Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts

A Cursory Glance Through the Book, "Bible Shockers!"

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Bill Ross sent me his book Bible Shockers, which I received today along with several books Andrew Atkinson sent me. Bill sent me the book for a possible review. I promised him I would review it, but I didn’t promise him I would read all of it. Let me tell you why, and it’s not because it’s a bad book. It may be that I want to get on reading the other better books I have on my plate. I'll probably keep it for a Bible reference from time to time.

I began reading it but the more I read it, the more I skimmed it, until that’s all I was doing, skimming through it, which probably has more to do with his approach than my merely wanting to get on reading the other books.

What is he doing in this book? In his words: “I will present many of the more shocking discoveries in a somewhat cursory way, but each observation deserves a separate book to handle objections. I do try to present the reader with enough data to assess these observations or directions to pursue further study.” (p. 4) He also says that the book is really an adjunct to his website, www.bibleshockers.com, and in his book he repeatedly asks his readers to prove him otherwise on that site, in its forums. Since I have not participated in his forums I can’t say how well he does in defending his arguments in his book. But he is absolute correct to describe it as a “somewhat cursory” approach to the issues. That’s why the more I read, the less I read, for I am interested in a more than cursory approach to the issues.

Who is his intended audience? He claims it will appeal to “people who already find themselves taking pains to understand the Bible, whether they be Bible students, Sunday School teachers, preachers, seminarians or just inquisitive, and whether they be Christians of any sect, or not.” (p. 4). With such an intended audience he would’ve been better off telling us who the book wouldn’t appeal to, and apparently it's not intended for people not interested in the Bible, like his wife, as he says. But I don't think it will appeal to people who are even somewhat well-read on these issues, especially seminarians and informed skeptics.

In the sections I read he offered some Bible verses on behalf of his views, but a cursory approach that mostly quotes the Bible could be bettered if he had at least offered a more comprehensive set of passages to show his points. But he didn't do this. He uses the Bible to show God was viewed essentially as “a man with supernatural powers,” and best described as a “supernatural national champion.” (pp. 7-16). He argues God did not create the universe out of nothing (pp. 17-27). He argues that Adam was made to look like God (“in his image”), and that God had other sons who also defected (pp. 33-38). While I do agree with him, again the cursory approach is uninteresting to me personally.

He argued that Jesus was a sinner, and talked about the sin of lusting in one’s heart over a woman. Ross wrote, “Could the son of God actually pull out his wonker and ‘slap the salami’?” He claims a human 30 year old male would surely lust after a woman. (pp. 39-48). His language here is probably too graphic and demeaning for Christians who may be interested in reading his book.

Ross also discounts the sufferings of Jesus: “I find that the evidence that his life was, as far as human lives go, a breeze.” On a suffering scale of one to a hundred his life “would come in at zero.” When looking at the sufferings of Jesus during his trial he says, “He was falsely charged, awake all night, and whipped. Compared to the generations of slaves in the United States, regularly whipped, etc, we should give this a 0.1, I guess." And although “crucifixion is not a picnic,” Ross rates the sufferings of Jesus on the cross at 4.5. He says such a death “was certainly worse than dying in one’s sleep, but it was a merciful death in comparison to the many thousands of Jews who died on Roman crosses after days of agony.” (pp. 48-53).

It was at this point I started mostly skimming the book. Anyone who treats the sufferings of another individual so carelessly in order to make his point about the religion he wishes to debunk surely has an axe to grind, and as such, it becomes harder to take him seriously. [sorry]

Still he makes some interesting points. He says Jesus is a terrorist because he will send plagues and terrors on the earth in the several passages. He argues from the Bible that sins aren’t paid for, that Paul wasn’t a Jew, that Christians do not go to heaven, that sinners don’t go to hell, that God cannot read your mind, that God does not love the world, that God approves of slavery, that every Christian denomination is heretical, and that there is no Bible. Since Bill comments here he might want to spell out for the reader what he means with these claims. As far as I can tell he’s using rhetoric to show that some Bible passages say things that other passages deny, and he’s claiming the Bible is one sided in its approach, and that Christians have misunderstood what the Bible says. This approach is interesting to me, and I like it, although I'd rather focus on what Christians actually believe today and debunk those claims since I'm not in the habit of telling Christians what they should believe.

When it comes to Bill’s credentials he tells a story similar to what Paul the apostle did when telling his dramatic conversion. Bill says, “isn’t that how religious authority works?” (p. 307) The parallel is that if Paul can be an authority based on his personal story, then so should Bill. I liked this and thought it was creative and provocative. I mean really, if Paul can get away with it and become a religious authority, then why can’t Bill?

Anyway, you can see for yourself. If you’d like to read “a somewhat cursory” approach to these issues including many Biblical quotations, and if you don't mind some occasional graphic language, then you may be interested in getting this book.

DC Book Club: Reviewing Dinesh D'Souza's "What's So Great About Christianity."

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Dinesh D'Souza's book What's So Great About Christianity? just arrived today, and I'm planning to evaluate it to see how good it is, since several important people are saying it's an important book. I plan on reviewing it in several Blog entries. Let's call this the first ever DC Book Club Selection. I got it delivered in just a few days, so if you want to buy it and read along, I recommend that you do so. Together let's see what he has to offer. [FYI: I really don't care if you disgaree with anything else he's written prior to this book, because his other views are basically irrelevant to his case here].

Here are my first impressions:

You can see for yourself in the table of contents that he covers a lot of ground, including whether Christianity will survive in the future, how it affects the western world, its relationship to science, its intelligent design hypothesis, its defense of the miraculous, the morality of the Inquisition vs the morality of atheists, and who has the best foundation for morality. He's obviously well-read too, which means I will probably learn a few things, which is always a goal of mine.

Lacking in his book is a discussion of Biblical criticism, any detailed argument on behalf of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, or for the inspiration of the Bible, and he only deals with the design argument for God's existence. Well, I suppose he can't cover everything. He's entitled to assume some of these things, I suppose, since it seems his book is attempting to answer the arguments of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens, who themselves don't offer any detailed arguments in these other areas. Fair enough. Although, I should point out that even if he's correct about most everything else in his book, and I very much doubt it, unless it can be shown that we can trust the Bible as the inspired word of God, and unless we can be sure Jesus actually arose from the dead, his whole case falls to the ground.

Okay so far?

Now just a brief note about "A Note On the Interpretation of Scripture." (pp. xi-xii)

D'Souza distinguishes between a "crude literalism" reading of the Bible from a "cafeteria" style reading where we reject the parts we find objectionable and embrace the parts we like. Since the Bible operates on a multitude of levels, like metaphor and parable, we shouldn't approach it in a crudely literal way. And on this point he's absolutely correct. However, few people, if any, embrace such a crudely literal approach to the Bible. Even if Origen did castrate himself based upon a crudely literal reading of Matt. 19:12, who else reads it this way today? Maybe snake handlers do in some sense, but even they don't do so consistently since they live and breathe in the 21 century like the rest of us. Moreover, he seems blithely unaware that all Christians pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like from the parts they don't like, and they have been doing so from the beginning. The only difference between Christians on this is how much they do so, much like on a continuum, and the question left unanswered is why they do so in some areas but don't do so in other areas.

The other extreme, which he rejects, "says the Bible should be read through the lens of contemporary secular assumptions." Now here I see trouble ahead, for I don't think we can objectively read the Bible, or any historical document, without using our present assumptions. We are, after all, children of our times, and as children of are times we are not likely to be able to rise about them, as Voltaire pointed out. The question for us is which set of assumptions should we use to interpret the Bible, and I don't see why we should assume that Christianity is true, or that supernaturalism is the case, in order to read the Bible properly. If, for instance, we begin reading the Bible from Christian assumptions, then the question I want to have answered is where does the Christian gain those assumptions in the first place if they don't get them from the Bible? To me this whole approach is circular reasoning.

He claims to hold a middle ground between these extremes. He wants to read the Bible not literally, nor liberally, but rather contextually. He writes, "Only by examining the text in relation to the whole can we figure out how a particular line or passage is best understood." Then he suggests "whether you regard the Bible as inspired or not, read the text in context for what it is actually trying to say." He says this will be clearer as he proceeds.

This reveals more trouble ahead, I think. Even though his approach sounds on the surface to be true, and is partially true, I question where this will take us. His approach is partially true since we must read every passage in the Bible according to its context in order to understand it. Since the basic meaning resides in the sentence (not the word), then in order to understand any sentence we must also understand the context for that sentence in the paragraph, and onward up to the purpose of any book in the Bible itself. But there is more. For any book in the Bible there is a wider context. There is the cultural milieu of each book in the life of the initial readers which must be understood. But that wider context is difficult to understand and also debated today. And there is the whole problem of knowing what purposes the last editor/author of each of the books in the Bible were, since even conservative scholars admit the gospels, for instance, were compiled by editors (or redactors). This means we need to also adequately date these books, know where they were written from, and even who the final authors were. Furthermore, there were pseudonymous additions to the texts long after it left the hands of the final editor/author, along with copyists who made their changes, sometimes for theological reasons, along with the whole process of canonization which affirmed which books belong in the Bible.

On one level we might be able to understand a Biblical passage given only the texts themselves, but that’s a different thing entirely from trying to truly understand what the Biblical editor/authors meant in their day and time. Furthermore, just understanding what they wrote isn't enough, for we must go on to evaluate whether or not what they said was true. So not only do I fear D'Souza is skipping a few contextual steps, but even when I have understood what they wrote I can still question what they said. This is the subject of his book. We'll see how it goes.

