How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test: The Inside Story (Intro)

My latest book, How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test: The Inside Story, may be the best I've written yet.  It has been compared by thoughtful reviewers to "Mere Christianity" and "Orthodoxy," which as a life-long fan of C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton, is praise I treasure highly.  I believe the book has the potential to change how people look at the world, so that they recognize God's fingerprints upon history.  I don't believe you'll look at the story of the human, or the great spectrum of civilizations, the same, after you've read The Inside Story.

So far, most readers seem to have agreed.  All reviews by scholars have been extremely enthusiastic.  For instance, Dr. Ivan Satyavrata, an accomplished Indian theologian who has researched the relation between Christianity and Indian thought, wrote:

Another Wild, Unavailing Attack on my New Book

I am always amazed at the criticisms of my books that appear on-line.  So far, not a single review of any of them by atheists who were not professional academics, has shown any real understanding, or desire for understanding, of the book purportedly being reviewed.  (That includes four books so far.)  Three reviews have appeared by atheists who were academics, which came much closer to understanding (and were much more positive), but still fell somewhat short.  Probably the critical review that represented my views most accurately, was by a Youth Earth Creationist. 

My New Book: Classic or Crapola?‏

My new book, How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test: the Inside Story,  is drawing starkly contrasting reviews on Amazon so far.  ALL reviews to date have given it either five stars (the top rating) or just one (the lowest rating).   Furthermore, people who like the book seem to absolutely love it, comparing it to masterpieces like Mere Christianity and Orthodoxy.  Those who hate it, seem to loath it (and /or its author) with a passion. 

You will be shocked to learn that I prefer the first group.

The best way to decide who is right, is to read the book for yourself.  If you decide the critics are on-the-money, warn your neighbors and their dog away from it.  But if you find that How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test is anywhere near as good as most reviews have said so far (and not just on Amazon), then please help me get the word out!  This is very much a grass-roots campaign.

In this first post, I'll give the five positive reviews on Amazon, in chronological order.   (Another good review  was posted by Ratio Christi Vice President Tom Gilson, on the Thinking Christian blog, along with scholarly reviews, all warmly enthusiastic so far.)  In the second, I'll respond to those who say they loath the book.

Loftus Attacks! Part Deux

In our last installment of The Loftus Chronicles, John was claiming that How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test: the Inside Story could not have been written and should not have been endorsed by any real scholars.  I make too many “egregious errors,” for one thing.  So we gamely inquired what those errors were. 

John’s first critique (echoed from Arizona Atheist) was that I was contradicting myself by claiming that the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) was flawed, and then saying it had passed in the case of Christianity “billions of times.”  This, I noted, is a feeble objection indeed.  There is no contradiction, after all, between saying “These glasses are muddy,” and saying, “But I see clearly enough to know that it is snowing,” still less, “And after I wipe them off, I can hit a 90 mile an hour fast ball.”

Loftus Attacks! Part Uno

I’m getting the feeling that maybe John Loftus feels he didn’t do too well in our debate on Unbelievable.  (The first part of which can be found here, the second part should be posted this coming Saturday.)  How else to explain his multiple posts since then, first complaining that he didn’t get enough time, then attacking Randal Rauser (of all people), and then a series of three posts critiquing my book?

Well, great, after all these years, and many posts on both sides, John finally gets around to actually trying to rebut some of my arguments -- sort of. 

Loftus vs Marshall I: An Alphabet of Errors (on Science and Faith)

John Loftus' new book, The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True is now in my hands, and yes, it's as bad as feared.  I've read the first half, where he makes his general case and "deals" with my arguments (well, some of them, if by "deal with" we mean "misconstrue" and "dance around"), along with those of other critics (Mark Hanna, JP Moreland, Victor Reppert, Randal Rauser, etc).

Since I know my own arguments best, I'll begin this series by dealing with John's critique of those, as he sees them.  This is a case where an "insider" perspective may prove helpful.

OTF: Misreading my rebuttal.

John Loftus' defense of his Outsider Test for Faith (OFT) argument against Christianity is due out next year, I think from Prometheus Press.  He says he'll be responding there (in part) to my critique of that argument last year in True Reason.  Hopefully he'll offer a more robust argument than his usual phone-it-in blog rebuttals: argument is meat for the soul, and the yakiniku sauce is lying patiently in its little ceramic bowl, waiting for some good beef to come off the grill. 

