Atheists damn The Truth Behind the New Atheism!

OK, so we did the outliers -- or should we call them, the out-truthers, those few and proud atheists who have read The Truth Behind the New Atheism and have been willing to admit that yes, it is a pretty decent read.

But being something of an out-truther myself, I have to report, and I know this will shock you, that a majority of on-line reviews from writers who really dislike Christianity have given the book a decided "thumbs down."

And some of those skeptics don't like me, either.  I have been wished into the belly of a long, water-dwelling South American serpent.  I have been wished to hell.  Often enough, along with my fellow "apologists," (not a word that much resonates with me -- I prefer titles like "cross-country skiier," "grower of succulent grapes," "John and James' Dad," even "history buff," if you will -- and in my heart of hearts, "lover of truth") -- I often hear myself called a "liar." 

Yes, it is tedious.  When someone starts calling you that (unless you really happen to be a liar, then one must make do), it's probably time to pull up tent stakes and find new grazing ground.  That's what I did a few weeks ago when John Loftus, after years of relative civility, dropped the "l" word on me.  His running dogs over at Deconstructing Christianity strain at a tattered leash, and when the big L drops the little l, it has much the same effect as Montgomery Burns saying "Loose the hounds!"  You know they won't listen to reason anymore, if they ever did. 

"Liar" is, for many New Atheists, a defense against genuine thinking, as is most ad hominem.  If you demean a person, you don't need to really consider her arguments.  A word can be a lazy man's border security system. 

A couple days ago, I discovered a month-and-a-half old thread on Amazon entitled, "David Marshall and Lying for Jesus."  The thread had more than 200 posts. 

There are I think several such threads on Amazon.  Most were started by a retired lawyer from San Diego, who writes under a variety of aliases, to avoid Amazon censors. But this thread was started by someone calling himself "Seeker," who I think is probably not that particular lawyer, or one of his many "sock puppets."  (Though I am beginning to waver in this conviction.) 

Still, since I also have Seeker on "ignore," I had overlooked the thread. 

But the kinds of arguments in this thread seem to have attained a kind of viral status on a microcosmic level.  I am sometimes confronted with their like, often attributed to a fellow calling himself Arizona Atheist, who is also fond of trying to debunk The Truth Behind the New Atheism.  There is a thought out there that AA has succeeded in some way.  It is not a thought I find it easy to lend credit to, because when I read AA's arguments, I seldom find even an accurate summary of my arguments, let alone anything resembling good reasons for rejecting them.

But let's peer for a few minutes at "Seeker's" attempt to debunk -- well, not The Truth Behind the New Atheism itself, but the moral character of its author.  Mind you, the book has been out almost six years now, and the following represents the diligent efforts of a number of hard-core skeptics, at least one of whom used to be a prosecutor.  One would think they'd be able to hang me on SOME charge, by now: 

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As a Christian, I would be concerned if a Christian apologist's book about "The Truth" contained even a single falsehood; but David Marshall's The Truth Behind the New Atheism is just loaded with obvious falsehoods and other deceptions. Here are 30+ examples.

Wow, what a standard!  We should be worried if a Christian book contains even one mistake?  Every book as detailed as The Truth Behind the New Atheism is bound to contain a few errors, which the mendacious may call "falsehoods."  (Or in Seeker's case, "unrepentant, serial lies.") 

I detail 160 exagerrations and errors in Dawkins' book, but never once call him a "liar."  I'm flattered that Seeker holds me to so much higher a standard than the "world's top thinker," that a single "falsehood" would be enough to discredit my book!  But I don't really claim my writings to be infallible. I'm not St. Peter, or even a minor French pope. 