"Thank You For Your Book John"

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I received an email today about my book from Andrew Atkinson who is a well read person, and you know I cannot resist:

I was raised in a Christian Fundamentalist home my whole life. From one through 12th grade I was home schooled, and was taught everything through the Christian fundamentalist lense. After High school I attended a hyper fundamentalist place called Honor Academy. At Honor Academy I gained interest in philosophy and Christian apologetics and decided to dedicate my life to Christian apologetics. I am 23 now and since then I have read hundreds of Christian Apologetics books. I have read all of Lewis, all of Schaeffer, all of Peter Kreeft, all of Dr. Geisler's books, including his encyclopedia A-Z twice, and his Systematic Theology twice, I have read Plantinga, McDowell, Craig, Ravi, Moreland, Holding, Swinburne, N.T Wright, Paul Copan Etc. I was until recently enrolled at Dr. Geisler's school to study apologetics and philosophy.

This year I decided in order to be fair and honest to read all the top skeptical books on religion. So I did some research and made a list of over 100 books. I am now at book 76 and consider myself a confident Atheist. Your book was one of the first I read. I was drawn to it since you were an apologist. Your book was the first skeptical book I read that made me seriously realize that I could be dead wrong! I strongly encourage you to keep on writing, the market is very strongly in need of literature like yours.

I think your book is the best overall refutation of Christianity written, especially at the popular level. I think your book is superior for multiple reasons.

1. Its scope and coverage is more exhaustive on issues crucial to Christianity then other books.
2. You anticipate objections from Christian philosophers and theologians that most skeptics do not, due to their lack of familiarity with the other side.
3. The book packs so much in such a little space, it has amazing brevity and at the same time brilliantly dismantles many core Christian beliefs and deals with many central issues that are left out of other works
4.Your familiarity with Christian Theology and philosophy makes you much better at drawing fine and important distinctions that other skeptics miss, due to their lack of expertise in the other side.
5. The personal Deconversion narrative woven through out the book gives it an informal and personal touch that makes it more fascinating to read than other skeptical books. Plus you are the only skeptical author that I know of that was a highly competent Christian Apologist and Philosopher, this of course is another unique feature.
6. Your non-abrasive style sets your book apart from many other skeptic books. You wrote the book in such a way as not to polarize the believer. The average believer would be much more likely to read this book than other similar books due to your respectful manner. This I congratulate you on.

There are many other noble things about your book. But basically what I am saying is that I think you have written by far the best overall refutation of Christianity in print, and that is something to be very proud of. This is the best book to give to a believer. Your book has changed my life, and for that I cannot thank you enough. Now I am going to spend my life helping to educate the public about the truth of religion, and do whatever is in my power to build bridges that would make society more conducive towards secular enlightenment.

Here is a list of books that changed me to a confident Atheist, I have not read all of them yet but will have by the end of the year. This is the list I give to many of my friends.

1. Why I Rejected Christianity; A Former Apologist Explains, by John W. Loftus (Loftus was a professor of apologetics and philosophy, he has three master degrees from conservative schools and he studied under William Lane Craig! And to top it off even Geisler recommends his book! My number one recommendation, absolute must read!) [Update: see below for the extensively revised edition of this book]
2. Losing Faith in Faith by Dan Barker
3. Atheism: The case Against God by Smith( This is the best selling Atheist book of All time!)
4. The Case Against Christianity by Martin( This I consider A must read, it has many interesting points.)
5. The Empty Tomb,( This book is a DEVASTATING critique of The resurrection, it Critiques all the Top Christian Apologetic Arguments in Detail concerning the Resurrection and other Historical issues, a must read.)
6. Jesus is Dead, by Robert Price( This guy has A PHD in New Testament studies, and a PHD in Systematic Theology, he used to be a conservative Pastor and Apologist and now He argues Against All the Top Apologist about historical matters. He has debated William lane Craig , and most other top defenders, here he confronts and attempts to refute all the top defenses of the historical issues. So he takes on Mcdowell, N.T Wright, FF Bruce, Montgomery, Craig, Habermas, J P Holding and other top defenders. An absolute must read. )
7. The incredible Shrinking Son of Man by Robert price ( a very good critique of The Gospels)
8. The Born Again Skeptics Guide to The Bible( This one is very fun to read. The writing style is witty and she makes very many good points.
9. Sense And Goodness Without God by Richard Carrier( this is the best overall defense of naturalism that I have ever read at the popular or intermediate level atleast. This book shocked me with how many good points and answers he had to Scientific Apologetics and many other issues Concerning Christian Theism. This is an absolute must read. Very important book, very brilliant.)
10. Atheism a concise introduction ( Considered by many to be the best intro to Atheism.)
11. The Jesus Puzzle
12. "Challenging the Verdict: A Cross-Examination of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ" by Earl Doherty
13. Natural Atheism by David Eller
14. The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins.
15. The Secret Origins of the Bible( Must Read)
16. C.S Lewis and The search for Rational Religion
17. The God Delusion by Dawkins
18. God is not Great by Hitchens
19. Bible Prophecy Failure or fulfillment?
20. What is Atheism?
21. God the failed Hypothesis by Stenger
22. Deconstructing Jesus by Robert Price
23. Breaking the Spell Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Danial C Dennet
24. In Gods We Trust by Atran
25. Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer
26. Has science found God? The latest results in the search for the purpose in the Universe by Stenger
27. Value and Purpose in a Godless Universe by Erik J. Wielenberg
28.How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God (second edition) by Michael Shermer
29. Gospel Fictions by Randel Helms
30.The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Neil Asher Silberman
31.Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
32. The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy by C. Dennis McKinsey
33.Biblical Nonsense: A Review of the Bible for Doubting Christians by Jason Long
34.Atheism & Philosophy by Kai Nielsen
35.Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray
36.An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism by Daniel Harbour
37.Like Rolling Uphill: Realizing The Honesty Of Atheism by Dianna Narciso
38.God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong by S. T. Joshi
39.The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
40. The Age of Reason Thomas Pain (MUST READ)
41.Treatise on the Gods (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) by H. L. Mencken
42.Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness by James A. Haught
43. Kens Guide to the Bible(This one is funny)
44. The reason driven life by Robert Price
45.Russell On Religion (Brilliant)
46.Dialogs on Natural religion by hume ( absolute must read)
47. God and the Reach of Reason: C.S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell
48. Why I am not a Muslim
49. The Jesus Mysteries Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?
50. Critique of Religion and Philosophy by Waulter Kaufmann
51. Leaps of Faith: Science, Miracles, and the Search for Supernatural Consolation
52. looking for a Miracle Joe nickell
53. Doubt: A History
54. The Quotable Atheist: Ammunition for Non-Believers, Political Junkies, Gadflies, and Those Generally Hell-Bound
55. Why Atheism? by George H. Smith
56. The Necessity of Atheism by David Marshall Brooks
57. Atheism: A Beginner's Handbook: All you wanted to know about atheism and why
58. The Faith Healers
59. The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself
60. The faith of a Heretic
61.The Atheist Debaters Handbook
63.God The Devil And Darwin by Niall Shanks
64.Critiques of God; making the case against God
65. The Dark side; How evangelical teachings corrupt love and truth
66. Walking away from faith; unraveling the mystery of belief and unbelief
67. Dictionary of Atheism
68. Philosophers without Gods
69.The essence of Christianity Ludwig Feuerbach
70. Believing in Magic; The psychology of superstition
71. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
72. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
73. The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
74.Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
75. Putting away Childish things
76. Transcendental temptation by Paul Kurtz(Good overall defense of skepticism towards religion and the paranormal)

Here is a list of the best advanced skeptic books.

1. The Wisdom to Doubt; A justification of Religious Skepticism. (This book is very profound. It lays the foundations for complete religious skepticism better then I thought possible. An absolute must read. A unique book. By The way this one is not that hard to read.)
2. Arguing About The Gods (Considered by Many to be the best and most sophisticated discussion on arguments for and against God so far!)
3.Atheism: A Philosophical Justification By Martin (Was The most Comprehensive Atheist book before Oppys came out.)
4.The Impossibility of God by Martin (Important Top Notch collection of Articles discussing the apparent logical Incoherence of the Concept of God)
5. The Improbability of God by Martin by Martin(Another important collection of articles on God)
6. The Miracle Of Theism by Mackie (was considered the top defense of Atheism ever, until oppys book, but this book is shorter and easier to read.)
7. Nonbelief and Evil (Argues powerfully against the Existence of God as Traditionally conceived.
8. Logic and Theism by Sobel (Hear Is what A professor from Calvin College said about this book)
"A time-line of the currently relevant skeptical books on the philosophy of religion that, at the time of their publication, became the skeptical book most fruitful to study would begin in 1975 with William Rowe's THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, if the time-line included both specialized books and comprehensive books. In the interests of brevity and relevance to Sobel's book, a time-line only of the comprehensive books can be described. In 1982, John Mackie's book, THE MIRACLE OF THEISM, became the comprehensive, skeptical book most fruitful to study. In 1990 Michael Martin's comprehensive book, ATHEISM, took prime of place, followed almost immediately in 1991 by Richard Gale's ON THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD. In 2004 a new, comprehensive book became the most important of the current skeptical treatises, Howard Sobel's LOGIC AND THEISM. A reader of this book may justifiably finish it with the belief there is a high probability Sobel's book will retain this position for many years to come."

