‘advice’. Well done. As I suggested originally, you pick and choose what you accept on the basis of whether it’s easy or to your liking. The radical stuff you dismiss with quasi-intellectual sleight of hand.

I was speaking generically and in a certain sense when I used the description, “literal ethical advice.” I agree that that could be misunderstood (which is exactly what you did). But I never intended to imply at all that the Golden Rule was merely optional advice. Of course it is a binding command from Jesus. This is not arbitrary picking and choosing, as you charge. I simply was not as clear as I could have been.

As expected, you reject the explanation out of hand. It would make no sense from a purely rational, “understanding of literary genre” point of view, but it becomes more understandable in light of what the Bible says about the rebellious, atheist mind, which becomes “darkened” after a while (“they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools”: Romans 1:21-22, RSV).

I try to have a serious conversation and reply to your questions, which I assume were sincere, but you bring it right back down to mockery and foolishness. Why is that? From the Christian view, it is likely because of the following dynamic:

1 Corinthians 2:14 “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

2 Timothy 3:7 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

***

Photo credit: KlausHausmann (10-4-15) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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Sexuality and Gender Issues

Bible and Tradition

biblical genre

biblical literary genre

non-literal sayings of Jesus

2019-09-06T12:25:48-04:00

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Atheist Loftus “Answers” & Censors My 34 Replies to Dr. Madison

Last updated on: September 6, 2019 at 12:25 pm By Dave Armstrong

Atheist apostate John Loftus is an author and webmaster of the website, Debunking Christianity, where Dr. David Madison (another atheist apostate and anti-theist) posts his articles: usually critiques of portions of Scripture or figures like Jesus and Paul. I have responded to now 34 of those articles of his, and simply posted the links underneath each article of Dr. Madison’s, as a courtesy, in case he wants to reply (which he has not done thus far). This was utterly unacceptable to webmaster Loftus, and he spoke with authority on 8-28-19, saying he will not put up with these outrages of courtesy any longer! (his words below will be in blue):

The Rules of Engagement At DC

By John W. Loftus at 8/28/2019

Some angry Catholic apologist has been tagging our posts with his angry long-winded responses. I know of no other blog, Christian or atheist, that allows for arguments by links, especially to plug one’s failing blog or site. I’ve allowed it for about a month with this guy but no more. He’s not banned. He can still come here to comment. It’s just that we don’t allow responses in the comments longer than the blog post itself, or near that. If any respectful person has a counter-argument or some counter-evidence then bring it. State your case in as few words as possible and then engage our commenters in a discussion. But arguments by links or long comments are disallowed. I talked with David Madison who has been the target of these links and he’s in agreement with this decision. He’s planning to write something about one or more of these links in the near future. So here’s how our readers can help. I’ve deleted a few of these arguments by link. There are others I’ve missed. If you see some apologist arguing by link flag it. Then I’ll be alerted where it is to delete it. What’s curious to me are the current posts he’s neglecting, like this one on horrific suffering. If he tackles that one I’ll allow him a link back.

*****

Here was my reply, posted there (if it is allowed to remain):

***

What a surprise. Funny, I was under the impression that it was common courtesy to let someone know that you offered a reply to their writing. I have not seen Dr. Madison’s email address listed, as far as I know (but I may have missed it). But for you, somehow that is “angry” and against your ethics. Duly noted.

From now on I’ll refute Dr. Madison’s arguments without letting him know. Hopefully, if Dr. Madison does actually reply to one of my counter-arguments (it’s now 34 with no reply), he will let me know. He’s more than welcome to post such a link on my blog. Thanks.

I’ve written on suffering and the problem of evil many times (posted on my atheist and philosophy & science web pages), since I regard it as the most serious objection to Christianity. In fact, my first interaction with you (John Loftus) was on this topic (“Dialogue w Atheist John Loftus on the Problem of Evil” [10-11-06] ).

The “angry” schtick is getting old real fast. Is that all you have in your arsenal anymore: a bald-faced lie? You were much more fun when you called me an “idiot!”

Lastly, few care about my replies to an atheist on my blog or my Facebook page. If my motive were simply to “plug [my supposedly] failing blog or site” this would be one of the last topics that would accomplish that. I get far more page views from writing anything about sex. This is not mere opinion. One can track actual page views at Patheos with Google Analytics.