1. Marshall falsely accuses Dawkins of being inconsistent in claiming that the search for irreducible complexity (IC) is both scientific and unscientific. (63)

Marshall concocted this false accusation by taking Dawkins' statements out of context. Dawkins' actual argument is that IC is scientifically: (i) relevant in trying to *falsify evolution;* but (ii) irrelevant in trying to *prove ID.* Since Dawkins' two statements relate to two different functions (disproof vs. proof) and two different theories (evo vs. ID), it's obvious that they are no more inconsistent than reporting that the Yankees won their first game and lost their second game. Those two baseball scores are not logically inconsistent, because they refer to two different contexts. Dawkins' two statements are not logically inconsistent either, for exactly the same reason.

Amazingly, when Marshall was challenged on this point in another forum, he stubbornly defended his false accusation by concocting yet another falsehood, claiming that Dawkins had basically said that it's OK for evos to point to biological structures that disconfirm evolution, but not for creationists to do the same. Marshall never provided a citation for this remarkable claim, perhaps because he knows it's just as false as his original accusation was.

Incidents like that make Marshall look like an unrepentant, serial liar.

Wow!  I'm a "serial liar" already for misreading Dawkins on this clear distinction he makes between an argument against evolution and for ID!

But wait a minute.  Read pages 124-5 of Dawkins' book, and no such distinction is offered.  In both cases he is talking about "creationists" and "irreducible complexity."  Dawkins admits the "creationists" are right in saying IC would "wreck Darwin's theory," he quotes Darwin as admitting that.  He then adds a new subhead ("The Worship of Gaps"), and says "Searching for particular examples of IC is a fundamentally unscientific way to proceed."  What does "proceed" mean?  Dawkins says nothing about "proving Intelligent Design" on that page.  The generic verb "proceed" obviously encompasses what Dawkins had just been talking about -- the search for examples of irreducibly complex organs. 

Now it's true that on these several pages Dawkins does talk about both rebutting evolution and supporting "creationism," which he conflates with proving "God."  But he emphatically does not distinguish between the two, let alone so clearly that were I to overlook that distinction, that would make me a "serial liar." 


The truth is, Dawkins isn't thinking very clearly, or clearly making the distinctions Seeker wishes he had made.  It is hardly the fault of his critics, if we turn up our noses at such rhetorical mush. 

After the subhead on page 125, Dawkins talks about "God of the Gaps."  But that phrase is not a clear marker for ID, either.  The Intelligent Design concept of IC isn't about "God," to begin with -- it's an argument to an intelligent designer, not to "God," as they explain over and over again.  They also explain, again and again, that it is not the gaps in science that they think prove design, it is the regularities.  Also, ID isn't "creationism."  And in general, Dawkins and Darwin have already conceeded that searching for examples of IC is in fact a scientific way "to proceed."  It may not prove God, but then proponents of ID (not creationists) seldom claim that it does. 

So the one who is playing games here is Richard Dawkins, and anyone who pretends he is saying something coherent on page 125 of The God Delusion.  It's not the fault of his critics if Richard Dawkins can't criticize his scientific opponents coherently.  And it certainly doesn't make us "liars," let alone "unrepentent" or "serial" liars.

One could reverse charges here, and call Seeker a "serial liar" for falsely claiming that Dawkins clearly makes the distinction he claims he does.  The truth is, Dawkins wants to have his cake and eat it, and Seeker (being wounded by many past lost arguments) really doesn't care if his accusation bares any resemblance to reality here, or not. 

2. Responding to Dawkins' comments about blind faith, Marshall implies that Dawkins doesn't cite any actual Christians (16); but in reality Dawkins cites several prominent Christians, including McGrath, Swinburne, Unwinn, and Martin Luther. ("The God Delusion," 54, 65, 105, and 190) Marshall's claim is simply false.

Seeker just doesn't understand my argument, here.  (I take that back.  When a hostile writer says "So and So implies," but doesn't quote exact wording in context, it's likely that they know they are not telling the full truth.) 