9. The Non-existence of God by Nicholas Everitt ( Very Good book, a must read)
10. The Nature and Existence of God by Richard M Gale
11. God and The Burden Of Proof by Keith Parsons
12. The Cambridge Companion To Atheism
13. Atheism, Meaning and Morality by Martin
14. Suffering Belief: Evil and the Anglo-American Defense of Theism
15.Can God be Free? By William Rowe
16. Arguing for Atheism by Robin Le Poidevin (Intermediate)
17. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief edited by Tom Flynn ( What Geislers Encyclopedia is too Apologists this is to skeptics. This is an absolute Must have.)
18. The Evidential Argument from Evil (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion) by Daniel Howard-Snyder

Please do not stop writing, the world needs to hear your thoughts. Thank you for all the effort you have made on behalf of the truth.
Thank you very much. It helps me to know I've helped others. To answer your question, the Prometheus Books edition is a massive revision of this one you now recommend.

Eddie Tabash Recommends My Book!

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Today I went to the Grand Opening of the new Center for Inquiry Indiana, where Paul Kurtz, Toni Van Pelt, Joe Nicholl and Eddie Tabash were the main speakers. Tabash spoke on the topic, “The Threat of the Religious Right to Our Modern Freedoms,” and it was very motivating for me.

Eddie was talking to some people before he spoke and I went up to listen in and to introduce myself. He read my name tag before I could do so. Then he asked me, "did you write the book against Christianity," and I nodded. Then he turned to the people he was talking to and said, “John’s book is the finest refutation of Christianity I have read. I use it in my debates.” Then turning back to me he said, “I bought twelve copies to give away.” As the author of the book I think what I wrote is good too (of course), but hearing it from someone like him, whom I admire so much, felt really good. I saw a video of the debate he had with William Lane Craig before he had read my book (shown below). He did such an excellent job it’s hard to see how my book helps him in his debates. But he said it does, and for that I’m very grateful.

He joins the ranks of others who recommend it…

…like skeptics Daniel Dennett, Paul Kurtz, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Carrier, Edward Babinski (who wrote the Foreword to it), Dan Barker, Valerie Tarico, David Van Allen, Matthew Green, Joe Holman, Chris Hallquist, and others. Kurtz said my book "has the makings of being a great book,” and that he’s “eager to see it in print." On the back cover and inside pages of the Prometheus Books edition there will probably be recommendations by Michael Shermer, John Beversluis, Robert M. Price, Andrea Weisberger, and if the time frame permits him, from Jeffery Jay Lowder (at least, they all have expressed an interest in seeing it for a blurb).

On the Christian side of the fence, Norman L. Geisler and James F. Sennett both recommend it too. Other Christian thinkers who have expressed an interest in seeing it are Paul Copan, Michael Murray, Richard Swinburne, Mark Linville (who is potentially planning on using it in an apologetics seminar), and William Baker (the editor of the Stone-Campell Journal--my former denominational journal). Bill Craig knows about it and will surely take a look at it when it comes out. Scot McKnight is writing a chapter describing the reasons why Christians lose their faith and is highlighting my story.

I don’t tell my readers these things to bore them, or to pat myself on the back (even though it’s nice to be patted by others), or to make money off the sales (of course, if it can help pay a few bills that would really help me out), or to make a name for myself (although, as a middle child we learn that negative attention is still attention). No. My number one goal is to produce the best damn counter-apologetics book on the market today that does not just preach to the skeptical choir, so to speak, if possible (and if not, it’s still a worthy goal). The reason I want to do this is because the better I can make my book, the more it will be read, and I want people to read it! If I hadn’t written the book I would still want people to read a book like this one. If Eddie's recommendation and the others are even somewhat on the mark, my book has the potential of changing the thinking of Christians in America, and the reason why I want to do this was expressed very eloquently by Eddie today in his talk!

The debate between Tabash and Craig:

Latest Amazon Review of my Book

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You know I can't resist....

Mr. Loftus has written a thorough treatise on why he rejected his evangelical Christianity and became and atheist. This is not solely a personal account of why he left the church and ministry, although it starts out that way. The book begins with a brief biography, explaining how he became so enamored of evangelical x-tianity that he eventually made the ministry his livelihood. It is particularly honest of Mr. Loftus to quote his early writings in these passages so the reader can see how thoughtful yet profoundly mistaken he was.

The remainder of the book is Mr. Loftus addressing some of the main problems of the Jesus religion and the Bible. He wants the reader to understand that he did not reject x-tianity so he could sin and not feel guilt--his was a thoughtful and scholarly admission that x-tianity cannot be a description of real historical events upon which a person should base her/his life.

If Jesus was a historical figure, about which no one can be certain, he did not perform miracles; he probably didn't die on a cross or tree; and he most certainly didn't arise zombie-like from the dead and scare gullible folk in Palestine before ascending to heaven. The Bible, Loftus comes to understand, is mythologic ramblings of superstitious peasants. The story of Adam and Eve is clearly a fable; there was no universal flood; people don't repent in a whale's gullet and then preach to Nineveh. The Gospels are clearly embellishments of an early god-man myth, the writers of which are clearly trying to convince other people to believe in their brand of x-tianity rather than trying to tell us of real events (to which they could not have been witnesses).

An important fact arises from Mr. Loftus' discussion--intelligent adults rarely becomes x-tians. The author, William Craig Lane, and most people who babble about x-tianity joined before they were thinking clearly (as adolescents), or were inculcated as children. An intelligent outsider would never buy all the baloney that is x-tianity.

After coming to these shocking conclusions, Mr. Loftus was left with no choice but to look at the world rationally and employ healthy skepticism as he re-created his entire world view. The bulk of Mr. Loftus' exegesis is lengthy quotations from John Hick, William Craig Lane, and many apologists from the InterVarsity Press (what a freakshow that place must be!). This is a highly recommended read for those who have the courage to examine the predominant superstition in the United States.

Believing in the “Impossible”: A Critical Review of JP Holding’s book, “The Impossible Faith.”

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Anyone who reads much of what Holding says on the web knows that he majors in ad hominems against those who disagree, and it should be well known that I do not like him. He’s a non-credentialed arrogant hack who has gained a following mostly from the uninformed. No wonder he had to self-publish this book. He claims that one of the reasons Christian publishers won’t publish it (which leads me to think he tried to get it published) is because, in his own words, “I won't write Left Behind style crap, and the market for Christian lit is glutted, unlike the atheist market.” I think there is another reason.

The book reminds me of one of the good college term papers I’ve read, which I’d give him a “A” on if I were grading it, but that’s it. “Good,” in so far as he read a few books and strung together some decent information from which I learned a little. “College term paper,” in so far as he lacks a breadth of knowledge on the issues he writes about beyond that level. Among Christian publishers who are looking to publish in the area of apologetics, they are looking for something better.

On the back cover Holding claims to have 17 years in apologetics ministry. If he’s 38 years old now (a guess), then that means he started his ministry when he was 21 years old. What can that mean? That a 21 year old on the web arguing for Christianity has an apologetics ministry? Hardly. He also claims “It is impossible to estimate the evangelical impact that is possible because of The Impossible Faith.” Since he capitalizes and italicizes the words, “The Impossible Faith” here, it’s hard not to escape the conclusion he’s referring to his own book. Such wildly overstated self-promotional claims usually come from college sophomores who think they know everything simply because they’re not yet informed enough to fully grasp the serious objections to their own arguments.

The “explosive proposition” of his book is that “there is simply no possibility that Christianity could have been accepted by anyone in the ancient world, unless its first missionaries had indisputable proof and testimony of the faith’s central tenant, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Had there not been such indisputable evidence to present, Christianity would have been an impossible faith.” (p. viii) This is a very large claim! It’s widely recognized among educated people that the larger the claim is, the harder it becomes to prove it. But if you think this is a large claim he goes even farther. When discussing the skeptical argument that the disciples stole the body of Jesus, Holding writes: “It is impossible that Christianity thrived and survived while making such audacious claims falsely, and even more incredible to suppose that such claims were made with the full and continuing knowledge that the result in most cases would be rejection, ostracization, and persecution.” Then in the next paragraph he adds, “There are two added layers of difficulty…” So, first Holding claims such a faith is “impossible,” but that’s not enough. He adds that beyond being impossible, “it’s even more incredible...” But that’s not even enough, for he goes on to talk about “two added layers of difficulty.” (p. 97). How he can pile up “two added layers of difficulty” on top of an already “incredible” skeptical argument on behalf of an “impossible” scenerio, is beyond me. Educated people know not to claim more than what their arguments actually show.

His argument has floated around in Christian circles for decades, and maybe even centuries before, with more reserved claims about what it actually shows. It would be interesting to know who first used it. I myself used it as a Christian. But I only claimed the Christian faith was unlikely. The novelty of his approach is that he uses some recent scholarship from the Social Science Group of Malina, Neyrey, and Rohrbaugh, along with McCane’s study of burial customs in the New Testament era--books which someone must have pointed out to him and from which he uses like they were the gospel truth. He obviously picks and chooses what he wants to believe by these scholars, since none of them would affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, and McCane may be an atheist for all he knows.

It’s worth looking at his main argument.

