Why John Loftus Is An Atheist, Part 2

So far in addressing John Loftus’ article on Why He Is An Atheist, we have clearly seen that the list of theist propositions which he attacks are hardly worthy of discussion, they are so poorly presented. So Loftus’ supposed refutations are against non-contenders. Whether this is an artifact of the person Loftus is debating, or whether Loftus crafted these statements himself, they are not basic theist positions, some of them are blatantly false statements, some of them are double negatives, and so on.

So I will leave those types of issues, since they have no bearing on the issue of whether God or any creating deity for the universe actually exists. Loftus, nowhere in this article addresses that essential fundamental argument.

Instead, we will move to the list of questions Loftus developed to give his opponent to answer. Presumably some of these will answer the question, well why ARE you an Atheist? What can you prove about Atheism? What is your evidence for its validity?

Here are the questions:

“I developed some questions for Rauser beforehand (whether I get to them in the debate/discussion that follows I can't say):

1) If you wanted to know what happened at Custer’s Last Stand wouldn’t you want sufficient evidence before coming to a conclusion? Why is that different when it comes to the claim that a virgin gave birth to God incarnate?”

The demand for evidence is not rationally separated into physical vs. non-physical. With no differentiation, the demand is seen to be a Category Error. It is that Fallacy for several reasons. First, the evidence for Custer’s Last Stand is material in nature. (I’ve been there, and seen the evidence which was revealed after the grass fire allowed it to be found and collected). There is no expectation of material evidence for the birth of Jesus. The fact that Loftus conflates the two into a single demand demonstrates his lack of differentiation and thus his logic error. Further, this is not even close to the basic issue of whether there is an originating agent for the universe, and whether Loftus can provide material evidence regarding that either way, presumably against. Most Atheists object to that demand for evidence on the basis that it is unreasonable (after all, it is a Category Error), but they will not relent in their demand for the exact same thing from theists, as Loftus does here, regardless of being apprised of the error. That is an exercise in non-coherent rationalizing, where a demand is made on an opponent which one cannot satisfy himself respecting his own argument. In fact, Loftus projects his own Special Pleading in the next question:

”2) Can you provide any objective evidence for your faith without special pleading or begging the question?”

If one can ignore the well-poisoning attempt to maintain the Category Error in the demand for “objective evidence”, one can certainly point out that it is indeed a Category Error, as well as Special Pleading for his own case. Here he has ignored (implicitly denied by poisoning) the validity of any evidence which is not material (aka “objective”). Additionally, the term “faith” is prejudicial, because there are in existence rational, non-blind-faith based deductions in support of the basic reasoning for theism which are not “faith” based. These deductive arguments are rational, not objective reasons. Loftus summarily excludes them categorically, because the term objective very likely refers to objects and material evidence only, Loftus being a science fetishist (adherent of irrational scientism) as we have demonstrated earlier.

”3) Do you reject personal private subjective experience when it comes to other religions? If so, why don’t you reject those same kinds of claims when it comes to your religion?

It is not necessary to accept any subjective experience in order to consider the logical deductive case for a creating agent for the universe. The presumption that all claims will be accepted if they are within a specific “religion” has no basis in fact. This question is neither necessary nor pertinent to Atheism, it is merely an attack on a presumption of theist dependence upon faulty premises. But the predication of the attack is false because the presumption does not match the actual basis for theism.

”4) Can you provide any reason at all to think that sufficient objective evidence is not good enough when it comes any historical claim?”

No matter the answer to this question, either yes or no, it does not cover the issue of the Category Error involved in the definition of “evidence”. The presumption is that the answer will be yes, so that answer can be applied by false extension to theism. This fails for two reasons: it does not address the basics of theism, and attempts to entrap in a False Association Fallacy rather than explain.

Even if answered yes, which is obvious, it does not apply to the fundamental propositions of theism. It is merely an attempt to use the Category Error of demanding “objective evidence” (material, that is) for subjects which are not addressable materially, and cannot be falsified materially.