When I look over the response for August, I indeed find that an article on masturbation received the most views, and more than twice as much as the #2 article, which was about a radical Catholic reactionary book. #3 was a paper about why C. S. Lewis didn’t become a Catholic. #4 and #5 were about holistic health (totally unrelated to apologetics). #6 is about how to receive Communion. #7 is another paper about masturbation, #8 (finally!) a reply to an atheist other than Dr. Madison. #9 is about Mary’s Immaculate Conception. #10 is about her Assumption. So that is one paper in the top ten devoted to atheism.

I have to get to #21 to even find one of the 34 replies to Dr. Madison (all written in August).

So much for your stupid theory. I’m not replying for hits or for money, but because I think it is a great opportunity to refute atheist polemics against Christianity. Period. This is what apologists do. I certainly make far less money than you do: ranting and raving and lying about Christianity and Christians.

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More comments that I also posted on Loftus’ site:

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I looked up Loftus’ “Comment Policy.” I saw nothing about not being able to simply post a link to a reply to an article posted at Debunking Christianity. It starts out as follows (all emphases in the original in my citations):

At Debunking Christianity I welcome most anyone to comment on what is written. I like the challenge of educated discussions between educated people. I think educated people can disagree agreeably. Only people not fully exposed to alternative ways of thinking will claim their opponents are stupid merely because they disagree.

I agree 100%. If only Loftus and his cronies would act according to these noble ideals. Here’s another excerpt:

Unoriginality. Your comments should be your own thoughts, in your own words. When quoting relevant material, try to keep the excerpts brief. Don’t say the same thing over and over again.

I haven’t quoted anything (which I am allowed to do), in simply posting links to my replies, underneath the articles I was replying to. It seems to me that Dr. Madison and others (if they actually believed in and practiced the ideal expressed above) would enthusiastically welcome my “alternative ways of thinking” as a golden opportunity to defend the superiority of atheist views and shoot mine down. But no, instead we get this censorship, no interactive replies at all (though now we’re told that one or two are finally coming) and the ever-present double standard and juvenile insulting.

Preaching. Theist commenters are welcome, but bear in mind that atheists do not gather here just so that we can be more conveniently proselytized. Attempts to sermonize or recite apologetics at us are frowned upon. A good rule of thumb is that if you want to have a genuine conversation with us, you’re welcome to stay; if you only want to convert us, you can expect to be shown the door.

I haven’t done this at all. I am replying directly (mostly point-by-point) to posted material on this site. This is “genuine conversation.” But so far, it is entirely a one-way “conversation.” One of the parties ain’t interested in defending his own arguments (nor is — how pathetic — anyone else here). But it’s on the way, I’m told. I eagerly look forward to it!

Soapboxing. Related to both unoriginality and preaching, this occurs when a person has a pet cause which is the only thing they ever want to talk about, regardless of the topic of the thread. If all your comments keep coming back to the same point, you’re soapboxing. Don’t do this.

I’m obviously not doing this either, since I am directly responding to material at Debunking Christianity. Many of the arguments I have offered in so doing, I never even thought about before. They were stimulated by the arguments of Dr. Madison. This is the beauty of argument and interaction. Christian arguments have been encouraged and strengthened by opposing arguments since the beginning. I love it! So I have mostly enjoyed replying to Dr. Madison. He has been gracious enough to provide a steady supply of fallacious or non-factual argumentation that is the perfect stimulus for an apologist who specializes in the Bible.

Imperviousness to reason. I expect that people who debate here will show at least some responsiveness to arguments raised against their position. If your typical response to a counterargument is to repeat your original argument in unchanged form, your presence will soon grow tiresome. Acknowledge the things that other people say to you and respond accordingly.

Again, this is exactly what I am not doing, in replying point-by-point to material on the site. If I received such replies (which happens only rarely), I would be ecstatic at the golden opportunity to clarify and counter-reply, and retract where necessary. But the response of my atheist friends is to flee to the hills, insult, and censor. It’s one of life’s mysteries. But hypocrisy, in any event, is certainly not confined to Christians.

Lastly, it is highly ironic and ludicrous that when I first started responding to Dr. Madison, I came to Debunking Christianity and tried in vain to engage in intelligent discussion. But as almost always in atheist forums, the folks weren’t interested in that. It was 100% insults and mockery and not the slightest interaction with my actual arguments at all, as anyone can see in my paper that documented what happened.

It was a carbon copy of the behavior that occurred in August 2018: a year ago, on Bob Seidensticker’s website (I have refuted 35 of his papers, too). They had no interest in rational discussion, either; only in insults and lying, and I was also banned.

