Debunking Christianity: The Absurdity of John W. Loftus - A Response

I came across a post from John W. Loftus about a video that I had found and posted on this blog last week. He doesn't mentioned this blog by name so I don't know if he became aware of it from here, but be that as it may. Let's step through his response. My comments are in red. I want to make sure that I don't misrepresent him or take him out of context in any way.

I titled this post the same as others so people can see my response to a video floating around about me by the same title.

This is a cut and paste job from an interview I had with the program The Things That Matter Most, along with Pastor Dave Schmelzer. After this aired the director of that program emailed me and said she didn't think the hosts were fair to me, and many agreed...so typical of many Christians. I critiqued Pastor Schmelzer's book right here.

I often hear this accusation but never really see any documented evidence of such behavior. However I have experienced name calling and profanity directed towards me just because I disagree. It seems that name-calling is the only resort people have when they have no real good arguments to use. 

In any case in the interview I said "seemingly absurd," as in beyond the range of what we can understand fully. But this does not allow Christians to drive a whole truckload of assumptions through that small crevice because of Ockham's Razor. Otherwise so can any religious person do so with opposing religious conceptions.

Actually I would like to know what assumptions Loftus is referring in that above paragraph.  

Christians who post this video act as if they are completely and utterly ignorant of existential literature or even the book of Ecclesiastes.

Might he be referring to me? Let's see if he backs up why we don't understand existential literature or  Ecclesiastes.

That anything exists at all “seems absurd.” I am at least honest enough to admit this. Christians parade through the streets like the naked Emperor claiming to know that an three-in-one God exited for all eternity who never learned anything new since he always knew everything, and never made a decision since all decisions were eternal ones, and never had a new thought since thinking depends on temporally weighing alternatives. Honesty demands humility with regard to why we exist and they certainly cannot depend on an historically conditioned interpretation of a set of canonized texts called the Bible for the answers when they shared the same answers as all of the other religions of that time except that they had a different name for their deity.

So who's trying to "drive a whole truckload of assumptions through a small crevice"?   IF you look, Loftus is behind the wheel. He makes the same mistakes about the nature of God that people like Dan Barker make. Namely setting up a straw man argument describing God's nature and then refuting that. The Bible shows that God is triune in  that He is one being in three persons. When God told Moses his name from the burning bush, the Hebrew shows us that God not only does exist, but that God has always existed, and God always will exist. God created time. Therefore He exists outside of it. Any temporal analysis of His decision making and will breaks down. The Bible clearly teaches that God has predestined just about everything. He brought the alternatives and decides which reality manifests and which ones don't. 

  ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ⁴For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace ⁸that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. ⁹And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
 ¹¹In him we were also chosen,^[e] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. ¹³And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory. - Ephesians 1:3-14

As for the discussion of the reliability of the Bible. Loftus fails to explain why you can't trust the Bible and how it says the same thing as other religions.

We have three choices: 1) Something, anything, has always existed; 2) Something, anything, popped into existed out of nothing; or 3) the existentialists are right that our existence is fundamentally absurd.

At least I can agree with Loftus on choices 1 & 2, but 3 is often restated as the universe being a shared delusion or illusion.

The Christian conception of God is absurd. They just won’t admit it. They cannot harmonize the trinity within itself without denying orthodoxy by reducing it to tri-theism or to a unitary God, nor can they explain the incarnation, nor how the death of Jesus can possibly atone for sins. Several divine attributes like divine simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence are internally problematic and lacking evidence. Discussions of divine simplicity will bring them to an utter agnosticism regarding to what their God is like, or force them to accept some absurd consequences. Go ahead by trying to define these divine attributes. I dare you. Then try to harmonize them when it comes to the problem of intense suffering around the globe, or even the certainty they have regarding their faith.

Loftus so far hasn't even defined the Christian God as the Bible reveals God. And he can't admit it. The Trinity teaches that there is one :"what" - being - and three "whos" - three persons. Loftus and others are confused because when we project our human experiences the revelation breaks down. For a human point of view there is not difference between "person" and "being" in describing human existence. We use them interchangeably. But face it: if someone asks you what you are, the answer is different than to the question of who you are? There is no internal problem. Three persons can share the one being. 

The divine attributes are difficult if you go beyond what the Bible says. This is a failed and refuted argument because of course because of God transcendence, we can't even begin to understand what God is without His direct revelation - in part this is what the Bible is for.  All of these attributes are described "Omnipresence" just means that God exists everywhere and every when simultaneously. "Omniscience" means God knows everything - complete knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. "Omnipotent" means that God is all powerful, there is nothing beyond God's power. "Omnibenevolence" just means that God is all good. He never makes a mistake. He never does wrong. Some object because they think that means that God would never have to allow anything bad to happen to anyone. This is not what the Bible says. God is not obliged. to do anything. He has chosen to give us mercy the vast number of times while we live. And when disaster does come God has a reason and does not owe us an explanation. Ask Job if you disagree (I mean read the book the answer is there.

The simpler explanation is preferable, and science offers us clues. Paul Davies, Quentin Smith and Victor Stenger have all come up with scientifically acceptable answers.

I got to admit that my background really isn't in philosophy, it's in Physics. And Last I checked the model of an eternal universe - meaning without beginning or end - has been rejected. And what the current model is that everything - matter, time, energy, and space - came out of nothing. - a quantum singularity from a quantum fluctuation. However we agree with that...people who reject God can't explain where the singularity came from. To :Lofuts, :"scientifically acceptable answers" means denying that anything supernatural as a tenable explanation despite any evidence. I've heard of these men but I have seen many physicist , even those who reject God, still agree that a point there was nothing and then there was everything.

Debunking Christianity: The Absurdity of John W. Loftus