31.8.11

The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) - Debunking Christianity

Debunking Christianity: The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is Not Hard to Understand

By John W. Loftus at 6/21/2011
 
When believers criticize the other faiths they reject, they use reason and science to do so. They assume these other religions have the burden of proof. They assume human not divine authors to their holy book(s). They assume a human not a divine origin to their faiths.

Believers do this when rejecting other faiths. So dispensing all of the red herrings about morality and a non-material universe, the OTF simply asks believers to do unto their own faith what they do unto other faiths. All it asks of them is to be consistent.

The OTF asks why believers operate on a double standard. If that's how they reject other faiths then they should apply that same standard to their own. Let reason and science rather than faith be their guide. Assume your own faith has the burden of proof. Assume human rather than divine authors to your holy book(s) and see what you get. If there is a divine author behind the texts it should be known even with that initial skeptical assumption.

So the OTF uses the exact same standard that believers use when rejecting other religions. If there is any inconsistency at all it is not with the OTF. It is how believers assess truth claims. For it should only take a moment’s thought to realize that if there is a God who wants people born into different religious cultures to believe, who are outsiders, then that religious faith SHOULD pass the OTF.

If Christians want to reject the OTF then either they must admit they have a double standard for examining religious faiths, one for their own faith and a different one for others, or their faith was not made to pass the OTF in the first place. In either case all of their arguments against the OTF are based on red herrings, special pleading, begging the question, the denigrating science, and an ignorance that I can only attribute to delusional blindness.

To read more on the OTF click here.
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  • Believers will typically respond that Christianity is growing around the world and that is true. The question is whether or not it is doing so based on the same standards they use to reject other religions. Is reason and science rather than faith their guide? Are people accepting a religious faith by initially assuming that it has the burden of proof? Are these potential converts assuming a human rather than a divine author of your holy book(s)?

    I think not, not by a long shot, not even close. A religion can grow due to many other factors unrelated to how it should be reasonably accepted, if one can be reasonably accepted at all. It's growing because of a double standard.

    Phillip Jenkins argues that the reason why Christianity is growing in other cultures is precisely because they share the same superstitious outlook as the Bible, and it's creating new kinds of Christianities:

    http://www.amazon.com/New-Face...
     
  • Douglas Kirk 06/21/2011 12:09 PM
    It seems to me that people who claim to not understand the OTF are deliberately misunderstanding it. The only problems I see that are ever pointed out with it are "Even reason takes faith!" (thereby reducing every opinion to equal likelihood and discounting evidence of any kind) or "I do not judge religion by the same standards of evidence that I would judge anything else." (Yes, islam is just as likely as christianity if you look at it empirically. But I am not beholden to such strict, lifeless views about the world around me. I just know.) Each of these points, of course, emphatically being backed up by grandiose posturing and claims of victory encircled by barbs about how childish and unsophisticated it is.

    I wish it could be standard philosophical policy to stop, stare for a few minutes, and continue on like those people had never objected at all.
  • Douglas, next up Victor Reppert should come along soon enough to say that what I described is not how he rejects other religious faiths. Really! Watch and learn. It's a very interesting phenomena to see a religious person duck, evade, obfuscate, obscure, confuse, muddy, and try to cloud the real issues with smoke screens, non-sequiturs, special pleading, begging the question, red herrings, and just plain dumbness. ;-) This is why I say believers are blind. They cannot see the noses on their faces its so damn bad.
  • I don't even think objecters like Talbott and Reppert misunderstand the OTF at all. I think they've tried it in the firm belief that their faith must necessarily pass the test, and then when they find they are wrong they suffer cognitive dissonance. After all, they KNOW they have the right faith, so how can it possibly fail? There MUST be something wrong with the test!

    The problem then faced is that even the best of their best philosphers can't debunk the test or make it disappear, and I can't help but feel their concern that if their less sophisticated followers get hold of a copy they'll lose them in huge numbers, so they have to go on the attack even when it requires silly and irrelevant arguments about generally accepted but entirely non-religious beliefs we all share (such as that rape is not and never can be acceptable).
  • Regarding the growth of christianity in the world's disadvantaged countries: Would you accept these new converts' judgment about aspects of modern life in general? They might know from experience whether, say, a given patch of land in the neighborhood will probably grow a good cassava crop and stave off starvation for another season; and they learn these things because they see the practical results of their actions. But why would we follow their advice about which god to believe in? We have no way of testing the results in the observable world.

    And we certainly wouldn't follow these believers' advice about our health, finances, child rearing, politics, education, etc., because we can see that they don't run their societies very well relative to ours. They simply don't know enough of the right things.
  • christthetao 06/21/2011 12:56 PM
    John: Do you really think people in other cultures readily accept Christianity without any evidence for it whatsoever? You should have tried your hand at missions work, instead of preaching. Then you might have a better idea of how hard it is in some cultures to become a Christian.

    The truth is, most atheists in the world believe in atheism because that is what they were taught in school, or by their parents.

    Tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of Christians alive today come to Christianity from what you call the "outside" of "Christian" culture. Even in Europe, Christians are surrounded from school days by Secular Humanism, and are forced to find reasons to stand apart from the dominant assumptions and values of their culture. As an American, I was born into a Christian family, but went to a secular high school in a secular city, a secular university, studied Marxism, lived on a Soviet boat and in China, and hung around with Buddhists and Taoists and secularists -- as do most the Christians in Asia.

    One might even say that western Secular Humanism is a hothouse religion, that survives by protecting it from the big world. The answers to my posts on how the Gospel has liberated women have underlined this point for me, so far -- I'm talking about saving girls from forced prostitution and widow-burning, and American skeptics are complaining about how Southern Bapists don't let women preach. As G. K. Chesterton (who invented the OTF) recognized long ago, a little traveling and a little knowledge of other traditions makes the Gospel all the more credible.
  • christthetao 06/21/2011 12:57 PM
    I meant most Christians hang around Buddhists and secularists, not that they live on Russian fishing boats. :- )


  • Hi John, the OTF was exactly how I went from being a “born
    again” Christian to become an Atheist. Although at the time I did not know the
    OTF existed or had a nice structure as you have laid it out. I had been trying
    to prove to several Mormon friends of mine that their holy scriptures did not
    stand up to scientific or historical scrutiny. But they kept on persisting and
    inviting me to talk to other, more learned members of their church. I even read
    the entire BoM as they requested. I had brought up so many problems that I had
    found in their book that they finally told me that it would not matter, to
    them, if I had showed them a mountain of evidence disproving their religion,
    they were not going to change their mind.





    At this point I was
    rather shocked to think that someone could be so delusional. In fact I started
    to wonder if even I could be delusional and took it upon myself to re-read the
    bible from cover to cover. I was actually trying to prove my own faith by doing
    this and figured that the bible should be able to stand up to the same scrutiny
    I had used in reading the BoM. It did not take very long before I realized that
    the bible, when read outside the context of a believer, did not stand up to
    scrutiny.





    That was over five years ago and I have not looked
    back.
  • The truth is, most (insert name of culturally determined belief system here)s in the world believe in (belief sysrtem X) because that is what they were taught in school, or by their parents.

    No one "taught me" about atheism; on the contrary, it was because my parents had neglected to poke Jesus through the soft spot in my immature skull that the seeds of Christianity never germinated in me...

    Your point was?
  • >The truth is, most atheists in the world believe in atheism because that is what they were taught in school, or by their parents. . . One might even say that western Secular Humanism is a hothouse religion, that survives by protecting it from the big world.
    Theists want it both ways. Either atheism will die off because atheists don't have as many children as theists; or else atheism has grown because we've successfully indoctrinated more and more children.

    http://www.edge.org/3rd_cultur...

    http://www.edge.org/3rd_cultur...

    Attached files

  • I grew up in "rapture ready" Tulsa in the 1970's, yet despite the Southern Baptist indoctrination, I figured out early on that reality doesn't work the way theists claim. (I wonder how many of the still-living christians i knew back then have wasted their lives waiting to get raptured.) I wish I could have joined an atheist group in my teens to have some relatively sane people to talk to.

    I've met a few people who've had the good fortune of growing up as atheists. To me they seem nearly like characters from some advanced, futuristic civilization out of science fiction.
  • David. It is seldom that one comes to faith from evidence. It tends to be an emotionally based response to a story rather than agood thorough Biblical critical research. I've heard many American Denominations are concerned about Africa because of an interesting factor. The missionaries that were sent for years to areas for the most part failed. Yet culturally distinct varieties are popping up in the hundreds of thousands, Why? Because of the bible translators. They left new translations that were interpreted by the new movements without outside interference. I bet none of them will be trinitarian.
  • I fail to see how some measure of moral advancement in one religion or another somehow implies that the underlying supernatural claims and faith based reasoning are true. All that moral advancement shows is that some religions have managed to become more enlightened about some aspects of the human condition, a truly commendable thing for sure, but hardly a reason to suspect that the religion in question really has some special insight into the nature of supernatural beliefs, all they've achieved is a slightly better understanding of the human condition. However, it's possible that even improvement in understanding didn't happen if this advancement is defined by divine fiat rather than an actual general, cultural realization that treating another person poorly because they are arbitrarily different from you is wrong.

    At least the (rather imperfect) egalitarian notions that underly the moralism of humanism can be attributed to the belief that we are all largely equal in this world and deserving of some measure of respect as a fellow human being as opposed to the "we're better than you" attitude of the religious.
  • I do not see that moral advancement comes from within a religion. The religion adapts to external pressures. Look at the change of view in Christianity on slavery, women's rights and in more moderate or liberal churches, gay rights. This is hardly advancement from within but from concession to pressure from without.
  • Thanks for your personal testimony. It ain't world history, though, and I doubt it's all of your story, either. The truth is, acquiring opinions about the ultimate nature of reality is ALWAYS partly social, and usually partly rational. No one can claim to know a priori what the ratio between the two is, for anyone else.

    But you didn't get the point(s) I made in my last post, so maybe you won't get these ones, either.
  • AA: I didn't predict that atheism is about to die off. It's doing pretty well in many countries, and shows no sign of abating.
  • Baker: Michael Shermer conducted an enormous survey of Americans, asking them this very question. He found that most religious people say they DO believe for rational reasons. Do you claim to know otherwise? When it comes to motives, it would,I think, take a lot of gaul to say one knows better than everyone else, why they believe what they believe.

    You say you "bet" none of the new, independent Christian movements in Africa will be trinitarian. How much? $100? $1500? Please name your amount.
  • Tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of Christians alive today come to Christianity from what you call the "outside" of "Christian" culture.
    That, sir, was pure hyperbole. You're going to sit there with a straight face and tell us that a substantial percentage of the living population of Planet Earth have converted to Christianity from other viewpoints?

    Citation, please.

    Oh, and nice shank in the ass on that last comment as you were driving by. But I guess that's how we know it's really you, David.

    Kisses.
  • 9 out of 10 people said that other people believe for emotional reasons, David. 9 out of 10 people in that same group said that they believe for rational reasons. This reveals how ignorant people really are. Please don't cite that study without the details. It means that 9 out of 10 people think they are the exceptions to what 9 out of 10 people said was the rule. I suppose that fits you to a "T" right. Were YOU one of those respondents? ;-)
  • ...most religious people say they DO believe for rational reasons.
    Most people, if you asked them, wouldn't realize there's a vast difference between "rationalism" and "rationalize".

    I got into an argument with a guy once and tried to explain the difference to him. It angered him so much to hear that he was wrong that he hit me with an Oldsmobile. (OK... well, that, and I had got his ex-wife pregnant :o) )
  • Space: I don't claim to be better than you. Probably I'm better at some things, and probably you better at others. Morally, who knows?

    I don't know on what grounds an atheist can claim that human beings are "all largely equal." Peter Singer is the most popular atheist philosopher, and he clearly doesn't think so. But as a Christian, I think God made us in the image of God. (That's one equality.) We have all sinned. (That's two equalities.) Salvation comes from Christ, who died for sinners (That's three qualities). How we respond to grace of all kinds, is the "inequality," but that's true from any rational perspective.

    No, improving the world doesn't make a religion true. It does make it more worth paying attention too, though, especially in light of the many OT prophecies that the Messiah would bless all nations.
  • David Marshall said: But as a Christian, I think God made us in the image of God.

    Do a serious study of this. It has physical implications. Human beings are physically like the God who made them. That's what serious scholarship tells us. Only the Bible thumping commentaries say otherwise.
  • Oh don't be such a literalist. I have $635,000 in medical bills so far. I ain't gonna be making any bets. My point is I doubt that many atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and what have you believe what they believe based on their own rational reasons regardless whether they think they believe on rational reasons are not. . They were likely born into there position or acclimated into it as they migrated into a new culture.
  • I agree, but David seems to be implying that because religions can morally advance that this gives them some sort of credibility. I'm agreement with you that it doesn't.
  • David is the image of god the dao, Logos, Wisdom, Spirit, or what? What is the image of god , or form of god like? AS to we all have sinned you insult a lot of people.

    Christology rests upon a mistake. This is a simple statement that could be easily understood by much of the various Christian denominations. As so it means the invalidity of the Christian Faith since it rests upon its own Christology.

    Christology or how and why Jesus saves is based upon the idea that the Genesis account of Creation is real. However, much of Christendom apart from conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists knows how the universe began and that evolution is factual. They also affirm that the Genesis account of the Creation and Adam and Eve are mythological. It is unlikely for example
    that plants were created a day before the sun, moon and stars as in presented in Genesis. Also there is plenty of fossil and genetic evidence that humankind has been about hundreds of thousands of years.

    Since the Creation and the Fall are mythological and not literal accounts there is no basis to assume there is original sin. Christology is based upon original sin. The death of Jesus upon the cross is a sacrifice (propitiation) for that sin. Paul argues it, “As in Adam all have sinned and died so in Christ all are made alive.” Since there was no Adam, Eve, Eden, or Fall then there is no basis for a need of salvation. Jesus did not die for your sins. He died because of his teachings not because of my "sins".

    The idea is not really in Mark and is one of several competing Christologies of which the original followers probably saw baptism and waiting for the end as the means which the Baptist and Jesus preached.
  • Actually I was agreeing with you but just commenting on what situation you presented.
  • I don't claim to be better than you. Probably I'm better at some things, and probably you better at others. Morally, who knows?

    I didn't say you did, but I will now (but I'm in a charitable mood so I won't get nasty about it): I'll bet dollars to donuts that you think you are somehow spiritually superior to me.

