Atheist author and polemicist John W. Loftus wrote an article entitled, “Dr. David Madison, Debunker Par Excellence!” (3-25-21). His words will be in blue.
*****
I’m a big fan of former Methodist minister and biblical scholar Dr. David Madison, who no longer believes. He understands how best to debunk Christianity.
Really? I never noticed that. I have refuted his attacks on the Bible and Christianity now 44 times (without a peep in reply) and, frankly, it was always very easy to refute his nonsense: so weak and poor was the argumentation.
Madison expertly presents a cumulative case against Christianity, which is the best way to compel childlike believers to abandon their make-believe fantasies.
And I systematically present a cumulative case against his anti-biblical and anti-Christian fantasies and relentless excursions into myth and illogic. Real thinkers will prefer to read both sides of an argument, rather than just one. Let the best man win! On my blog, I cite tons of the words of my dialogue opponents, so readers can get their views directly, rather than from an opponent biased against them.
Everyone interested in investigating and analyzing the complete undeniable palpable falseness of Christianity should be reading Madison– and everyone should be interested! However, as Madison acknowledges, Christians “assuredly have a long history of not paying attention.” (p. 29) “Even if they’re not oblivious, they are just not interested.”
Ah, I see. So it’s us Christians who are massively guilty of not reading critical atheist commentary; indeed, running from it. It’s true that many act in this way. Only so many hours in a day . . . But this is absurdly ironic, coming from the guy who has not the slightest interest in any critique of his own work, and from Loftus, who acts in exactly the same way regarding his anti-Christian polemics, too. Loftus expressly challenged me to read his book, Why I Became an Atheist and offer critiques of it. I did so and responded with ten critiques: all utterly ignored by Loftus.
After I had completed 34 of my 44 critiques of David Madison’s polemics, Loftus felt compelled to chime in at his blog, and wrote:
The Rules of Engagement At DC
Some angry Catholic apologist has been tagging our posts with his angry long-winded responses. I know of no other blog, Christian or atheist, that allows for arguments by links, especially to plug one’s failing blog or site. I’ve allowed it for about a month with this guy but no more. He’s not banned. He can still come here to comment. It’s just that we don’t allow responses in the comments longer than the blog post itself, or near that. If any respectful person has a counter-argument or some counter-evidence then bring it. State your case in as few words as possible and then engage our commenters in a discussion. But arguments by links or long comments are disallowed. I talked with David Madison who has been the target of these links and he’s in agreement with this decision. He’s planning to write something about one or more of these links in the near future. [he never did: almost needless to say]
See my extensive reply to this. Recently, I was indeed banned from Debunking Christianity, for the supposed reason of being “obnoxious” (so I saw Loftus comment on another atheist blog). “Obnoxious” is cowardly atheist code for “anyone who dares to 1) confront atheist arguments, and actually 2) refute them. That’s “obnoxious”. That’s being an uppity Christian, and it will not be tolerated by the supremely confident, unvanquishable intellectual titans Loftus or Madison. Such atheists have no interest whatsoever in critique of their charges, because that goes against the illusion of invincibility, you see. They do all they can to ignore such counter-arguments and pretend that they don’t exist. It’s bad for business to not do that.
He notes there are probably no atheist books on a shelf labeled “Our Atheist Critics” in Christian bookstores.
I have scores and scores of articles dealing with atheist criticism of Christianity on my Atheism web page. There are many books that address so-called “Bible contradictions” from a Christian perspective. These are largely brought up by either atheists or theologically liberal Christians who no longer believe in the inspiration of the Bible. The most famous one is Gleason Archer’s New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Recently, I compiled in one place my own many refutations of alleged biblical contradictions. So at least some of us deal with “our atheist critics”: who in turn, ignore these efforts.
Still it’s my hope to introduce Christians and others to Madison, an ordained Methodist minister who became an atheist. They should listen to those of us who have left the Christian fold and found the intellectual freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads, rather than remaining zombies who just quote-mine from the Bible and the diverse theologies developed from it. What did we learn on the way to heaven that caused us to walk away from any hope of seeing our loved ones again after we die? Surely Christians should want to read one story or two, along with the arguments that convinced us to leave the fold of our upbringing. Surely!