”5) When it comes to Mohammed flying on a winged horse to visit the heavenly realms, or the golden plates that Joseph Smith supposedly translated into the Book of Mormon, or Scientologist’s claim that an intergalactic emperor named Xenu placed people in a volcano and blew them up, do you require sufficient evidence in order to believe them? Why are your superstitious claims exempt from this same requirement? “

Ignoring the well-poisoning yet again, the basics of theism are not based on faith or superstition; they are based on rational deductions, which are not subjective and not addressed by Loftus. So the final question is a fallacious question not deserving of an answer. But we will answer it anyway. Sufficient evidence in the mind of a rigid materialist like Loftus can mean only material evidence. He refuses to be convinced by anything other than empirical, scientific, material evidence. So he thinks – believes erroneously – that theist claims must, must be submitted to empirical, scientific, material scrutiny. The non-falsification criterion of Popper never enters his thought space. The difference between material investigation and non-material investigation is completely transparent to him… apparently. Given his credentials it is difficult to see how this could be so. But it certainly appears to be the case.

”6) What is the specific doctrinal content to your subjective experience of God? Does your experience provide any? What is it? If not, how can you claim your experience leads you to believe as you do? If so, what is it and why do other evangelicals who claim this same experience believe differently based on it? Do evangelical witch-hunters in Africa have the same properly basic belief about God?Specifically with regard to salvation. Specifically with regard to the Bible.”

Why should there be “specific doctrinal content” during the subjective experience? This attack is meaningless in the sense that no possible answer would suffice for Loftus. I.e., it is a question where all answers lead to rejection, regardless of their content. He demands answers that he believes will demonstrate that the subjective is not universal. Of course it is not. It is personal, which is why it is called subjective. The issues of salvation and the bible are not part of the experience, why should they be, and why should Loftus demand that they be? Only because he thinks that those points prove something which they do not: their absence proves exactly nothing. Those issues are non-starters both theologically and logically.

None of this addresses anything regarding the disproof of a creating agent entity. Loftus is attacking subjective experience with demands for specific content without any comprehension of how subjective experiences work. He presumes that his interpretation must be descriptive of actuality when it is not. He has not had such an experience; why should he be considered knowledgeable?

Plus, his complaint about cultural differentials has no bearing on actual validity of the experience, or validity of salvation, or validity of the bible. The point here is that the expectation which Loftus has is that a subjective experience gives deep knowledge of the nature and thoughts of the deity, when it is highly possible that the experience is that the deity exists, or that there is a personal expectation of the recipient. There is no reason to presume that Loftus knows otherwise. Loftus can only denigrate this but not disprove it. His idea of disproof is the attempt to show that some religions are false, therefore no religion is true. Probably some subjective experiences are false, therefore none are valid. This again is the Fallacy of False Association.

”7) Can you explain why your so-called properly basic beliefs change with more study? Why does a child have properly basic beliefs about God that an educated Christian adult would deny?”

This question appears intended to throw implications of doubt on the quality of knowledge of the understandings of the nature of the deity which Loftus presumes are attained not by personal experience, but by gradually understanding the accumulation of proposed theological knowledge by others. This type of knowledge is not even advertised to be exact and irrefutable by theists, but the implication of the question is that it should be. The question presumes that theists argue from certainty just as Atheists do: without evidence. (Atheists are certain that ALL theist arguments fail, without evidence of that). The type and quality of the evidence used by theists cannot be replicated in type or quality by Atheists. So Atheists deny that it exists and can exist and assert that any knowledge theists have is of no value, in this case, due to its ability to grow and change with increased understanding based on rational assessment. By contrast, Atheists can claim no non-empirical knowledge aside from the presumption that theist propositions are false. And that claim without a shred of empirical data for support.

”8) Do you believe in psychics? Are you a psychic? Can you know whether or not a virgin had a baby (or any of a number of other purported historical claims in the Bible) based on psychic abilities? Isn't claiming to know you can irrational?”

The presumption of knowledge of non-physical issues to be either material in nature or to require clairvoyance is false. Deductions are neither. Deductions are rational and predate empiricism. This question is another prejudicial entrapment which is based on false suppositions.

”9) Can you read God's mind? Every believer on the planet claims to know God's mind.”

This is blatantly false to the point of being a flat out lie. He cannot know what every believer on the planet claims, and it is virtually certain that very few make that claim. His questions become more aggressively irrational as they progress.