    As for atheist grounds for equality... Here's just one: My existence is the result the same long series of events that everyone else's existence depends on. In that respect, I'm no more or less special than anyone else. That's just one item, I could go on, but I don't see the need to turn this into a pissing match. I'm sure you get the point, it really isn't that hard to come up with points of equality (and inequality, which is why I said that humanism isn't perfect in this respect).
  • Gotcha! :)
  • But as a Christian, I think God made us in the image of God. (That's one equality.) We have all sinned. (That's two equalities.) Salvation comes from Christ, who died for sinners (That's three qualities). How we respond to grace of all kinds, is the "inequality," but that's true from any rational perspective.

    Please cite Empirical Evidence that show that any of the above is true. Without using the Bible, prove there is a God, prove that there is concept of Sin, prove there was/is a person known as Jesus Christ, prove that he died for our sins, prove that we now have grace because of his death, and prove that he was resurrected.

    Say the above to a Hindu or Buddhist and they would just look at you and smile.
  • Justin Powell 06/21/2011 03:24 PM
    Rationalizing as a Christian equates to folding up pages of the bible into a telescope and attempting to view that world through their own Christian lens. Sadly Christians all around the world and United States take different pages from the bible and all get contradicting world views. :)

    By the way, if all it takes to convince you that someone got their beliefs through rational means just by them saying so.....I feel sorry for you. We would never have anything to set as a standard if each individual person is creating it as they go and not taking into consideration everyone else.
  • Lauralee Provenzo 06/21/2011 03:24 PM
    You people really need the Lord.
  • Yep sure do. He is my number one go to guy when it comes for knowing how to prepare myself for the end of the world.
  • Which one. Buddha seems a little more rational than that Christ figure. But I do like the Historical Jesus. Then there was Jim Jones. he called himself the Lord and his people needed him to death. Maybe you need to be freed from the slavery of a dominating delusion that originated as a tribe that sacrificed sheep when they gave up on human sacrifice. Oh that's right that got around to it one more time with Jesus (though historically after the fact).
  • Hello John: If a Christian wishes to be consistent in rejecting the OTF, then would it not follow that they should also be consistent in pursuit of the goal established in the Great Commission and not be reticent about using force to compel non-Christians to convert to the 'true faith'. To what end is the double standard employed in defense of Christianity if it is not in creating a purely Christian world? Why won't Christians simply come out and openly advocate a revival of Theodosius' Edict of Thessalonica? Where is the courage of their conviction?
  • Well tell him to pick up when I call then! You go on one lousy date.....
  • What the vast majority of the OTF critics totally miss is the simple fact that even if one *assumes* human authorship of any individual holy text, IF the claims of that text are actually true and some omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent entity actually authored it (or even inspired it) then divine authorship SHOULD be readily apparent and it should be able to pass the OTF. Even if one assumes human authorship, the fact of actual divine authorship should shine through regardless of any personal preconceptions.

    The reason these faiths FAIL the OTF is because upon actually reading these purportedly perfect texts, supposedly authored by a vastly superior being of surpassing intellect and moral perfection, it is OBVIOUS that these texts can not justify a claim to divine authoriship. Their human origins are plainly visible through the clearly and distinctly human priorities on display, through the myriad inconsistencies, factual errors, internal contradiction, logical fallacies, moral failings, and moral contradictions laced throughout the text.

    If the Bible or the Quran or any of the other thousands of other sacred texts really were the product of a such an entity, it would be obvious. They would be works of surpassing brilliance and clarity, they would predict future events not in vague and obscure ways requiring extensive theologizing, but with terrifying, supernatural precision, they would offer clear, unambiguous and transcendent moral guidance, intercessionary prayers would be answered with supernatural frequency and most importantly, there would be substantial and substantive phsyical evidence supporting their claims. Instead, these works are characterized by muddled and confused narratives, factual errors and logical inconsistency, barbaric and savage morality, prohpecy so vague it borders on meaninglessness and most importantly, run counter to virtually every single piece of physical evidence adduced by human effort for hundreds of years.

    If these faiths were actually true, they not only COULD survive the OTF, they WOULD pass it with flying colors. It wouldn't even be close.
  • Interesting point TGBaker.

    Being a South African, I'm exposed to quiet a variety of interesting belief systems here. Some are based on the Christian bible while others still rely on ancestral communication so these rely on ancestors to reveal God's instructions. In both cases, the historical evidence for the belief systems is virtually ignored in most communities; people are not really concerned on how the bible got here (and it's history) while those who rely on ancestors don't really have the historical knowledge of where the tradition started. I don't blame either of these groups though. Why? Because of factors such as poverty, lack of formal education, etc... Basically, a variety of factors have existed for centuries in Africa that have certainly placed the level of scientific knowledge here below most of the rest of the world.

    This is why I find it funny (in a sad way) when I read comments outside of Africa about how the "historical evidence" of the Christian Bible confirms the idea that it's God's word. If this is true, then God is certainly playing a sick joke in choosing to reveal himself via a holy book. There are a lot of theists here who don't have the education (either illiterate or low formal education) or money (poverty) to even consider doing an investigation behind the historical evidence of their belief system. How the heck does one even start performing the OTF with them? Faith is all they have.

    The above is one of the key reasons why I recently became an atheist, still sounds funny when I label myself as such. When I decided to investigate the historicity of the bible, I realized that I was one of the privileged few to have this opportunity. The more I investigated and saw just how muddy the history is (irrespective of whether Christianity is true or not), the more I realized that the "God" I was looking for was too sketched in the "formal systems" of revelation (such as books, philosophy, etc...). There was no chance in hell that a lot of theists here would reach him that way. This seemed unfair to me. When I asked my "well educated" pastor about this (he studied theology), he simply harped on about the fact that this is just how God chose to reveal himself.

    Science is costly, this fact is often missed. And the fact that a lot of people in this world don't have the money and means to use it as an option to find God should make a theist reflect on this sad state of affairs. And because education and money don't grow from trees, tithes from Church are not even remotely enough to fix this imbalance. However, Faith is free which is why it's such a valuable commodity over here. That is why the OTF unfortunately won't make much of an impact here, even though I fully agree with its use.
  • Lauralee Provenzo 06/21/2011 05:00 PM
    I don't use reason or science in my rejection of false religions.
  • Lauralee Provenzo 06/21/2011 05:06 PM
    How do you know what believers assume? Do you have any beliefs? If so, wouldn't that make you a believer?
  • If you don't use reason, how can you possibly adduce that they are false religions?
  • How do you know what believers assume?
    Because they poke their heads in here almost daily to remind us of Pascal's Wager. I was waiting for you to try that one before I commented, but...
  • As I've heard countless times. "You have to open up your heart to Jesus and let God come in". I.e. As long as it feels good and pays off some emotional and psychological dividends you can't lose.
  • What is hilarious to me is the way they ALWAYS trot out Pascal's Wager as if we've never heard it before.
  • And which god are you gonna bet on. I'll take Brahman myself... Why this dead carpenter thingy???? Or maybe Kali now that is scary and bad ass...
  • And there is that whole other faction of Christians that say you can't come to Jesus until he calls you. The spirit has to open your heart. It is not reason but the Spirit that tells you who the right Christ or God is....
  • How do you know what believers assume? Do you have any beliefs? If so, wouldn't that make you a believer?



    Many of us were believers or ministers until we studied sufficiently to see what you presently believe is a myth like Zeus or Venus or Thor.

  • Weston Bortner 06/21/2011 06:07 PM
    Justin wrote:

    "As I've heard countless times. "You have to open up your heart to Jesus
    and let God come in". I.e. As long as it feels good and pays off some
    emotional and psychological dividends you can't lose. "

    It's funny that you mention that. I was at the park one lonely evening and I tried, even though I am an atheist, to do just that. At first I thought I felt something, but then I realized that my imagination was making something because I thought I was supposed to be feeling something. And while we're on the subject of opening your heart and having a personal relationship with Jesus, I have an interesting anecdote. (WARNING! STORY AHEAD!!)

    I'm an Author, and for many, many years I loved taking characters from TV shows and coming up with my own episodes in my mind. I would do this with TV show characters, video game characters, etc. Sometimes, I would have characters from different shows interact with each other. But as I grew older, the characters began to mature and develop different personalities than on television, and they grew into brand new characters of my own creation. I am now trying to write a novel with these characters, and I have now been able to create new people without borrowing from an original source. So I've had these characters all of my life and I cherish them greatly. (If this all sounds weird to you, my background would explain it)

    I have a history of depression and self-loathing. My dad, a few nights ago, told me that I need to change the way I think. I need to, instead of thinking I can't, think I can. While in bed, I thought about this and eventually found myself arguing (mentally of course) with one of my characters. It wasn't a heated argument, but rather her calmly acting as a therapist as she listened to my rather pathetic attempts to convince myself that I couldn't do anything right. As I eventually listened to her, the other characters I had imagined came up and they, if no one else, were there for me. Now, before you call me crazy, I am fully aware that none of them actually exist, and I don't make a habit of talking to them. I just feel that this is what happens with the character Jesus of Nazareth.

    Just food for thought, I guess.
  • I have a question...

    Are you single? I'm working my way through the alphabet, and as it turns out, "L" is up next and I'm between ex-wives.

    I think it's a sign from God...
  • Well since Pascal's wager applies equally to all non-falsifiable hypotheses about the true nature of reality, I am betting that our entire conception of reality is nothing but a vast and utterly undetectable computer simulation piped directly into our brains in which we control human-like avatars. The only way to attain enlightnement and to see the true nature of reality - which may ITSELF be an even higher level simulation - is to reject all superstition and non-evidence based belief structures. This is the only way that OVERMIND can distinguish between those prepared to embrace reality and those still mired in the delusion.
  • "You people really need the Lord"

    No thanks. I'm good.
  • Vader or Voldemort?
  • Voldemort.
  • What is interesting about the Matrix thought experiment is that you start with a super advanced civilization which builds a computer to simulate big bangs so that can watch the various developments. At some point the percentages come to be it is likely that the advanced civilization is itself a computer generated world creating computer generated world and that almost all worlds in a multiverse are computer generated. Then the problem with pascal is still which verse in which multiverse. And the beat goes on.
  • Good choice.
  • Which is precisely why the Wager is such a fruitless exercise. Which is also why Kalaam and the First Cause arguments are non-starters. At some point the argument basically boil down to everything must have a cause and you cannot have an uncaused cause, EXCEPT for our uncaused cause which apparently perfectly revealed himself as the Abrahamaic God to a bunch of uncivilized nomads at the ass end of the Universe a few thousand years ago. Questions like 'Well what caused (created) God are simply met with vacant looks, meaningless platitudes and hand waving.

    If you push the logic on any of these you quickly end up in a metaphysical netherworld where one evidentially unfounded proposition is just as (in)valid as any other, which is really the whole problem.

    Based on the arguments many Christians make, it seems that non-falsifiability is their only real requirement.
  • Faith Won't Heal a Divided World

    Sam Harris

    Most Christians believe that Jesus was the Son of God and, therefore, divine; Muslims, however, believe that Jesus was not divine and that anyone who thinks otherwise will suffer the torments of hell (Koran 5:71-75; 19:30-38). This difference of opinion offers about as much room for compromise as a coin toss.

    If there is common ground to be found through interfaith dialogue, it will only be found by people who are willing to keep their eyes averted from the chasm that divides their faith from all others. It is time we began to wonder whether such a strategy of politeness and denial will ever heal the divisions in our world.

    True dialogue requires a willingness to have one’s beliefs about reality modified through conversation. Such an openness to criticism and inquiry is the very antithesis of dogmatism. It is worth observing that religion is the one area of our lives where faith in dogma -- that is, belief without sufficient evidence -- is considered a virtue. If such faith is a virtue, it is a virtue that is completely unknown to scientific discourse. Science is, in fact, the one domain in which a person can win considerable prestige for proving himself wrong. In science, honesty is all. In religion, faith is all. This is about as invidious as comparisons get.

    Whenever human beings make an honest effort to get at the truth, they reliably transcend the accidents of their birth and upbringing. It would, of course, be absurd to speak of “Christian physics” or “Muslim algebra.” And there is no such thing as Iraqi or Japanese -- as distinct from American -- science. Reasonable people really do have a monopoly on the truth. And while they might not agree about everything in the near term, common ground surrounds them on all sides. Consequently, there is no significant impediments within scientific discourse: It isn’t always pretty, but the conversation continues without appeals to force or deference to dogma. There are scientific dogmas, of course, but wherever they are found, they are set upon with hammer blows. In science, it is a cardinal sin to pretend to know something that you do not know. Such pretense is the very essence of religious faith.

    It is not an accident that scientific discourse has produced an extraordinary convergence of opinion and remarkable results. What has interfaith dialogue produced? Meetings between representatives of the world’s major religions yield little more than platitudinous calls for peace and a willingness to ignore what many participants strongly believe -- that every other party to the conversation will probably spend eternity in hell for his misconceptions about God. The differences between scientific and religious discourse should tell us something about where to place our hopes for an undivided world.
  • @ christthetaoYou say, "The truth is, acquiring opinions about the ultimate nature of reality is ALWAYS partly social, and usually partly rational. No one can claim to know a priori what the ratio between the two is, for anyone else. "

    The truth is, there are those that are needy and must have an underpinning of a 'father' substitute and 'family' in order to maintain their psychological or inner balance, and there those that can live without a theist crutch. The unfortunate aspect of indoctrination and societal conformity, there are many 'christians' who can stand singularly without superstitious theistic support, but the effort or the attempt is far too difficult and energy sapping, with always the possibility of families being split, friendships denied, workplace tenure compromised etc etc. The recent research and interviews conducted by Daniel Dennett into ministers and clergy who have turned to atheism, but continue ministering simply because of the dangers and the dire consequences of any revealing, will be a very interesting read. From the few of the interviews that have been released thus far, it seems a path too fraught with danger and angst to reveal to a madding crowd.
  • "I don't use reason or science in my rejection of false religions."

    Of course you don't. Reason and science is not your 'style'.
  • "...which may ITSELF be an even higher level simulation...."

    If one simulated civilization can produce such simulations itself, then data storage becomes a pragmatic issue. Based on this, it is unlikely to be actually happening or if so, is only in one of the beginning levels and we are headed for a system freeze-up.
  • Victor_Reppert 06/21/2011 10:20 PM
    Could a person attempt to pass the OTF by being as credulous (or, openminded) about other people's religions as they are about their own. They could say that we all worship the same God, and that God speaks to people in other religions as well as in their own. Maybe Muhammad did split the moon. Maybe God speaks through the Virgin Mary to Catholics. Maybe he speaks through Buddha when he's talking to Buddhists.