Meanwhile, a doctor working in Nigeria, Mike Blyth, posted a polite 3 star review of True Reason on Amazon in which he took my chapter on the OTF especially to task.  He posted a longer review on his website.  While we're waiting for John's book to cook, let me respond to Mike, in some cases by pointing to things that he misses, or misreads. 

Response to John Loftus: The Insider Test for Outsiders

One trait of Christianity that I find intellectually exciting is how it helps us understand and appreciate the world's religious traditions. If you're an atheist, as C. S. Lewis explained, you have to believe that most of what people in every civilization have always believed was mainly wrong. The Gospel, on the other hand, digs deep into the heart of tradition and reveals forgotten and overlooked truth, bringing it out into the open, and invigorating it with new life.

Yet comparative religion has often been used to attack Christianity, and seems to have caused some to lose their faith. I have seen the question of how the Gospel relates to other religions brought up in all kinds of contexts -- in debates over the resurrection, in the Q & A after a talk about astronomy.

In his recent book, The Christian Delusion, atheist John Loftus argues for what he calls the "Outsider Test for Faith," his marque critique of Christianity. He also often supports this "OTF" on his popular Debunking Christianity blog. I posted a rebuttal in September. Loftus has now responded, in four posts.

There's a lot of material here, and I won't have time to reply to it all right now.  (For later posts, follow the "Loftus" link.)

What I'd like to do in this post, is (a) reprise John's argument, and (b) note a few important problems I have with it, as formulated. (c) Then I'll respond to some of John's more relevant recent points. (d) Finally, and most importantly, I'll briefly explain why I think the "Outsider Test," rightly understood, should be beneficial to Christianity. I've written two books on roughly that subject already, and my ongoing dissertation (finish early 2012?); I'll be brief here.

A. In bare bones, John's argument runs like this:"1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis."

(2) "Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one's religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis."

(3) "Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false."

"4) So the best way to test one's adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths. This expresses the OTF."

II. A few basic problems. I pointed some out some problems with this line of reasoning in my original blog. Here are a few observations that strike me, reading it several months later:

First, points one to three looks like a deductive argument. For a deductive argument to work, you need two things: true premises, and a conclusion that logically follows from them.

Second, the term "diversity of religious faiths" is deeply ambiguous. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, religions around the world commonly include four kinds of beliefs: in "God, the gods, philosophy, and demons," as he put it. This might be called the "lack of religious diversity thesis." In years of studying world religions, I have found Chesterton's observation to be essentially true. So the validity of (1) largely depends on what you mean by "religious faiths."

Third, Loftus' second premise is neither clearly true nor even truly clear. Often (as Loftus admits) people do adopt religions they were not socialized into as children; this is how Christianity and Buddhism spread. Even Americans born into one particular religion, do, as Michael Shermer shows (most of us knew this already), often rationally evaluate our beliefs. (Sometimes altering them in the process.) In most of the world, serious Christian faith is not the default position: even most American Christians go to secular schools, listen to secular music, watch secular movies, and (in extreme cases) even read John Loftus' blog. So the cultural dependency is partial, not "overwhelming."

One might, therefore, rephrase this premise as follows:

"Most people do not adopt their worldview solely as an independent rational judgement, but also largely in response to socializing influences of various kinds."

To this, I certainly agree, as, I think, would almost every sociologist. 

Fourth, John's initial conclusion -- point three -- does not follow from his first two premises, even in the defective form he uses.

The general form of his argument is: (1) Ideas about X vary; (2) The beliefs one adopts about X originate in one's culture, and in that sense depend on it; (3) Therefore one's beliefs are probably wrong.

"Why?"  I asked.

This seems to commit the generic fallacy. This is the idea that the origin of an idea disproves it: "Guino is Italian, so of course he thinks olive oil is healthier than corn oil!" Maybe Guino's cultural bias does incline him to favor the olives; but that doesn't mean olive oil isn't superior, or even that Guino doesn't hold to his belief for good medical reasons.


III. Response to John Loftus.

On second thought, given how much there is to say below, I think I'll save this for a later blog.

