![\"NuclearExplosion\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2015\/09\/NuclearExplosion.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n[Note of 9-23-15] Many of his hysterical, vitriolic reactions to my critique were lost to posterity, because they were on an old commenting system on my older blog. But there are plenty of other representative (and quite humorous) ones preserved below.* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Will this silliness ever end? John W. Loftus of\u00a0Debunking Christianity<\/span>\u00a0fame just won\u2019t let it rest. With relentless irrationality and hypersensitivity, he keeps calling me names and misrepresenting our past interactions. His latest tirade resulted from one (undeniable) half-sentence I wrote\u00a0yesterday on his blog, in the midst of commenting on\u00a0someone else\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>deconversion story:<\/p>\n I make no claims on either your sincerity or the state of your soul or moral character. None whatsoever. I simply critiqued the reasons you gave for your deconversion. I don\u2019t see why that would be insulting to anyone (as it is merely entering into the arena of competing ideas), yet John Loftus blew a gasket when I examined his story.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John\u00a0then responded\u00a0with his usual irrational vehemence:<\/p>\n You are an idiot! You never critiqued my whole deconversion story. Deconversion stories are piecemeal. They cannot give a full explanation for why someone left the faith. They only give hints at why they left the faith. It requires writing a whole book about why someone left the faith to understand why they did, and few people do that. I did. If you truly want to critique my deconversion story then critique my book. Other than that, you can critique a few brief paragraphs or a brief testimony, if you want to, but that says very little about why someone left the faith. You walk away thinking you have completely analysed someone\u2019s story. But from where I sit, that\u2019s just stupid. That\u2019s S-T-U-P-I-D! If you truly want to critique a deconversion story, then critique mine in my book. I wrote a complete story there.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And (three minutes later): I challenge you to really critique the one deconversion story that has been published in a book. It\u2019s a complete story. A whole story. It\u2019s mine.<\/span><\/p>\n And (some hours later): I\u00a0replied: 1) First of all, why would you even\u00a0want<\/i>\u00a0to have your book critiqued by someone whom you routinely call an \u201cidiot,\u201d an \u201carrogant idiot,\u201d a \u201cjoke,\u201d a \u201cknow-it-all,\u201d and so forth? I\u2019ve never understood this. I have four published books (soon to be five). The last thing in the world I would want (on amazon or anywhere else) is for a blithering idiot to either praise or bash one of my books. I want\u00a0respectable\u00a0<\/span>people to do so.<\/span> John\u2019s original\u00a0\u201c<\/a><\/span>Cliff Notes\u00a0<\/i>version\u201d of his\u00a0<\/a>deconversion story<\/a>, posted on his blog (2-19-06), ran 2701 words. That\u2019s a pretty hefty article. Yet John claims that a summary of this length<\/span>\u00a0\u201csays very little about why someone left the faith\u201d\u00a0and calls it\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span><\/span>a few brief paragraphs or a brief testimony.\u201d\u00a0He implies that it is improper to critique such a thing because it is so incomplete; people ought to read his book (nice sales pitch there, by the way; how ingenious).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Why, then, post it\u00a0at all<\/span>? Are we supposed to believe that it was posted with no possibility that anyone should respond with\u00a0any<\/span>\u00a0critique of it? Is it merely a\u00a0sermon<\/span>; preaching to the atheist choir and rah-rah sis-boom-bah cheerleading \u201camen\u201d brigade (John used to be a Church of Christ preacher)? What\u2019s the point? Why have comments capability if no one is supposed to\u00a0interact<\/span>\u00a0with posts at\u00a0Debunking Christianity<\/span>? If I am told that this is a version which offers far less detail compared to his book, then I readily accept that as a truism (DUH!). But there is no reason to think that it should be\u00a0immune<\/span>\u00a0to all criticisms\u00a0simply<\/span>\u00a0because he has a longer version elsewhere.<\/p>\n My own conversion story to Catholicism, that was published in the bestseller\u00a0Surprised by Truth<\/span>\u00a0and read by (literally) several hundred thousand people, is available online in my original draft. It runs 3,469 words (only 1.3 times larger than John\u2019s; his is 78% as long as mine). I have never stated that no one should ever reply to that because it is so short, or that I have 375 pages somewhere else (actually, all the various arguments I have made in the course of my apologetics, that would be the \u201cfull and exhaustive\u201d account as to why I am a Catholic) that anyone would have to read in order to issue any analysis at all: critical or otherwise. To do so would be (how did John put it?): rather S-T-U-P-I-D.<\/p>\n His posting of his story\u00a0drew 33 comments\u00a0[it now has 85, in 2015], including many lengthy ones from Christians. But John nowhere hinted that this was improper, or that anyone would have to read his entire book in order to intelligently make a critique of his odyssey into apostasy. He apparently saves that irrational ire, for some reason, for me. But what was so terribly different about my own critique? I just don\u2019t see it. Was it hard-hitting? Yes, for sure; absolutely, like most of my critiques. I don\u2019t mince words. But on the other hand, I don\u2019t personally insult. I stick strictly to the subject and don\u2019t cast aspersions on either motives or intelligence.