Holding argues that ancient societies highly valued honor much more than we do today, and as such Jesus’ shameful crucifixion and burial would be powerful obstacles to them believing he is the Son of God. Holding asks, “How could a man, subject to such overwhelming disgrace, in a society where honor was so crucial, have come to be recognized as the Son of God? There is only one viable explanation,” that Jesus arose from the dead. (p. 17). Really? Only one viable explanation?

Holding argues that in the ancient world people concentrated not on individual identity but rather on group identity such that there were three strikes against believing in Jesus. Strike # 1 is that Jesus was a Jew, hated and despised by the Romans. Strike # 2 is that Jesus was a Galilean, which added to Roman hatred just like Iraq or Afghanistan is to us today. The Galileans were also thought to be “ignoramuses” by the Jews in Judea. Strike # 3 is that Jesus was from Nazareth, which would cause both Jews and Gentiles to scoff at the idea he was the Messiah. Holding writes: “Ethnically and geographically, Jesus was everything that everyone did NOT expect a Messiah to be.” (p. 27). Everyone? Really?

Holding argues that the resurrection was a major stumbling block in preaching to the Gentiles because a bodily resurrection went against the philosophical thinking of that day, where the body was considered something to be escaped from, and it was strange to Jewish ears because “no one had conceived of the idea of one UNIQUE resurrection before the time of final judgment” (pp. 29-32). Again. “No one”? What about Herod and some others (Mt 14:1, Mark 16:14-16)?

Holding argues that in the ancient world “innovation was bad.” Giving preference to the thinking of the ancestors over innovative ideas was the rule among the ancients. Holding argues this in regard to several particular innovative ideas: 1) Jesus taught that believers should be willing to forsake their families; 2) Jesus reached out to tax collectors and a Samaritan woman; 3) Jesus said the Temple would be destroyed by pagans; 4) Jesus teaching was subversive toward the Jewish perception of patriotism. Since Christianity was such an innovation (an arrogant and exclusive innovation), “it is extremely unlikely that anyone would have accepted the Christian faith—unless there was indisputable evidence of its central claim, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (pp. 33-45). Once more. Is it “extremely unlikely that ANYONE would have accepted the Christian faith…?”

Holding turns next to three other religions, Mithraism, Mormonism and Islam and argues that none of these other religions passes the test as an “impossible faith.” (pp. 47-66). There are differences, no doubt, but they all arose from superstitious people and charismatic leaders. Mithraism actually died out, and by the criteria Holding suggested earlier that an impossible faith would be one that “passed into history” (p. vii) then it should be considered an “impossible faith.” When it comes to Mormonism, like Christianity, he doesn’t mention how persecution actually fans the flames of a movement.

In the short and remaining mostly superficial chapters Holding argues that there are “three pillars” supportive of the “impossible faith”: 1) Miracles; 2) The empty tomb; and 3) The fulfillment of prophecy (pp. 67-75). He argues that the resurrection was not expected by his disciples (pp. 77-82). And he closes by arguing against two old and often debated arguments that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross, known as the “swoon theory” (pp. 83-94), and the “theft theory,” that someone stole the body of Jesus and perpetrated a lie (pp. 95-105).

Overall Holding wildly overstates his case, doesn’t interact sufficiently with his detractors, and bases his arguments on certain implausible assumptions that he doesn’t justify. For instance, Richard Carrier has sufficiently refuted his claims, not once but twice, along with Robert M. Price, Brian Hotz, and recently the combative Matthew Green, but Holding doesn’t mention their arguments or interact with them at all in this book. While I can excuse him for not dealing with Green's recent arguments, I can't with regard to those written before he self-published his book. Why didn't he? He doesn’t interact with the book, The Empty Tomb, either. If he wants to be a scholar, a wannabe, then the one thing scholars do is they show awareness of the relevant literature and interact with it. Holding doesn’t do this in his book, even though he does attempt this outside of his book.

Furthermore, Holding quotes from the New Testament showing no awareness of Biblical criticism, the debates about Biblical inspiration, or whether Jesus actually fulfilled prophecy. Maybe he should take the 100% challenge? To blithely quote from a gospel (or the New Testament) without some understanding of the strata of gospel origins and the debates that ensue from them is just superficial stuff. He also assumes the people in Biblical times were not superstitious people in comparison to our own modern educated societies. He thinks people believed Christianity because of evidence even though they believed in Artemis, Zeus, and Janus, and that's merely college level stuff. [I’ll probably have more to say, but this is all for now].

Christopher Hitchens Recommends My Book.

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You can find my book near the bottom here. Hey, I made the list! Thanks to Chris Knight-Griffin for pointing this out to me.

A Critique of Norman L. Geisler’s Review of John Loftus’ FROM APOLOGIST TO ATHEIST

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Dr. Norman L. Geisler was one of my heroes when I was a believer. One of the first classes that I took as a Bible college freshman was Bibliology. The textbook for that class was A General Introduction to the Bible (co-authored by William Nix). I literally cut my theological teeth on Geisler’s exposition of the doctrines of revelation, inspiration and inerrancy. I learned how an evangelical believer should think about the development of the canon and the transmission and translation of the Bible. When I became a Bible college professor myself, I used several of Geisler’s books in my classes. I used his Christian Apologetics as one of the required textbooks in Apologetics. I used his Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective (co-authored by Paul Feinberg) and Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logic as assigned reading in my Philosophy classes. While, of course, I did not agree with everything he wrote, I had tremendous respect for his scholarship and the clarity in which he communicated. So, when I found out that he had done a critique of my fellow apostate John Loftus’ book , I could not wait to see what he said.

The review is entitled: FROM APOLOGIST TO ATHEIST: A CRITICAL REVIEW , Norman L. Geisler, Ph.D., Christian Apologetics Journal , Volume 6, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 93-109.

Geisler begins by throwing some kudos to John’s work. He states: “ … it is a thoughtful and intellectually challenging work, presenting arguments that every honest theist and Christian should face. Indeed, some of his criticisms are valid” (p. 94). The only example, though, of a valid criticism that Geisler mentions is John’s critique of William Craig’s “witness of the Holy Spirit” as a self-authenticating evidence of the truth of Christianity. To me its not surprising that Geisler mentions Craig since they are members of rival schools of apologetics. Its always good to throw a jab at one of your rivals. (I find it fascinating that Christian apologists cannot even agree on the best way to try to defend Christianity. There are multiple approaches each with their own devout followers. See Five Views on Apologetics, edited by Steven Cowan. At least one of these schools, the presuppositionalists accuse the other schools of not really given honor to the Bible.) Nevertheless, Geisler does acknowledge that John’s work is “intellectually challenging.”

My biggest criticism of Geisler’s review is that he maintains that John left the faith because of sin and rebellion not because of genuine intellectual doubts. He says that it is noteworthy that John first step away from God involved moral failure and “Then, he began to doubt God’s word” (p. 97). I am not surprised that Geisler would have this view. Conservative Christians maintain that failure to believe in God is never due to the head but always to the heart. My former pastor used to say this and he would quote Psalms 14:1 to prove it. “The fool hath said in his heart (and by implication not his head), there is no God.” Bob Jones Sr. (who is revered at BJU in way something like Hindus revere their spiritual gurus) had a saying: “If a man will give God his heart, God will comb the kinks out of his head.” For the conservative evangelical Christian it is all about sin. They cannot believe that someone may have honest doubts about God and the Bible (at least not after they have been given all of the pat answers by the Christian apologist—at that stage its only rebellion).

I am also not surprised to see that Geisler actually questioned the genuineness of John’s conversion. He says: “ In summation, one can place question marks on both his ‘conversion’ and ‘deconversion.’ Given the legalistic context, one can question whether or not he really understood the grace of God” (p. 108). Those within my old theological camp (fundamental Baptists) did not believe that most Church of Christ people were truly saved. They thought that the Church of Christ folks (whom they called Campbellites) had added works to grace because of their insistence on baptism as a requirement for salvation. They also felt that the Church of Christ belief that one could lose one’s salvation actually meant that they denied salvation by grace to begin with. A Calvinistic Christian cannot accept the notion of a truly regenerate person falling away. Again to quote my former Pastor: “A faith that fizzles at the finish had a fatal flaw at the first.”

For this reason, Geisler does not give much credence to John’s arguments against Christianity. He says: “The discussion here need not be long for several reasons. First, his unbelief was not initiated by reason, as he admits. Rather, it was his rejection by friends and the lack of Christian love. Second, there is nothing really new here that has not already been answered elsewhere” (p. 100). This confirms what I said above. Many conservative Christians believe that they have all the answers to every question ever raised against the Christian faith. All one has to do is buy their book and presto, they will have all the answers too. If you disagree with their answers, its because of your sinful and rebellious heart.

Geisler maintains that John’s problem with Genesis and science can be answered by “high school level apologetics” (p. 100). While I am no scientist, I have read somewhat widely on evolution and “creation science” and I know that the subject is far more complex than Geisler is acknowledging. He believes that he has refuted evolution by stating: “Red, white, and blue confetti dropped from an airplane will never produce the American Flag on your lawn” (p. 100). Don’t we all wish that the matter was that simple?

The fact is that evolution, while not essentially at odds with conservative Christianity (see the gap theory, theistic evolution, and progressive creationism), is at odds with Geisler’s fundamentalist view of the Scripture. Thus, he seems ready to dismiss the whole subject with his simplistic example of dropping confetti from an airplane.