First of all, I admit to engaging in some hyperbole, here:

If opinions need to be supported by evidence, let's begin with this one.  How does Harris know Christians don't support their beliefs with evidence?  Dennett cites Pascal, Dawkins cites Harris, and everyone takes this alleged Christian doctrine for granted, but no one cites any Christians!

Even on the face of this, it should be obvious I am exagerrating, and probably am not asking the reader to take this quite literally.  Pascal is, after all, a Christian, and I say Dennett cites him.  (I don't remember now if this was just an oversight, or I expected the reader to cut me some slack rhetorically -- one does not wish to think one is writing for woodenly literalistic nincompoops.  In another part of the book, I introduce Nicholas Wolterstorff's fine discussion of the different levels at which one interprets a text.) 

But even at this literal level, Seeker grossly misunderstands my claim.  Yes, Dawkins cites McGrath -- but not to prove that Christians don't support their beliefs with evidence.  In fact, McGrath points out emphatically and repeatedly (see # 4 below) that we do support our claims with evidence!  And as I also point out, Dawkins grossly misreads Swinburne on this issue. Swinburne is famous for emphasizing the evidence for Christianity, as anyone even faintly familiar with his work ought to know. 

I haven't read Unwin, and don't trust Dawkins' account of him.  But even by that account, Unwin argues that there is a lot of evidence for God.

Martin Luther can be quoted saying anything given the right day and brand of beer.  McGrath and Swinburne are genuine authorities on the subject, but Dawkins shuts his ears to their deep knowledge of the issue:    

3. Marshall excoriates Dawkins for defining "faith" as meaning "in the teeth of evidence and reason." "I've done the research," Marshall proclaims, and "For 2000 years Christians have defined faith as inseparable from reason and evidence." (21-22)

Despite Marshall's boasting about his "research," he cites both the wrong author and the wrong book at one point. Hilarious. Even worse, he blatantly misrepresents Dawkins' statement, treating it as if it referred specifically to Christianity, when in reality the quote refers only to unspecified religious memes.

Mangling a footnote makes Marshall look like a pompous fool. Misrepresenting Dawkins' statement and then using that same misrepresentation to launch a blistering attack on Dawkins makes Marshall look dishonest.

Pompous, maybe, but correct.  I have done the research, and Dawkins has not, which is why every scholar who knows the first thing about how the Christian tradition views faith and reason agrees with me, not Dawkins. 

Dawkins is in fact referring to Christianity, as he makes clear numerous times throughout the book.  Early on, he plainly states that while he is talking about theism in general, Christianity is the religion he knows best, and shall be his primary target: 

Unless otherwise stated, I shall have Christianity mostly in mind, but only because it is the version with which I happen to be most familiar. (GD, 37)

Also, most of Dawkins' targets on blind faith are in fact Christians.  Seeker himself admits this, by noting that Dawkins (falsely, I would add) accuses Pascal, Unwin, Luther and Swinburne of justifying blind faith.  So Seeker is dead wrong and contradicting himself on this one, too.  I'm not only not "lying," nothing is more obvious in The God Delusion than that Dawkins' accusations about "blind faith" are meant to apply first and foremost to Christianity. 

Seeker's attack on my credibility is the kind of puerile criticism one comes to expect from these folks.  In one of my footnotes, I cite Dawkins for a book by Dennett, or the other way around, I forget which.  That's called a "typo," and no more discredits a serious argument than a misplaced comma -- such are the straws that tendentious fools grasp at.

4. Marshall blasts Dawkins again, because "Dawkins ... said nothing at all in response to McGrath's argument about faith." (23)

In reality, Dawkins has a very pointed response to McGrath's argument. (TGD, 54-55) Marshall's claim is an outright falsehood.

This is nonsense squared.  Dawkins does not, in fact, breath a word on those two pages about McGrath's informed and detailed rebuttal of his notion that by "faith," Christians mean something that ignores or is contrary to the evidence.  Instead, Dawkins makes the absurd claim:

It seems to be the only point in rebuttal that he has to offer: the undeniable but ignominiously weak point that you cannot disprove the existence of God.