    I don't see how a religious universalist could possibly fail the OTF, since they deny nothing in other religions.
  • All right, I'm not going to "duck, evade, obfuscate, obscure, confuse, muddy, and try to cloud the real issues" in this reply. This is no smokescreen. Let me say that you're right about the OTF...for most religions. It is true that there really isn't evidence that Hindu Gods exist or that Mohammed actually received visions from Gabriel. But some Christians (and a growing number of them, especially staring at the face of an increasingly secular society) actually do go and look at the evidence and come to an opposite conclusion that you do. Who was Jesus? You read Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" and think that Jesus was some kind of lunatic (who had a way with words, mind you). I read John Stott's "Basic Christianity" and realize that Jesus was actually divine and that he is PROOF of the Christian God's existence. You proceed to call me severely biased for using John Stott as my source. I counter by calling you severely biased for using Bart Ehrman, a man with obvious intentions to break down the foundation of Christianity. Where do we go from here? To the unbiased sources, of course...I look at the unbiased source - the very fact that Christianity even exists - and I had to wonder that if Jesus didn't do the things that he did, the things that he said, whether Christianity would exist at all? Other religions are the product of a culture over many years forming a religion, you're right, (except Islam, and Mohammed never rose from the dead, did he? His body is still in the tomb.) but Christianity was a religion that was the direct effect of a presumed action by Jesus Christ. Christians look at the evidence and believe that it leans towards Jesus' resurrection being true. (Read "Basic Christianity" if you want to hear it.) Until atheists find some way to counter the evidence with cold hard archaeology, good, rational Christians will continue thinking that. We take the OTF and our religion passes. Feel free to slap on all the sputtering about how I am such a "blind idiot", but first check out what we have to say about Christianity, and about Jesus. I've read your blog and I'm really not impressed with the lack of material you have actually "debunking Christianity" compared to the amount of breath you waste calling Christians "blind fools" in many colorful formats.
  • What evidence are you talking about? You attack John, but, surprisingly, you didn't cite a single piece of evidence for support of your claims.

    Secondly, Bart Ehrman is NOT a biased source. The man is very sympathetic to people of faith. He has given, in Jesus Interrupted for example, ways for people to maintain their faith. What Bart Ehrman is, is a scholar. He examines the bible and tells you what he thinks of it. And he's not the only scholar to do so, but, rather, one who is more widely read. There are other scholars who have written books pointing out the issues in the bible.

    Also, I find it rather concerning that you say that "The outsider test defeats all other religions, but mine is right!" Which is something everyone of every other religion would claim.
  • John Stott is not a theologian or biblical scholar. He is a pretty old minister. As far as evidence there is none for a Jesus as you claim. he was a person who died and turned to dust 2000 years ago.
  • ...I read John Stott's "Basic Christianity" and realize that Jesus was actually divine and that he is PROOF of the Christian God's existence.
    Challenge: Prove that "divine" is anything more than a human concept, i.e., more than an ancient invention of a wondering mind that had no other way to explain the world.

    "Divine" is a null concept.
  • I worshipped at Unitarian Universalist churches. I don't think that I've met anybody that takes every religion or even several religions as literally true. To reach that liberality one tends I think to approach religions as story sources. One might take meditation from this source and the idea of self sacrifice from this one and so on... But I think it is telling that a Christian can come to a negative conclusion baout the historicity of the virgin birth and yet walk back into the faith and attempt to revision and salvage the amputated remains. I think such incidents show that one can open mindedly step outside of faith and foster the skepticism that had been utilizied on other belief systems. That was my experience. It was a gradual process beginning with biblical criticism of the Synoptics. When you think through the implications and you add further research about canon, Genesis and church history you at some point are persuaded by your judgment that the kerygma or gospel is a slowly developed story with a core from the first few decades of Jesus's death to a fabrication of a triune god.
  • Weston Bortner 06/21/2011 11:32 PM
    One historian named Herodotus claimed that the temple of Delphi magically defended itself, a huge tidal wave appeared taking out many Persians, and that fish came back to life after a statue of Poseidon was vandalized.

    I guess we should go back to praying to Zeus.
  • Kenny xu - I think it is quite unfair for you to portray Bart Ehrman as a person who has set out to destroy Christianity. He started out to study the Bible and ended up realizing that the Bible is just another ancient document. The same could be said for so many others including myself, John W. Loftus, Hector Avalos, Dan Barker, Albert Schweitzer [who remained a Christian even though he admitted there is no way to know what or who Christ really was] and so many more.

    Most people don't start out to ruin Christianity but to figure it out. Then we find out that cold hard archaeology, a look at history and an unbiased look at the Bible itself shows that Christianity is no more factual than any other religion. Jesus did not rise from the dead, he was not born of a virgin and history doesn't have one word written by Jesus nor one word written about Jesus until long after his supposed death.

    I am not saying you are an idiot but you are defending the indefensible at this point.
  • "I don't see how a religious universalist could possibly fail the OTF, since they deny nothing in other religions."

    This is ridiculous.

    I suppose you will assert that Christians don't deny that worshiping Jesus as God will condemn one to hell - as the Muslims believe?
    I suppose you will assert that Christians don't deny the existence of Xenu and body thetans - as the Scientologists believe?
    I suppose you will assert that Christians don't deny that cows are sacred representations of Krishna - as some Hindus believe?
    I suppose you will assert that Christians don't deny that David Koresh really was the Son of God - as the Branch Davidians believe?

    Seriously?

    Anyone who thinks all religions are essentially the same either hasn't seriously studied all the religions or is kidding themselves.
  • "Until atheists find some way to counter the evidence with cold hard
    archaeology, good, rational Christians will continue thinking that."

    And you believe there is "cold hard archeology" to SUPPORT the claim that Jesus rose from the dead? Please cite your references.
  • TG: The offer of a bet was (mostly) rhetorical, though I'm not averse to a little easy money. Sounds like quote a hole you're in; best of luck climbing out.

    I'm apparently more cautious than you about making such claims.
  • Well, that is the obvious reply. The kind of religious universalism I am talking about has a problem with coherence. But there are certainly attempts to accept a religious universalism out there, a sort of "many roads to the top of the mountain" picture. I have in mind people like John Hick. Of course, Hick operates out of the Christian tradition but thinks the God Incarnate claim of Christianity is myth.

    But it seems to me that you could say that God could have his supernatural hand in the development of other religions besides Christianity, and still be a Christian. Does one really have to see them all as purely human products?

    It does seem to me that I don't have to see other religions as self-deception pure and simple if I am, say, a Christian.

    The OTF is strongest in response to people who are committed to the idea that God has a great desire for everyone to be a Christian and makes everyone's salvation depend on whether they accept Christ or not. William Lane Craig would be an example of that sort, and I am sure John grew up with that belief also. Then, you really do have to wonder why God is leaving so many people out in the cold when he could surely do a great deal more to save them.

    If you're a Calvinist you can say that God shouldn't have to arrange it so that Christianity passes the OTF, because after all he, for his own glory, chose a whole lot of people for eternal damnation. So, if they can't justify a belief in Christianity, that fits God's plans perfectly, since he wasn't trying to save them in the first place. They're reprobates anyway.

    If you're a universalist like Talbott, then it gets a little harder to see what God has at stake in making it so that Christianity passes the OTF, since he plans to save them whether they become Christians or not.
  • Kenny: Well said. I'd quibble with just one point -- I think Muslims do have good evidence for half their creed, the part about believing in God. (Not Mohammed). I remember inviting an Egyptian colleague over when I lived in Japan, and asking why she believed in God -- pretty good answers, I thought.

    The same goes for Africans, who another poster seems to think are blindly credulous. Maybe some are. But those I've met, didn't seem that way. Several months ago, a former Imam from Uganda or some country in that general area told me how he became a Christian. He heard God speak to him audibly. He was a successful man; he didn't need to risk his neck to become a Chrisian. Miracles are, I think, a big part of how the Gospel often spreads, as are the words of Christ, the spiritual power of which people recognize, when they're not blinded by ideology.

    I like John Stott, too.
  • That's OK bone marrow transplants are expensive with stem cells attached.
  • John the problem with this post is that reason and science do not have all the answers and there are many things that either will never be able to explain. We Christians may use science and reason, but we also use other means which show the validaty for believing in God.
  • They often deny demons, many deny hell, curses, Thetans, witches, Satan, Thor, fairy godmothers, engrams, muses, angels, the divinity of Jesus... I don't think anyone believes that all supernatural beliefs are equally likely or contain bits of truth. That would be contradictory, silly, and childish.
  • VR: "The kind of religious universalism I am talking about has a problem with coherence."

    So you have no problem with incoherence? Now, I understand...

    Even if you accept that God is working in other religions besides Christianity, you would not accept that all aspects of every religion are equally representative of God's working. How would you determine what parts of Islam (for example) are the divinely inspired parts and what parts are the human parts? You call yourself a Christian, so obviously you're ignoring the whole part about not worshiping Jesus as God. A Muslim would think you are an infidel deserving of death. So how do you figure out who's right? Flip of a coin? "Feelings"?

    Unless you actually do believe that Osama bin Laden was doing God's will just as much as you are. Then we've got a problem.
  • But doesn't that amount to claiming that one can discriminate amongst these religious claims on the basis of evidence? If so, then it's perfectly possible to dodge the double-standard charge.

    I can't see rejecting this without appealing to the naturalism-or-chaos argument, which implies that once anything supernatural is allowed through the door, there is no way to make any rational discriminations. But the naturalism-or-chaos argument, if it works, is a pretty effective piece of atheological argumentation. If that works, then the OTF isn't even needed.
  • XT: Even if you accept that God is working in other religions besides Christianity, you would not accept that all aspects of every religion are equally representative of God's working. How would you determine what parts of Islam (for example) are the divinely inspired parts and what parts are the human parts? You call yourself a Christian, so obviously you're ignoring the whole part about not worshiping Jesus as God. A Muslim would think you are an infidel deserving of death. So how do you figure out who's right? Flip of a coin? "Feelings"?

    VR: Evidence, maybe?
  • Pleae produce Jesus' body to substantiate your claim.
  • If "divine" is a null concpet, then why does the word exist?
  • Because humans invented it.

    Uh Duuuuuuuuhhhhhhh!
  • For the same reason words like fairy and magic and haunted exist. At one time primitive people thought these were good explanations for things.
  • 'Divine' is a purely theological construct. The word has no transferable value to anything outside the realm of godism.
  • "Pleae produce Jesus' body to substantiate your claim."

    Please demand jesus to come down and prove the bugger is still around.
  • "Pleae produce Jesus' body to substantiate your claim."

    Please demand jesus to come down to prove without a shadow of doubt he is still around. That's the least he can do.. In the case of jesus' resurrection, absence of evidence is truly evidence of absence. No, no resurrection, his body was dumped in Gehenna after being taken down from the post.
  • Kenny, I probably read John Stott's "Basic Christianity" before you were born. I still have it too, all marked up, since when I read a book that I own I underline in it. I just don't think you could suggest very many important books on your side of the fence that I have not read. Care to return the favor? Then let me suggest these books:

    http://debunkingchristianity.b...
  • The OTF is strongest in response to people who are committed to the idea
    that God has a great desire for everyone to be a Christian and makes
    everyone's salvation depend on whether they accept Christ or not.
    William Lane Craig would be an example of that sort, and I am sure John
    grew up with that belief also. Then, you really do have to wonder why
    God is leaving so many people out in the cold when he could surely do a
    great deal more to save them.
    Victor, what you have said is correct, although I haven't yet turned my attention to the Calvinist. He does, after all, weigh things in favor of his faith irregardless of what his beliefs are. That's why I have never said the OTF is a silver bullet, that I can recall anyway, since I speak about religions that might pass the test. Arguments can only do so much. A successful argument from the problem of evil will be ineffective against a process theologian, for instance.

    My problem with Talbott is that he is faulting the OTF for what it is not intended to do. He doesn't realize that my target audience is conservative evangelicals.
  • I'll say it this way, the more conservative a person is then the more force the OTF has on him. It's an unusually person centered argument since it takes a believer's own level of skepticism and asks him to apply it across the board. So while some people might use it as an atheistic argument it can be seen by others to be a liberalizing argument. Liberals are on the same road to atheism though. We'll be here when they get to the end of their road.
  • Are you not blinded by "ideology" when you choose to disregard the spritual power of the Koran? Are the miracles, as experienced by muslims who oppose Christ's claim as God's son, not a big part of how the Koran spreads? I know of a successful collegue who is a muslim and constantly feels Allah's presence in his life, which for him confirms his belief in the Koran even further. Consequently, he believes those who worship Christ as the messiah will go to hell. Do you not realise that the arguments raised in your post work for him as well? The reason why you entertain the idea of God having audibly spoken to that African guy is because you already believe it's the same God you believe in. Otherwise, you wouldn't have made use of that example. If you claim that you would have made use of that example for another God, then please give the muslim I mentioned (and countless other, over a billion actually) the same benefit of a doubt.
  • The obvious reply to a universalist Victor, is that there are mutually exclusive claims being made by various religions. So a universalist must have some standard for determining what happened in order to determine what is mythical in a religion from what is historical. And this standard is the same one I share, I would think, reason and science. And this standard, if applied consistently across the board eschews faith in favor of evidence. The other alternative is that the god of the universalist is a deceiver, not a god of universal love, since the various religions have perpetrated horrendous evils upon one another.
  • Don't be silly. Can you produce Julius Ceasar's, Moses's body, Peter and Paul's body. That is a quite absurd request. I can show you the problem with the Gospel's from which you get your erroneous beliefs in Jesus. So in a sense I will start with issues that produce a HUMAN body without any DIVINITY>>>>>>>>>

    Matthew and Luke reproduce 94% or Mark's text. The high degree of exact
    word for word correspondence of Matthew with Mark, Luke with Mark but
    not Matthew with Luke in these areas indicate plagiarism of Mark at
    least by contemporary high school or college standards. When we look at
    what Matthew and Luke have in common but not found in Mark we see
    non-contextually sayings that are placed in the body of Mark in
    different places by Matthew and Luke sometimes to the alteration of
    Mark's original meaning or text. We call this common material Q. I
    discovered this by placing Mark in the center of a three foot poster
    board with Matthew to the left and Luke to the right. I then drew lines
    of the corresponding pericopae (passages of self contained stories) .
    Where Matthew and Luke followed Mark the lines connecting them were
    straight. Where the saying were added jumped around and crisscrossed
    widely.