Once that happened, I concluded (as I always have, in despair) that genuine discussion of opposing ideas is impossible on an atheist forum. I was tempted to not even post the links to my replies anymore, and to adopt the attitude of “to hell with ’em.” But my courteous instincts prevailed; only to at length get the above reply from Loftus.

Very well, then. If I can’t have an intelligent discussion on his site or any atheist one that I’ve ever seen, then I’ll simply refute atheist materials (including those from Loftus) and not let anyone know that I’m doing it. Atheists whose writings I critique can do what I do: run across critical materials in Google searches (which I do since I am virtually never informed when someone counter-replies to me).

In fact, I ran across this very article from Loftus, by accident, as I was looking through Dr. Madison’s writings. John Loftus seemingly had no intention of making me aware of it. Loftus did “reply” to me earlier, when he saw that I was critiquing Dr. Madison, and made these two comments (do they sound like a willingness to interact with opposing ideas?):

What does it say that you have about 46 comments for your last 20 essays? Given your mean spirited attitude, one probable interpretation is that your headlines grab attention from the massive amount of readers attracted to Patheos. But when people see how you treat others they leave you to your anger. And you are angry. That is clear. You hate people who disagree with you, which actually proves Dr. Madison’s point, that Jesus wants you to hate others in deference to him. Readers see this quickly then they go away.

Your speech betrays you. I can get a bit angry when purposely misunderstood by self-proclaimed know-it-alls like you. But you enter a debate angry! You write as if Dr. David Madison is a non-entity, a non-being, who is mere fodder for your supposed “superior” debate skills. I cannot convince you of this I’m sure, but that’s what I see, and it’s one good reason I ignore you.

I replied with my paper, “Do I ‘Hate’ Atheists (or, Anyone)? Here’s the Record . . .”

What you’re doing is writing a book length response. Go ahead. Do that. We know we can respond. It’s just that we don’t have the time to do so. Plus, it’s pretty clear our time would be better spent doing something else than wrestling in the mud with you.

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And a third comment posted there:

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As another Christian courtesy, I will go back and delete all my links posted here to replies to Dr. Madison, lest any atheist stumble, experience cognitive dissonance, or be scandalized and depressed by the horrific prospect of an amiable, non-“angry” expression of a different opinion [!!! gasp! shriek!] from a lowly, despised Christian apologist.

The Bible commands us, after all, not to do anything to make less confident folks stumble. I wouldn’t want to burst this blissful “bubble” you have made for yourselves, or to dissent from the groupthink that obviously reigns and dominates this echo chamber.

Thanks for letting me post this! How open-minded of you . . .

Thank you. One thing you should keep in mind is that wasting my time by having to explain my policies will get you banned. So what if I made an addition? Get over it.

I believe I zapped all of the horrifying, threatening links to my replies to Dr. Madison. If I missed one, please let me know and I’ll go delete it pronto. Thanks!

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ADDENDUM (8-31-19) Without the slightest hint of the extreme and apparent (and pathetic) irony, Loftus put up a post on the same day, entitled, “Cameron Bertuzzi of “Capturing Christianity” Avoids Answering Questions.” Near the end, he states, “Your goal should be to answer their objections.” Man oh man, is this guy in a self-deluded bubble.

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Photo credit: [Max Pixel / Creative Commons Zero – CC0]

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atheist intellectual cowardice

David Madison

2019-08-26T14:08:01-04:00

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David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #11: Chapter 12

Last updated on: August 26, 2019 at 2:08 pm By Dave Armstrong

Jesus Predicts His Passion & Death / Judgment Day / God’s Mercy / God as Cosmic Narcissist?

This is an installment of my replies to a series of articles on Mark by Dr. David Madison: an atheist who was a Methodist minister for nine years: with a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His summary article is called, “Not-Your-Pastor’s Tour of Mark’s Gospel: The falsification of Christianity made easy” (Debunking Christianity, 7-17-19). His words will be in blue below.

Dr. Madison has utterly ignored my twelve refutations of his “dirty dozen” podcasts against Jesus, and I fully expect that stony silence to continue. If he wants to be repeatedly critiqued and make no response, that’s his choice (which would challenge Bob Seidensticker as the most intellectually cowardly atheist I know). I will continue on, whatever he decides to do (no skin off my back).

Dr. Madison believes we are not at all sure whether Jesus in fact said anything recorded in the Gospels. The atheist always has a convenient “out” (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it anyway and that the text in question was simply made up and added later by unscrupulous and “cultish” Christian propagandists.

