John, "You Need to Deal With the Heavy Weights"
Here's an email I received and my response:
In my opinion there are no heavy weights for Christianity just as there are no heavy weights for Scientology or Islam or Orthodox Judaism or Hinduism. It's all improbable to the core and I see no reason why one religious myth's scholar is any better than another.
I did deal with John F. Haught at one time, and he responded to me here.
And I wrote a few brief posts about Liberal Theology right here.
My specific target audience is conservative "Bible believing" fundamentalist evangelicals. In order to do an effective job of debunking religion one must specialize, you see. So I do. Since I know the most about Christianity I focus on that. And even that's not specialized enough. The Christian religion is too large to take aim at because no matter what I write there will always be Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, or liberals who will come along and claim I'm not saying anything against REAL or TRUE Christianity--their version of it.
My goal is a negative one. I aim to push evangelicals off dead center so they will have to start thinking for themselves rather than proof-texting from an ancient canonized set of barbaric and superstitious writings. While I do point Christians in the direction of atheism I leave it to others to take up where I left off. Keep in mind that I'm not ignorant about liberal versions of Christianity. I was once a liberal myself after leaving evangelicalism then drifted toward agnosticism and ended up being an atheist.
Cheers,
John W. Loftus
Dr. Loftus, Thanks for your honesty in becoming an atheist. However, I notice that your blog has nothing to say on the works of John Milbank:The Monstrosity of Christ (MIT Press), Theology and Social Theory (Blackwell Press)…; David Bentley Hart: Atheist Delusions (Yale Univ. Press), The Beauty of the Infinite; William Desmond: God and the Between; plus any work by Jean Luc Marion, Jean Louis Chretien or even major atheists such as Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou. You need to deal with the heavy weights and try to get debates with them. Please say goodbye to attacking fundamentalism—it only encourages them. The more you do so the more it becomes apparent that you may not have the training—or even the aptitude—to hang with some of the world’s most learned men. Christians need better atheists, so please work on trying to penetrate serious thinkers. Try, for instance, to get a debate with John Milbank, like Slavoj Zizek did—or, maybe even David Bentley Hart who has been waiting some time for a substantial atheist to come along. Thank you for your time and consideration. -TrevorHi, thanks for your note.
In my opinion there are no heavy weights for Christianity just as there are no heavy weights for Scientology or Islam or Orthodox Judaism or Hinduism. It's all improbable to the core and I see no reason why one religious myth's scholar is any better than another.
I did deal with John F. Haught at one time, and he responded to me here.
And I wrote a few brief posts about Liberal Theology right here.
My specific target audience is conservative "Bible believing" fundamentalist evangelicals. In order to do an effective job of debunking religion one must specialize, you see. So I do. Since I know the most about Christianity I focus on that. And even that's not specialized enough. The Christian religion is too large to take aim at because no matter what I write there will always be Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, or liberals who will come along and claim I'm not saying anything against REAL or TRUE Christianity--their version of it.
My goal is a negative one. I aim to push evangelicals off dead center so they will have to start thinking for themselves rather than proof-texting from an ancient canonized set of barbaric and superstitious writings. While I do point Christians in the direction of atheism I leave it to others to take up where I left off. Keep in mind that I'm not ignorant about liberal versions of Christianity. I was once a liberal myself after leaving evangelicalism then drifted toward agnosticism and ended up being an atheist.
Cheers,
John W. Loftus