IV. Outsider as Insider: how world religions brings pagans to Jesus.

Christianity is the world's largest religion. It started out small. (This cannot be taken for granted: many religions evolve organically from broad roots.)  Christianity spread, not by the sword, as Richard Carrier falsely asserts (see Response to Carrier, "Did Christianity Spread by the Sword?"), but mostly by persuasion. (Unlike Islam and Tai Ping faiths.)

The first people to accept the Gospel were Jews who saw Jesus as the fulfillment of hopes and dreams that the Jewish people had held for many centuries. They were, in fact, both "insiders" and "outsiders" in relation to Christianity. Jesus said, "Don't think I've come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. No, I've come to fulfill them." Yet he also challenged many time-honored Hebrew conventions.

So did Matthew, Mark, Peter, John, James, Mary, and Paul adopt Christianity as insiders, or as outsiders? Originally they stood outside the Christian culture, but found Jesus to fulfill truths within their Jewish heritage.

What about the first Gentile Christians? In relation to Greco-Roman tradition, people like Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine were clearly "insiders." Each first approached the "Galilean sect" from the outside looking in, and not always liking what they saw. Yet much within their own culture -- the theism that had spread among Greco-Roman philosophers, the heroic example of the sage, Socrates, and his willingness to die for truth, the moral teachings of the Stoics, and much else -- also encouraged them towards faith in Jesus.

Origen saw this clearly:

"If anyone were to come from the study of Grecian opinions and useages to the Gospel, he would not only decide that its doctrines were true, but would by practice establish their truth, and supply whatever seemed wanting, from a Grecian point of view." (Contra Celsus, Book 1, chapter 2)

Justin similarly called Greek philosophers "tutors to Christ," a term Clement used as well:

"Philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, until the Lord should call the Greeks."

Ancient peoples had powerful incentives to reject Christianity. Few people easily ditch their own traditions, and while Christianity fulfills much in Greek tradition, it also challenged many things -- the gods, popular sports, popular cults. In effect, it turned everyone into a Jew, which was not a popular thing to be. Not to mention, of course, the fact that you might be fed to a lion for falling Jesus.

But over a brief 350 years, beginning at almost zero, Christianity passed that remarkable "outsider test." By the time of Constantine, it had become a force to be reckoned with. By the time of Theodisius, most Greco-Romans at least claimed to be Christians.

How is Christianity doing today?


Africa: One hundred years ago, there were few Christians in sub-Saharan Africa. Now there are more than 400 millions Christians in this region -- Christianity took, and passed, the OTF in Africa, with flying colors.

Latin America: A century ago, there were few evangelicals in Latin America, and most Latins belonged to a syncretistic "Christo-paganism." Today there are tens of millions, and many Catholics seem to have become more orthodox in their beliefs. South and Central America, too, took, and passed, OTF for orthodox Christianity.

China: Some 60-90 million Chinese have taken the OTF, and found that Christianity passed, and converted, in the past 20 years. Most others have probably not yet really considered Christianity, or been reluctant to convert for non-rational reasons -- cultural inertia, some persecution, love of sin, unexamined atheistic propaganda, continued anger over 19th Century "Christian" imperialism.

Why have so many believed? Those I've talked with have given many reasons, often involving miracles, or a search for truth.

My roomate in seminary in Taiwan many years ago, a bookish young man with shelves of translated works on existentialism, told me what he found attractive about Christianity was how it combined truths of different Chinese belief systems -- I think he mentioned Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

Having studied this issue for many years, I believe Chinese find in Christianity something that is both "outside" and "inside" their religious tradition, challenging errors in it, but as a friend.

The Muslim World: A month ago, I talked with a former Islamic legal scholar from an African country, in his apartment in the UK. I asked, "When you were imam at this mosque, would you have agreed that a person who converts out of Islam should be killed?" "Oh, absolutely!" He replied.

My friend did convert, and left home, because he took the "OTF," and Christianity passed.

Probably at least a million or more contemporary Muslims have done the same, despite the manifest dangers, and despite their natural attachment to their own cultural traditions. How many more would convert, if those barriers were lowered? There's no telling -- we may have only seen the beginning, so far.

Can you best tell the value of a house from inside, or outside? Both, of course, are important. Depending on how you keep things up, the "insider test" can be quite misleading. You also need to compare other homes for sale, and get a feel for the market.

To really appreciate the value of Christianity, it does help, I do think, to go outside it, either historically (by studying what Christianity fulfilled and changed in the ancient world), or geographically (by getting to know other religious traditions).