I always refuse to play this silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, because there is no way to “win” with such a stacked, subjective deck. I start with the assumption (based on many historical evidences) that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not).

Dr. Madison himself — in his anti-Jesus project noted above, granted my outlook, strictly in terms of practical “x vs. y” debate purposes: “For the sake of argument, I’m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.” And in the combox: “So, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We’ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.” Excellent! Otherwise, there would be no possible discussion at all.

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Dr. Madison called this installment: “‘Great’ Bible Texts…that Really Aren’t So Great: Extreme religion in disguise” (2-22-19).

Moreover, the cult was dead certain that Jesus would soon (not ‘any century now’) descend through the clouds to set up a Kingdom of God on earth reserved for the lucky few (the members of the cult) Everyone else would be killed off; that was Jesus’ view on how it would all unfold.

Really? How odd, then, that all these passages are in the Bible, from Jesus’ own lips. I see nothing about His quick (“soon”) return, followed by judgment (except for saying that He would rise again in three days, and allusions to His post-Resurrection appearances):

Matthew 16:21 (RSV) From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Matthew 17:22-23 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, [23] and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.

Matthew 20:17-19 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, [18] “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, [19] and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Matthew 26:1-2 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, [2] “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

Matthew 26:31-32 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, `I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ [32] But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark 9:31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

Mark 10:32-34 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, [33] saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; [34] and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.”

Mark 12:1-11 And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. [2] When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. [3] And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. [4] Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. [5] And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. [6] He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, `They will respect my son.’ [7] But those tenants said to one another, `This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ [8] And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. [9] What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. [10] Have you not read this scripture: `The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; [11] this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

Luke 9:22 . . . “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Luke 9:44 “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.”

Luke 18:31-33 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. [32] For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; [33] they will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

John 2:19-21 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” [20] The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” [21] But he spoke of the temple of his body.

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up,

John 8:28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, . . .

John 10:15, 17-18 . . . I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . [17] For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.”

John 12:23-24 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. [24] Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

John 12:31-33 “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; [32] and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” [33] He said this to show by what death he was to die.

John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (cf. 14:18-19, 27-29)

John 16:5 But now I am going to him who sent me; . . . (cf. 16:7, 16-22, 28; 17:13)

See also the excellent article, “Passion Predictions,” by Paul Zilonka, C.P.

I dealt with this nonsense that only a very very few would be saved, according to Jesus (like during Noah’s Flood), in my paper, Dr. David Madison vs. Jesus #3: Nature & Time of 2nd Coming.

But after Paul had departed the scene, the gospel writers took on the task of inventing the Jesus story, . . . Mark conjured the figure of Jesus that has become so familiar to us.

Oops! I forgot about that . . .

How does this [parable in Mark 12] square with Mark 4:10-12, where we read that Jesus told parables to prevent people from understanding his message.

Explained that here: Madison vs. Jesus #7: God Prohibits Some Folks’ Repentance?

As the next section of chapter 12 illustrates. Mark does not give his Jesus a lot of ethical teaching, but in verse 31 we find the ‘second’ great commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But Mark’s primary concern in the final portion of this chapter is to coach the cult, explain what is expected of the followers. And here we find a demand (it’s called the first commandment) that is a marker of extreme religion:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

Heart, soul, mind, strength. All. Focused on God. This is not the way even most believers function in the world—nor do they want to—and begs the question of why a self-sufficient god wants or needs unrestrained adoration. But cults thrive when people can be coaxed to this dark side; when they can be roped into zealotry. The reward promised by the Jesus cult was eternal life; but, as is usually the case, there must have been ego satisfaction for the cult leaders, including a propagandist like Mark.

The folks in the pews have been so used to hearing, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, yada, yada, yada,” in sermon and song, seeing it in stained glass and embroidery—well, don’t they just expect that sort of thing from the preacher? So it’s hard to notice just how jarring, how bizarre it really is.

I disposed of this hogwash, in my reply: Madison vs. Jesus #6: Narcissistic, Love-Starved God?

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Dr. Madison’s critique of Mark 13 contains nothing new. He merely regurgitates fallacious arguments that I have already refuted in this series of rebuttals or the previous one. When he can’t come up with anything new, he recycles his trash. Likewise; his critiques of chapters 14-16 are primarily a reiteration of radical biblical skepticism (complete with ample citation from the intellectually suicidal Jesus mythicists): which I have explained in my standard introductions in this series (see above) why I won’t enter into. So this concludes my series of (total of eleven) rebuttals, as regards the Gospel of Mark.

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Photo credit: The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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David Madison