Geisler says that John’s best argument against God is the argument from evil; but he says it can be dismissed due to circular reasoning. “For how can one know God is ultimately in-just (sic )for allowing evil unless he knows what is ultimately just (sic). And how can he know there is an ultimate standard of justice (i.e., absolute moral law), unless there is an absolute Moral Law Giver” (p. 101)? Here again, it seems to me that Geisler is way too simplistic in dismissing the argument from evil. Common sense and observation tells you that there are many injustices in the world (not caused by man). Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and many other types of natural disasters kill and maim young children (not to mention adults) on almost a daily basis around the globe. Children contract cancer and other horrific diseases each day due to no fault of their own. Geisler’s answer to this dilemma is that we will understand one day that these things were really for the best. In the meanwhile, we have to just trust God. Frankly, that is also the teaching of the book of Job and consistent with the overall teaching of Scripture. Don’t be surprised, however, if those who do not have a prior commitment to the truth of Scripture find this argument unconvincing and unsatisfying.

In dealing with Loftus’ “Cumulative Argument” against Christianity, Geisler responds: “First, the atheist, weighs the specific evidence differently than the theist, and his bias affects the way he weighs it. What Loftus views as improbable (say, the resurrection of Christ) is because of his bias against miracles, not because there is not highly probably (sic) historical evidence that it happened, which there is” (p. 101). I have to guess that Geisler has a blind spot here. A man as intelligent as he is ought to recognize that he comes to the same evidence with bias. No one is truly objective. No one interprets any evidence outside of their particular world-view. Now you can argue whether or not the world-view is correct but you cannot operate outside of one in some type of imaginary neutral land. Geisler is just as biased in favor of the resurrection and miracles as Loftus is against them.

Geisler goes on to say: “If miracles are possible (which they are in a theistic universe), then their probability depends purely on the reliability of the documents. And the Gospel documents are reliable. In summary, there are more NT documents, earlier documents, more documents [doesn't this sound redundant-my comment] by more contemporaries and eyewitness testimony, more historically and archaeologically confirmed than for any other events of the ancient world. Hence, it is highly probable that Jesus did the miracles contained in the NT and rose from the dead to confirm his claim to be the Son of God” (pp. 101-102). To argue that the large number of ancient copies of the NT somehow guarantees that the miracles contained in those copies must be true is a huge jump in logic. Would the existence of a large number of copies of the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Hindu Veda guarantee that the miracles described in those books were true? Geisler mentions archaeologically confirmed Scripture. Has archaeology ever confirmed that a miracle mentioned in the Bible actually took place? I am not aware of any such discovery. Archaeology may confirm some historical references in the Scriptures but that is a far cry from proving that the miracles took place.

Geisler tries to water down John’s claim that historical studies can never prove the Bible beyond a reasonable doubt by saying: “Probabilities leave room for some doubt but not necessarily always a reasonable doubt. And high probabilities do not leave room for any reasonable doubt, though there is always room for possible doubt in historical arguments” (p. 102) To me, this seems like mental gymnastics. Doubt is doubt and for some it will be reasonable doubt and for others it will not. Geisler seems to be assuming some imaginary objective arbiter here. John’s point was simply that historical evidence can never fully prove the Bible to be true and I think he is right.

Geisler continues: “It too can be a cumulative case where one probability is built upon another until the whole argument for Christianity is so highly probable that it is beyond all reasonable doubt” (p. 102). If that is the case, then the only thing keeping the whole world from converting is their lack of knowledge. If somehow, Geisler and his apologists could get their evidence in front of everyone, the whole world would believe (except for those who are willfully rebellious). Excuse me if I think this sounds a little bit arrogant.

Geisler takes John to task for saying that “ancient standards [for eyewitnesses] are pathetic in comparison to today’s standards.” Geisler replies: “This is simply false. Indeed, many legal experts have examined the New Testament eyewitness testimony and found it more than sufficient” (p. 102). Geisler’s “many legal experts” consists of a 19th century apologist-lawyer, Simon Greenleaf, and a 20th century theologian-lawyer, John Montgomery—this hardly constitutes “many legal experts.” The fact is that you can find a lawyer that will defend just about any known position. The testimony recorded in the Gospels is by and large second and third hand which would be dismissed in a court of law as hearsay. And that is ignoring the fact that the Gospel records were written decades after the events took place when memories have a tendency to fade and stories can be embellished. In any case, there is certainly no opportunity to cross examine the so-called eyewitnesses and that alone would nullify their testimony.

Geisler next calls John’s “God-of-the-gaps” argument faulty. Just because science is explaining more and more (leaving less room for God), there is no need for the Christian to worry, according to Geisler, because miracles by definition are irregular, non-repeatable events and as such can never be examined by empirical science. Thus, miracles such as the resurrection are safe from the prying eyes of science. Geisler goes on to argue that only forensic science can be used to test the unobserved and unrepeated events of the past. He writes: “Here one must depend on the principles of causality and uniformity. Events (even past ones) had a cause (causality). And the present is the key to the past (uniformity). Hence, the kind of causes that produce a certain kind of event in the present should be posited for these same kind of events in the past. Some of these events demand intelligent causes” (p. 103). Essentially, Geisler is presenting the cosmological and teleological arguments. While these arguments do have some weight in my opinion, they are far from certain. Whatever the case, what he says does not refute the fact that science has eliminated the need for supernatural explanations of cause and effect phenomena in a host of areas. Whereas people in biblical times had supernatural explanations for many natural phenomena (such as demon possession for epilepsy), most people today living in a post-Enlightenment world know that those explanations are not valid.

Geisler also criticizes John by saying: “… one of the weakest links in his case for atheism is his failure to provide any real positive evidence for God’s non-existence… "(p. 104). Here Geisler is guilty, in my opinion, of the classic fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. It is not the atheist’s responsibility to provide positive evidence against God. The burden of proof lies on the one who is making the assertion that God exists. It is the theist’s responsibility to provide positive evidence for God. The atheist’s only responsibility is to refute the theist’s positive evidence.

Geisler says that John’s “Outsider Test” is self-defeating. (A favorite term of Geisler’s I have noticed in reading his books over the years.) “. . . if one should have the presumption of skepticism toward any belief system, especially his own, then why should Loftus not have the presumption of skepticism toward his own atheistic beliefs? The truth is that the outsider test is self-defeating since by it every agnostic should be agnostic about his own agnosticism and every skeptic would be skeptical of his own skepticism” (p. 105). I fail to see the problem here. Yes, one should be skeptical of their own skepticism. They should try to see their world view as someone outside of their particular belief system would see it. They should read those from opposing world views and talk to people from different cultures and religions. By doing so, it will shed light on the true weaknesses of their particular system of thought (whether that system be evangelical Christianity or atheism).

Geisler believes that being skeptical of one’s views is somehow not a good thing. He says: “Advanced skepticism should only be used when one has advanced evidence or good reasons to disbelieve that the event really did not happen. Otherwise, one should come with an open mind to the question” (p. 107). Geisler seems to be arguing for assuming something to be true until its proven false whereas Loftus is saying to assume something to be false until its proven true. In my opinion, more advances in human thought and understanding are made by following the latter methodology. It seems to me that people are more naturally inclined to follow the first methodology and just believe what the people around them believe. It’s the ones who are willing to question the status quo that wind up making new discoveries and who find new ways to understand the world.

Finally, Geisler accuses John and all atheists of being biased. “The truth is that the only way the atheist or skeptic can even compete on the playing field of religious truth is to load the dice or stack the deck. Most often this is done by assuming either metaphysical or methodological naturalism” (p. 107). I guess evangelical Christians are the only ones who are truly unbiased. Does Geisler not recognize his own bias in favor of supernaturalism? I would agree with those of the competing school of apologetics known as presuppositionalism who maintain that the notion of neutrality is a myth (for example, see Greg Bahnsen). No one is completely objective. No one views the world free from any bias. It is impossible. The first step to achieving some level of objectivity is to recognize your own biases. Geisler does not seem to have done this.

All in all, I cannot say that I am surprised by Geisler’s critique. Knowing evangelical Christianity as I do, I could have almost written the essay for him. Evangelical Christians are certain about what they believe, often to the point of failing to recognize that when it is all said and done, it's still just a belief. They may be right and I may be wrong. I am willing to admit this and they are not. I don’t know if it’s the particular type of psyche that is drawn to dogmatic religion that explains this mentality or if there is some other explanation, but it seems to be common place among evangelicals.

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To read John's review of Geisler's review see here.

A Review of J.L. Schellenberg’s The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism

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This book argues for “complete religious skepticism,” known to most of us as agnosticism. He argues against any belief in “ultimism,” which based upon religious claims that entail “there is an ultimate and salvic reality.” (p.3). In his words, “the categorical skepticism I am defending, as the name suggests, is doubt that embraces any and all religious claims,” whether it’s “religious belief” or religious disbelief.” (p. 50)

This book contains three parts and is not as technical as one would think. You won’t find any symbolic logic to worry about deciphering. The arguments are understandable to the college student. You might first have to wade through the “Introduction” where he defines various terms he uses, although, if you’ve read his previous book, Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell, 2005), you would already be familiar with them.

In Part One he argues for religious skepticism based on four distinct categories of thought called “modes,” which he later combines into one. In the “Subject Mode” the author argues that human beings are limited in understanding. There is available evidence that is neglected and/or inaccessible to us. There is unrecognized evidence that is undiscovered and undiscoverable by all of us. In the “Object Mode” the author argues that it’s probably beyond finite humans beings to understand Ultimate reality, since it must be “something infinitely profound.” (p. 51) As such, we may have inadequate and incoherent conceptions of it.

