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.

John Loftus Explains Why He Is An Atheist, Part 1:

John Loftus writes "Why I Am An Atheist", and we will examine his enumerated reasons.

” 1) If there is no God then life has no meaning. Wrong. No one should ever reject the evidence for a conclusion simply because they dislike the conclusion. If there is no God then we are our own meaning makers. Period. Only after you realize God doesn’t exist will you see this.”

Loftus has charged a logical error against the deduction. What has he charged? Let’s look at the statement:

”No one should ever reject the evidence for a conclusion simply because they dislike the conclusion.”

So if I don’t like the conclusion that “life has no meaning”, then I must not reject the premise that “there is no God”?

First reaction is, why not? Sartre did. But let’s move on.

If the actual universals are used (“meaning = universal, common meaning), then we can ask, how does that change the statement?

“If there is no God then life has no meaning”

Becomes

”If there is no God then life has no specific, commonly understood, objective meaning”

And this tends to agree with Loftus’ position. Most Atheists would agree that there is no specific, commonly understood, objective meaning to their existence, and that, like Loftus claims, all meaning is subjectively determined.

But let’s examine his premise. Loftus’ point seems to be that what appears to be a premise in the original statement is the actual conclusion: “there is no God”. The evidence is not to be rejected. Any conclusion should support the premise. But how is that premise supported? It is not enough to merely assert a premise as Truth; there needs to be a supporting premise chain which delineates the undeniable Truth of the conclusion:

”IF [X1 through (Xn-1)], THEN [Xn]

”IF [Xn], THEN [there is no God.]”

This would represent a valid argument, IFF X1 through Xn can be shown incontrovertibly and incorrigibly inarguably valid, correct and true.

Only then can the following argument be made:

”IF there is no God, THEN all meaning is subjective and relative.”

If the conclusion follows the premise(s), then the conclusion is accepted, unless the argument fails coherence tests. But the contrary can also be valid, as when contrary premises are used:

”If there is God”, THEN all meaning is STILL subjective and relative.”

Common meaning which is found is still found individually, even by theists, who study and interpret and meditate on prior theist writings. And any theist assertion of contact with deity cannot be assumed to be a universal, it is a specific, subjective experience.

An argument which can be proven by contradictory premises has no meaning, logically. The conclusion shows true, despite any involvement of the existence of a deity. It is not a falsifiable proposal.

So Loftus is right, although his attachment to one premise over the other is without any merit so far. What he has done is merely to reject a theist’s illogical assertion. He has not given a reason to reject the existence of a deity.

Argument 2

” 2) If there is no God then everything is permitted. Wrong again. The ones doing the permitting are people in their respective societies. Even if Thomas Hobbes is correct that we are at war with everyone else, we must still adopt some kind of reasonable social contract whereby we join together for the common good. If not, a society will collapse into chaos. Since no one desires chaos there are reasonable limits to what any society will permit. By contrast, if God exists there are no limits to what can be permitted when people believe something to be divinely authorized.”

The first argument here seems to be that Loftus thinks that there must be some objective, preordained limits to the behaviors of humans. His assertion is without actual evidence, but is rather a “must” statement which indicates either a moral imperative or a natural law which demands satisfaction. He provides no case for either. Further, he presumes that the limits he imagines are necessary to prevent chaos, but he gives no justification in the form of hard evidence for that. In fact, there are “Lord of the Flies” types of justifications for the original statement: objective rules cannot exist without an objective source. Subjective rules can include or exclude anything. Denial of an objective source entails the denial of an objective rule set. Without that, any individual is ruled only by what he thinks he can get away with. This is supported by Atheists from Kinsey to Dahmer to Dawkins (who could not say that Hitler was wrong).

The second argument is this:

”By contrast, if God exists there are no limits to what can be permitted when people believe something to be divinely authorized”

This is true only for certain religions and cults, not for all religions. Loftus seems to want to assert a Fallacy of Overgeneralization in order to perform a Fallacy of Guilt By Association. If not that, then he has performed a perversion of the theology of Judeo-Christianity. It is accepted that there are, in fact, perversions of Judeo-Christianity extant; that does not prove the universal claim Loftus makes here.