But that emphatically is not the "only point in rebuttal" that McGrath offers.  He also offers an historical rebuttal of Dawkins' false notion of Christian faith.  (And if McGrath, too, was mistaken in thinking Dawkins was attacking Christianity on these grounds, as Seeker suggests {#3}, why didn't Dawkins point that out?) 

Here are a couple paragraphs from the section "Faith as Blind Trust?" in McGrath's book.  Can someone please show me where Dawkins rebuts or even takes notice of these paragraphs?

The simple fact is that Dawkins offers no defense of this definition (of faith), which bears little relation to any religious (or any other) sense of the word.  No evidence is offered that it is representative of religious opinion.  No authority is cited in its support.  I don't accept this idea of faith, and I have yet to meet a theologian who takes it seriously.  It cannot be defended from any official declaration of faith from any Christian denomination.  It is Dawkins' own definition, constructed with his own agenda in mind, being represented as it were characteristic of those he wishes to criticize. (85)

That is a devastating critique.  Dawkins does not mention it, or breath a word in response. 

Does McGrath indicate that he believes there is positive evidence for God?  Of course he does, in many ways, for people who can read.  He's not trying to be thorough, it's a short book.  But consider the following paragraph:

It is interesting to turn from this rather sloppy piece of rhetoric to a more careful argument by Richard Swinburne, Oxford University's Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, who uses probability theory to access the reliability of a belief in God -- or more specifically, the Christian belief that Jesus Christ is God incarnate.  I do not expect Dawkins to agree with Swinburne's theistic conclusion, or his calculation of the highly probable existence of God.  But I do expect him to show the same careful attention to detail in assessing the relative probabilities of belief and unbelief, instead of his usual populist swashbuckling rhetorical exaggerations.  After all, Dawkins, not Swinburne, is meant to be the scientist. (90-1)

Does that sound to you as if Dawkins can cite McGrath as a reference to prove that what Christians mean by faith is "believing in the teeth of the evidence (#2)?"  Does it sound as if Dawkins has shown that McGrath is wrong in what he thinks about Christian theology?  That he has even tried to answer McGrath's arguments on this point? 

Seeker, clearly, does not have the slightest clue of what is going on, here. 5. Marshall says that the respected skeptic Michael Shermer "recognized" that some of the most common justifications that Christians give for believing in God are "essentially rational." (24)

In reality, Shermer gave a lengthy, detailed explanation for why he does *not* recognize those justifications as rational. Marshall just blatantly twisted Shermer's opinion into pretty much the exact opposite of what he actually said.

Again, Seeker is simply clueless. 

I cite Shermer's study against the New Atheist position.  I don't claim that Shermer himself agrees with the implications of that study that I draw out.  In fact, the very fact that he does not admit those implications, make my argument all the more powerful. 

Shermer asks people why they believe in God.  Half or more give rational answers -- they have positive reasons for believing in God.  Shermer does, in fact, admit that those reasons are essentially rational, calling them "intellectually-based." (Why Darwin Matters, 37)  What he does not clearly admit, is that the intellectual reasons people give for believing are the "real reasons" that they believe:

Notice that the intellectually based reasons offered for belief in God . . . which occupied first and second place when people were describing their own beliefs dropped to sixth and third place, respectively, when they were describing the beliefs of others . . . Sulloway and I believe that these results are evidence of an intellectual attribution bias, in which people consider their own beliefs as being rationally motivated, whereas they see the beliefs of others as being emotionally driven. 

Shermer and Sulloway seem to be drawing an irrational conclusion from valid and useful data, here.  What people say about themselves is valid evidence for what they believe, and why they believe it.  I cite Shermer for that, and for his admission that the leading reasons given for believing are essentially rational, or "intellectually-based," as he puts it.