    Next in my study I found that the variations of the stories made more
    sense if Mark was indeed earliest and plagiarized by the other gospels.
    For Mark consistently presented with the more primitive reading or such
    that the theology was more primitive than the other two. Matthew for
    example exaggerates the miraculous and heightens the Christological
    flavor of the story lacking and in Mark. He does so in such a consistent
    manner that the stories are sometimes butchered as compared to Mark and
    the dynamics of the stories left awkward. Mark starts off a very
    worldly account with Matthew, Luke and then John becoming more and more
    sensational and supernatural with Jesus becoming divine.


    I would like to present an atheistic bible study, an observation or
    interpretation, I believe explains the re-working of the original story
    of Jesus and John the Baptist by the authors of Matthew and Luke. This
    is with the understanding that Matthew and Luke use Mark in their
    compositions. In Mark Jesus is baptized into ( eis) the remission of
    sins. The preposition “eis” means from out of a state to into a
    different state or place. This preposition in Mark is redacted
    (re-worked or edited) by Matthew.



    The statement of what the baptism is for in Matthew is dropped. We see
    the term "into the remission of sins' added instead by Matthew to the
    pericope of the Last Supper. 26:28. There communion becomes for the
    remission of sin. Matthew creates a conversation where John the Baptist
    tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized and Jesus tells him to go
    on with it to fulfill all righteousness.



    This answers the problem of why a sinless person would need baptism as
    in Mark and also makes John subservient to Jesus. This makes obvious
    the church is dealing with the fact that Jesus was a follower of John
    the Baptist and does not begin his ministry until John is arrested. The
    author of the Gospel of John will have Jesus baptizing and ministering
    at the same time as the Baptist and does not have Jesus baptized by
    John.



    In Mark Jesus comes up out of the water and the Holy Spirit comes into (
    again eis) him. Matthew changes this to the spirit descends upon ( epi)
    him. The idea of the spirit after baptism coming into a person is
    consistent with the idea in Acts 2:38: Peter replied, “Repent and be
    baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the
    forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy
    Spirit.



    In Mark Jesus alone hears god saying that he is well pleased. In Matthew
    god addresses his pleasure to the crowds. Luke maintains Mark's
    terminology about baptism, changes the adoptionistic reception of the
    Spirit into Jesus to a confirmation like Matthew to the spirit as dove
    comes down upon (epi) him. The change of the preposition by Matthew and
    Luke are intentional because of the theological implications and the
    addition of the infancy narratives wherein Jesus has the spirit from
    birth! Luke quotes mark and maintains gods announcement of pleasure to
    Jesus.



    When one looks at the quoted OT verses in Mark 1:2f they are combined
    and perhaps reflect a pre-exiting proof text designed from Isaiah and
    Malachi not just Isaiah as stated. The pronouns are changed so that
    the verses can apply to the idea of the Baptist as precursor. Instead of
    "Behold I send my messenger before your face the original in Malachi
    3:1 reads "I will send my messenger before me ( i.e.; God)." The change
    is from god talking to his prophet about his own coming to god talking
    to Christ about sending the Baptist before him. The messenger in
    Malachi was originally the Messiah and not the Baptist. The change is
    from god to messiah or Jesus in doing so and an example of a forged
    prophecy. Thus the preparing of the way of the Lord (Yahweh) shifts to a
    Messianic interpretation and the make straight his paths is
    substituted for the paths of our God.
  • "Evidence"? What evidence would that be?

    Surely you don't mean evidence of the "Fruits of the Spirit" within other religions? Whatever part of Islam conforms to your Christian standards is the part you accept (monotheistic god, OT prophets, etc.) and whatever disagrees with your Christian standards is the part you reject (honor killings, Jesus as Not-God, etc.). I'm sure an Islamic universalist will use Islamic standards to determine the "evidence." Your vision of universalism is an illusion. All religions are not the same.

    When I was a liberal Christian, I read some of Hick's writings. At the time, they made me feel warm and fuzzy about other religions because I didn't have to condemn them to hell. Now I realize universalism is complete nonsense, withering under the faintest ray of critical thought.

    Universalism doesn't pass the OTF because universalist do not employ skepticism when thinking about religion. Anything goes.
  • We can't produce the body of Adolf Hitler, and he died 66 years ago, within the lifetimes of many people still alive like my father, a World War 2 veteran.
  • From the fifth paragraph of your comment:
    This answers the problem of why a sinless person would need baptism as
    in Mark and also makes John subservient to Jesus.
    Did you mean "...Jesus subservient to John."?
  • I can't see rejecting this without appealing to the naturalism-or-chaos
    argument, which implies that once anything supernatural is allowed
    through the door, there is no way to make any rational discriminations.
    But the naturalism-or-chaos argument, if it works, is a pretty effective
    piece of atheological argumentation. If that works, then the OTF isn't
    even needed.


    So what are you using to determine which supernatural beliefs are true, which to be "up in the air about" and which to dismiss? What about those who are getting different answers on these sorts of questions? How is an outsider to determine which is most likely to actually represent reality and not peoples' misperceptions, indoctrination, and confirmation bias? How, other than he OTF, that is?

    I agree that if there is no valid method, naturalism is the best choice if you want to avoid believing false things. Of course, your answer may be different if your main goal is to avoid hell or attain the heaven of your indoctrination rather than understand the truth to the best of your ability. I suspect most Muslims and Christians claim belief because they fear hell or think faith is the key to salvation. I bet they'll concede that this is why those "others" believe-- but they will each claim that they, themselves, believe for rational reasons. Believers know that others often believe for irrational reasons-- but they imagine that their own reasons are much more rational-- ha! (Victor, you know you think this about the Muslim beliefs just as surely as they think this about you. )

    Isn't it time that our planet stop becoming a battleground for people who imagine that they know what god wants?
  • XT: Even if you accept that God is working in other religions besides
    Christianity, you would not accept that all aspects of every religion
    are equally representative of God's working. How would you determine
    what parts of Islam (for example) are the divinely inspired parts and
    what parts are the human parts? You call yourself a Christian, so
    obviously you're ignoring the whole part about not worshiping Jesus as
    God. A Muslim would think you are an infidel deserving of death. So
    how do you figure out who's right? Flip of a coin? "Feelings"?

    VR: Evidence, maybe?


    What evidence? Why hasn't god given people equal access to it? Why allow people to fight and kill over the "rightness" of their faiths? Wouldn't it have been more benevolent to clarify? Especially if ETERNITY was at stake?

    Or maybe god isn't real.
  • Pleae produce Jesus' body to substantiate your claim


    You are so goofy. But you are also a great example of how no amount of evidence can sway people from the beliefs they feel saved for believing in and the flimsiest of evidence can confirm it. You are a hyperbolic illustration of the double standards everyone of faith has.

    Please produce god's body... or any divine being to substantiate your belief in such things.

    Christians, at the core, all believers in "magic" sound like bigred73 to this outsider. When it comes to your magical beliefs, you want the outsider to prove you wrong. But it's really up to you to prove yourself right if you want others to believe-- just as you'd expect Muslims, Mormons, and Scientologists to do if they wanted to sway you to their faith. Until you can do so, expect this outsider to feel the same way towards your faith as you feel towards those. And for the same reasons.
  • No because while Jesus was a follower of the Baptist the gospel writers are attempting to reverse the situation. They do this by making the Baptist subservient to Jesus which was not historically the case. They add dialogue of John exclaiming that he needs to be baptised by Jesus. Matthew and Luke make Jesus sinless by doing so though Mark originally has him baptised for sin.
  • So you didn't mistake what you wrote, then...I was confused.
  • No. What I was attempting to say is the fabrication of the church changes Jesus from being a followers of the Baptist and baptised for the remission of his sins ( Adoptionistic Christology) to making the Baptist as subordinate to Jesus. Does that make sense? We are dealing with the historical situation and the narrative situation so it gets fuzzy.
  • Yeah, I see it now. Thanks for clarifying.
  • If you produce the body, they will ask for His (I am capitalizing for respect!) 'driver's license' ;-)

    I was reading an interesting book teaser, from David McRaney ("You are not so smart"), about the backfire effect (see the link).
    No matter how much evidence you put on the table, the more these geniuses get deluded.

    http://youarenotsosmart.com/20...
  • If your point is that you know anything at all about how 'most' people become atheists then you are wrong - period! 65,000,000 Brits were ALL taught religion in school by law, and yet less than 8% of them kept the faith. I don't know for certain about the remaining European countries, but certainly in (the former west) Germany 55,000,000 people were also taught religion in school, and less than 10% of them kept the faith either.

    Nobody I knew growing up, and nobody I know now was EVER taught athesim in any form whatsoever. What was taught was science, and when evolution came up it was obvious to anyone capable of critical thinking that evolution and creation cannot possibly be rationalized or compromised, and since science comes with hard evidence they all dropped the silly faith-based drivel.
  • I'm going with Odin - Norse gods are so much more fun :-)
  • I liked Loki!!!! They are a lot more fun. I'll have to share my story about living with some neo-orthodox Druids sometime....Now that is fun if I remember correctly.
  • Weston Bortner 06/22/2011 03:11 PM
    Is anyone else still waiting for Kenny's evidence?
  • Is anyone else still waiting for Kenny's evidence?

    I am Waiting for Godot.
  • What, no love for Flying Spaghetti Monster? He created the universe, for noodle's sake!
  • What, no love for Flying Spaghetti Monster? He created the universe, for noodle's sake!

    Drink for this sauce represents my blood. What do the noodles represent?
  • I would certainly NOT say that all Muslims are irrational. In general, I throw irrationality charges around like manhole covers. I do think that many people in Muslim societies are probably discouraged from inquiring freely, as some Christians are. I never was.

    Yep, naturalism will protect you from false positives, and will protect you from true positives if there is a supernatural. Mere avoidance of hell and hope for heaven isn't the only motive here. I would like to know if there is a transcendent purpose for my existence whether or not that means an eternal one, or one that ends after a human lifetime. If Tom Talbott is right, and universalism is true, then even Dawkins will be saved, so the soteriological motivation is certainly not paramount for him.

    But if the person is an outsider, they can look at the evidence and evaluate it. Not everyone has equal access, so people are expected to do the best with the information they have.

    The "war for God" danger is largely mitigated by a wonderful innovation called the separation of church and state. State-sponsored atheism will kill as many people as state-sponsored religion. If you think that whether people believe or not decides whether or not they are saved, and that government can make people believe a religion, then there will be religious wars. If you think religion is a delusion, and think it has to be eradicated in the name of progress of civilization, then people could end up being killed also if the atheists have the political power to carry out their mission.
  • If the presence of God is too obvious, then no one will really have a free choice about what they do, since they know that someone is watching who will guarantee that good actions have good outcomes and bad actions have bad ones.
  • I accepted something like it as an argument against soteriological exclusivism when my good Catholic friend Joe Sheffer made it against that position in 1974. But I don't see the road to atheism from there; it certainly didn't move Joe anywhere closer to atheism.

    You are defining "conservative" in terms of contemporary American fundamentalism. But I think that fundamentalists fail to "conserve" many parts of the original Christian message, otherwise they wouldn't all be Republicans. In the Catholic Church, soteriological exclusivism was denied by Pope Pius IX, the pope who got Papal Infallibility decreed, and who in virtually every other respect exemplified religious conservatism.
  • If the case for the OTF is simply a matter of not using a double standard, then using the same standard for all religions allows one to pass. If you don't like the standard, so long as it's the same standard, you can't say it's a double standard.
  • If the presence of God is too obvious, then no one will really
    have a free choice about what they do, since they know that someone is
    watching who will guarantee that good actions have good outcomes and bad
    actions have bad ones.

    I think this is where the different meanings of "belief" have altered one another. For me to have faith in god is for me to trust in him.It is not primarily a view toward existence. One would still have free choice if god was obvious. I present to you Satan. Or other mythic tales of rebellion against god. They do not doubt there is a god and used free will as strongly as possible. So can and did man. Adam and Eve did not doubt the existence of god but Eve trusted (believed ) the Serpent over god. I am aware of the soul building argument but it seems to be desperation from theodicy problems of evil. If an omniscient god created the world and had foreknowledge of all possible worlds then there would be no free will anyway.
  • I would say that it is a rational standard, and it involves taking science seriously, but that leaves a lot of room for methodological disagreements. For example, I maintain that philosophical naturalism can't be the default position, because the logical implications of philosophical naturalism is that there is no mental causation, and therefore no one believes anything for a logical reason. You, of course, don't accept this. I don't think there are any really "neutral" positions, so I see us as all in Neurath's boat, not able to tear our belief-systems down to the core, but only able to make plank-by-plank replacements. That means using evidence to adjust priors, not throwing them away or making sure that you have the "right" priors to start with. You don't think so.
  • Sergio Paulo Sider 06/22/2011 04:57 PM
    It's amazing. True™ believers will never admit that the OTF is ridiculously simple. They know they will fail the test if they use it the way EVERYBODY understood it in the first place. Everything goes and it will never end. Period.
  • If the OTF argument is an argument only against soteriological exclusivism, then he and I both need to stop worrying about it, since he is about the furthest thing from a soteriological exclusivist that there can be, and I'm pretty far from soteriological exclusivism myself, having, as I indicated earlier, rejected SE in 1974. I don't think the argument has quite that narrow a target, however.
  • By what method can one pick and choose of the various religions to affirm and neglect. And how does it elevate one above the religions which claim coherence only in their exclusiveness so that you can choose its truths for them? To me a method which relativizes a religion or its parts that no longer fit to contemporary understanding of reality leaves nothing actual, ontological or meaningful save myth. For what authenticates the remains of the lobotomy? Is any of the character and personhood of the deity left? Or do we have a new man? Is the original meaning and purpose of the claims lost in keeping the form? Is that not a facade? If so is that not an idol and the continued veneration idolatry?