”10) How do you escape the charge that you're just making stuff up as you go?

This is a personal attack which appears to be projection. Loftus has not proven anything by attacking the list of phony theist issues above, nor do his questions represent any danger to theism. If this is all there is to his idea of reasons or reasoning which he thinks demands Atheism, then Loftus is no danger to theism. Somewhere he references his “opus magnum” book, which one would have to pay him for, and which he claims contains the actual reasoning. Yet the title of this article claims to contain his reasons: “Why I am an Atheist”. If this article is representative, then his book is not essential to rejecting his reasoning for Atheism.

The proper response to that question is “how do you escape the charge that you have made no substantive case against theism, much less an evidentiary (empirical of course) case for Atheism – despite your claim to explain Why You Are An Atheist?”

Finally, let’s address some of Loftus’ text in between the itemized lists.

The religious context:
Loftus attempts to discredit all religious claims by stating that they are too far removed for investigation of evidence. Loftus claims,

” If anything, the religious context would help to discredit it, since miracle claims within religious contexts are a dime a dozen.”

Has he abandoned the empirical testing approach for the idea that miracles are commonplace? Too commonplace? No, he asserts under the unstated presupposition that all miracles are false, regardless of whether they are actually proved to be false. In other words, Because Atheism is True, there are no miracles. His bias colors his thinking at every step, including his concept of evidence and existence.

The following illustrates that fact:

” They will concoct disanalogous hypothetical stories that have no bearing on the need for sufficient objective evidence. No reasonable person should believe that a virgin gave birth to God incarnate in today's world without sufficient objective evidence. Can you even imagine what evidence would convince you that she did? So why should this requirement be different when it comes to the ancient pre-scientific superstitious past? If anything, it should be foremost on our minds. Whether a virgin gave birth to God incarnate is a historical claim about what supposedly happened in the past. There is only one kind of evidence that can show this, if it can be shown at all. Objective evidence. We need a sufficient amount of it to convince us. No amount of intellectual gerrymandering can weasel out of this reasonable requirement. “
[emphasis added]

Calling a requirement “reasonable” does not make it so; in fact it points to the issue of the reasonableness of the issue which is being whitewashed with presumptive definition. In this case, it is obvious that there is no possible evidence of historical occurrences of pretty much anything that will convict the hardcore materialist of ancient facts concerning life. Documentation is not “objective”, at least not for Loftus. Let’s do try to imagine what type and amount of “sufficient objective evidence” would be required. First, of course, a virginity test. No, that would not suffice, because there might be physical way to circumvent the maidenhead. So constant monitoring of the female for at least ten months in advance of the birth would be required. The monitors must be monitored of course. No unmonitored breaks for ablutions, either. The entire life of her offspring would have to be monitored for signs of deity activity. And all of that would have to be accomplished today, by John Loftus, or the sources of the data would not be trustworthy because reported information is not “objective”.

Loftus cannot disprove the claim. So he makes irrational demands for evidentiary support.

The demands made by Loftus are absurd, yet they are the very demands of Philosophical Materialism (which cannot prove its own premise and thus is non-coherent). Can Loftus believe that Washington crossed the Delaware? That Caesar crossed the Rubicon? That Hannibal crossed the Alps? Is it irrational to give credibility to these assertions? Apparently for Loftus.

In fact, the ultimate constraint on “sufficient objective evidence” is this: it must be personally experienced in order to be considered valid. If personal experiential apprehension is not acceptable to Loftus, then there is no such thing as “objective” apprehension, either (a serious personal paradox). In fact, he cannot provide me with “sufficient objective evidence” that he even exists, when I assert certain levels of Skepticism.

As for the objectivity of empiricism, it is well known that scientists sometimes lie, that they too commonly submit bogus papers which get published, that they have personal biases, that they sometimes pursue ideologies. So mere scientific papers can have no credibility; only the experiential knowledge obtained by personally performing the exacting experiments oneself can qualify for the most exacting demand made for “sufficient objective evidence”.

