Shameless plug!

November 2, 2011 By Custador 23 Comments

I’d have put this in the forum if it was up (or more likely Ty would), but in its absence I’m posting it here.

For those who don’t know, regular contributor Ty is on the fast-track to literary super-stardom after the launch of his co-authored book, Leviathan Wakes. Ty is one half of a gestalt entity known as James SA Corey, and seems to be taking the sci-fi / fantasy world by storm right now.

I pre-ordered Leviathan Wakes and have since read it twice. What can I say? Very little new Sci-Fi these days combines originality with a truly epic setting. Leviathan Wakes does. It’s without a doubt the best new Sci-Fi I’ve read in years, rivaling Iain M Banks’ Culture series for raw creative energy and Asimov’s Foundation series for sheer scope. I can honestly see this series becoming an instant classic.

Now I’ve finished that episode of gushing, here’s some happy news: Leviathan Wakes has been nominated for a people’s choice award!

First of all, read it! Secondly, if you love it as much as I do, follow this link and vote for it to receive an award!

Ty, thank you for a good read, and consider yourself thoroughly plugged ;-)

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Science Fiction 23 Comments

Loftus' "The End of Christianity"

July 27, 2011 By vorjack 5 Comments

The End of Christianity by John Loftus (not to be confused with William Dembski’s The End of Christianity) is a collection of counter-apologetic essays which follows his previous collection, The Christian Delusion and his autobiography Why I Became an Atheist.

Return of the Atheists

Loftus considers these three works to be connected, and he opens this latest installment with the statement, “I honestly think that with this book (and certainly the series) Christianity has been debunked.”

No one has ever accused Loftus of being timid. But like a lot of final installments in a trilogy, The End of Christianity could have been a heavily padded afterthought. By this point Loftus can only muster a three paragraph introduction before launching into his “signature argument,” the Outsiders Test of Faith, which will be familiar to anyone who’s read his blog.

The book and a lot of familiar material and plenty of familiar faces. Hector Avalos summarizes his book, The End of Biblical Studies. Robert Price is always worth reading, but his two essays won’t surprise anyone who listens to his podcast. Richard Carrier, who Loftus credits with doing the actual editing of the book, provides a summary of Not the Impossible Faith, which is available free online.

What saves the book is the strength and variety of the essays. While the book is basically a handbook for the atheists in the online trenches, it doesn’t get bogged down or harp on any one line of argument. As a result, the old material fits in and leaves the book feeling balanced rather than padded.

Old Conversations, but Worth Having

In “Christianity Evolving,” Dr. David Eller provides a thumbnail sketch of Christian history, along with some discussion of how Christianity is continuing to adapt and spread around the world. Given the normal focus on white American evangelicals, the consideration of world Christianity is a nice change.

Dr. Jaco Gericke follows that by looking at how much our idea of God has changed, and Dr. Valerie Tarico looks at what it means for God to have emotions. Tarico turns that into an interesting discussion of human projection. Victor Stenger responds to Dinesh D’Souza’s arguments for the afterlife, putting D’Souza’s poor arguments to good use as he considered the logical implications.

Dr. Keith Parsons looks more specifically at the moral problems that arise from the doctrine of Hell, and the late Ken Pulliam contemplates “The Absurdity of the Atonement,” one of his favorite blog topics before his death. All told, there are fourteen strong articles here, plus Loftus’ OTF in the introduction and a brief closing from Robert Price. It’s a solid collection of essays that work well together.

That’s not to say that the book wouldn’t have been stronger with a little more variety. I’m fond of Richard Carrier’s writing, but having three of his lengthy essays – about ⅕ of the book – seems a bit much. One of the advantages of these collections is always the chance to hear new voices, and that gets lost when you turn it over to the usual suspects.

On balance, the book is a solid addition to the atheist library, and it makes an excellent companion to The Christian Delusion. But if Loftus et. al. wants to publish another book, it may be time to develop the field a little more and bring in some new blood.

Filed Under: Atheism, Book Reviews, Christianity 5 Comments

American Renegades

March 14, 2011 By vorjack 3 Comments


From A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell, who was recently interviewed by Reason.com.

