John W. Loftus

That's me, this coming weekend! The EPS meets in conjunction with the ETS where I'll be presenting and defending my <em>Outsider Test for Faith</em> in the midst of these Christian scholars. They meet at Ashand Theological Seminary on March 20-21st...and I'll be speaking Friday at 11:40 AM. Links can be found below:

http://www.etsjets.org/?q=regions/Midwest

http://www.etsjets.org/?q=regions/updates/10

I'd love to meet readers of this forum. As you'd guess, I'm both excited and a bit nervous.

physicalist

Good luck. If you're doing any arguing against faith, I hope you keep the topic on whether or not we should believe in God instead of whether or not God exists. The latter topic leaves theists with the old reliable crutch of "you can't prove there isn't a God".

John W. Loftus

This seems to me to be a difference that makes no difference, but thank you for your thoughts anyway. For if it's unreasonable to believe in God that's all anyone can show despite what "mystery" believers want to point to.

Besides, that's not the topic of my talk anyway.

John W. Loftus

I've been saying for a long time that my target audience is Christians. There are people on both sides of this debate who merely preach to the choir, and they are our heroes because we like being in our choirs. But my goal is to change the world. I may not do this, I know, but that's my goal. And Christians are listening. Thanks for any encouragement and support you can offer me.

Apostate1970

please feel free to fill us in on the subject and outline of your speech after it's over. i'd ask now but i doubt you want to give too much away.

SLD

First off, good luck. I'd love to change the world too. I'd love to see Christianity go the way of paganism. It might be doing that slowly. It seems to be dieing in Europe and maybe a little in the U.S. But history shows us not to count it out. Paganism died not because people woke up to the fact that it was not real, but because it was brutally suppressed by the newly ensconced Catholic Church and their alliance with the secular Roman emperors and others. That's not the route, I'd prefer to take! :devil1:

I noticed that your topic is "Outsider Test for Faith." Not sure exactly what you mean by that. But if you want my thoughts (which may not be worth crapola to you!), I would basically try to break down the whole concept of faith as a valid way to see the world at all. There's some great quotes out there from a variety of sources, "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason," Benjamin Franklin; "Which is more likely... that something happened outside the laws of nature, or that a man might tell a lie?" Thomas Paine. Another point to consider is that faith is pure solipsism - the doctrine that the universe could be (but is not necessarily) simply all an illusion. You have faith in science; christians have faith in God. Everything you know therefore is just based on faith and therefore Christian beliefs are just as good as scientific ones. It's a common fundamentalist argument. But if we are to have a serious discussion about issues, we cannot paint faith with such a broad brush. We must differentiate between what we know by faith and what we can know by the scientific method. Solipsism, in my opinion, and the opinion of some very serious philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, is a useless and nihilistic doctrine that gets us no where. It might be true at a trivial level, but I think it important that we have a reason for believing one way or the other. Science has a way of correcting itself, of verifying its claims so that others can find out about them if they wish to pursue (although not everyone can do so given budgetary and time constraints). The question a solipsist should ask himself is whether there are good reasons to not believe what one basically can determine scientifically. What are the reasons for believing that Jesus was the savior of all mankind and rose from the dead? Are the better reasons for believing that it is at least mostly a myth?

George Smith talks about some of these issues in his two good books about Atheism. But for a quick look, try reading Bertrand Russell's article in the Encylopedia Britannica on his "Theory of Knowledge" (a short version of his book) and even Einstein's introduction to the book.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/su...n/russell1.htm

http://evans-experientialism.freeweb...in_russell.htm

Ayn Rand I believe makes many of the same points to in her epistomology, but I confess to not being completely familiar with her work, only through reading others' comments on it. You may want to find some articles on that.

Of course, I have no idea your background and all this could be familiar to you already! So take my comments for what they are worth, and let us know how it goes. I would love to listen to a good debate, but unfortunately I never find out about them around me until it is too late or just at the wrong time. I'd love even more being able to do what you are doing. Sadly, I guess I must toil on in obscurity on the web!

IAE, tell us the responses you get. And give 'em hell!

SLD

Toto

OTF

Outsider Test I suspect the topic of this thread belongs in GRD or possibly Philosophy, but I will wait for John Loftus to enlarge on the OP.

fatpie42

I think the reason for that is that the people really considering the big questions surrounding atheism tend to be coming from a religious background. As such they have a lot of issues still to unravel such as why they used to believe, how they came to be taught so many untruths, how they should treat the values which for so long were based around a theistic framework and what they are going to say to the religious people in their family to avoid being disowned.

That said, I agree that it's important not to preach to the choir, but I'd also note that you can sometimes do both at the same time. Julia Sweeney found that her stand-up routine "Letting Go of God" actually worked better with audiences with religious beliefs than non-religious audiences. When she is referring to her deconversion she makes a lot of references to her experiences of growing up as a Catholic and I think some of that resonated better with the religious audiences (also a lot of the criticisms of religion probably came as more of a surprise to religious audiences too).

Having thought a bit more on this, I'd say that the best way to engage any audience is to put a bit of a personal slant on it. However, that's more of a tip on public speaking than on which debates to engage in.

John W. Loftus

I'm probably going to post my paper after I read it.

I want to also say something to skeptics here, if I could hopefully be understood and not misunderstood. I know each side has it's heroes. We like the scholars who say what we have come to accept, on both sides. This may not go over too well but, my goal is not to be a skeptical hero. My goal is to be heard by Christian scholars, and I am. My goal is to change their minds.

Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris are skeptical heroes, as are some other freethinking authors (did someone mention George Smith?). We owe them a debt of gratitude, no doubt, all of them. But it's time for some real intellectual muscle in this debate, and I am it.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...e-atheist.html

Dr. Keith Parsons told me that I should be proud of my accomplisment. Well I am. But I'm an unknown author for the most part. So when I referred earlier to your support I'm asking for you to get my book, review it on your blogs and forums, and tell others in your freethought groups about it. I want to force those Christians who are beating the door down to answer the "New Atheists" to try and answer me. They will not have an easy go of it.

Dinesh D'Souza was planning on writing an early review of my book and emailed me back saying that it "contained a lot of new thoughtful information I hadn't considered before." His review was never written. Silence seems appropriate unless Christians are compelled by book sales to speak about it.

I remember one skeptic scoffing at the suggestion that I wrote a much better critique of Christianity than Harris. Now she and her husband are on my side. In my opinion it's simply too bad that the best known books that critique the Christian faith are lame by comparison.

Call me arrogant, or help the (not my) cause. I hope you will help the (not my) cause.

fatpie42

Is there an existing discussion on the "Outsider Test"? I have to say this doesn't sound terribly new and groundbreaking at all. Perfectly sensible, yes. Original, no.

I have seen evangelicals dismiss the idea that they would be Muslims just because they were brought up in an Islamic country. They will note the converts within those countries and suggest that there must be something on a faith level which is superior in Christianity to cause these people to convert in spite of the risks to themselves. They will also note that Jesus' also judged faith in terms of one's response to the gospel, so that is why it is necessary to go to countries like these and enable people to become Christians so that more can hear the message and be saved.

That they wouldn't be Christians if they hadn't heard the Christian message would seem to be a rather weak argument from a evangelical perspective. Yet you have shown it to be rather convincing to a number of people, so I'd be interested in knowing what I am missing here.

The lack of historical or philosophical rigour in arguments for Christianity as well as the arbitrariness of choosing Christianity over any other faith has never seemed to hold much sway with evangelicals in the past. What has changed?