But we are human, and what is human is common to us all.

Religions are not, as many skeptics assume, a "zero-sum game." (Like the fruits at the market by the Taipei temple I photographed at top right, from which you are required to pick one, and leave the rest.) What made Christianity persuasive for Justin and Clement, and for my Taiwanese friend, helps persuade me of its truth as well, though unlike them, I begin, in part, as an "insider" to the Christian faith.

Christianity provides a larger map of the world. It embraces and includes the deepest truths as known to Socrates, Zeno, Epictetus, Confucius, Lao Zi, and informed modern "outsiders" who become insiders, like G. K. Chesterton, Scott Peck, Rene Girard, Robert Coles, Alexander Solzhentisyn, Rodney Stark.

So in one sense, while I think John forumulates and uses it wrongly, I approve of the OTF. As Francis Bacon put it:

"A little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back to religion." (Bacon, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning)

If the test means anything, empirically, it is that Christianity must possess remarkable reserves of plausibility, to have convinced so many people, in so many cultures, to risk so much, to follow Jesus.

Outsider Test for Faith: Why Loftus is Wrong.

"The Outsider Test for Faith:" Where John Loftus goes wrong.


John Loftus is a popular atheist writer, a former student of William Lane Craig who edited the book The Christian Delusion. John kindly send me a pre-publication copy of his book. I found myself in strong disagreement with some of the contents, so rather than recommend the book, I bought my own copy and critiqued it. (See my disputes with Hector Avalos and Richard Carrier over the role of Christianity in Nazism and science on the christthetao.com web site, and the ongoing debate with Avalos in earlier blogs here.)

In this blog, I'll challenge John's prize argument, in chapter 4, "The "Outsider Test for Faith Revisited." This is an argument John promotes with all the pride of Thomas Edison showing off his new light bulb; and with some results, apparently. I'll begin by questioning his assumptions about faith. Then I'll examine his "Outsider Test," and explain why it does not work as an argument against Christianity, though it might work as paraphrase of the truism that one should be intellectually fair to beliefs one does not share. Finally I'll critique other assumptions John makes in his essay.

I. Faith? John begins his chapter with a comment about faith that those who have read my books will know I can't pass by in silence:

"The most important question of all when it comes to assessing the truth claims of Christian theism (or religion in general) is whether we should approach the available evidence through the eyes of faith or with skepticism."

In Christian thinking, "faith" is not something that is opposed to reason, as Loftus does here. As far back as Judges, Gideon conducts a rational experiment in faith: "If You are really speaking, God, make the dew rest on this cloth, and everything around it remain dry." As I show in my "Gullible Dweebs?" posts, the first Christians also came to faith in part through skepticism. I have also shown, in "Faith and Reason," that Christian thinkers down through the centuries have usually understood faith and reason as complementary, not locked in some zero-sum battle to the death.

This fundamental misundertanding about "faith" undermines Loftus' chapter, and permeates what skeptics who buy his argument say about the matter. Here, for example, is a recent comment on Loftus' blog:
.
"This to me is one more example of how the poor old believer is forced to simply pull up the drawbridge and live in Happyland, content with 'Faith' and all that wonderful pseudoscience . . . "

In reality, Christian faith in the true sense is exactly what created modern science itself.

So what is Loftus' Outsider Test for Faith?

II. An Outline of Loftus' Argument. John summarizes his argument in four points. I'll quote each point, offering preliminary responses to each point as I go along. This is not quite fair, because Loftus expands and defends these points later -- but a blog is a blog, not a journal essay. I'll quote some of Loftus' supporting arguments later, and offer rebuttals or responses. Then I'll offer a general evaluation of the main question here: should Christians adopt an agnostic stance to evaluate their own beliefs? And finally, open the issue up for discussion.

"1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis."

Observations:
(a) People also "adopt and defend" a wide variety of skeptical ideologies because of where they were born and how they were brought up. Most young Chinese, for instance, are taught atheism in school, and millions will parrot those teachings back to you, if you ask them their views. (I've heard some do this!) Most young Danes, presumably, will similarly parrot back secular humanist views.