Yes, we should definitely do so, alongside replies to this bilge, such as my own. It will strengthen the faith of any Christian to see how abysmally weak arguments like Madison’s and Loftus’ and those of many other anti-theist atheists are. I write replies to atheist deconversion stories, also, to demonstrate how their reasons for leaving Christianity don’t hold up under logical or factual scrutiny, either. When I did this with Loftus’ deconversion story (a shorter article about it), he blew a gasket and after a very short time could only reply with “you’re an idiot!” and suchlike.
You get the idea. Really intellectual and objective stuff . . . And the reactions to critiques of atheist deconversion stories are always basically the same (I know, having written 30 or so of them): how dare any Christian closely examine atheist reasons for apostasy (i.e., regarding atheists who were formerly Christians). Anger and fury almost immediately surface; and the “fangs” come out (Loftus being the absolute worst case I myself have observed; he had skin so thin even an electron microscope couldn’t detect it). But hey: it’s all fair game. They go after our beliefs and the Bible; we in turn scrutinize their supposedly compelling reasons for unbelief and apostasy.
[after noting Madison’s degrees and languages that he speaks] . . . don’t tell me he’s ignorant. That option isn’t available to you.
Nonsense. He’s certainly ignorant about 1) what the Bible actually teaches, and 2) how to properly interpret the Bible. He is also terrible at logic. I repeatedly demonstrate these things, and there is a good reason why he utterly ignores all that. It exposes him.
It’s David Madison against all the Christian apologetics in the world down through the centuries, and my bet is on him, hands down, no iffs [sic] ands or buts about it.
Yeah, he’s so superior to all of our combined efforts that he can’t bring himself to tackle even one of my 44 critiques. That’s surely and undoubtedly pure superiority and supreme intellectual confidence. I’ve never seen a clearer example of it!
So it’s no surprise that some atheists are looking down on people who debunk religion when compared to others who are trying to build a better atheist, humanist or secular society. We’re told the latter are doing the harder work, the necessary work and the more important work. Madison disagrees, as I do.
Yeah, me too. I say: do this all you like. It shows again and again (when apologists and others refute them) how exceedingly weak, miserable, inadequate, illogical, and pathetic the atheist anti-biblical arguments are. So this provides a service to the Christian community, insofar as they manage to read the critiques such as my own: that anti-theists do all they can to obscure and make sure that atheists never know of their existence: lest their own lies be exposed for what they are.
I have argued for a test to help believers examine their own faith fairly and honestly, seen in my book The Outsider Test for Faith.
I refuted this argument of his in September 2007 and again in September 2019: to stony silence and crickets each time.
I think his book and writings are doing what needs to be done to disabuse Christians of their faith. We cannot have a piecemeal approach to debunking Christianity, debunking one belief or doctrine at a time. We must assault Christianity as a whole with a cumulative case. Nothing else will do, even if it means we cannot be experts in every area we write about.
And Christian apologists must defeat and demolish these efforts. I try my best to do just that.
He Doesn’t Care That Much If Christian Intellectuals Take Notice. No doubt Madison would like it if they did, but he doesn’t really care since he’s dealing with deluded people, all of them in some measure. So it doesn’t matter what university they graduated from or how many degrees they earned. He doesn’t need their validation as a credential to be proud about. They’re all deluded. Why should we care about their intellectuals (or better, obfucationists [sic] ) so long as we’re reaching people?
Ah, exactly! This at least explains (along with sheer cowardice) why he ignores me. It goes against the plan: as I noted above. As long as Madison can fool and hoodwink people, then it’s in his interest to make sure that his rabid followers never see any replies to his bilge. By contrast, a true thinker welcomes critiques of his or her work; relishes the challenge to either clarify or retract, as they case may be. That’s how actual intellectuals (true to the essence of the category) function. But I am thankful for this transparent (and rare) exposition of how atheist anti-theist polemicists like Madison, Loftus, and many others actually go about their business, minus intellectual integrity.
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