But I do not cite Shermer for apparently positing, unjustifiably, that what people guess about other peoples' motives should be taken more seriously than what they report about their own motives.  (Citing Shermer, John Loftus does this overtly in his Outsider Test for Faith book, a book Shermer reviews with strong approval. And the term "bias" itself seems also to imply that people's guesses about the motives of others is the essential data, and their reports about their own motives are less reliable, a very odd assumption.) 

What people say about their own motives is evidence.  What people say about motives of others is mere speculation.  Even if Shermer, Sulloway, Loftus and Seeker all fail to recognize that distinction, I consider it absolutely in the right to insist upon it. 

6. Marshall says Dawkins's definition of faith, "Believing what you know isn't true," is "nonsensical." (24)

That's not Dawkins' definition; it's Mark Twain's. Marshall's attack on Dawkins is based on a falsehood.

Dawkins' definitions, which I have quoted several times by this point, are close enough to Twain's for my point, which Seeker is trying to fog up, here.  When asked, Christians do not, in fact, agree with the definition of faith EITHER Twain OR Dawkins, or a thousand lesser skeptics, attempt to impose on Christian theology, in Dawkins' famous words, "believing not only in the absense of evidence, but in the teeth of the evidence," which means almost exactly the same as Twain's version.

If, in the heat of the argument, I happened to say "Dawkins" instead of "Twain" here, as might happen, me not being the pope and all, the difference is utterly trivial, and it is tendentious and ridiculous to suppose that makes my point wrong, still less me a "liar."   (And I give several other forms of Dawkins' definition -- he is nothing if not flexible in getting the point across, and would probably himself find Seeker's fixation on the gnat's toenail worth of difference between his wording and that of Twain, of no importance.) 

7. Implying that scientific evidence is no more reliable than the evidence for religious faith, since both are contained in secondhand reports, Marshall says, "In fact, scientific evidence *is* based in faith - exactly the same sort of faith as informed Christians have in God." (29) (Emphasis in original.)

Granted, both religion and science use hearsay reports, but the key aspects of scientific reports generally refer to observable events that can be and frequently are independently replicated, while the key aspects of religious reports generally do not. Only a fool or a liar would argue that the two types of evidence are "exactly the same" as Marshall does.

I didn't say the two types of EVIDENCE are "exactly the same."  I said the two types of FAITH.  And I immediately explain what I mean:

Science is always based on at least three kinds of reasonable but fallible faith: trust in the mind, trust in the senses, and trust in other people.  None of these can be proven -- to use mind to prove mind is to argue ina circle.  And the senses might be wrong.  And there is no scientific test to prove our colleagues honest, reliable and competent -- only social tests.  Yet without reliance on all three, good science can't be done.  Maybe it could in the age of Galileo, Boyle, and Hooke, when scientists could make their own instruments, but nowadays most scientific work is simply too complex.  And even then, as we have seen, science was as much a product of coffeehouses as home laboratories.

Where do I say, or "imply" that scientific evidence is "no more reliable" than evidence for religious faith? 

That depends on the details.  Some scientific evidence is actually LESS reliable than some evidence for religious faith.  For example, a meteorologist is a scientist who studies weather.  He may say, "There is a 50% chance of snow tomorrow." So he is saying there is some evidence that it will snow, but not very certain evidence.  On the other hand, New Testament skeptics might admit that it is almost certain that Jesus said a certain saying, or that he was crucified as Christians believe.

But I make no foolish sweeping generalizations comparing the two.  All you can tell, from what I wrote, is that both science and religion appeal to the same sources of knowledge.  (Not that they appeal in the same way, since science is an epistemology, while religion involves a basic understanding of the world that makes use of a variety of epistemologies.) 

As far as I know, no scientist who has read this paragraph has objected to it, yet. 

The genuine fool is the person who thinks he can rebut the argument of an entire chapter, by misreading a single phrase, and attacking that, out of context. 