But what the Founding Fathers called corruption, depravity, venality, and vice, many of us would call freedom. During the War of Independence, deference to authority was shattered, a new urban culture offered previously forbidden pleasures, and sexuality was loosened from its Puritan restraints. Nonmarital sex, including adultery and relations between whites and blacks, was rampant and unpunished. Divorces were frequent and easily obtained. Prostitutes plied their trades free of legal or moral prescriptions. Black slaves, Irish indentured servants, Native Americans, and free whites of all classes danced together in the streets. Pirates who frequented the port cities brought with them a way of life that embraced wild dances, nightlong parties, racial integration, and homosexuality. European visitors frequently commented on the “astonishing libertinism” of early American cities. Renegades held the upper hand in Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Charleston, and made them into the first centers of American pleasure culture. Rarely have Americans had more fun. And never have America’s leaders been less pleased about it.

But the Founding Fathers invented a way to make Americans think fun was bad. We call it democracy.

And they largely succeeded. The revolution was followed by wave after wave of moralistic legislation that cracked down on alcohol, prostitution, racial integration, fornication, contraception and pornography.

This is the paradox of American freedom: self-rule allows much greater repression than a monarchy. When the community itself is promulgating the law, it is much more effective at reining in the individual.

Russell’s idea is that American history can be viewed as a tug-of-war between these sides: those who believe that the power of the society should be used to create virtuous citizens, and those who refused to assimilate. That means he focuses on those who we label as “bad:” the shiftless, the shameless and the scandalous. It’s an interesting idea for atheists, since conventional religion is part of what makes a “good” citizen.

I recommend the book, with reservations. It’s easy to read, but uncomfortable reading. I don’t think most of us will react badly to seeing the mafia or pirates viewed in a positive light. His arguments that prostitution was sometimes a positive force for woman’s rights seem harder to swallow. And his chapters on slavery, showing how slaves made the institution work for them, come a little too close to the “slavery wasn’t that bad” arguments of the southern apologists.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, History, Morality, Quotes 3 Comments

God's Lunatics

September 29, 2010 By thegirlcanwrite 2 Comments

by Lorette C. Luzajic

Those of you who enjoy reading my Pillars of Faith column may like Michael Largo’s book, God’s Lunatics, even more (Harper Collins, 2010). My columns offer a brief sketch of revered Christian leaders- the unflattering stuff they’d rather you ignore while offering unwavering obedience. Largo’s compendium doesn’t seek to skewer authority-abusing Christians so much as to reveal how very many religious are truly nuts. Far from being a rare aberration of faith, the nut may be the norm, and is usually the seed that grows into a full-fledged cult or religion. Largo introduces us to a fascinating medley of “lost souls, false prophets, martyred saints, murderous cults, demonic nuns, and other victims of man’s eternal search for the divine.”

Some may decry the choice of title, arguing that it belittles the sacred lost. But it’s a perfect fit. You probably know that the words “lunatic” and “lunacy” have something to do with “lunar”- the moon. Lunatics are literally followers of the moon- of Luna, the moon goddess. This marvelous treasure trove spans history and cultures, giving tantalizing sketches of religious lunatics of every stripe. By bringing so many stories into one collection, it’s easy to see how madness pervades religion. Far from being the exception to the rule, religion is densely populated with bizarre ideas and fixations. In these vivid illustrations, Largo dismantles our sacred cows.

Help yourself to some capezzoli di St. Agatha- Sicilian breast-shaped pastries in honor of Agatha, who endured the torture and excision of her breasts rather than sully them through marriage’s sexual demands. Find out how Buddha got his belly. Meet the patron saint of hemorrhoids. Revisit one of the first megachurches, Sister Aimee’s Angelus Temple. Learn how the Virgin Mary herself handed the first rosary to St. Dominic in 1214. Choose from among a wide sampling of alien or UFO religions. Meet ascetics of every flavor, including Simeon, who crawled atop a flagpole in the sixth century and stayed there for 37 years. Incidentally, his mother had had a vision, where the severed head of John the Baptist floated before her and announced that her son would become a saint.

Since the author has a sweetly sarcastic sensibility, his cheerful storytelling seldom veers into mean-spirited terrain. And while the collection collates endless sources to extract the nutty bits, the brief snippets can’t possibly provide the whole story. This book is not meant to be an academic treatise, so verifying and expanding any given information remains the responsibility of the reader. It’s meant as a tantalizing smorgasbord for the curious, with an invitation for follow up in a library of over 400 suggested titles. Ironically, it is the sheer variety of madness, hucksterism, conviction, and oddity through all of religious history that shows us how it’s all the same.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Religion Tagged With: , 2 Comments

UFOs, Ghosts and a Rising God

May 20, 2010 By vorjack 35 Comments

by VorJack

Atheism and skepticism are siblings. They’ve been close at least since Paul Kurtz founded both CSICOP and the Council for Secular Humanism. But like all siblings they don’t always get along, and they frequently to go off in their own direction. But every now and then there’s a reunion, such as when Joe Nickell debunks another religious relic.