    What points to the authentic remains apart from ones past fondness to keep the corpse around? Was there anything authentic since the decay was not from attack but inspection? Is that not a flimsy Fortress that falls from a view instead of withstanding the missiles of doubt? The inerrantist know better. If the scripture is fallible then there is no knowing of god, his will or his existence. For that which was thought to be Supreme is subject to the yeas and nays of man. And so in the confession of the lack of integrity of inspiration is the loss of any direction to the One that is rumored to inspire.
  • BTW Victor, you may not know this but let me introduce you to TGBaker who was good friends with James Sennett then wasn't, then was again. They studied together and have the same background. It's quite an interesting story.
  • Thanks for the intro bro.....James and I have always been friends even though we don't always see eye to eye. More like brothers really.
  • No one has a free choice NOW, if God is omniscient, as reputed...
  • Gee....I thought I said that :>)
  • That depends on what understanding of omniscience is being employed. If the view is that God knows everything available to know at a particular time, then open theists like Bill Hasker can say that God is omniscient even though he does not know the outcome of future free choices, because he knows everything available for him to know at that time. The other options involve denying that God's knowing something means that it is determined. To do that you have to defeat Hasker's arguments that omniscience is inconsistent with comprehensive foreknowledge, but there have been plenty of attempts to do that (middle knowledge, the soft facts solution, the God-is-outside-of-time solution, the past is changeable, etc.)

    Further, some versions of free will make free choice compatible with being determined, and hence compatible with one's actions being determined by God. But if you go that way, it strengthens the argument from evil, since on those accounts God could have created us in such a way that we always freely do what is right. But Calvinists don't mind. They hold that God being good is compatible with the idea that God, for his own glory, chose some people for salvation and others for damnation. Those who are reprobated glorify God because they give God the opportunity to exercise his attribute of wrath against sin.

    Don't like that idea? Me neither.
  • Good to meet you TG. I would LOVE to see James' response to the OTF!
  • The revelation of God to man has occurred through a much sloppier process than that which our minds would like. But I am not persuaded by the inerrancy-or-chaos argument. To respond fully to that issue requires more than a short post will allow, however.
  • It's a simple idea until you see what happens when believers say they passed it. Does a religion pass the outsider test for faith if the evidence for it is sufficient to persuade someone who was not initially committed to any supernatural claims can, using the same standard he would use on any religion, comes to believe that that religion is true, even if that level of evidence wouldn't persuade Dawkins or Loftus? Can we construct a hypothetical outsider?

    Here's a guy who calls himself an OTF graduate.
    http://joestaub.blogspot.com/2...

    And I have written concerning the OTF that I don't have a problem so much with the OTF as with the OTFT, or the Outsider Test for Faith Test, the claim that you can challenge people who say they passed it because their reasoning doesn't satisfy the atheist.
  • Yeah, but I can name that tune in 13 words... :o)
  • I think that TG had an excellent point in his larger post directly above. If we try to "engineer" God's omniscience to steer clear of all the difficulties (middle knowledge, soft facts, etc.,) then we're complicating God, or limiting His power, or what-have-you. The open theist position is obviously more detailed than you let on in your mention of Bill Hasker, but let me ask: If God "knows everything available for him to know at [any particular] time" doesn't that place limits on God and force Him to "reside" within time? What happens to Omnipresence, and a timeless being? There's serious problems here, and no particular "solution" being proposed by the apologists has a corner on effective logical argumentation.
  • Nice to meet you. Jimi is supposed to drive me to some of my clinics and be my care taker. OTF might be a good discussion in bumper to bumper Atlanta traffic. I'll hafta put it on my Nook. I bet he has read it though.

    I think Chalmer's use of information theory and your focus on a foundational property of reason ( Logos in one of my scenarios) are complimentary. Of course I think his and your stuff moves toward a panpsychism. You gonna defend a true dualism? If you have a true monism what is the difference between calling the one thing physical or mental unless you are trying for a solipsism? How does it not wind up either a pantheism or a panentheism? Then if Brahman and Atman are the same the external and internal are the same. hey ... a property type of Eastern dualism ( just joking).
  • EDITED ADDITION: SHOW ME THIS SLOPPINESS!!!!! Parsimony unless there is a plausible and simpler reason otherwise. If you go with Pannenberg that all of history is revelation that seems sloppy enough and a good hedge. I did not mean to persuade you in inerrancy or chaos. But that seems to be the extremes which lays down the context for consideration. If it is too long to say in three sentences it is probably an apologetic gymnastic through loops of implausibility.

    1)The bible is not inerrant because it is mostly fabricated history rather than real history.
    2)The narrative reveals fantasy rather than fact or even truth.
    3) It sufficiently nullifies its own presentations with the motives and intent of the authors being the creators of that which is believed rather than god.

    I did it in three easy lessons. Granted blogging is like speed chess rather than a true game. But this arena should be discussion like around a fire place with a good scotch and cigar or pipe. Instead we love to compete and conquer. We are but the jocks of ideologies and dogma. And we make our gods mascots. At least the armchair philosopher can sit and watch his super bowl with a beer and remote control.

    I have never understood the insults and egoism. Progress is made by dialogue. But that's just my opinion. Perhaps debate is proper when you have certainty and conviction of that which you would want to defend as an only child but do so to win with that which is at best a pet theory is simply sport.
  • NAME THAT TUNE DUDE
  • I consider the OTF to be a worthless exercise for one reason: Christians (or Muslims or Hindus etc) only engage in post hoc reasoning or ('false') science to argue the point that their religion, and by extension their God, is the 'right' one. They do not and will not determine their faith by reason and will only engage in 'other religion' bashing to bolster their own faith. After all, what is faith if it is subject to reason? No faith at all!

    It is interesting that only in America is there such a dichotomy between the religious, Christian 'right' and the atheist/agnostic 'left' and that this is largely determined in geographical terms; coastal regions, I would argue, seem to be inclined to a more secular view and the central areas of the continent to a more fundamentalist perspective. This is unfortunately likely to be a product of history and is only increased by the two-party political system which prevails in the States; religion seems to be intertwined with politics to an almost obscene degree, despite the assurance of the constitution. Europe does not suffer this to any great extent perhaps because the religious fundamentalists chose to leave in the eigthteenth and nineteenth centuries and settled in the States and, perhaps just as importantly, Europe does have a place for comparative religion in schools; our children get taught about many religions, as one should in a multi-cultuaral society, so that they can come to their own conclusions and not be a slave to their parents' views. Having a long history of Socialist and Marxist thought helps too; perhaps as much as seventy percent of my peers at school 30 odd years ago had socialist or Marxist tendencies, even those from privileged backgrounds.

    I am inclined to agree with Dan Dennett, US schools need to make information about religion, all the main ones, available to children in an objective, structured and reasonable fashion. If after education, they still choose to believe in the God Delusion, so be it. At least they will have had a choice; in the US they don't get to make a choice and no amount of atheist/sceptical 'literature' is going to change that; it's already too late!
  • If you accept the fundamentals of Christianity (since you're a Christian), but you only accept certain parts of other religions while rejecting other parts, then you are using a double standard.

    If you somehow think you can accept every aspect of every other religion while still being a Christian, then you are not being rational - in which case you would be right in asserting that the OTF doesn't apply to you.
  • I contend that your observation is invalid. I can point you to numerous people, some who are friends of mine, who when confronted with inconsistencies that were blatant either internally to their own or from comparison with another religion did in fact stand outside their faith. That was my experience for one as I analysed the Synoptic Problem. John Loftus could testify to a similar situation in his life. Bart Ehrman is another scholar who had to stand outside of the faith when faced with turning a blind eye to the evidence or speaking out for truth.

    My brother-in-law is a Persian atheist from an Iranian Muslim world where periods of open statements about his position would have been fatal. Many of his circle and family are likewise "non-believers". I know two attorneys who have Bible college degrees and seminary. One went from being a Bible college professor to an attorney. His outsider expereince was the result of the problem with the resurrection accounts, Wittgenstein and Gettier examples. Another friend was a youth minster until he compared the gospels in their original language.

    There are folks I have met including my mother-in-law who left their faith when pulled from it by the problem of suffering and evil. Most of these individuals looked at or toyed with other presentations of faith. Such examples point to the validity of OTF as an intentional and structured method of resolving the underlying tensions and suppressions that are the neurotic aspects of the delusion called Faith.
  • Hi GearHedEd. The revisioning of god is a telling point in itself. What is being revisioned? A false view is the focus. The act is a response to sufficient criticisms that the traditional attributes are admitted as incoherent within one entity. So there is no such entity. What do we o when our idol is tumbled and broken by an earthquake. We build another that will withstand earthquakes. Pure 24 karat unmitigated asininity and idolatry. Open theism is open because it is a theism that bleeds from the open wound of fact. It is the revision of properties attributed not upon a foundation of certainty, nor of plausible source rather are bandages to maintain a desire or hope that has been fatally wounded. It is a faith without beliefs in the sense that the faith is maintained as the beliefs that support it are must be constantly replaced as pillars less the structure topples.

    Obviously the attribute omnipotence has been seen as a logical problem since philosophy 101 skipped joyfully out with "Can god make oa rock too big to pick up?" It can be belittled but it places the practical mind exactly in view of the flaw. We can create similar examples of impressionism on the canvass of any mind about any of the omni-attributes.

    AS you point out any response to an existent is god's presence in time. A god who has knowledge of all at a particular moment IS a process god. He changes and is subject to his response to his creation. The opposing view of course gives us a matrix god which does not change since what we see as a response is already predetermined . That in turn means that existence is already predetermined as laid out upon that matrix with an illusion called time. Response then is but the illusory manifestation of the presupposed by god. And in a panentheism god resides as spacetime.
  • I'm afraid that you are guilty of the fallacy that 'the exception proves the rule'. I know many who have forsaken the faith; that does not disprove my hypothesis, since the vast majority do not seek apostasy. As for citing philosophers, I would be wary. These can lead oft astray! Faith is not based on reason, how could it ever and still be faith, and trying to get the 'faithful' to do so is akin to asking a penguin to believe in the divinity of the Orca. Education is the key, not the self-preening of pseudo-intellectuals! I don't wish to be harsh but the tone and the manner of this whole blog does the 'cause' no service at all!
  • I think we tend to forget about the communication aspect of things we critique. Martin Buber warns us of an It/It relationship and that is what I think we tend to do as we debate the merits of such things. But entailed in the OTF is a latent assumption it is a test given. How it or any test for that matter effects the taker is in some since dependent on the communicator the source of the test. Some who read it as you will not trust the source and will blame the media.

    AS such you CAN as any tester question the integrity of the tested and so the OTFT. It is not necessary that the tester be an atheist but that the tester be capable. The use of a test self administered still entails the relationship of individual to author. Such tests require an introduction of explanation and the sincerity of the tested. If there is a predictability of outcome that is not met by the tested then it is that and not the test that necessarily is the subject of scrutiny.
  • I think you fail to see a multiple attestation and a trend in them. A vast number including myself tested other faiths but equipped as a result of leaving the faith the many others. I have posted on several of those. I do not remember quoting any philosopher. Faith IS not based upon reason. But as such reason sheds its light upon that very nakedness of such faith. As to the the implications of your term "pseudo-intellectuals" and the statement that this blog does the "'cause' (WHAT CAUSE) no service" bespeaks of your arrogance dressed in a gentleman's tuxedo which is in reality but a salt water bird's who can not even fly. That you have a cause may well place you within the confines of those fanatics of faith. New Atheism has its fringes and you are blinded by your own presumption.

    EDUCATION is the key and the OTF places a test before the one tested that has a background of biblical criticism, philosophy and logic. Education shall only be effective by demonstrating that the true source of a religion is its scripture which in turn fails as a source of truth claims. But in my experience I have not seen many philosophers self-preen (though I am not fond of philosophy but defend the creatures as they are by nature). But I quite often am amused by the self-pruning of penguins which I also defend as it is the want of their nature. Perhaps for atheism it is the penguins who wear the exceptions that prove the rule. Atheism is not itself a CAUSE. The cause of this blog is to Debunk Christianity. Why because many of us are academically studied from its background and know of its falsehoods.
  • I don't wish to be harsh but the tone and the manner of this whole blog does the 'cause' no service at all!


    Actually, it's comments like these that give the "cause" no service at all if the cause it to further rational the thought. The evidence shows your opinion to be wrong. Multiple people have come to free thought through this blog and/or the OTF and have posted as much, so if that's John's cause, it appears to be working better than anything you've offered. Of course, you may have a different cause. Your cause may be to build yourself up by putting others down for all I know. In any case, I would say your criticism about the "self preening of pseudo-intellectuals" is more fitting of your posts than the unmentioned others you criticize. If you want others to take your criticisms seriously, try specific examples and avoid an inference of imagined expertise. If you "don't wish to be harsh" then don't be-- simple, really. Discussions about "tone" on skeptic blogs are usually made to avoid actual substance (as you have illustrated.)

    Yes, most people use confirmation bias to tell themselves their faith passes the OTF (which is oft discussed here), but the fact that an actual outsider would recognize this as confirmation bias-- just as the believer, as an outsider to other faiths, would not be swayed by similar arguments from the other side-- should give believers pause. If you are purposely designing a test so that your faith passes, then you are not doing what an outsider would do in regards to your faith. Muslims could point to the fact that so many are willing to die for their faith as proof that their faith is true, but the Christian can see what is wrong with that argument. Many Christians will point out the number of people who died for their faith as evidence that their faith is true, in fact, until Muslims (or Jim Jones; cult) is offered as a counter example. Then suddenly it doesn't seem like such a great test.
  • (I am pressing the double-like button) ;-)
  • (another double-like) ;-)

    It's always "tone". Say anything that contradicts the believer and you are offending...
  • This assumes that there can be no evidential basis that can be used to determine that one religious claim is more justified than another. Even if you reject all religions, you can still say that one religion has better Bayesian confirmation than another. What would prevent an atheist from saying that the world is more like what we should expect if Islam is true than if Scientology is true.
  • Are nonbelievers immune to confirmation bias?
  • Sure, you can say Islam is more plausible than Scientology, but both of them are based on faith, which itself does not require an evidential basis. Bayesian factors should be based on real facts in the physical world with real empirical data. All religion has precious little empirical data at its root, which means accepting one faith over another is little more than getting up from one puddle of mud to bathe in a different, more brown puddle of mud. It's still all mud.

    You still aren't applying skepticism to the most basic aspects of your beliefs - namely, faith.
  • Bayes' theorem is a method for assessing the impact of evidence on prior beliefs, which are bound to differ.

    You can't assume that all religious believers are fideists. If they were, then the OTF would be irrelevant, because that would be an attempt to assess religious beliefs rationally, which is precisely what a fideist says can't be done.

    "Faith" is one of the slipperiest words in the English language. Until we get clear on how it is being defined, it is difficult to proceed.
  • Bayes' theorem is a method for assessing the impact of evidence on prior beliefs, which are bound to differ.
    Which brings us back to "how do you define 'evidence'"? The bar needs to be set higher than accepting supernatural claims at face value (yes, I know that vast amounts of ink have been spilled defending the gospels).
  • Well, how would you finish the phrase "X is evidence for Y just in case....."