Not that Loftus does require this, except for certain specific areas of knowledge, specifically religious claims. In fact, he has already shown a belief in a zero-energy universe, and a universe popping into existence from nothing, and has used that unsupported belief as a counter argument. So he is capable of using blind belief in ungrounded premises which support his own Atheist bent. Given that, Loftus is prejudicial in his demand for evidence, being lenient for his own worldview but irrationally strict on the Other. That constitutes Special Pleading. And it is done based on the Fallacy of Category Error.

Further, if Loftus does demand experiential evidence of miracles, including ancient miracles, then he accepts personal, subjective experience for himself while rejecting it for others. Special Pleading. Can he deny that all of his knowledge involves personal experience and interpretation of neural inputs to his thought system? Of course not. If knowledge were not subjective, it could be installed into the brain in physical modules. Again, he is Special Pleading for his own Atheism.

Next Loftus takes on Plantinga and his assertions of warrant for belief. The money sentence in Loftus’ critique is this:

”The very fact that believers like Plantinga deny the need for sufficient objective evidence is because they intuitively know their faith does not have it, for if it did, they would be the first ones crowing about it. If nothing else, this should serve as a red light warning that one’s faith is a delusion. “

All Loftus has to offer is his continuous demand for “sufficient objective evidence”. Those words are actually becoming a mantra for Loftus, an excuse for denying everything. Without “sufficient objective evidence”, any proposition is a delusion, by Loftus’ definition. Yet on their own, those words have no meaning. They have no means of measurement, no means of identifying sufficiency, no definition of what would be deemed valid or non-valid (i.e. no specifications for pass/fail). “Sufficient objective evidence” is a requirement without substance. Loftus has built an anti-intellectual force field to protect his own religious preference: Atheism. Behind his anti-intellectual force field, Loftus can deny any information input at all, simply by claiming insufficiency, or non-material (not objective), or even “not evidence” (as in the case of documentation, rather than objects of a material nature).

So he has built a cloistered, shielded parapet from which to assert mere denialism. He has nothing more than that, no evidence of any sort of his own to present to support his own case. He can merely shoot, from behind his shield, meaningless demands for more or different evidence. There is no substance involved.

Concerning natural theology, Loftus says this:

” If there was ever a testing ground for the claims about Jesus the Jews in his day were it. Yet they didn’t believe. They were there and they were believers and yet the overwhelming number of them did not believe. Why should we? “

Ignoring the fact that those Jews who had the actual objective evidence at the time chose to die at the hands of the Romans rather than recant what they knew to be the case, Loftus is making a fallacious point: If someone, or many someones do not believe a thing, it should not be believed. This is absurd, considering that Loftus insists that evidence is the determining factor for knowledge, not the number of believers. Can he presume that if a majority does believe a thing that it then should be believed? I doubt it. His point has no rational merit. Would he allow a lion to ravage him to support what he “knows” to be true?

His following statement demonstrates false knowledge of the bible, leading one to doubt his credentials in that area yet again:

”So let me ask, were the Jews stupid or did God mislead them? Are Christians really willing to say nearly 8 million Jews at the time of Jesus were stupid? Are Christians really willing to say they did not desire to know the truth, that they insincerely preferred to believe a lie, almost all of them, such that Paul had to preach the gospel to Gentiles for converts?

There is no reason for Loftus to use the insult “stupid” except as an emotional exacerbation. Ignoring that, the idea that most Jews rejected Jesus has no bearing on who he was and what he did. In fact, it merely demonstrates the hard-headedness (biblically they were referred to as “stiff necked”) of those who demand personal subjective experience of “objective” evidence. Because Jesus did not represent the common concept Jews had of a conquering warrior messiah, there was a disconnect between Jewish fantasy and actual reality. Does Loftus actually not know this?

The shot at Paul’s preaching to Gentiles for converts is a massive miscomprehension of text. Acts is the place to find that it was Peter, not Paul, who was ordered to expand to include Gentiles. Sheesh. Paul was ordered to stop killing Christians and to become one, well after the inclusion of Gentiles.

”And if God misled them to believe a lie, then he also condemned them to hell. Which is it?”

None of the above. Only denial of Free Will could explain this blatant False Dichotomy.