In the “Retrospective Mode” the author considers the human past with regard to religious claims. The human past is too brief, (“only a few thousand years old”) and we have been occupied by other things for us to conclude we have arrived at a final understanding. There have been moral, psychological and social factors which were actively against religious improvements to our understanding. There has been hubris (or self-importance) and greed, jealously and envy, which taken together led to dogmatism, hostility and rivalry among people of different understandings. “Because religious belief is wrapped up with this ultimate concern, it has tended to go hand in hand with a rather fierce loyalty. Nothing less than complete devotion is appropriate where such a reality is involved.” ‘How, for example, can one remain loyal to God if one allows oneself to be seduced by objections to the belief that there is a God?...she is likely rather to become stubborn and intransigent, because of a well-intentional but misplaced loyalty.” “When they notice that others disagree, they tend not to think of this as an opportunity for dialogue and growth toward deeper understanding, but rather feel impelled to insist on fundamental error in the opposing views.” (p. 76-78). Furthermore, “the more attached one becomes to one’s beliefs, the more difficult it is to remain open to their falsity and to engage in investigations that might show them to be false” (p. 84), which in turn has been “inimical to creative and critical thinking” about the Ultimate.

In the “Prospective Mode” the author “considers what may lie ahead rather than what lies behind us.” (p. 91). If we survive on this planet we have 1 billion years to come up with better solutions to understanding the Ultimate, especially since we’ve just entered an era of unprecedented access to digital information that may all be categorized and placed into a hand held iPod someday. Science will progress into the future as well. People will increasingly be forced to get to know others who have a different religious perspective with a global economy and travel, and we will learn from each other and become more tolerant and assimilating of these views with a healthy exchange of information.

The author finally combines these four into one called “The Presumption Mode,” which builds on everything he said before. He argues that “human beings are both profoundly limited and profoundly immature.” (p. 117). Lacking any pragmatic reasons to counter his truth-oriented arguments, he concludes that “religious skepticism is positively justified.” (p. 129).

In a short Part Two, Schellenberg applies these modes to the argument for naturalism and the argument from religious experience. He argues that “both sides are mistaken”: “These sources of religious and irreligious belief do not have it in them to justify such belief.” (p. 132).

In Part Three of his book Schellenberg focuses his arguments against “traditional theism—the claim that there is a personal God,” since this view of Ultimism “looms large in all contemporary discussion.” (p. 191). Here is where he argues from divine hiddenness and the problem of evil that we should be skeptical of traditional theism. He also combines them to add even more force to his arguments.

I think he makes his case with regard to religious skeptisicm. But not when it comes to being an agnostic. Even though we should be skeptical of all religious claims, there is nothing wrong with arguing from what we know today that there are no believable gods, like I do, as an atheist. He deals with this objection, unsuccessfully on pages 105-107, and 124-128).

According to Schellenberg, it's possible a god might reveal himself in the future. But why should we believe that a future possibility will become a probabity, when the probabilities at this current juncture in history say its improbable that a god exists? We can only go by current probabilities, not future possibilities. Current probabilities say X, therefore we should accept X. If there is a god who waits to reveal himself and explain his silence during the centuies of witch-hunts, the centuries of slavery, along with the millions killed during the Holocaust, then reasonable people should wait until he does. Until that time we should follow the probabilities and say such a god does not exist.

Readers should come to grips with what he says, and so must everyone who is interested in these issues, or who has a stake in their outcome.

Norman Geisler's Review of My Book.

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As I have said, Norman L. Geisler, known to many as "the dean of Christian apologetics," is recommending my book. Not that he agrees with it. He actually thinks it will confirm the faith of his seminary students (isn't that strange?). Anyway, if anyone would like to read his review you can order the Spring 2007 issue of the Christian Apologetics Journal, or check it out in a library. He titled it, "From Apologist to Atheist: A Critical Review" (pp. 93-110). At least he thinks it deserved a separate article rather than one in the usual "Book Reviews" section of the journal.

Dr. Geisler began his review by saying some very positive things about my book:

"First it is an honest and open account of how a Christian became an atheist. Seldom are unbelievers so candid and open. Second, every Christian--let alone Christian apologists--can learn some valuable lessons from it on how to treat wayward believers. Third, it is a thoughtful and intellectually challenging work, presenting arguments that every honest theist and Christian should face. Indeed, some of his criticisms are valid. In particular I would single out his critique of the subjective argument from the alleged self-authenticating 'witness of the Holy Spirit' by Loftus' former teacher William Lane Craig." (pp. 93-94)

Thanks Dr. Geisler. I appreciate you saying these things, even if you disagree with my over-all case.

But I have some concerns with Geisler's review. While I was indeed candid in telling of the experiences that provoked my thinking, I also gave the reasons for why I rejected Christianity. He seems to latch unto the experiential reasons for why I became an atheist. In a few places he says things like this: "one thing is certain: It was not evidence and rational arguments that led him (me) to atheism." (p. 101). However, this is a one sided presentation of my book. To the contrary, for me it wasn't an either/or proposition, but a both/and one (both experiences AND arguments). It's not unlike how Christians describe their own conversions to Christianity. Geisler admitted this about Christian conversions when he wrote: "There is more than reason, arguments, and evidence involved in people coming to faith as well as in people leaving the faith." (p.97). Yes there are, but to claim my rejection of Christianity is almost all experiential does not do my arguments justice, nor is it doing justice to what I said about the weight of my experiences in the book itself. He would object in a like manner if I claimed his faith was adopted almost purely because of experiential reasons, although, in a way I did, since I argued that he adopted the faith he was raised in. ;-)

In several places Geisler used an argument I had already dealt with in my book, just as if I hadn't dealt with it at all! Take for instance the argument I made about the problem of evil. Geisler claims such an argument is "circular," "for how can one know God is ultimately...just for allowing evil unless he knows what is ultimately just? And how can he know there is an ultimate standard of justice, unless there is an absolute Moral Law Giver?" (p. 101) But in that same chapter on evil I had answered such an objection in these words:

Some theists like C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, will argue from the start that there can be no evil with out absolute goodness (God) to measure it against. "How do you know a line is crooked without having some knowledge of what a straight line is?” In other words, I need some sort of objective moral in order to say something is evil. But the word “evil” here is used both as a term describing suffering and at the same time it’s used to describe whether or not such suffering is bad, and that’s an equivocation in the word’s usage. The fact that there is suffering is undeniable. Whether it’s bad is the subject for debate. I'm talking about pain...the kind that turns our stomachs. Why is there so much of it when there is a good omnipotent God? I’m arguing that it’s bad to have this amount of suffering from a theistic perspective, and I may be a relativist, a pantheist, or a witchdoctor and still ask about the internal consistency of what a theist believes. The dilemma for the theist is to reconcile senseless suffering in the world with his own beliefs (not mine) that all suffering is for a greater good. It’s an internal problem for the theist. (pp. 245-246)

My question is whether he just didn't see what I wrote, ignored it, or thought it was too trivial to respond to? I'll let our readers decide for themselves on this.

Geisler did the exact same thing with regard to my Outsider Test for Faith, where I make some statements defending the fact that a believer ought to test his or her faith from an outsider's perspective. Geisler claims: "Loftus does not seem to be aware of their self-defeating nature." "The truth," he writes, "is that the outsider test is self-defeating since by it every agnostic should be agnostic about his agnosticism and every skeptic would be skeptical of his own skepticism." (p. 105) But I had already acknowledged and dealt with this type of argument in that same chapter, when I wrote:

Four) One final objection asks whether this is all circular. Have I merely chosen a different metaphysical belief system based upon different cultural factors? Maybe it is in some sense, but it’s definitely not viciously circular. For I have very good initial grounds for starting out with skepticism.(p. 46)

I further argued...

“Do my cultural conditions overwhelmingly ‘determine’ my presumption of skepticism? If so, then others don’t have much of a reason to adopt the skeptical stance. If not, then why do I think I can transcend culture, but a Christian theist can’t transcend her culture?” In answer I say that if it’s the case that “the accidents of birth” overwhelmingly determine our religious beliefs, especially in those areas where there is no mutually agreed upon empirical tests to decide between them, then that’s a sociological fact everyone must wrestle with when thinking about such matters. Let’s say this is the case, i.e., that whatever we believe about the origin of this universe is overwhelmingly determined by when and where we are born. I am much more willing to accept the consequences of this than a great majority of people who have religious faith and are so dogmatic about their faith. If this is the case, then we agree that what we believe is based upon when and where we're born.

If true, this does not undercut what I'm saying at all--it supports it. I'm arguing that cultural conditions have an extremely strong influence on us to believe in a given communally shared religious faith in a primary sense. And although cultural influences also apply in a secondary sense with regard to non-communal metaphysical beliefs, if I am a skeptic because of these cultural conditions, then I'm right that cultural conditions lead us to believe these things after all. And while I might be wrong about what I believe, such an admission doesn't undercut the main reason for the Outsider Test and the skeptical presumption that goes with it. If cultural factors overwhelmingly cause us to believe what we believe, then we should all be skeptical of what we believe.