<\/p>\n Remember, too, that John is arguing against the truth of the Christian faith. This is a very serious charge, and it deserves to be firmly dealt with. A Christian has every good reason to respond. This is a public attack; hence open to public examination and scrutiny. He thinks I was very personal. I deny this (and I have noted that even fellow atheists on his blog have understood that it was not personal, or intended to be so, at all).<\/p>\n A recent critique, strictly on the subject matter of God and time, was even\u00a0less<\/span>\u00a0\u201cpersonal\u201d, yet John got mad about\u00a0that<\/span>, too, and called me more names, rather than simply respond and make some semblance of a counter-argument. Pretty impressive showing for a guy who has the \u201cequivalent\u201d of a Ph.D. and \u201cseveral\u201d master\u2019s degrees, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n But there is more insight we can glean concerning this fiasco, by looking at another stink having to do with his deconversion. This time the person (Protestant apologist and frequent critic of atheism, Steve Hays) actually read his book. Did it matter? Not much. John replied according to his usual modus operandi (even granting that Steve can be quite acerbic and insulting far too often: I know from his anti-Catholic critiques of some of my writing). Nevertheless, granting all that, it is another instance of John not being able to handle at all, any serious critique of his fabled odyssey from Christian to atheist.<\/p>\n John made a \u201cchallenge\u201d to a Protestant who had also critiqued his story, similar to the one he made to me, complete with prognostications of inevitable loss of faith upon completeion of his profound and unanswerable tome and Pascal\u2019s wager-like clever sales pitches:<\/p>\n I\u2019m saying the case I make in my new book is overwhelmingly better.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, are you going to read it and critique it for yourself? Hey, I dare you! I bet you think you\u2019re that smart, don\u2019t ya, or that your faith is that strong \u2013 that you can read something like my book and not have it affect your faith.<\/span><\/p>\n If Christianity is true, then you have nothing to fear. But if Christianity is false, then you owe it to yourself to get the book. Either way you win.<\/span><\/p>\n And even if you blast my book after reading it here on this Blog, I\u2019ll know that you read it, and just like poison takes time to work, all I have to do from then on is to wait for a personal crisis to kill your faith.<\/span><\/p>\n Want to give it a go? The way I see you reason here makes me think it\u2019ll make your head spin with so many unanswerable questions that you won\u2019t know what to do.<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s just me. I couldn\u2019t answer these questions, so if you can, you\u2019re a smarter man than I am, and that could well be. Are you? I think not, but that\u2019s just me.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet one of John\u2019s droning complaints about me is that I am way too confident! I never claimed that someone would inevitably become a Christian or a Catholic Christian upon reading any of\u00a0my<\/span>\u00a0books or many online papers!<\/p>\n Even fellow atheists can see that John is acting like an ass. One (\u201camber\u201d)\u00a0wrote on John\u2019s own blog:<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/span>Dave, I can only tolerate stupidity so long.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/span>Do you accept my challenge?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/span>I have less than no desire in any of my dialogues to interact with the worst examples of opposing views. I want the best. Of course, if someone has a personal ax to grind, that\u2019s different, isn\u2019t it, John? If your goal is to embarrass and belittle someone who disagrees, then this would explain the big desire to wrangle with so-called \u201cidiots.\u201d<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>2) It is a hyper-ludicrous implication to maintain that deconversion stories are immune to all criticism simply because they are not exhaustive. It\u2019s embarrassing to even have to point this out, but there it is.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>3) I have already long since taken up your \u201cchallenge.\u201d I said many weeks ago that if you sent me your book in an e-file for free, I\u2019d be more than happy to critique it. I won\u2019t buy it, and I refuse to type long portions of it when it is possible to cut-and-paste. That is an important factor since my methodology is Socratic and point-by-point. I actually try to comprehensively\u00a0answer<\/i>\u00a0opposing arguments, not just talk\u00a0about<\/span>\u00a0them or do a mutual monologue.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>You railed against that, saying that it was a \u201chandout.\u201d I responded that you could have any of my (14 completed) books in e-book form for free.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>4) One wonders, however, with your manifest \u201cgnashing teeth\u201d attitude towards me, what would be accomplished by such a critique? You\u2019ve already shown that you can\u2019t or won\u2019t offer any rational counter-reply when I analyze any of your arguments. You didn\u2019t with the deconversion thing and refused again when I wrote about God and time<\/a>. On both occasions you simply made personal insults. There is no doubt about that. It\u2019s all a matter of record.<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>Why should I think it would be any different if I were to spend a month writing a detailed critique of your book? Maybe then you would get so mad you would sue me for libel or hire a hit man? LOL<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n