    In my definition, X is evidence for Y just in case X is a fact of experience that is more likely to exist given Y than given not-Y.

    Care to improve?
  • Are nonbelievers immune to confirmation bias?


    Of course not-- but when you don't believe that something exists, then any empirical evidence that distinguishes such a thing from a delusion, would be enough to overcome the bias-- right? If there was measurable evidence for any invisible beings like there was for x-rays, it would be hard to deny.

    But when it comes to things that are indistinguishable from illusions like spells and curses and disembodied souls-- all a believer has is confirmation bias. Once someone believes, can anything make them not believe? Is there any error correcting mechanism for a wrong supernatural belief? What's the incentive for exploring whether you might be wrong? Can any incentive overcome the the threat of hell for loss of faith?

    Is your non-belief in Islam subject to confirmation bias the same way someone's belief in Islam is? Of course not. And the same is true with your own faith. If you want to know about non-believers, simply think of yourself in reference to the faiths you don't believe in. (That's part of the OTF, you know.) Can you ever be as biased towards the supernatural beliefs you don't believe in to the ones you do believe in? I think not.
  • Is this some form of the verification principle here? Should we be able to confirm supernatural claims in the same way that we should be able to confirm the claim that there are crackers in the pantry?
  • Bertrand Russell was reportedly once asked what he would say to God if he were to find himself confronted by the Almighty about why he had not believed in God's existence. He said that he would tell God "Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!"[1] But perhaps, if God failed to give Russell enough evidence, it was not God's fault. We are inclined to suppose that God could satisfy Russell by performing a spectacular miracle for Russell's benefit. But if the reasoning in David Hume's epistemological argument against belief in miracles [2] is correct, then no matter how hard God tries, God cannot give Russell an evidentially justified belief in Himself by performing miracles. According to Hume, no matter what miracles God performs, it is always more reasonable to believe that the event in question has a natural cause and is not miraculous. Hence, if Russell needs a miracle to believe reasonably in God, then Russell is out of luck. Russell cannot complain about God's failure to provide evidence, since none would be sufficient. But God cannot complain about Russell's failure to believe.
    http://www.infidels.org/librar...
  • I can't say that I have any better definition, but if I might pick some nits, "fact of experience" is necessarily subjective. None of the rest of us can have any confidence that your perceptions accurately reflect 'reality', whatever 'reality' might be. Nor could we even in principle compare notes other than anecdotally, since your experience is yours and mine is mine and never the twain shall meet. There needs to be a more objective (read: empirical) way to assess what we experience, and this is where the scientific method comes in. If there is any objectivity to be found in your experience, we should be able to measure it and compare it to the experience of others.
  • But if that is the case, then no experience of ours can be evidence that there is a real object causing the experience. After all, you could be on an LSD trip, or a brain in a vat.
  • So could you.
  • Essentially, I was pointing out that given your formulation
    In my definition, X is evidence for Y just in case X is a fact of experience that is more likely to exist given Y than given not-Y.
    you're making conclusive evaluations on insufficient evidence. Maybe you're doing this due to a recognition that the evidence is never likely to get any better, but there's nothing inherently wrong with admitting
    X is, and a possible explanation for X is Y.
  • I think you have to distinguish between evidence and sufficient evidence. I think people often say that there is no evidence, when what they should be saying is that the evidence is not sufficient.
  • "According to Hume, no matter what miracles God performs, it is always
    more reasonable to believe that the event in question has a natural
    cause and is not miraculous. Hence, if Russell needs a miracle to
    believe reasonably in God, then Russell is out of luck. Russell cannot
    complain about God's failure to provide evidence, since none would be
    sufficient. But God cannot complain about Russell's failure to believe."

    "I think you have to distinguish between evidence and sufficient evidence. I think people often say that there is no evidence, when what they should be saying is that the evidence is not sufficient."

    We do not have to assume a miraculous method of god giving his evidence. Supposedly Logos, revelation and what have you would be sufficient if communicated correctly. But it is there that the nature of Christianity withers when exposed to the light of investigation. It is the revelation itself that shows it counterfeit rather than legal tender. We can see when it went to press and how it was altered. It is not Neuroth's boat that we face. For in that case a plank by plank replacement maintains the identity. With Christianity we have a boat in which there has been added wings, a motor, and eventually a rocket. There is evidence in the quantum physical world of things that transcend our experiential understanding. We lack anything like that for a god much less a mortal in which Logos dwells or the absolute is present as an axis mundi. There is no rock on which to build. All of New Testament research shows but shifting sand.
  • Is this some form of the verification principle here? Should we be able
    to confirm supernatural claims in the same way that we should be able to
    confirm the claim that there are crackers in the pantry?

    I would think that an occasional poltergeist in the pantry beside the crackers is sufficient to call Ghost Busters.
  • Well, how would you finish the phrase "X is evidence for Y just in case....."In
    my definition, X is evidence for Y just in case X is a fact of
    experience that is more likely to exist given Y than given not-Y. Care to improve?

    The infancy narratives(X) are evidence for Jesus as from god(Y) They exist as a fabrication as demonstrated by there conflicting construct. The conclusion is -Y only because we have fabrication for Y. Infancy narrative are fabricated (X) indicates Jesus is not from god (Y) Y is greater than -Y (Jesus from god).

    Follow through with the conflict and revisioning of the Cleansing of the Temple, The Baptism, the Curse of the Fig Tree, The Good Master pericope. These are evidence against the validity of the gospel claim and the probability of fabrication.
  • The evidence should still be based on objective data, not gullibility or a willingness to accept the supernatural.

    I define "faith" as believing in something without objective evidence. When you strip back theists' beliefs - beyond the philosophical rationalizations and smoke screens - they are all basically fideists. There is no objective justification (i.e. hard evidence) for their faith. Only wishful thinking.
  • Victor, on this issue of ''evidence,'' since Jesus and Peter walked on water (Matthew 14: 25-29) why can't Christians. Let's not forget that Jesus assured his believers: ''Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also...'' (John 14: 12 (KJV).

    Another thing, if God's miraculous power is within Christians, they should be able to raise people from the dead (like Lazarus) and those amputates, when prayed for, should have their limbs back. After all, nothing is impossible with God/Jesus (Luke 1: 37).
  • The OTF hits at the core of a fideists' assumptions by attempting to show their faith from the view of an outsider. If a fideist refuses to take that view, that is the fault of the the believer, not the OTF.
  • To TGBaker:
    "The cause of this blog is to Debunk Christianity." Really? I thought it was to advertise Mr Loftus' books. If you want to debunk Christianity then "Read Dawkins (the God Delusion) and Dennett (Darwin's Dangerous Idea)" in large letters emblazoned on a single page is all that is required; these are far better written than the posts on this blog (comments excluded as some of them are quite good).
    To articulett:
    "Yes, MOST (the Penguin's emphasis) people use confirmation bias to tell themselves their faith passes the OTF..." That is why the OTF is close to useless as an aid in converting many people to a rational thought process in relation to their faith, which was my point to begin with.

    It's interesting how we now have a whole industry in America dedicated to 'debunking' Christianity; just look at the side bar on this page. Why? In the UK, we have a public zoo, run by a young-earth, creationist 'nut-job', and we scarce blink an eye. Why? Because nobody in their right mind, however young they are, could take it seriously and they (the 'nut-jobs') don't and can't wield power to affect people's lives. Unfortunately, that is not so in the US. It is no acccident, in my opinion, that the rise in atheist/sceptic 'literature' begins, by and large, with the Reagan administration and positively sky-rockets during the Bush administration. It's funny, to my eyes at least, that the founding fathers took great pains to try to ensure the separation of church and state and yet, in the US, they are in bed together, and copulating; supreme court notwithstanding! In Europe we don't worry about the Christians, the Muslims, the Hindus,
    the Jains etc or try to 'convert' them. We don't care what they believe with no
    supporting evidence because they do not wield power!

    So, it's a political debate not a 'rationalist' versus 'religious' debate, which is the point I was trying to make, and this is why education is the key; not of adults but of children (which I think TGBaker acknowledges). So when are the Democrats (the closest you've got to 'free' thinkers) going to get off their whiney asses and do something? Instead of parading the victory over the Dover school board, let's have creationist 'science' taught in school so that the kids will get to learn how stupid and unscientific it is! Let's have comparative religion assessing the (de)merits of all religions! No child is going to come to this web site and understand a tithe of what you commentators are writing about. The adults are largely a lost cause (some at the margins MAY be persuaded), it's time to educate the kids.

    To Sergio Paulo Sider:"It's always "tone". Say anything that contradicts the believer and you are offending..." As a penguin who never fell for 'the God delusion' in the first place and has been a card carrying member of the Atheists' League for as long as I can remember, I find it hard to believe you mistook me for 'a believer'; whatever that may mean. I say 'tone' because some of the comments made on this blog in response to people who are obviously christians have been less than, shall we say, charitable.

    And finally to TGBaker (because I cannot resist it):
    ".....dressed in a gentleman's tuxedo which is in reality but a salt water bird's who can not even fly." We have no need of flight, we are supremely adapted to our environment. No other animal is capable of breeding on the Antarctic sea-ice in winter as we do with the possible exception of man and then only at an extravagant cost in raw materials.
  • "The cause of this blog is to Debunk Christianity."

    Penguin: "Really? I thought it was to advertise Mr Loftus' books."

    *Sigh*

    http://debunkingchristianity.b...
  • :)
  • Is this some form of the verification principle here? Should we be able
    to confirm supernatural claims in the same way that we should be able to
    confirm the claim that there are crackers in the pantry?


    I think you should... otherwise you get a world where people really truly believe in all sorts of conflicting crazy stuff (and they feel saved for believing it too)-- with no way to tell the difference. Without a method for determining true beliefs from false ones, anything goes. All people are subject to confirming the superstitions of their indoctrinators--
  • Quite frankly Dawkins is not equipped to debunk the historical and theological claims of Christianity. I respect his work immensely but am not an irrational star struck fan as artic birds go. Dennett is one of my favorites but I can side with Chalmers regarding qualia or Reppert regarding the Argument of reason and not be ashamed. I can even critique Reppert's argument for a panentheism or panpsychism which he probably opposes.

    So I need not follow a party line nor those here. If you really want to why don't you change your Avatar to a donkey or elephant or better yet side with the theists. Politics is still party mentality. I seek the truth regardless of its consequence for my acculturated security blanket. You as they are, are blinded by your presuppositions and make me have to reconsider whether at least some types of atheism is a faith based stance as the theists claim. WHAT A SHAME. I really use to like penguins too. Just a jest and no foul I hope ( or is that fowl?????)
  • I think any real god should be able to distinguish himself from an illusion, don't you? In fact, it would be his responsibility if he knowingly created people, knowingly created a salvation plan dependent upon belief in the right invisible man, and knowingly made himself invisible. In fact, an omniscience god would already know how it would all turn out and would be sick and twisted for knowingly creating a system where he knew in advance that people would fail and be subject to infinite torture due to known flaws in the system.

    You excuses for your god are childish. Such a god is clearly a manipulation of man to get other scared humans to believe.
  • And finally to TGBaker (because I cannot resist it):
    ".....dressed in
    a gentleman's tuxedo which is in reality but a salt water bird's who
    can not even fly."

    We have no need of flight, we are supremely adapted
    to our environment. No other animal is capable of breeding on the
    Antarctic sea-ice in winter as we do with the possible exception of man
    and then only at an extravagant cost in raw materials.

    Oh, but those obsolete appendages tell of a need to cling to old ways. Oh oft the physical reflects the soul. It is better to fly to the heights of reason than to freeze in a sea of common popular belief. Why should I breed in an artic wasteland when there are better grounds in the Bahamas ( and rum too ).

  • I think you have to distinguish between evidence and sufficient
    evidence. I think people often say that there is no evidence, when what
    they should be saying is that the evidence is not sufficient.


    But what constitutes "sufficient evidence" for what you've been indoctrinated to believe in (such as the 3-in-1 Jesus-god) is insufficient evidence when it comes to things like reincarnation, whether Mohummed was a prophet, whether you are cursed etc. And the same goes for those with conflicting faiths regarding "sufficient evidence" for their faith-based beliefs over yours.

    So, clearly believers in the supernatural are using a crappy method if they want to know what is actually true-- their methods are of no use to an outsider interested in what is real.
  • Victor, on this issue of ''evidence,'' since Jesus and Peter
    walked on water (Matthew 14: 25-29) why can't Christians. Let's not
    forget that Jesus assured his believers: ''Verily, verily, I say unto
    you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also...''
    (John 14: 12 (KJV).

    Another thing, if God's miraculous power is
    within Christians, they should be able to raise people from the
    dead (like Lazarus) and those amputates, when prayed for, should have
    their limbs back. After all, nothing is impossible with God/Jesus (Luke
    1: 37).

    And we have early Christian legends that try and present the Apostles and their followers with the mojo.
  • I would dearly love to change my wings for something a bit more suitable, an outboard motor, but Mother Nature seems unwilling to make the changes to my DNA. The Bahamas may be warmer but the fishing is better here. Besides we have nice summers too!
  • Perhaps the theists have a point. We all argue/discuss on the basis that there is a greater value in reason, logic and the scientific method in trying to ascertain the 'truth' and then use those same methods to justify using them in the first place. I don't have a problem with calling that a 'faith' for one simple reason; you can show other 'faiths' to be false but, so far, no-one has managed to falsify the 'faith' we use to arrive at our conclusions. So, by our yardstich and it is only our yardstick, all is well. I don't think I'd get along with the theists, I am not willing to make that assumption :)

    The only reason for dragging 'politics' into the mix is because it matters. Americans forget the impact that they have on the world beyond their borders. If Usama Bin Laden hadn't been so hacked off with right wing 'christian America' and flown those planes, would the subsequent bombings in nations that support America have happened? A hypothetical question, to be sure, but nonetheless an important one.
  • I was composing a response to this last night but my computer locked up, so I said "The hell with it", shut it down and went to bed. I attempt to reconstruct it here...
    But of course.