(b) Religious diversity may not be as great as Loftus assumes. In every culture, for instance, people believe in spirits, and in most cultures, life after death. Not only Christians, Muslims, and Jews (almost half the world's population!), but also many Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese who do not belong to these groups, believe in one Supreme God.
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(c) True, in every culture, only a minority usually converts to some worldview other than what they were brought up in. But usually that is because of social disincentives, not because "intelligent people" have all fairly and honestly considered the evidence for other religions.

In some Muslim countries, for instance, convert out, and the penalty is death. Mohammed himself approved this penalty, and you often hear of it being carried out in countries like Iran, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. This has also happened in recent years in Hindu countries, and historically in Buddhist and Christian countries as well. The cruelest retributions against conversion out have occured in some communist countries.

Most social pressure is less extreme, yet remains effective at keeping people "in the fold."

So while "rational people" accept a variety of faiths partly because of geography, the intellectual content of those beliefs may not always be as diverse as people usually assume -- G. K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man is good on this. And uniformity of beliefs can be the product of oppression in some cultures.

(2) "Consequently, it seems very unlikely that adopting one's religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis."

This is similiar to my point (c) above. The word "faith" here is misleading, though, as may be the word "religious." It would be more objective to say, "adopting a worldview is usually not just a matter of independent rational judgment." Otherwise we prejudice the issue against certain kinds of worldviews, and sneak in a misconception of why Christians, at least, are supposed to believe.

Also one must distinguish between free societies and societies in which choice is constrained by government, clan, or family. Most people in non-Christian countries lack freedom and / or opportunity to consider Christianity. In most Christian countries, there is relative freedom and opportunity to consider Marxism, secular humanism, Islam, or Buddhism.

(3) "Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false."

Here Loftus takes his most blatantly fallacious step. Problems with this step are numerous:
(a) What does "highly likely" mean? The term is ambiguous for a quasi-deductive argument of this sort.

(b) Why is the conclusion supposed to follow from the premises?

(c) A hidden premise that might allow it to follow (and that Loftus defends later, see below) would be, "Culturally derived beliefs are unlikely to be true." But why would one assume that?

My culture has taught me many things that I might not believe in, say, ancient Rome, or among the Yali in Papua New Guinea. My belief that Earth circles the sun is "culturally dependent." I was taught this belief in school, and have never proven it scientifically for myself. I believe it by trust in my teachers. Does that mean it is "highly likely" to be wrong? If not, then (3) does not follow from (1) and (2).

(d) But, you say, someone HAS proven that the Earth revolves around the sun. (If not exactly "circles.") Yes, and are you assuming that no one has rationally demonstrated the truth of the religious belief system in which I was raised? I disagree. Maybe I am wrong, but the analogy derails us from the Outsider Test into conventional apologetics. If there is good reason to believe the Christian faith, then the Outsider Test is invalid as an argument against it. If there is no such reason, then the Outsider Test is unneeded.

(e) Since atheist belief systems are ALSO culturally dependent, does Loftus think it is "highly likely" that they are false, too?

(f) All in all, this is simply a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premises. (Even if the premises were clear and plausible.)

"4) So the best way to test one's adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths. This expresses the OTF."

It seems there may be an even bigger problem with Loftus' argument than those mentioned above. This is a failure to understand how religions relate to one another.

This is a topic I've written a lot about. My first book, True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture, and second, Jesus and the Religions of Man, both present a radically different perspective on how Christianity relates to non-Christian religions than the one Loftus seems to take for granted. I'm now finishing a doctorate on the same subject.

How to put this succinctly?

Religion, in the best Christian thinking, is not a zero-sum game.

The religions of the world are not like so many fruits in the market, from which (having only one dollar) you must choose a single item, and leave the rest.

Jesus said, "Don't think I've come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. I have not come to abolition, but to fulfill." (Mt. 5: 17) This applies, I have argued, not only to Judaism, but to the deepest truths in other spiritual traditions as well.

In other fields, too, the best test of a new theory is not whether it completely displaces prior theories, but whether it incorporates whatever truth is to be found in them. Kepler didn't refute the idea that the planets revolve around the sun. He built on the discovers of prior astronomers, and refined them. Einstein didn't render Newton's model of gravitation useless. He showed that it was a special case, still useful for everyday observation.

It is a singularly "fundamentalist" way of thinking, that one must choose one religion, and discard the rest. In some cases, one must make choices. Either God is one, many, or not at all. But one doesn't need to choose between Yahweh, Elohim, theos, Allah, and Shang Di: the one only-existing Creator God is recognizable under many aliases.