8. Marshall quotes Harris' statement that "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." (42)

Marshall makes Harris' statement seem more objectionable by taking it out of context in two different ways.

First, Harris explicitly linked his statement to *wartime* situations, like the hunt for dangerous believers like Osama bin Laden, the targeting of whom would undoubtedly be quite acceptable to many Christians. Marshall's failure to disclose that context seems deliberately deceptive.

Second, in a book implicitly comparing atheism and Christianity, it is simply dishonest to exaggerate the offensiveness of atheists' claims while simply ignoring similar Christian claims, so Marshall's failure to disclose Jesus' arguably even more offensive comment in Luke 19:27 also seems dishonest.

Harris does talk about the Taliban and other extreme Muslims later in the paragraph: "We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas." (The End of Faith, 52)   But Islam is brought in to illustrate a general point, here, not to confine that point.  It is true that Harris probably was not advocating Gestapo tactics against his ideological foes within democratic society. 

I go relatively easy on Harris, here. I simply add the gentle remark, "A little job discrimination would seem mild by comparison."  I have even warned Christians against taking Harris out of context here, as some do.  But it was an extraordinary careless bit of rhetoric, which many people have found startling, especially in light of Dawkins' comparison of religious education to child abuse.  Harris certainly had the light ribbing I gave him coming. 

9-10. Marshall says, "Karl Marx convinced a third of the world ... that money was the real problem"; and, "Communism then proved conclusively that people can hate one another in a cashless society." (55)

When challenged, Marshall angrily refused to document either claim, perhaps because he knows they're both outright falsehoods.

Angrily?  I don't remember the exchange -- or as little to do with Seeker as possible.  But if I refused to answer his question, it is more likely because I was aghast at the historical ignorance of the man.

I'm still at a loss to guess what is supposed to be untrue about either statement.  Was the Gulag a money-based economy?  Has Seeker heard of the Gulag?  Even China, when I first moved there, was largely run on rations. 

11. Marshall implies that scientific evidence confirms that life appeared in roughly the pattern reported in Genesis. (61)

But Genesis 2 indicates that humans were the first animal life form on Earth. I don't think scientific evidence confirms that!

"Implies," again!  Don't I ever say anything?  Can't Seeker find any errors in my actual words, that he has to keep on extracting "implications" that only he can see?  (And thus never gives the actual quotes?) 

And Seeker apparently thinks the normal way to read a book is to begin with chapter two, then read chapter one!  How is one supposed to answer such silliness? 

12. Marshall cites a Hubert Yockey e-mail about an origin-of-life issue and then says, "Therefore (Yockey doesn't suffer fools gladly), Dawkins and his ilk were the real religious fanatics." (65)

But Yockey's e-mail never even mentions Dawkins. Marshall's implication that Yockey is specifically criticizing Dawkins is highly misleading, if not downright false.

I also cite Yockey's Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life a couple pages later, where Yockey does single out Dawkins for making the error I am describing on page 65.  Thus, "Dawkins and his ilk" is again correct.   

13-14. Marshall says that Dawkins' responses to the creationist challenges, "What is the use of half an eye?" and "What is the use of half a wing?," don't answer the real question about missing half of the parts. (74)

Marshall's twin accusations are both false. Dawkins does answer the "half of the parts" question for both eyes and wings. Part of Dawkins' response directs readers to his book "Climbing Mount Improbable," where his discussion of eyes and wings covers over 100 pages and includes stages in both cases having far, far less than "half of the parts." So the problem here isn't that Dawkins' explanation is missing half of the parts, but rather that Marshall dishonestly leaves out half of Dawkins' explanation.

In this case, both Dawkins and I are guilty of some lack of clarity, though Dawkins much more so.  Dawkins does in fact conflate missing half of a structure with half of its parts, in the case of the wing, as I point out.  He does so with the eye, too, at the top of page 124: "By analogy with the trees of different height, it is easy to imagine situations in which half an eye would save the life of an animal where 49 per cent of an eye would not."  But Dawkins' discussion of the eye does involve parts as well as overall structure. 