The best that could result from this admission is agnosticism. But this doesn’t grant the believer any ground. For to be agnostic would again be admitting the basis for testing between beliefs that cannot be decided upon empirical grounds, and that is to be skeptical all over again, which once again is something I’m asking of believers. So I don't object to being skeptical of my own skepticism. But it's redundant from my perspective, and so it merely reinforces itself. (pp. 45-46)

How Dr. Geisler can say that I'm not aware of this objection astounds me, even if in the end he disagrees with me.

Of my book he says "there is nothing really new here that has not already been answered elsewhere." (p. 100). And then he proceeds to ask questions of my arguments that I think I have already addressed in the book itself! While I appreciate him as a friend and wish him the very best, I'd have to say of his review, as he said of my book, that there is nothing really new here that has not already been answered...in my book! ;-)

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To read FormerFundy's Review of Geisler's review see here.

A Review of Valerie Tarico's Book, "The Dark Side."

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Valerie Tarico is a team member here at DC and we just traded books. I don’t think her book, The Dark Side, is gaining the audience it deserves, so I want to recommend it.

As a former Christian with a Ph.D in Psychology this is an admirable book for her intended audience. The focus of her book is described in the subtitle to it: “How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth,” and she does an admirable job of showing this. It is not written for Christian apologists or scholars, knowledgeable skeptics or people well versed in their faith, although I myself learned a few things from it. It doesn’t deal with the arguments for the existence of God, the problems with an incarnate God, or the resurrection of Jesus, which would’ve made this a much better book. Its focus is mainly on the Biblical teachings themselves and how they “counter both reason and morality.” (p. 38). I liked the fact that she doesn’t make any exaggerated claims about her book.

Her book is written in an easy to read conversational style and respectful tone from a unique female Psychologist’s perspective that is rare among debunkers. It would be potentially doubt-producing if placed into the hands of the average Christian sitting in the pew. It's probably intended to be a resource for people who were teetering on the edge of Evangelicalism (either on their way in or way out) and who hadn’t thought a whole lot the moral and rational implications about what evangelicals teach. As such, her book may be more dangerous to the Christian faith than many other books in the same genre, since she targets her audience so well.

She tells her personal story of her deconversion which can be read here. She describes how she moved from “certainties to questions,” which is a story similar in kind to many of us. She briefly describes what evangelicals believe and how they inherited their beliefs (via Catholicism and Protestantism) in their attempt to reform Protestantism. But the distinguishing difference is that Evangelicalism is derived from “the extraordinary status given to the Bible by Evangelicals.” (p. 37). Turning to the Bible she tells how the Old Testament and New Testament came to be, and how scholars study the Bible, which might be eye-opening to many Christian people. She provides evidence showing how the Bible “contradicts science,” how Biblical commands “oppose each other,” how images of God “conflict with each other,” how the Bible stories themselves “contradict each other,” and argues that the Biblical prophecies and promises “don’t stand up” to scrutiny.

Without going into detail in arguing for these claims of hers, she turns instead to how Christians argue against them. She writes, “a whole industry has sprung up to convince believers and non-believers alike that these difficulties are inconsequential.” She quotes from Gleason Archer’s New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, where he tells his readers that when looking at the Bible one must first assume God inspired the authors and preserved them from error or mistake. Then she writes, “Archer says, essentially that the reader must start the process of inquiry by assuming a certain outcome. Don’t look for the most likely hypothesis suggested by the evidence, he says, nor the one that is most likely straightforward or reasonable. Start by believing that a certain conclusion is already true…Examine the evidence through the lens of that conclusion…Ask yourself, ‘What explanations or interpretations can I come up with that would allow me to maintain my belief that these texts are not contradictory?’ If you can find any at all, then you have succeeded in your task. By implication, if you cannot, the problem lies with you, not the text. Archer’s approach, in almost any other field of inquiry, would be considered preposterous.” (pp. 62-63). I wholeheartedly agree.

Tarico offers up some hard questions for those Evangelicals who believe the Bible. She does this with regard to science and the Bible, the Adam and Eve story, human and animal suffering, the blood sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the Christian belief in heaven and hell, and the problem of those who have never heard the gospel. I don’t believe these questions, upon deeper investigation, can be satisfactorily answered by Evangelicals.

Tarico devotes one section (37 pages) to the hypocrisies and injustices done in the name of the Christian faith by professing Christians. She mentions the Crusades, the Inquisition, Slavery, the witch hunts, the slaughter of American Natives, and something so simple as the selfish prayers of the saints. She critically examines the excuses Christians offer in response and argues this violence is not just a thing of the past, as can be seen in America’s previous “cold war” against “godless communism,” and the Iraqi war. She also argues against the idea that our morals come from the Bible, since “all societies produce guidelines they treat as moral absolutes whether they attribute these to one god, to many gods, or to none.” (p. 194).

In my opinion she is at her best when writing about the morality and the psychology of religious belief. She describes how irrational and external factors affect what people believe, like when and where a person is born, which she calls, “the luck of the draw.” She argues this is contrary to justice, since God supposedly sends people to hell because of what people believe. She describes why wrong beliefs survive, why smart people defend them, and why Evangelical beliefs are hard to shake. She argues there are methods by which people can protect against such biases, based on evidence and science.

When it comes to false superstitious and religious beliefs, Tarico claims “it doesn’t take very many false assumptions to send us on a long goose chase.” To illustrate this she tells us about the mental world of a paranoid schizophrenic. To such a person the perceived persecution by others sounds real. “You can sit, as a psychiatrist, with a diagnostic manual next to you, and think: as bizarre as it sounds, the CIA really is bugging this guy. The arguments are tight, the logic persuasive, the evidence organized into neat files. All that is needed to build such an impressive house of illusion is a clear, well-organized mind and a few false assumptions. Paranoid individuals can be very credible.” (p. 221-22). This is what Christians do, and this is why it’s hard to shake the Evangelical faith, in her informed opinion.

Tarico ends her book by describing herself as “Coming home,” where she is “content living in a universe with no gods, content trusting that the forces of nature and of the human spirit are what our best experience and reason reveal themselves to be.” (p. 255).

Reflecting on her case she reasonably concludes that "much of what is wrong with Evangelicalism is not mere hypocricy or distortion of Christian doctrine. The evils Evangelicalism promotes are as much a part of the Bible and Christian history as are goodness and love. The problems lie in the traditional teachings themselves and refusal of church authorities to question them."

She continues: "Virtually all of the harm that Christianity has perpetrated and continues to perpetrate comes from one crucial problem: a failure to understand the Bible itself: the historical context in which its manuscripts were penned, the ways they relate to earlier religious writings, and the very human decisions that compiled them into a book that many now call the Word of God. Without this understanding, the Bible can be seen as timeless and perfect, and rigid adherence to its commands can provide a substitute for nuanced moral judgment." (p. 250). Again, she's right on target.

I liked this book. I could only wish more people would buy it, read it and give copies away for others to read.

Another Favorable Review of My Book!

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The Spanish Inquisitor just wrote a very favorable review of my book. See below for the text...

[BTW My book is presently ranked 8th among atheist books (although I don't know the criteria used to determine this)].

I started writing this review before I finished the book, because it grabbed me from the beginning. My initial impression, now confirmed, is that it would be a real eye-opener to this non-theist,who was raised as a Catholic, and whose sole theological indoctrination occurred at Sunday Mass and in daily religion classes in elementary and secondary school. That’s why I ordered it after seeing it mentioned over at Debunking Christianity. Those aspects of theology impressed on me at an early age consisted of cherry-picked readings of relevant selections from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the Epistles of Paul (or at least we thought they were all written by Paul). In essence we got feel good Bible stories with a moral, something akin to a religious Aesop’s Fables. John Loftus, in his well thought out, researched and developed “Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains” does of fine job of analyzing, demystifying, and eventually refuting all of the theological bases for Christianity.

The direction of my religious inquiry since I began the undertaking has always been towards the answer to this simple question: Does God Exist? What this book confirmed for me was, first, that he doesn’t, and, second, that Christianity’s cheerleaders, through two millennium, have bent over backwards, indeed sometimes split in two, in severe efforts to rationalize the assumption, without proof, that he does.

As a relative layman to Christian apologetics, then, I found this book useful on two levels. The former Reverend Loftus does a nice job of explaining the history of Christian rationalization, and then, once all of the various arguments are delineated, he shows just how vacuous they really are. He exposes the fact that the Emperor is stark, raving naked (to beat a dead metaphor, if I may).

In the first part of the book, the author begins by giving his bona fides. He was a bad kid who found God, was born again, and went on to study Christianity on his way to obtaining his Masters in Theology and Philosophy. He studied under William Lane Craig. He worked as a minister in various churches, and became an expert in Christian apologetics. He mastered the ins and outs of theology, and used his knowledge to argue the truth of Christianity. Several life crisis’s combined to lead him to doubt his thinking, and eventually to realize there was nothing underpinning his belief, that in fact all the apologetics he had mastered were a sham. This only comprises a short section of the beginning of the book (about 40 pages), but is useful to understanding his motivations in writing the book.

Then, it’s on to the Christian races. Part two, the major section of the book, tackles various arguments (apologetics to the faithful and unfaithful alike) used by Christians to justify many of their beliefs, including the presumed moral superiority of religion, the Virgin birth, the Resurrection, miracles, and historical evidence for Jesus and Christianity in general. The reader can tell that Loftus knows whereof what he speaks. There are ample cites to both Christian and non theist books and articles on the various topics, and it’s clear that he has read, and understands, them all. A skeptic might say that anyone can cite books, but does his analysis make sense? To this reader, the answer was “yes”. I was impressed, in passage after passage, with his grasp of the topics, and found myself marveling at subtle nuances to theological matters I had only a previous cursory knowledge of.