So much for theism. When it comes to specifically Christian doctrines, Loftus' argument seems to ring even more hollow.

Why should we deny that Jesus died for the sins of the world, because some people in Sichuan Province or Uttar Pradesh never heard about it, or don't immediately recognize its truth when they do? The West took hundreds of years to come around -- why not give the Chinese and Indians time to mull things over, like a mustard seed that grows into a tree and gives shelter to many birds, to which Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven?

Why should we doubt that Jesus rose from the dead, because we first heard about it in Sunday School? We may be told about planets in Monday school. If either belief is untrue, sure, discard it. But in the interum, why should the assumption that our teachers (any day of the week) were ignorant be the default position?

Summary: So is it wise to adopt an agnostic position as we evaluate the religious faith we belong to, and were perhaps raised in?

I admit for me this question is a little academic. Although I grew up in a Christian home, and have never left the faith, all my life I've been surrounded by the writings and ideas of (in particular) atheists, Buddhists, and Taoists. Like Joni Mitchell, I think I do see clouds from both sides, now -- reading atheist books, I often feel like the wrinkled old lady in the first pew who can sing all the hymns by heart.

My wife was raised Buddhist and converted to Christianity in her twenties.

On balance, the act of stepping outside oneself and reconsidering one's beliefs may be helpful at some stages of our journey. I think people of different beliefs will almost always learn a great deal by extending themselves in that way. But when we do, what should we look for?

Look for, not one religion that is as right and rigid as crystal, and all the others totally wrong. Instead, look for something alive. Look for a map of reality that takes into account miracles (sorry, they do happen!) as well as mice. Look for a map that puts God in heaven (as we have known, for thousands of years), and follows a good guru, who loves the poor, feeds the hungry, and loves women in a holy manner. Try to incorporate primitive insights about sacrifice and redeem them.

Additional problems. Loftus makes some good points in the chapter as a whole, and his tone is generally reasonable. I gave the chapter three stars out of five in my Amazon review. While we're doing the debunking, though, let me offer constructive criticism of some other points later in the chapter:

"We swim in a Christian culture. It's hard to argue Christians out of their faith because they were never argued into it in the first place. Elsewhere, Eller has argued that 'nothing is more destructive to religion than other religions.'" (82)

This is doubtful on three counts. First, many Christians were "argued into" their faith, including many who grew up in Christian homes. (I doubted quite a bit. What important argument for atheism does not occur spontaneously to a thoughtful young person? C. S. Lewis and others in effect argued me into a faith I already held.)

Second, my impression is that those who convert from argument are usually harder rather than easier to deconvert.

Third, Eller is wrong in his sociology. In fact, India, likely the most religious country in the world, is also among its most diverse. Religions have vied with one another there for thousands of years. In Nigeria, Christians and Muslims are about evenly divided, with some animists -- and I am told almost everyone believes in God. In Singapore, large numbers of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Free-Thinkers,and Muslims do not destroy religious faith, but create a "hot-house" atmosphere where a variety of religions thrive. The same seems true of Taiwan and Hong Kong, where I lived for some six years altogether.

In fact, Eller seems exactly wrong: as sociologist of religion Rodney Stark argues, the more competition there is in religion, the healthier for religion the market seems to become.

"When it comes to religious faith, an overwhelming number of believers adopt and defend what they were raised to believe by their parents in their respective cultures." (83)
True, usually, more or less. Religious belief is often tied to tribal identity, and sometimes conversion "out" is harshly punished. But tens of millions of Chinese have converted to new religions in recent years.

Looking at my experience, all four the siblings in my family now identify themselves as Christian. But two of us went through periods of doubt. It's true none of us would consider converting to, say, Islam -- for the obvious reasons. But I've met many western Buddhists who were born into Christian or skeptical households. I've also known hundreds of converts to Christianity -- including my wife, who grew up Buddhist.

And a lot of people convert within religions, from one sect to another. My Grandmother was a Pentacostal, my Dad was a Calvinist; I am neither, though appreciate some of both. So there is more changing of views that Loftus credits, especially in free societies.