    On the other hand, when you were defending your choice of action in the case of John's book recommendation, you said something to the effect that you'd "want to look at books from both sides of the issue". Well, so do I. For me, it's enough to know that there are serious scholarly investigations on both sides of the questions of Christianity, Jesus and the Resurrection, to the point where no one can claim without bias that the matter is settled. Here, we have "Y and not-Y", and given that either explanation is allegedly internally consistent, I have to vote for the one that does NOT require the supernatural to support it. Similar for your claim of knowing a guy who was "clairvoyant" (which was the subject of the original discussion).
    That's the gist of it.
  • Actually I am an avid Linux user and so our symbol is the penguin.
  • RE: Politics. Here in the states and particularly the bible belt one must defeat the religious underpinnings of ultra-conservative politics to defeat the politics. Our country supports Israel for example because 80% of our population believe in Christianity. And most of thsoe folks believe in a second coming with visions of a restored temple for Jesus to make his entrance.

    I worked as a social worker for 20 years (for the State). In one suburban area of Atlanta, GA my office door was anointed with oil because I had decorated with an oriental decor which included a nice Buddha. Christianity from my experience (and I have a theological education and was ordained) here in the USA(which is a significant population) has to be disarmed by defeating biblical claims. Christians of the bible worship the bible and not god. It is inerrant. It informs them as to what god is and what his will is. In other words if there is a god it is not the christian one since it is a construct from various texts of scripture and not one revealed parousia or in the flesh.

    Such a god is a theological composition completely from interpretations of scripture. How does that differ from an idol. So many liberal Christians call them biblio-idolators.
  • The very first premise is false.

    "When believers criticize the other faiths they reject, they use reason and science to do so."

    What?? In what universe?

    Believers operate from the epistemology inherent in their belief system, not Naturalist epistemology. If a Christian's epistemology includes the Christian scripture, properly basic belief in God, and experience with God confirmed through the community of believers, then they are on perfectly sound grounds rejecting competing faiths using truths obtained through those epistemic sources. You need to supply a reason why they should reject their own epistemology and substitute yours for it, not just assert idiotically that they accept your epistemology, which they clearly do NOT.

    This is just more of the usual bilge. You guys comb heaven and earth for yet another glib excuse for heaping burdens of proof on everybody else, while claiming that your own, neurotic preening is the null hypothesis and must be accepted without question, without lifting a finger to prove a thing. Atheism is intellectual cowardice and fraud.
  • There are [some] conservative Christians who worship the Bible rather than God, yes. But, surely, you do not really believe that to take seriously the instruction of the Apostles is necessarily to worship something less holy than God, do you? To lay the charge of idolatry on all Christians who hold a high view of scripture is just as dogmatically sectarian as to lay the charge of apostasy on all Christians who hold a lower view of it.

    Does your faith determine your politics, or do your politics determine your faith? Perhaps the inerrant Bible is not the only thing American Christians might be tempted to worship before their God. And it seems reasonable to ask, if the writing of the Apostles is not a sound basis for composing a view of God, what do you call sound in its place?

    Perhaps you ought to consider the possibility that God thinks no more
    of your politics than He does of your opponents', and He may not appreciate your using your politics as a basis for denigrating your brothers and sisters.
  • This works fine unless a it turns out that no possible evidence could yield a supernaturalist result. If that's the case, then the case is cooked from the beginning.

    What makes evidence objective? Is it impossible in principle for there to be evidence for the supernatural?

    I suspect that a lot of people are naturalistic presuppositionalists. What they really hold is that you have to buy in on naturalism before you can even start to play the evidence game.
  • But, surely, you do not really believe that to take seriously the
    instruction of the Apostles is necessarily to worship something less
    holy than God, do you? To lay the charge of idolatry on all Christians
    who hold a high view of scripture is just as dogmatically sectarian as
    to lay the charge of apostasy on all Christians who hold a lower view of
    it.

    Show me some evidence of god apart from biblical propositions and statements from which the christian god is constructed. Also the instructions of the Apostles are from the scripture. Every claim made is from scripture. And it is claimed to be inerrant. When the contradictions and fabrication of its contents are demonstrated there is no viable evidence for christian claims.
  • If a Christian's epistemology includes the Christian scripture, properly basic belief in God, and experience with God confirmed through the community of believers, then they are on perfectly sound grounds rejecting competing faiths using truths obtained through those epistemic sources.
    "Christian scripture": Self referential, i.e., "it's true because it says it's true"...

    "Properly Basic Belief": Buzzwords of a William Lane Craig fanboy. It's really a dodge to get around the problem of infinite regress, which also plagues God.

    "Experience of God confirmed through yadda yadda yadda...": The Lemming Factor, or argumentum ad populum, i.e. fallacious reasoning. Just because a lot of people believe it doesn't make it true.

    OTF fail.
  • A Muslim, Mormon, Moonie, and Wiccan can use the same gobbledy gook to confirm their magical beliefs are true as you use-- as such, it's a great way to confirm one's biases, but a crappy way for really knowing what is true.

    Naturally the burden of proof is on the person who thinks others should believe in the magic they believe in. You would demand this of any of the above to believe their faiths, right? Why shouldn't an outsider do the same regarding your equally unevidenced beliefs? I frankly don't care what bullshit you believe in any more than you care about the above. But as an outsider to your magical beliefs I would demand the same as you'd demand of any magical beliefs you are an outsider too. Welcome to skepticism.

    Atheists aren't the one's claiming divine truths nor are they the ones who imagine they are moral or "saved" because of what they believe. Those conceits belong to theists-- your brand and the ones who believe things you find crazy, harmful, and blatantly false.

    I just think there should be more evidence for real invisible/divine beings than there are for the invisible penises sticking out of your head. Is that so much to ask?
  • Firstly I am apolitical because it would require faith in a party something for which Christians, Jews and Muslims are predisposed. Faith predominately in the USA determines politics.

    You state,"To lay the charge of idolatry on all Christians who hold a high view of
    scripture is just as dogmatically sectarian as to lay the charge of
    apostasy on all Christians who hold a lower view of it."

    Those are simply Christian debates. Of fundies with liberals. But as a non-member I can agree with both accusations. The Apostles apart from Paul did not write the Bible. And Paul was the one who transformed a Jewish messianic cult to a Hellenistic Mystery Religion. He is the creator of Christianity as you know it unfortunately. God was always used for politics since he was a created tool. Look at the way the Israelites used him to command them to kill all the Canaanites. I would look at the kiling off of competing christianities after Nicea. Seems like a politcal god to me.

    I would then look at the Crusades. Looks like a political god to me. Gotta have that land and possessions. I would look at the Vatican bank account. The Pope is terribly rich and political. I would look at the European wars of the past centuries and Northern Ireland. I would look at the Middle East and a religious war over a very small piece of land that is possessed politically by American might because Jesus needs a temple there to return. Oh yea we gave Israel 80 nukes to maintain their squatting rights. Nazi's had God with Us on their belt buckles. The USA has In god we trust on its money. South America is what it is because of Catholic conquerors. On and on.....
  • "Even the most devout theist must admit that the existence of god is not an accepted scientific fact in the same way as, for example, the existence of quarks and blackholes. As is the case with God, no one has directly observed these objects. But the indirect empirical evidence is ample for them to be considered to have some relation to reality with a high degree of probability, always with the caveat that future developments could still find a better explanation for this existence." Victor Stenger, The Fallacy of Fine Tuning.

    This sizes up the difference between a belief in a quark and a belief in a god. There is ample empirical evidence.

    This is in distinction from deductive logical arguments for god because the conclusion is already entailed in the premises made in the first step. That is why folk like James Sennett admit all ontological arguments are question begging. This covers TAG and Soul Building. Logic applied from empirical observation has a means of accepted definition and proof.


    Those who assume Reason is a transcendent or logical state from which god derives his thoughts decisions and actions often take
    a deontological view or a rigid form of legalism which often leads to a casuistry as convoluted as that morality based upon scripture. And often the definition of reason is still biblically based. If Christian claims are not the case then humanity can arrive at a moral answer situationally through empirical judgment.This and the additional arguments or defeaters of the freewill defense of an a limitless god seems to me to be an unexpected argument against the existence of a Judeo-Christian god.


    1) There is a possible world of only well-being (p).

    2) A capable limitless good being (x) knowing of this world (p) would actualize (necessarily) it over possible worlds with evil and
    suffering (q).

    3)x necessarily would not allow

    q4)p-->not q

    5) It is possible that god is x

    6)q --> notp

    7) Our world=q therefore not p8)not p9)not p--->not x

    10)not x

    11)god= not x

    Our world entails there is no capable limitless good being. If there is a god he is not that being. Also a world of limitless well being
    would necessarily exist in all possible worlds. Since it does not do in ours then it is not necessary and therefore is a choice of many
    worlds. A limitless good entity, god or such would choose the best to create. Since we do not live in that world no limitless good
    being/god actualized our world.

    The argument at least places the question as to whether our attributes of god in conflict with themselves show that they are
    really in conflict with his actual properties and therefore invalid or simply relative compliments of worship that are not literal but
    poetic.
  • triple-like...
  • Thanks Sergio for all your support in my ramblings. They are simply an honest confession as to why I am not a Christian. I do not care about debate which assumes that I have the holy grail of certainty. I do believe strongly in sincere and meaningful dialogue. That is why I like John's OTF. It allows discussion in the neutral world of the secular which is neither atheistic or theistic.

    Secular does not mean opposition to religion contrary to theists who go on the defensive about it. It means simply things that are apart from religion. Wiki gives this example:


    For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of
    secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently
    religious about them.

    They can be but they need be made so. So the secular is a natural environment for discussion and OTF. IT IS NOT A NON-BELIEVING PRESUPPOSITION THAT CREATES A BIAS IN THE OTF contrary to its opponents. It is simply the world as we live, breath, work and have our being.
  • You are more than welcome.

    It's funny now when you are free from the delusion how the believer sound shallow, their most well crafted arguments sound silly and childish. So when I read reasoned 'ramblings', I just have to like.

    But, I just love articulett 's "ass kicking" style too! ;-)
  • Yes I would not want to be on the opposing side of articulett for sure.
  • Don't really understand how argument works, do you?

    Loftus claims premise 1, premise 2, premise 3, therefore conclusion.

    I point out that premise 1 is false. Ergo Loftus' conclusion is false.

    Loftus' premise was the Christians believe X. "X" was Naturalist belief, not Christian belief. Ergo, Loftus' entire argument collapses.

    I honestly don't care what you imagine is right or wrong with Christian epistemology. It could be the silliest thing in the world. It could be nonsense syllables. It would still be the case that when Loftus asserts that Christians use somebody else's epistemology rather than their own, and premises an argument on that assertion, the conclusion of the argument will be false.

    Have a great day.
  • "Show me some evidence of god apart from biblical propositions..."


    Oh, so you're not a believer in God? This is fascinating. Your original objection was that conservative Christianity was idolatry. Now it turns out that you could not care less whether something is idolatry or not. So my question to you is, what sort of game were you playing in the first place, pretending to care whether something was idolatrous? Don't you recognize an obligation to represent your own position honestly? And if your statements do not reflect your own position, what reason does anybody have to converse with you at all?

    If you reply, be sure that you're acting like an honest human being. Until you do, the conversation is over.
  • You get the same reply as GearHedEd. You need to learn how argument works.

    Loftus makes claims: premise 1, premise 2, therefore conclusion.

    I point out that premise 1 is false, therefore the conclusion is unsound.

    In terms of the argument at hand, it doesn't matter a fig whether what the false premise 1 replaces is valid or not. That's a completely separate issue. The only issue at hand is, Loftus has presented an argument with an untrue 1st premise, therefore his conclusion is unsound.

    Get it?
  • The argument at hand is Loftus' argument: premise 1, premise 2, therefore conclusion.

    I pointed out that premise 1 is false, therefore the conclusion is unsound.

    Loftus' first premise is that Christians believe X. They don't; Naturalists believe that X, not Christians.

    If his premise is false, his conclusion is unsound.

    It does not matter what you think of what Christians actually believe. They could believe nonsense. They could believe Elvis is President on Mars. It still would not help Loftus' argument, which rests on the premise that Christians believe something that they do not believe.
  • philwynk had said:
    Believers operate from the epistemology inherent in their belief system, not Naturalist epistemology. If a Christian's epistemology includes the Christian scripture, properly basic belief in God, and experience with God confirmed through the community of believers, then they are on perfectly sound grounds rejecting competing faiths using truths obtained through those epistemic sources. You need to supply a reason why they should reject their own epistemology and substitute yours for it, not just assert idiotically that they accept your epistemology, which they clearly do NOT...[so] premise i is false
    First off, there are different believers who have different scriptures, and even among the ones who agree on the same scriptures they have differing interpretations of them. So it is not the case that on the one side is a believing epistemology and on the other side a naturalist epistemology. Painting these things in terms of black and white reveals quite an ignorance.

    When it comes to the Christian faith as a properly basic belief, even Plantinga admits it is only a properly basic belief if it is true. Whether it is true or not depends on things outside of his philosophical discussion. See the last paragraph in his book Warranted Christian Belief, p. 499.

    So how can you know it is true? That's where the OTF comes into play. What is the alternative?
  • So, let me get this straight: you're not a Christian, but you represent your objection to a particular set of political views in Christian terms, mimicking the position (as you imagine it) of another Christian group. But it's not really your position.

    Explain to me why I, or anybody sane, would bother to discuss anything with you ever again? Doesn't the very act of discussion presuppose (1) that the person doing it actually believes what they're arguing, and (2) that they are willing to consider counter-arguments, because truth matters?

    Don't bother telling me about "playing Devil's advocate." If you ANNOUNCE that that's what you're doing, that's one thing. But you didn't. You represented that bilge about idolatry as your position. You lied.

    You wasted my time. Come back when you learn how humans actually communicate.
  • Oh, so you're not a believer in God? This is fascinating. Your
    original objection was that conservative Christianity was idolatry. Now
    it turns out that you could not care less whether something is idolatry
    or not. So my question to you is, what sort of game were you playing in
    the first place, pretending to care whether something was idolatrous?
    Don't you recognize an obligation to represent your own position
    honestly? And if your statements do not reflect your own position, what
    reason does anybody have to converse with you at all?

    If you reply, be sure that you're acting like an honest human being. Until you do, the conversation is over.