Loftus has again not proven that there is no deity, nor given any reason to think that.

”3) Science is no substitute for religion. Bogus. If there is one mark of the deluded mind (defined as "believing against the overwhelming evidence") it’s that somewhere along the line he or she must be ignorant of, or denigrate, or deny science. Religion has given us nothing in comparison to science. Faith-based reasoning processes are notoriously unreliable. They do not help us get at the truth. What do they offer as a substitute for evidence based reasoning processes? “

Here Loftus reveals his certain ignorance of science as a philosophical derivative of logic, and he attacks with phony “evidence” that there is no knowledge which is not scientific or evidence-based. He claims that the opposition is ignorant of science or denies it (a common scientismist failure), while giving no evidence (scientific or otherwise) to support his prejudice. In fact, if he were as educated as some would have us believe, then he would be familiar with the falsification limitation to material experimentation, not non-material, which Popper illuminated; he would be familiar with the failure of induction to provide certainty, and the necessity of empiricism to engage in deduction, which is a mental process not a bag of scientific “factoids”.

Loftus even suggests that there should be an information source within religion which provides competition to empiricism, but there is not. Of course not. Were Loftus truly educated in the theology as is suggested, he would know that religion is oriented toward the meta-narrative of cause and purpose for the material universe and its inhabitants, not the details of the universe’s behavior. The meta-narrative is suggestive of purpose, while the science is incapable of determining such. Loftus seems to think that science has capabilities for determining things outside of material behaviors; it certainly does not.

Loftus claims, ”Faith-based reasoning processes are notoriously unreliable.” Really? Which ones? The deductive ones? Why? Where is your vaunted cache of evidence to support that claim? And as for your claim of “notoriously” unreliable, how is that measured, physically? And is it universally applicable to ALL theist deductions? Has he logically disproved EVERY theist process and claim? Prove that, please. We need scientific evidence here.

”They do not help us get at the truth.” Undoubtedly “truth” for Loftus is a bag full of empirical factoids, as yet unfalsified, yet falsifiable. Actual truth does not exist for science, only probabilities of non-falsification. Loftus shows no sign of knowing that. Truth is determined by disciplined deductive logical examination of propositions. Factoids regarding material things are determined by empirical experimental investigation.

Religion is relegated here to “faith”, which Loftus probably equates to having no intellectual input. That would be a product of his personal bias, not of knowledge of how theist philosophies actually function. If Loftus is educated in those areas, it does not show. Nor does he avoid logically useless disparagement.

” 4) God is the best explanation of the whole shebang. Spurious. Believers have always said this, even though science has made great strides in answering this question. God of the gaps arguments like this one have failed so many times in the past it’s quite surprising to see Randal still using it. So many questions abound. The scientific hypothesis merely starts with an equilibrium of positive and negative energy along with the laws of physics. Grant this and there is a 60% chance something should exist. Given the fact of evolution there is no need for a God, and there’s no evidence he is involved in this process at all. The main thing scientists have not yet explained is the origin of life. If your theology hangs on that gap then you are betting against everything science has solved so far. And once you allow god explanations into your equations then most any god will do, even an evil one.”

First accusation: Spurious/God of the Gaps. That argument has no basis, considering that science is limited to material-only parts of the “shebang”. The meta-narrative of the universe is and always will be untouched by material considerations, and the limited knowledge generation of science.

Next accusation: “ Something exists. So either something—anything—has always existed, or something—anything—popped into existence out of nothing. Those are the choices. The best explanation for our existence is the simplest one.”

That is false; as Einstein proved, “everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. He showed that Bohr’s theory was too simple when he proved that Brownian Motion demonstrated the existence of atoms moving. Ockham’s Razor is not a universal law of physics or of anything else.

” The theistic hypothesis is that a three-in-one God exists who never had a beginning or a prior moment to choose his own nature, who never learned any new propositions, who cannot think because thinking requires weighing alternatives, who cannot even laugh because nothing takes him by surprise, who created this world with its natural disasters, who doesn’t even benevolently act in the midst of our sufferings. This is no explanation at all.”