Loftus changes subjects mid-stream:

”The fact is there is no prophecy in the OT that is to be regarded as a prophecy that specifically points to the birth, life, death or resurrection of Jesus. None. All you need to do is read the so-called prophecies in their original contexts and you’ll see that the NT writers grossly mishandled them. “

This claim is made in a vacuum on the Atheist side. Each of the commonly accepted claims must be defeated specifically, not merely claimed to be false. He makes this claim with no evidence whatsoever, certainly not with “sufficient objective evidence”.

And next he tumbles into his own illogic:

” Natural theology therefore died a long time ago, before it was born, with the Jewish rejection of Jesus as the resurrected Messiah. If there was sufficient evidence to conclude Jesus was the resurrected Messiah then almost all Jews in the first century would have become Christians.”

Here he presents as fact a position which he cannot possibly know. He is projecting his own desirable outcome on a situation of which he has no “sufficient objective evidence” to create this “knowledge” assertion. This statement is merely an absurdity.

And finally he dictates what Christians must do:

” In fact, almost all theists should be Christians since they share the same belief in a creator miracle working God. The problem is that just because someone is a theist does not mean it’s more likely than not that a particular Christian miracle took place. All theism grants you is the possibility of miracles. But I too allow for them. Theists in other religions require sufficient objective evidence before accepting the miracle claims of other theistic religions. The raw uninterpreted historical data must therefore provide the reasonable theist with sufficient evidence that a God did this or that particular miracle before accepting it. So to be consistent without using any double standards, theists within their own religions should require sufficient objective evidence before believing that a theistic God did the miracles within their own religion. They must require this without begging the question or special pleading their own case.”

Loftus Special Pleads the case for rejection yet again: His mantra, sufficient objective evidence, crops up as if a chant in an echo chamber. The character of actual miracles is that they are singularities, and are non-falsifiable, both empirically and logically. Erroneous claims of miracles can be falsified; statues crying blood have been found to be rigged to do so. But the major claims, such as Lourdes, have not been falsified either logically or empirically. And Atheists never take the challenge to do so, because it is obvious that they cannot. So Loftus’ only choice is to deny them using his demand for “sufficient objective evidence” regardless of the inapplicability of that demand to the situation. And yes, that is his only choice: the use of Category Error to Special Plead his case. It’s all he has, he has no positive evidence in support of his Atheism.

Looking back over his text, I see that I must address this:

” 10) God raised Jesus from the dead. Not true. No reasonable person today should believe 2nd 3rd 4th handed testimony coming from a lone part of the ancient world as we find in 4th century manuscripts written by pre-scientific superstitious people who doctored up and forged many of these texts.”

These accusations are demonstrably false. Resorting to vilifying the era and its inhabitants, rather than actually refuting data, is intellectually unconscionable. Especially so when using unsupported and false claims to do it. He has attacked not the information itself, but the sources, and he does that using innuendo intended to discredit by implication, not by factual refutation. This is truly a sorry statement.

” Almost all of our questions go unanswered, the kind of questions we have been able to ask of the rise of Mormonism in the modern world, leading us to reject it. What did the early disciples actually claim to have seen? Did they all tell the same stories? Did any of them recant? All we have is Paul’s first person testimony, and if we’re to believe Acts 26:19, he said his Damascus road conversion was based on nothing more than a vision.”

Because he actually quotes a bible verse and then misrepresents it, we can conclude that Loftus is intellectually dishonest, and completely so. Acts 26:19 is not the account of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus; Acts 9 contains the account of conversion of Paul, a conversion which had the material, physical manifestation of blinding Paul temporarily, with sounds made available to observers which were words to Paul. I take this falseness to be intentional.

From this I am forced to conclude that Loftus, given his presumed considerable education in theology, has chosen to misrepresent it in the pursuit of supporting his deconversion and its products. Further, this article claiming to have presented the reasons for his Atheism has no such reasoning included. His attacks are on weak to false theist arguments, not to actual deductively reasoned arguments for basic theism and the existence of a creating agent. His attacks via questions are false due to prejudicial demands for inapplicable evidence, rendering them logical errors. He has created a mantra of logically incorrect evidentiary demands, Category Errors, which he uses for Special Pleading for Atheism. He apparently purposefully misrepresents biblical accounts.

These characteristics render any work by Loftus to be suspect a priori.