    I think you show the presuppositions in your faith itself. I am concerned about the differing christian, Muslim and Jewish beliefs as they effect politics because they effect my life and my community. And why would I NOT CARE one way or the other. Where do you get the idea I do not care one way or not apart from in your head? The fact that I pointed out the idolatry is because of concern. Moderate and liberal Christianity has a different patterns of delusion. Conservationism is idolatry ...a biblio-idolatry and therefore a delusion. And as a delusion decisions are made politically and morally that effect my life and all others. Your Christian arrogance and closed mindedness thus can not see that. So it is hardly a game. And your response shows the very point of the observation and concern. You make wrong conclusions based upon your belief system. My position is straight forward and has been posted on this board throughout. You seem to pick and choose which is another aspect of the delusion. And so grow up and take your biblical blinders off. I have articles you can read through on conservative, moderate and liberal christianities. DUH
  • philwynk to TGB: "Oh, so you're not a believer in God? This is fascinating. Your original objection was that conservative Christianity was idolatry. Now it turns out that you could not care less whether something is idolatry or not."

    Look philwynk, let's get one thing straight. Christianity is both idolatrous and bibliolatrous. Idolatry is worship of an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship; a person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered. You bible-God is apparently non-human, no christian knows what it is, the closest description they can give is that it is an onmi-everything 'thing'.

    Without the bible there is no god.
  • "So, let me get this straight: "

    "You need to supply a reason why they should reject their own epistemology and substitute yours for it,"

    You apparently can't get anything straight....

    You really are caught up in your own bias set aren't you. I can analyse differing groups of christianites and determine their particular belief systems. How am I mimicking another Christian belief system? It is your closed minded assumptions that ASSUMED that I was coming from some position other than objective. This determines whether you guys are anti-stem cell , pro israel , anti-gay or what have you. It is a sociological study in a sense.

    You really don't get it do you. You are simply wrong headed. I do present what the beliefs are for analysis and critique them skeptically and objectively. You are the confused one not me. No one here thought I was a christian. I think you have a comprehension problem that derives from whatever form of christian delusion you are suffering from. I was not playing the devil's advocate because the presentation of fundie from liberal is SOMETHING WE HERE make all the time. In some sense moderate are more dangerous than conservatives. YOU ARE A WASTE OF TIME. Get a real view on reality and stop living in your prepositions and delusional world. DUH DUH and DUH,
  • You need to supply a reason why they should reject their own epistemology and substitute yours for it,

    I have given several reasons using you as a piece of evidence. You are a piece of work. In reviewing what you've done you read a piece of my responses to Penguin and then made half-ass assumptions as is want of your species of faith. The dishonesty is in your fricken head. Do NOT EVER CHALLENGE MY INTEGRITY AGAIN YOU TWIT (read smug christian). My apparent Christianity is completely in your head. Penguin had no doubt of my summaries of the various flavors of christianity. You simply ARE an arrogant self-serving closed minded deluded believer. THAT is why we see you guys as dangerous. You make false judgments of people and treat them from your own distorted ideations. You respond to political events with the same distortion. No wonder most wars are from religious mental dysfunction.
  • I honestly don't care what you imagine is right or wrong with Christian epistemology.
    Read: "I don't have an answer for that, so I'll deflect your criticism by talking about something else."
  • You have completely mangled what it was that John says, even by your own reporting of what it is that you claim he said. In your first post, you quoted John:
    "When believers criticize the other faiths they reject, they use reason and science to do so."
    This shows that Christians use science and reason to dismiss OTHER faiths, not that Christians use science and reason to bolster THEIR OWN faith. Whereupon after this misconstrual of what John said, you go on to try and defend Christian epistemology, a point that was never under question in the first place. We all know how Christians twist their brains into believing the unbelieveable; your initial rant is proof of that. But if you use Christian epistemology to dismiss other faiths, you're begging the question by assuming yours to be true before you look at the others, and therefore fail a second time.

    Have a nice day.
  • You believe in Christianity and you call yourself sane in the same breath? That's rich...
  • You get the same reply as GearHedEd. You need to learn how argument works.


    --said the guy who believes in a 3-in-1 Jewish zombie god who thinks the OTF is a syllogism.

    You may want to be handing out advice to people who think as highly of yourself as you do. Your criticisms of me and the OTF are about as convincing to this outsider as a Scientologist making a similar complaint. I don't take advice on logic from superstitious people.

    The OTF is a tool to help you understand that outsiders to your faith think you are just as wacky, wrong, and clueless as you think all those believers in other faiths are (Muslims, Scientologists, Mormons, etc.) And probably for the same reasons. Until you can give an outsider real reasons to take your claims more seriously than you take the claims of "other" religions (those you are an "outsider" to), I shall consider you and your complaints about the OTF on par with theirs.

    The fact that you don't understand OTF (or you think it's "wrong"-- whatever that means) doesn't change the fact that 76% find it useful in evaluating faith based claims. Those who don't find it useful still use it to examine faith based claims outside their own-- they just don't like it when people look at their sacred beliefs the way an outsider does.
  • You need to learn how argument works.
    This is funny! I'll paraphrase the exact argument presented by our newest instructor in Christian Thinking, philwynk:
    P1) Premise 1 of John's argument ("When believers criticize the other faiths they reject, they use reason and science to do so.") is wrong.

    P2) Christians don't think about anything using science and reason ("Believers operate from the epistemology inherent in their belief system, not Naturalist epistemology. If a Christian's epistemology includes the Christian scripture, properly basic belief in God, and experience with God confirmed through the community of believers, then they are on perfectly sound grounds rejecting competing faiths using truths obtained through those epistemic sources. You need to supply a reason why they should reject their own epistemology and substitute yours for it, not just assert idiotically that they accept your epistemology, which they clearly do NOT.").

    C1) Loftus is wrong because Christians use a fantasyland epistemology that confirms their biases.
    I've already provided (twice before; this makes three times) information that shows your thinking to be biased and flawed, and you come in here telling US that we need to learn how argument works?

    You haven't presented a coherent argument yet.
  • Loftus' first premise is that Christians believe X. They don't; Naturalists believe that X, not Christians.
    That was a giant non sequitur.
  • Philwynk or should I say hoodwinked. You have a McCarthy type attitude. I see by following your avatar that you assumed I was a person pretending to be a Christian to infiltrate your mind or something because of this silly post. It does sound like a good idea though. Atheistic Covert Operations Force dedicated to save humanity from the superstitions of bigotry, hatred and warmongering. ..the New McCarthyism

    http://www.plumbbobblog.com/
    06/27/2011 (2:26 pm)

    Posing As Christians

    A member in a private, Christian facebook group recently had to be asked to leave because (s)he was touting an agenda in the group and would not let it rest. A stir arose when somebody suggested that perhaps (s)he was a deliberate plant from an activist group.

    It turned out that (s)he was not, but in response to that possibility one of the members of the group posted this fascinating testimony,
    which I submit for your instruction today, edited to hide the identity of the author:

    Posing as Christians

    Some members have alluded to the notion that people might infiltrate [Christian] groups with the intention of furthering their agenda. While this may sound a bit conspiratorial, I want to acknowledge that it is true, that it is very common, and that I have been paid to do this– in the past, that is; not now.

    Before I was saved, I worked for [organization's name redacted to protect the identity of the author.] I worked as a writer and as a(n)
    [official title redacted]. I routinely assumed false identities in order to introduce some radical agenda to a group. Staff writers had accounts at all the major newspapers’ sites and at various blogs and forums. We would pose as members of the “group” to legitimize our authority. I would pretend to be black, pretend to be a woman, pretend to be an immigrant, or pretend to be a Christian–whatever suited the cause.

    My wife, formerly a [topic redacted] activist, did the same thing. My point is, it’s not just “trolls” who do this sort of thing: it’s a
    concerted effort made by multi-million dollar a year organizations. They particularly want to infiltrate “conservative” groups and slowly
    introduce their agenda. The more people who profess to be Christians and, for instance, advocate for “gay rights”, the more tolerable the stance becomes. The position gravitates from “unthinkable heresy” to “well, we disagree, but we’re still brothers in Christ” to “acceptance”. It really is that simple, and frankly it works. We need to be cautious of this, and we really need to consider the motives of people introducing foreign ideas, as well as the impact merely tolerating those ideas will have on the future of our group. Tolerance” is what they rely on.

    My $0.02, from someone who’s been on the other side.

    We all knew that they were there. Enough of them have been exposed for us to realize that there exists a concerted effort to deceive. But it is useful occasionally to revisit the evidence that we are not imagining this; the effort is real, and the damage is real.

    This is why there is no point in dialogue with Progressives as Progressives. They do not believe the laws of decent behavior apply to them. They will lie without compunction to take you in. They will pretend to be interested in dialogue, but they are not. What they are interested in is winning by getting you to treat them politely. You will give ground; they will not. So long as the politeness continues, the culture will move in their direction.

    The culture will never move back in the other direction until you identify them for who they are, call them the liars that they are, and take a firm stand on what you know to be the truth. Progressives must be confronted and called out.

    Private, personal relationships are a different matter. There is no way to win them to Christ without engaging them personally. However, one must not let them use the relationship as a springboard into activism.
  • you assumed I was a person pretending to be a Christian to infiltrate your mind or something because of this silly post.


    You seem to be exhibiting some sort of narcissistic personality disorder, in that you imagine that everybody's else's thoughts and actions are always about you.

    After I left this site, I didn't think a single thought about you, dear. The post you're mentioning is somebody else's experience, not mine, and it is not about you. Sorry.

    As to "McCarthyism," I'm wondering what part of "lying to influence debate" you approve, and what part of wanting to expose such behavior as dishonest you find unacceptable.
  • You want me to stop challenging your integrity, sweetie? Stop lying.
  • I think I know this guy, it's Tinky Winky (aka "The gay teletubbie"). He is lurking atheist sites after being banned from christian churches by Jerry Falwell in February, 1999. ;-)

    Edited: I couldn't resist, after verifying it was not a joke (it was one of the greatest acomplishments of Jerry Falwell: pointing to the christian families that Tinky Winky is gay).
  • Well I haven't lied so its in your moronic fricken' delusional brainwashed mind.. Show me were I lied you stupid dolt.
  • GO and treat yourself as your own enema.
  • He obviously can not read if he thinks I presented myself as a Christian. He must be suffering from christian dain bramage ( duh brain damage)? I never could stand Teletubbies either. It explains the moral degeneration of our children today. I think I will do the same with this defect from now on as I did with the daoist.
  • off-topic warning...

    I don't know if you have a strict policy for 'friends' on facebook, but if you don't mind to add me, it would be a honor. I couldn't because your fb link on disqus shows to me as invalid. It would help decrease my deluded to no-deluded friend ratio ;-)
    The same applies to all blog friends out there...
  • I would be honored to have you as a friend on Facebook. Presently both my wife and I have deactivated ours because of the very deluded factor you mentioned. I am going through a bone marrow transplant and I got tired of the "thoughts and prayers are with you" from my old class mates but who would not give a dime or time to my relief fund. I had a group of Persians that knew of me only through my brother-in-law raise a over $6,000 in a silent action. Says something about excusing social or friendship commitments through offerings to god. Jesus actually mentioned that about the scribes and Pharisees if i remember correctly. But I WILL let you know when I do start it up again. I think all I need do is reactivate it.
  • i can't speak directly to what you address here, but some food for thought: in the US, lots of former catholics, like me, have a very hard time with officially being declared apostates-and while not going to church, blaspheming constantly, and otherwise qualifying, it seems to me that the church was claiming me as a follower...which should make us question how accurate those numbers really are. i can't be the only apostate. idk, something to keep in mind. even as it may be growing in other cultures, it's shrinking here. at least, i hope so...
  • I came up with an idea very similar with OTF just very recently then i came across this site. Of course I'm influenced by others but eventually ended w/ similar notion. I thinks it is silly for any religions try to debunk each other while they operate on the same basic ideas. For Muslims, like I was, trying to reduce Christianity to absurdity is affecting the teachings of Islam which heavily based on judeo-christian ideas.

    Instead of trying to debunk each other, religions should know they depend on each other more than they realized.
  • Perhaps the problem with those of us who are people of faith, is that many of us hate the idea that what we believe is bound within itself, a sort of circular reasoning results. Our beliefs are subjective, based on the bible (for those of us who are Christians), but highly personal.

    I believe in God primarily because of my personal experience and continuing relationship with Him, by faith alone. I have had countless personal experiences with God that have continually cemented my faith. I don't believe that any proof is required, scientific or otherwise - and I offer none. I simply believe, and have been benefited on many levels as a result, the reason I continue to believe. I don't believe that I am delusional for this, on the contrary, my life is dramatically given deeper meaning and my willingness to help others selflessly greatly increased as well. I encourage all to share in this faith in God with me, as revealed in Jesus Christ.

    I also challenge atheists to outdo Christians in the area of selfless giving, sacrifice and help to others in the name of atheism - I have seen little. On the contrary, it is often Christian organizations like World Vision, The Red Cross (Henry Dunant, founder, was a Calvinist), Food for the Hungry, Compassion, Children's Hospitals (Catholic, close enough!) and a plethora of other, virtually uncountable humanitarian organizations and churches (yet founded on faith in God, and more specifically, Jesus Christ) that exist in the world for the benefit of all people: atheists, agnostics and believers of all faiths alike. I am certain that anyone reading this can find in their own community a Christian organization awaiting them with opened arms, a place to sleep, clothes, food and comfort - all in the name of Jesus. Not so easy to find in other religions, and certainly even less found amongst atheists.

    The reality is, Christians are historically better at helping the humanitarian needs of the world than non-Christians are (the Crusades notwithstanding). HOWEVER, that doesn't prove that Christians are right about God or His existence. We simply put our faith in motion in obedience to our God's commands to "...love one another, as Christ has loved you."

    The reason that I reject other religions and consider them false isn't based on scientific reason, but simply because the bible states that early in the stages of human development on the earth, mankind began to create religions, primarily idols that were worshiped. God simply wanted mankind to believe in Him exclusively, but instead we created religions. Again, I believe this because it is in the bible, not based on scientific reason, observation or other "intellectual" reasoning.

    Faith is "...being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." This is the biblical definition, provided by God to believers in Him that recorded it for us to read, and learn from.

    A great place to start is John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that He gave..."


    ~ thurane

    "...for I am not ashamed of the Gospel..."
  • I am currently reading, Why I Became an Atheist, and I'm in the section of "The Outsider Test for Faith," in the subsection, "Answering Five Objections." I can't understand what you mean in number 2 (p. 72) when you respond to the comment about being correct about a religious belief when you are born into it that: "[b]ut how do you rationally justify such luck? This is why I've developed the challenge of the outsider test in the first place, to test religious faiths against such luck. If the test between religious faiths is based entirely on luck, then what are the chances, based on luck alone, that the particular sect within Christian theism that one adheres to is correct? This still favors the presumption of skepticism."



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