So my criticism, overall, is correct.  Dawkins' critique is off-target.  I could, perhaps, have improved my critique by some slight rewording.     

15-16. On two occasions (76 and 189) Marshall falsely implies that Christians invented science.

In reality, medicine, astronomy, and agriculture were studied for centuries before Christ was even born; and Wikipedia indicates that Islamic, not Christian, scientists were the first to use the basic, experimental approach used today.

"Implies," again!  How Seeker loves that weasel word!  This is why I usually just ignore people like this.  Why not quote what I actually say, and attempt to refute that? 

On page 76, I am concluding a paragraph, and engaging in a light-hearted discussion of my feelings about science, not making a close historical argument:

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)  His followers invented science, quoting Solomon, "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, to search out a matter is the glory of kings." (Proverbs 25:2) Why let secularists have all the fun?

Here I am referring to Francis Bacon, who quoted this verse twice in arguing for an empirical scientific revolution. Bacon's arguments are often credited for helping to inspire the birth of modern science. As Rodney Stark shows in For the Glory of God, most of the key founders of modern science were in fact "pious" Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. (As were the great scientists of the 13th and 14th Centuries.) 

On page 189, I am beginning a paragraph, and an therefore also writing in a rhetorical and philosophical tone, answering Sam Harris' equally rhetorical and philosophical arguments, before getting down to the actual topic of the chapter:

Sam Harris is brutally candid.  What kind of God would let a man "rape, torture, and kill" a little girl?  What was God up to when a tsunami struck Asia and 100,000 children were "simultaneously torn from their mother's arms and casually drowned?"  Hearing such stories, I'm almost ready to shake my fist at the sky, too.  I have no idea why God allows uch things.  I often ask, but have been given no reply.  This ancient argument against God is renewed every day in the news, in prayer requests, and in accounts of, say, how smallpox devastated the Native Americans.

But if one hates suffering, shouldn't one applaud the religion whose followers invented science, the modern hospital, and the Red Cross, and helped end slavery, the caste system, foot-binding, and widow-burning.  Yet Harris is equally passionate in his dislike for Christianity.

Now suppose some anally-retentive Christian were to take Harris' claim that one hundred thousand children were swept from their mother's arms, in the style Seeker takes my claim about science, here?  If one were to show that only 200 children were literally swept from their mother's arms, should we call Harris a profligrate liar?

I'm happy to give credit to the Greeks (less the Muslims, sorry Wikipedia) for inventing something resembling modern science, also "for the glory of God," as the atheist historian of science Richard Carrier admits.  The point of the paragraph is obviously not that no one else ever studied stars or cut open bodies before Francis Bacon's time.  Again, Seeker is reading not like a true Seeker after truth, but as a tendentious jackass looking desperately for something, anything, to criticize.   

It seems Marshall has told so many falsehoods that he can't keep them all straight anymore.

It seems Marshall thought he was writing a book for grownups. 

17. Marshall says, "Species do not ... change as gradually as Darwin anticipated - something dramatically new appears, then remains much the same for long periods." (77)

In reality, Marshall's description of evolutionary change closely follows Darwin's own description in "Origin" that, "... each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification." (6th ed., pp. 119-120)

If Marshall wants to criticize Darwin, THEN HE OUGHT TO READ HIS DARN BOOK FIRST! Sheesh!

This phrase was added to a late edition of Origin, tacked on at the end of a sentence, and is not the general emphasis of Darwin's work, which is on the gradual and steady accumulation of changes: 

Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications . . . natural selection (will) banish the belief of . . . any great and sudden modification in their structure. (119)

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed . . . (215)

But in any case, I am not "criticizing" Darwin.  I praise him highly in this book.  Here, I am simply pointing out that the fossil record has proven something of a surprise, from Darwin's point of view.  I don't think that is a very startling observation, and likely one Darwin would admit himself, were he alive today -- being an honest man. 