The latest attempt to bring them back together is Chris Hallquist’s book UFOs, Ghosts and a Rising God. By relating modern stories of the supernatural to the ancient legends surrounding Jesus, Hallquist hopes to show how debunking the one leads to dismissing the second.

Outsider Test

Pullquote: “Many of those who have written on the array of recent pseudosciences have tried to describe exactly what makes a pseudoscience. [...] Among these characteristics are characteristic fallacies shared to a remarkable extent by the arguments of Christian apologists.” (p.32)

Hallquist is veteran of the atheosphere, as his blog The Uncredible Hallq has been around for years. Up until now, his most famous work (for our purposes) has been his lengthy rebuttal to William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith.

UFOs, Ghosts and a Rising God is a work for general audiences, though people with at least a passing familiarity with apologetics and counter-apologetics will get the most out of it. Despite Hallquist’s background in philosophy, most of the arguments hinge on questions of historiography: how do we determine what happened in the past?

Hallquist focuses on this historical question while examining the evidence for the miracles of Jesus, the post-resurrection appearances, the empty tomb and so forth. Because it is a book for general audiences, Hallquist takes the time to explain the dating of the gospels and something of the intellectual climate it which early Christianity came to be.

This might make it sound like a typical work of counter-apologetics, but not many works of that type start with a history of debunking. From Alexander of Abonoteichus to the Amityville Horror, Hallquist covers some of the highlights of the skeptical attempts to dismantle superstition. Once this is out of the way, he explains some of the method and common fallacies involved in the use of historical evidence.

With this foundation, Hallquist is able to marry counter-apologetic to skepticism. After considering the arguments for the historicity of a biblical event, Hallquist compares it to a more contemporary supernatural event. One of the most developed example is the case of D.D. Home. According to the story, Home was able to levitate himself up to the ceiling in front of three witnesses.

Hallquist is able to dig up sources, some near contemporary, reporting on the stories of the witnesses. Contrast that with the anonymous and late information provided for us by the Gospels and you see the problem. However, even if you were to believe that the Gospels were early and contained eyewitness testimony, you still have a problem: if you apply the same historical standards to the story of D.D. Home as you do the Gospels, you will likely find yourself having to accept that a man in 19th century Connecticut was hovering in the rafters.

Hallquist is giving us a variation of what John Loftus calls the Outsider Test for Faith: Can you approach the beliefs of your faith tradition with the same skepticism as you approach other people’s beliefs? As Hallquist points out, many evangelicals are quick to dismiss New Age beliefs as fraud, but are never willing to turn the same skepticism on their own sacred stories.

Believing at All Cost

Pullquote: “… I suspect that religions simply cannot flourish when too much will be known about their origins.” (p.66-67)

One of the most interesting results of the this comparison is indirect. Many apologists speak of the reception of the early Jesus stories and insist that the first believers must have been skeptical, and would therefor have sought out evidence. But an examination of various charlatans and hoaxes shows that people will frequently accept a belief without much skepticism, then hold on for to it no matter what. Consider a medium who is caught using her feet to manipulate objects during a seance. Her followers insist that while she may cheat sometimes, there are other times when her powers are real and genuine. So it falls to the skeptics to tell the apologists that their view of human reason is inflated.

Throughout the book, Hallquist maintains a balance between skepticism and counter-apologetics. On the plus side, this keeps the book short and readable, as it never bogs down in detail. On the minus side, it means that the book never gets the chance to really come to grips with the examples it uses.

Perhaps this is intentional. The book does end with a call to investigate for ourselves and an extensive bibliography; all right and proper for an Outsider Test. But I can’t help feeling that a series of close case studies that compares, for example, Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus with the stories of alien abductees would make for a really interesting book. Let’s look at all the evidence and apply the same tools to both. What happens when we take the apologetic arguments for the first and apply it to the second? Can the apologists live with the results?

However, this can’t really be considered a criticism of UFOs, Ghosts and a Rising God. Its brevity and the evenness of its writing make it an excellent book for general audiences. Its core argument makes it a useful work for an internet counter-apologist to have on the shelf. It’s a solid work that makes me look forward to future works from this veteran of the atheosphere.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Christianity, History 35 Comments
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