For instance, in the chapter entitled “The Passion of the Christ”: Why did Jesus Suffer?, were you aware that there were several theories, developed over time, attempting to answer the question of why Jesus had to suffer and die for the “sins” of mankind? Neither did I. According to Loftus, the earliest theory was called The Ransom Theory, advanced by some of the early Christians, whereby Jesus’ death paid a ransom to release us from the hold Satan had on us by reason of Adam and Eve’s sin. Later, Anselm came up with the Satisfaction Atonement Theory, whereby our sins, being an insult to God, were atoned for by Jesus’ suffering and death. Apparently, the theory du jour is called the Penal Substitutionary Theory, the current favorite among evangelicals. This evolved after the Reformation, when objective law, as opposed to the will of the ruler, began to form the basis for justice.

Frankly, I’m not sure I fully understand that last Theory, because it requires that Christ be punished for our sins, by taking our place in the punishment process. Since there is no evidence for such a thing as sin, other than in the conceptual, metaphorical sense, (i.e. in our minds) the idea of anyone being punished for a sin of the original human, much less having a scapegoat take our place, smacks of pure rationalization to this reader. Why God felt the need to torture and kill his son in order to sacrifice him to himself to atone for something that he was responsible for in the first place is circular, and nonsensical.

This example is just one of many that I found to be both exhaustive and exhausting. The extent that apologists have gone to justify their beliefs can wear you out, but Loftus does a nice job of showing, in chapter after chapter, that the underpinnings of Christian theology are about as substantial as dust.

I found the book to be very comprehensive, allowing me to delve into the details of apologetics, and the author’s refutations, or skimming those areas if I didn’t feel the need to know everything. In that sense, the book is good for both the reader interested in a concise summary of the essentials of Christian apologetics, and those who want more meat, and a fuller understanding, as there are ample citations to every reference for every aspect of every topic.

Another Five Star Review!

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Sorry, but when you self-publish a book you have no one to promote it but yourself. The difficulty is in getting people to take a good look at it. In my case, those who have read it promote it, so I merely share what they write. Here's the most recent review written by Paul Harrison:

Many other reviewers do a good job at explaining the book's contents, and I agree that reformatted, it would be more pleasing to the eye and easy to digest.

But if you're looking for information, it isn't lacking. The reason the print is so crammed and there are so many references is because John has experience in academic settings where research must be accounted for and careful argumentation means more than mere emotional rhetoric. This isn't a light book you would enjoy reading a couple of sittings and then pondering, but a book that bombards you with information and argument that you have to stop and think about, almost as if you were reading a reference book.

Truly, the only valid critique of a book like this from those who disagree with the arguments is to make a point by point rebuttal showing that John's arguments don't stand up. This should be easy for any Christian apologist to do, yet it is never done. Instead, sweeping generalization and characterizations are made of his motives. Even if you believed John was an immoral, bitter, raving cry baby who abandoned God because he was immature, you would still have his arguments to deal with.

There is nothing new in this book that hasn't been pointed out for decades in various places, it is just a very compact and concise anthology of the best of these arguments, always added to the personal experience of the author. Just as Christians have a life-changing existential experience and believe the Gospel is intellectually valid, so a mixture of existential experience and intellect causes deconversion.

This book can be seen as "an attack on Christianity" in a sense that former Christians are believed to be bitterly getting back at what disillusioned them, but ultimately, skeptics write books like this to help disillusioned Christians understand that they are not crazy or alone and help them adjust to life without a belief system that can shown to be false intellectualy and experientially. This is no different that Christian apologists "attacking Islam" or "attacking Mormonism" by using deconversion stories from former Muslims and Mormons showing why nothing worked existentially along with arguemnts againt the validity of those worldviews. Christians believe they are doing it in love to rescue people out of harmful and false belief systems. A book like this is no different.

If you read Christian apologetics, you owe it to yourself to have an anthology of the best arguments against Christian apologetics in your library.

A Review of Victor J. Stenger’s book, God: The Failed Hypothesis

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A review of Victor J. Stenger’s book, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist (Prometheus Books, 2007).

This is the first book ever published by the atheistic Prometheus Books press that ever made it to the New York Times best sellers list, and that’s newsworthy, especially since atheism is a minority viewpoint.

Stenger’s argument is that science has progressed to the point that it can now make “a definitive statement” on the existence of a God who has the attributes “traditionally associated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God.” (p. 11). His conclusion is that the existence of this God “is not only missing from but also is contradicted by the empirical data.” (p. 231).

In Stenger’s previous book, Has Science Found God? he argued that the evidence for God is “inadequate.” In this book he wants to say something more. Here he claims that the evidence is actually against the existence of God. (p. 17)

Stenger begins by basing his argument "on the contention that God should be detectable by scientific means simply by virtue of the fact that he is supposed to play a central role in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans." (p. 13) To those who disagree with this contention, he refers the reader to Theodore Drange's argument from non-belief, and to John L. Schellenberg's argument with regard to the problem of divine hiddenness. Drange has argued that since God wants people to believe and since he has the power to help them to believe, the reason why a majority of people don't believe in the Christian God is probably because God doesn't exist. Schellenberg has argued that since there are people who are open to believe in God who still don't believe, it means that a perfectly loving God probably doesn't exist.

Both Drange and Schellenberg’s philosophical arguments form the basis of Stenger’s whole argument, and I find them very persuasive. Stenger, however, seems to have a low view of philosophical arguments in general when it comes to solving the debate over the existence of God. He thinks science can step in where philosophical arguments only seem to lead to further debates, as both sides define and redefine the terms used in the arguments themselves. (p. 34). According to Stenger, “Arguments for and against God have been largely confined to philosophy and theology,” while “science has sat on the sidelines and quietly watched this game of words march up and down the field.” (p. 9)

The most charitable way to read Stenger is that scientific evidence is the way to tip the scales in favor of atheism, not that philosophy isn’t useful in doing so, since two philosophical arguments form the basis of his whole argument. But I’m not so sure such a charitable interpretation is justified, given what he said, and given that many scientific minded people eschew philosophical argumentation.

Stenger proceeds from here by arguing there is scientific evidence against the existence of God, in so far as “absence of evidence” is “evidence of absence.” (p. 18) “If we have no evidence or other reason for believing in God, then we can be pretty sure that God does not exist.” (p. 18). He claims that if there is a failure with the evidence, “the argument may be made that a hidden God still may exist,” but only if the believer can adequately deal with Drange and Schellenberg’s arguments.

After this introductory material Stenger argues that “design is an illusion,” simply because “earth and life look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.” (p. 71). He argues that brain science shows us that “thought processes are accompanied by localized physical activity in the brain.” (p. 83) He argues there is no credible evidence for “out of body experiences,” for psychics who claim to contact the dead, for ESP, or for the efficacy of petitionary prayer.

In his most unique scientific argument he claims that since the existence of “nothing” is fundamentally unstable, “only by the constant action of an agent outside the universe, such as God, could a state of nothingness be maintained. The fact that we have something [rather than nothing at all] is just what we would expect if there is no God.” (p. 133).

Stenger moves on to the evidential failures with regard to religious experience, unfulfilled prophecies, Messianic and otherwise, and the lack of archaeological evidence for the Israelite Exodus. With regard to the Exodus, Stenger quotes former believer turned agnostic, William Dever, who said, “Absolutely no trace of Moses, or indeed of an Israelite presence in Egypt, has ever turned up.” (p. 186).

Stenger argues we don’t need the Bible for morality, and that at times the church has used it to justify horrendous things like Southern slavery. He argues: “the hypothesis of a God who provides moral knowledge is falsified by the observable fact that many of the moral teachings found in the scripture that are supposed revelations are not obeyed by even the most pious faithful.” (p. 173). And “the very fact that humans have a common moral conscience can be taken as evidence against the existence of God.” (p. 210).

Lastly Stenger argues that the amount and intensity of evil in this world is evidence against the existence of God. He concludes the book by arguing that religion has a negative impact upon society.

This is a very good book, scientifically speaking, as far as I understand the science that forms the background to his argument as a whole. He’s best when it comes to science, having authored a number of books on science. It should be read and discussed by everyone who is interested in the God question.

I find him lacking, as I do most scientifically minded people, when it comes to the areas of philosophy and theology, though. His arguments with regard to failed prophecies and the problem of evil are too brief, and too simple. There are several objections Christian believers can make against these arguments that he doesn’t show awareness of, or deal with, although, in the end I agree with his analysis. Stenger does provide further references for further reading which does what he doesn’t do, in many cases. Christians can claim there is historical evidence which shows Jesus arose from the dead, which may lead them to believe, despite the other problems Stenger finds with their belief. How does science dispute this claim of theirs? Christians can also argue God isn’t hidden in that the Holy Spirit reveals himself inwardly to everyone, even though I find these arguments unpersuasive.

This biggest problem I have with the book is that it isn’t just science that shows God probably doesn’t exist. It’s always the sciences taken together with philosophy that confirms or denies anything we believe. Without the philosophy, science can’t show much in the area of the existence of God. But in taking them both together this book presents a powerful case against the existence of God. I highly recommend it.