18-19. Marshall accuses Dawkins of misrepresenting both the story of the Levite's concubine (Judges 19-21) and the story of Jephthah, who sacrificed his own daughter to God (Judges 11). Marshall argues that neither story can validly be used as an indictment of religion, because the last verse in Judges says: "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (97-98)

But in both cases it is actually Marshall who misrepresents the Bible.

Many of the actors in the first story were clearly devoted to God, and many of them committed further acts of violence after first praying to God.

Now here is a remarkably bald act of deception, indeed.  In fact, Dawkins says nothing at all about Judges 20-21.  He ONLY mentions the initial story of the Levite and the concubine, in Judges 19 (God Delusion, 240-241).  And that passage doesn't so much as mention God, prayer, or any religious observations whatsoever. 

That is the only chapter Dawkins mentions, and it is therefore all I respond to.  Seeker brings in the following two chapters because he can't find any purchase against my actual argument, based on what Dawkins actually said.

Anyway, only a fool of the highest order could read that story, and think the author's intent is to say, "Here are God's children acting as God wishes them to act." 

The author both begins and ends the overall story by saying there was no king in Israel, in those days -- to stake a clear editorial position on the horrendous events he is chronicling.  But apparently he, too, was writing for adults, and this clear editorial signal went over the heads of both Dawkins and Seeker.   

In the second story, Jephthah made an explicit deal with God, promising a human sacrifice to Him in return for a military victory; and God demonstrated His acceptance of the deal by granting the military victory Jephthah had prayed for. Only a fool or a liar would claim that God played no part in that transaction and in the resulting human sacrifice.

Apparently the author of Judges is simply too sophisticated for some of our woodenly literalistic, anally-retentive type atheists. 

20. Responding to Harris' gibe about God making Shakespeare "a far better writer than Himself," Marshall says, "Even Nietzsche thought Luther's Bible the best thing in German." (111)

Marshall provides no citation for that claim, perhaps because it's an outright falsehood.

If a missing citation proves someone a liar, what does that say about Richard Dawkins, who gives only a quarter as many citations as I do, per page? 

21. To emphasize how miraculously prescient the Bible is, Marshall implies it was written in the Stone Age. (114)

I'm serious, Marshall really does say "Stone Age," a falsehood so blatant it would make the Father of Lies himself blush.

Now I'm thinking "Seeker" actually may be Tim Beazley. 

I admitted years ago that "Bronze Age" was correct.  I've seen atheists make the exact same minor error.  But the fool is still crowing.  Something must be placed wrongly inside this person's skull. 

"He's a liar!  No, an unrepentant, cereal liar!  No, he's the biggest liar in all the world!  No, he's a bigger liar than the devil!" 

This grows wearisome, as I'm sure any reader who has survived this far probably agrees. 

In sum, everything I can or do say will be used against me in the court of Seeker's fevered imagination.  (Who does seem more an more like a retired prosecutor with weak morals and too much time on his hands.)  Allusions will be made, but not cited.  Texts will be poured over for apparent micro-flaws in the most allusive and purely poetic comment.  Analysis will rest, not on the level of my book's argument as a whole, nor the argument of a given chapter, section, or even down to an individual paragraph.  Parts of sentences will be wrest out of context and given pernicious significance.  When that fails, "implications" will be read.  Never, ever, will a point be granted, a larger argument considered fairly, a moment of fun or good cheer entered into.  It's not enough that the enemy be considered a "liar," he must be wilful, outright, sadistic, a more profligate deceiver than the devil itself. 

Imagine these kinds of minds going to work on the Bible.  Well, you don't have to imagine -- read Richard Dawkins' book. 

And with that, I have given this tribe its due.  I will not post on them again for a good long time, if I can help it. 

Maybe I'll go cut the grass.