It Should Be Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Loftus
As others have said as well
Carl Sagan once said, “I don’t want to believe, I want to know.” I have encountered so many churchgoers who are satisfied with belief—and they trust that their clergy have taught them correct beliefs. There appears to be so little curiosity about Christian origins, about the complex ancient thought world in which their faith arose. Nor is there much curiosity about how the gospels came to be, and how much they are burdened with flaws, contradictions, and laughable impossibilities. The drama, ceremony, music, and ritual of weekly (or even more often) worship are enough to sustain devotion and commitment. They are happy with believing, not knowing.
But this is a form of horrible theological malpractice, and John W. Loftus walked away from this huge mistake. A few days ago (Jan 22), he posted on this blog the final chapter of the 2012 updated version of his 2008 book, Why I Became an Atheist. Reviewing this prompted me to take another book at the 2008 book, which I had read in 2015. Edward T. Babinski wrote in the Foreword of the 2008 book:
“Those like John who finally do climb off the Christian merry-go-round are indeed dizzy after leaving and wonder why others choose to stay. There is, after all, something to be said for self-reliance and allowing one’s inquisitive mind to ponder questions for a season, even if doubting can make one feel less secure and less ecstatic than riding the merry-go-round. At least you begin to feel more like yourself, less at the mercy of your brain, which mindlessly pops out proof-texts, or fearing hell for even spending time away from church. You begin to feel more, well, ‘human,’ and hence begin to view others as having similar doubts and fears and also similar hopes and joys” (pp. 9-10).
One’s inquisitive mind. That’s the key, of course. Turning on curiosity and critical thinking. In his Introduction, Loftus states: “The major reason why I became an atheist is because I could not answer the questions I was encountering. I became an atheist precisely because that’s where the unanswerable questions led me. The arguments just weren’t there, period. Now as an atheist, I turned that same intellectual muscle into arguing against the things I formally defended” (pp. 14-15).
Many years ago, a friend protested to me, “But I’m not an atheist!” To which I replied, “Of course you are. Do you believe in Zeus, Poseidon, Thor—or hundreds of other gods humans have imagined?” Gods disappear when humans lose interest in them. And Christianity is on a collision course with reality as revealed by inquisitive minds. Loftus states the case bluntly: “…as science progresses it’s tearing at the heart of religious beliefs everywhere by providing the answers that religion always promised but failed to deliver” (pp. 115-116).
Readers should pay careful attention especially to Loftus’ giant Chapter 7—more than fifty pages—titled The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible. He reflects on the many absurdities we encounter in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, the Israelites surviving in the desert for forty years—after their escape from Egypt. There was manna from heaven to eat, water from rocks to drink, pillars of fire and clouds to guide them. This is the stuff of fairy tales, and Loftus will have none of it:
“You’ll just have to pardon my complete and utter skepticism here, especially in light of the fact that there is no independent confirmation or evidence to believe this except that some ancient biblical writer told a story. This is simply unbelievable, and I’ll just pass on this with a laugh (sorry).” (p. 133)
In the New Testament, Loftus references the story we find in Act 14:8-10, of Paul healing a man in Lystra who had been crippled from birth. Paul commanded the man to stand up: “And the man sprang up and began to walk.” Inquisitive minds are not convinced: “… the bottom line is that I require more evidence to believe something like this than a mere report by someone in the past who lived and breathed among people who were wildly superstitious” (p. 154).
In his Chapters 12 and 13, Loftus provides an in-depth analysis of the Problem of Evil, which has devastating implications for belief in a good, powerful, caring god. He continues with this analysis in his 2021 anthology, God and Horrendous Suffering. When challenged by the grim realities of human and animal suffering, believers resort to several deflections. Loftus notes the fallacy:
“The Christian theorist will finally punt to mystery, with what I called the ‘ignorance defense,’ when she says, ‘we don’t know why bad things happen but we can trust God knows what he’s doing.’ Theists claim everything will work out from the perspective of eternity (Rom. 8:18, 28). They claim that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the joys of eternity. But this presupposes what needs to be shown” (p. 256).
Precisely so! Are there many theists who would welcome the chance to be a chaplain at Auschwitz, to be able to assure the survivors of the gas chambers—but now slaves of the Nazi machine, living in total misery—that “everything will work out from the perspective of eternity”? How would such a message have been received by the survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, who suffered the loss of 225,000 people—friends and family?
I would also urge readers to follow Loftus’ careful reasoning in his Chapter 20, Did Jesus Bodily Rise from the Dead? The want-to-believe, don't-need-to-know Christians have somehow managed not to notice that the resurrection stories in the gospels present so much confusion, so many contradictions. Apologists have invented many excuses to try to make the stories believable, but these don’t work. Loftus concludes: “The bottom line is that an outsider to the Christian faith would not believe God raised Jesus from the dead with the paucity of historical evidence there is for it… there are way too many superstitious beliefs in the Bible. The resurrection of Jesus is another one of them” (p. 374).
And by all means, study carefully the final chapter that Loftus posted here on January 22, which includes this declaration:
“I am an atheist to protest the fact that even if [God] exists he has not revealed himself clearly to his creatures, or shown us divine compassion. Even if there is a God after all, I will shame him for not providing sufficient evidence and reasons to believe” (p. 404).
In a cover blurb for the 2008 book, David Mills (author of Atheist Universe), offered this testimonial:
“John W. Loftus is to atheism what Tiger Woods is to golf, or what Babe Ruth was the baseball. Loftus has provided, in this superb and entertaining volume, the crown jewel of the New Atheist movement. As much as I admire and enjoy Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett, Loftus is, far and away, my favorite author on this riveting subject. Loftus’s esteemed reputation within the free thought community is indeed richly deserved. But this book exceeded even my highest expectations.”
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes, the first of which is Guessing About God (2023) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
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