"The other method Christians use is on much firmer ground. They use David Hume's evidentiary standards for examining miraculous claims to the faiths they reject. They also deconstruct these other religious texts by assuming human rather than divine authors. They adopt a methodological naturalist viewpoint to test these other extraordinary claims . . . " (86)
One should not "assume" that the Qu'ran or Book of Mormon is not divinely inspired: read them and find out! Loftus also seems to be assuming that a book must EITHER have a "human" OR a "divine" author. This may be his fundamental (ist) mistake. For alternative views, see The Truth Behind the New Atheism, chapter 6: "Is the Good Book Bad?," or (for an in-depth discussion) see Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse.

"The Christian theist must now try to make sense of this claim, coming as it does from an ancient superstitious people who didn't have trouble believing Paul and Barnabas were 'gods in human form' (Acts 14:11, 28:6.)
Luke didn't believe Paul and Barnabas were "gods;" rural hicks in Lystra did. (Paul and Barnabas had cured a fellow townsman who had been lame since birth -- one can understand why this impressed the people who knew him!)

The ancient Greco-Roman world also contained many sophisticated, skeptical people, some of whom became Christians. See my recent "Dweeb" blog on the cagy Eusebius, for example.

"The 'many gods' objection to Pascal's Wager destroys the wager's force since we must first decide among the various gods which one to wager on." (87)

Problems:(a) Pascal had already given many reasons to believe in Jesus. The Wager was not made in a vacuum, as skeptics often assume.

(b) God is not comparable to polytheistic gods. Athena or even Zeus do not control one's destiny after death. Anyway, Greek intellectuals had already largely come to recognize that these deities were just masks for a single all-powerful Creator.

(c) Anthropology shows that awareness of the unique Supreme God is common in many cultures around the world. So it is not at all arbitrary which god you believe in.

On William Lane Craig:

"So would Bill have believed in the first place if he knew then what he knows now? . . . I dare say that if he knew what he does now and hadn't already chosen to adopt his faith, he would not have believed in the first place." (88)

Why, then, does Craig regularly defeat atheist opponents in debate? (As neutral, and even atheist, observers often admit?)

If the most learned atheists in the Western world can't convince a non-Christian audience Craig's arguments are wrong in public debate, why shouldn't Craig buy his own winning arguments?

"The one thing we can and should trust is the sciences. Science alone produces consistently excellent results that cannot be denied . . . We can personally do the experiments ourselves." (89)

Questions:(a) Doesn't mathematics produce "consistently excellent results?" Or must we define "science" to include "math?"

(b) Doesn't human testimony, when used carefully, produce good results? Most of what we know about the world comes from what reliable people, like teachers and authors of textbooks, tell us. In some cases, we risk our lives based on a single bit of testimony -- at an intersection, I sometimes ask my wife if a car is coming. On a runway, pilots may ask an air traffic controller if it is safe to land.

(c) Does vision count as science? Go to a football game, and would you rather have eyes, or a good science text in braille?

Science is based on logic, philosophy, mathematics, the sense, and peer interaction. Math and logic and even vision more immediate than biology or physics. Other ways of knowing things -- ask a travel agent, your most honest friend, the teacher -- are also consistently useful, especially when we make use of multiple sources of information, and test its reliability in various ways. Some forms of science are more reliable than some sources of testimony, but few are as reliable as math or simply logic. And there's a tradeoff -- what you gain in reliability, you often lose in breadth. One cannot live by science alone.

(d) What modern experiments can you do personally, as Loftus suggests? Do you have a particle excellerator in your den? Can you check the mass of extrasolar planets on your bathroom scale? In the real world, we are in practice forced to trust the claims scientists make for the same reasons we trust our teachers: they strike us as credible.

Faith Again: On pages 94 and 95, Loftus attempts to justify the bias his OTF seems to give in the direction of atheism, by rebutting the claim Timothy Keller (and others) make that atheist worldviews also require faith. Loftus claims in response to William Lane Craig that he "knows" that there is a material world, "and that I can reasonably trust my senses:"

"For example, when it comes to the possibility that I'm presently living in a virtual, Matrix world, rather than the real world, that scenario cannot be taken seriously by any intelligent person . . . I see no reason why there would be any knowledge of the Matrix by people living in it, since the Matrix determines all of their experiences . . . " (95)

I think Loftus is confusing a particular movie with the scenario it illustrates. It is certainly the case that some intelligent people DO take the scenario that the world is some sort of simulation seriously. One atheist philosopher, another told me, put the odds of the world being unreal at about one in five. (Don't ask me how he calculated this -- taking the rationality of his own brain for granted, still!)