This is no disproof at all. The basic theist premise is that ”there is a cause for the existence of an expanding universe, an existence which is an agent with the capacity to implement that subsequent existence”. What Loftus has done here is to inveigh upon a specific ecclesiastical iteration of deity his own concepts of how that deity must exist or behave. As with his other arguments, he offers no material, empirical evidence for the argument, because there is none to be given: the argument refers to a non-physical existence which Lotus imbues with his own imaginative characteristics which he deems impossible, apparently thereby proving the impossibility of the existence. For example, attacking the creating entity for allowing natural disasters and not being benevolent enough for Loftus has no bearing on whether an agent was involved in the creation of the universe.

” The scientific hypothesis merely starts with an equilibrium of positive and negative energy along with the laws of physics. Grant this and there is a 60% chance something should exist.”

Presented without evidence or reference, there is no way to determine where he got this. As far as I know, there actually is no such thing as negative energy. It is pure speculation that gravity serves as negative energy, balancing the universal energy to zero; it is purely hypothetical, especially considering that no one actually has a valid theory of gravitation, and the use of negative energy is proposed due to the inability of science to answer questions using the mass/energy which they actually have.

Further, the pre-existence of a quantum field is necessary for the origination of the first particle/anti-particle. The idea of a Free Lunch universe is predicated upon empirical ignorance of the initial conditions in terms of discoverable knowledge.

”Given the fact of evolution there is no need for a God, and there’s no evidence he is involved in this process at all.”

This is propaganda; it ignores the issue of first life jumping out of mere minerals; it ignores the creation of reasoning by changing the position of electrons just prior to a thought; it ignores the complete determinism of material existence, except for the unfortunate existence of agency in certain living things. There is no empirical evidence or rational deduction which favors a purely material existence.

” 5) If there is no God then we don’t know anything. False. If so, chimps don’t know anything either. They don’t know how to get food, or mate or even where to live. Without knowing anything they should’ve died off a long time ago. And yet here they are. They don’t need a god to know these things. Why do we need a god for knowledge? We learn through a process of trial and error. Since we’ve survived as a human species, we have acquired reliable knowledge about our world. Period. “

I suspect that the way the “theist” arguments are presented by Loftus is prejudicial toward his purpose, and not representative of the actual argument which was made. The stated deduction doesn’t represent any theist argument I’ve ever heard, yet I suppose that it might have been made. So let’s look at the response which Loftus makes.

” False. If so, chimps don’t know anything either.”
This attempt at Reductio Ad Absurdum is itself absurd. He has tried to take the conclusion out of its context into an exaggeration, but the result doesn’t disprove the argument. It is not a true Reductio, because it does not invert the logic. A true Reductio would entail something like this: [Even] If there is no God, Then we know things. This statement actually does refute the argument (which deserves it), but it has no bearing on the truth of the statement, There is no God. So far, Loftus has not proved this, or even addressed it as an Atheist issue.

The arguments are not properly parsed from the start, probably a failure of the theist involved. The attempt seems to be to assume consequences for the absence of a deity, and then argue that the consequences prove the premise to be false. It’s a sort of twist on “affirming the consequent” problem. The actual argument would be this: ”IFF we have knowledge (can think) THEN there is a God.”

Or this:

IF we are deterministic electrolytic minerals, THEN knowledge is not possible without God.

The point of the argument is that we actually do have knowledge; what chimps know is also evidence in favor of the argument.

” They don’t need a god to know these things. Why do we need a god for knowledge? We learn through a process of trial and error. Since we’ve survived as a human species, we have acquired reliable knowledge about our world. Period. “

This has to be the crowning achievement of focused ignorance. What Loftus argues is this: Why do we need a source for X? We have X. That’s all we need: X. Since the argument he is countering is not even addressed, this statement, besides being absurd, fails to address the argument, regardless of the phony verbal punctuation at the end. Loftus apparently thinks and wants us think, too, that just the existence of knowledge is enough to explain the reason it exists. Again, this is absurd.

So far in his reasons to be an Atheist, Loftus merely takes half-baked theist claims and gives his unconsidered reasons for rejecting them. At no point does he give any reason for Atheism, except that these particular arguments don't satisfy him.

This is all for today. Maybe tomorrow I will address the second five arguments which Loftus makes as reasons for his Atheism. Maybe.