I believe in the reality of the external world -- that's why I'm blogging. But Keller and Craig are right to say we can't prove it -- nor do Loftus' arguments manage the trick.

"The word faith must be reserved to apply in this context (ie, justification for religious beliefs -- DM) to beliefs that cannot be empirically tested and aren't needed to explain anything, like ghosts, angels, demons, and gods."
A Being more intelligent than humans would not be subject to the same empirical tests we use for rocks, rhubarb, and rabbits. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." This does not mean there is no evidence -- it means that if we are in the driver's seat, we are not seeking God, we must be seeking something less than ourselves.

It does not follow that religious faith cannot be empirically tested, or that no such evidence is provided -- Christians have almost always maintained that there is plenty of such evidence. But in the end, we are the ones tested, not God.

"Finally, atheists do indeed take the OTF. That's why atheists are atheists in the first place." (97)

True, often atheists were raised in religious homes, and came to reject their early beliefs, not infrequently for rational reasons in part. But most atheists in the modern world have lived and been raised in communist countries, where denying religion is the default position.

Many westerners become atheists in their teens, when they were not really in a position to evaluate Christian claims at the highest level. And of course not all of them are in the mood to be fair, either. Judging by my experience, angry, Madeleine Murray O'Hare type atheists, while probably not the majority, are no small minority, either.

It would be highly naive, then, to assume that atheists convert away from faith for purely rational, objective reasons.

"Therefore, anyone, and I mean anyone including myself, who leaves the default agnostic position and affirms and answer, any answer, has the practical burden of proof." (98)

This seems fair enough. Let me translate into the short, clear words like those George Orwell recommended: "If I say I do not know, then I do not need to say why. If I say I know, then I should say why."

The Bible, too, tells us to be "prepared to give a reason" for the hope that is within us. When John Loftus and the Bible agree, it could be one has found truth.

"I'm arguing that the source of most people's religious faith is an unreliable one, coming as it does from the geological accidents of birth. It produces many different and irreconcilable religious faiths that cannot all be true." (99)

And I have argued that Loftus' argument does not work. First, much in different religions can in fact be reconciled. (There is almost nothing n the Analects of Confucius or the Dao Dejing or Epictetus that a Christian has to argue with.) Second, the fact that God transcends cultures is at least weak evidence that He is real. Third, just because people in Muslim countries are not allowed to believe in Jesus as Savior, and most Hindus and Chinese have lacked the opportunity to believe in him, in no way makes the Gospel story unlikely to be true. The conclusion simply does not follow from the premises.

"At best there can only be one true religion in what we observe to be a sea of hundreds of false ones . . . " (99)

As C. S. Lewis pointed out, that is the position an atheist is forced to adopt, but not a Christian. Much about each of the world's great religions can be considered true, in some cases even divinely inspired, by dedicated Christians, as I argue in some of my works. If you're an atheist, though, you have to write off almost all of what the rest of humanity has always believed as one big blunder.

"But I know of no skeptical person in today's world who would ever want to morally justify rape. Believes like the acceptibility of rape (and honour killings) are based on religious faiths and ancient texts . . . " (100)

Rape is, of course, a common activity in the animal kingdom, and is based on biology. The present strictures against rape are the result of a series of cultural influences that were by no means pre-ordained, and that can dissolve. The Yanomamo, after all, do quite a bit of raping without "ancient texts." Might it have something to do with sex?

"Most Christian thinkers from Tertullian to Luther to William Lane Craig have all disparaged reason in favor of faith." (102)

Faith, by my definition (inspired by what Christian thinkers have actually said about the subject for thousands of years, rather than silly modern myths), means "Holding to and acting on what you have good reason to believe is true." By that definition, reason is an intrinsic part of faith.

In any case, it is suspicious that two of Loftus' three examples are the same that Dawkins gives -- Luther and Tertullian. Alister McGrath has shown that the famous Tertullian quote that purports to prove he did this is taken out of context. (Dawkins' God, 99-101)

But perhaps John can cite the exact words William Lane Craig, his old teacher, used to "disparage reason." It would be good to have this claim in context.