IrishFarmer and his "review" of my book

Yep, I stopped by "Atheism Sucks" again this morning and I came across their latest post dealing with my book! Well, it shouldn't come as a suprise knowing that this review was just going to be outright horrible. IrishFarmer, on his own website titled "Christian Free Thought" (an oxymoronic title) begins:

Chapter 1 doesn't require much commentary. Loftus gives a brief overview of his entry into Christianity. What interests me more than anything else would be John's references to his study in apologetics. That is, John says something which I hear many apostate Christian apologists say. That is, in 1:1 he speaks of how he started simply with the assumption of the truth of the Bible without justification (what he means by truth I don't know, but based on the rest of his book, I would assume it means complete inerrancy), and then moved on to reading large amounts of theological works by people like Josh McDowell, Hal Lindsay, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and so on. [Loftus, p. 16] The problem I have with this is, I hope, somewhat clear. John went from uncritically accepting the 'truth' of the Bible, to reading Christian literature, presumably to tell him what to believe. Certainly, John can't claim he critically considered these theological works - at least not as completely as he should have - since eventually his critical consideration would lead him to disagree with those authors.

Gee, maybe that's because I wasn't so critically established before I became an atheist, hmm? How do you go about answering that? Remember that a critical Christian apologist does not equate with a critically thinking mind. Duh.

There's not much of a comment against Loftus here, I would just encourage Christians to use theological works as a "guide", not as a means to allow others to think for you. Even if I'm misrepresenting Loftus' mindset, I would encourage Christians to be careful to avoid this sort of thinking, since this would rightly make someone an "atheist in the making".

That's the whole point of my this blog and my book, idiot. Sheesh. Does he not understand that my intentions are to convince people of an atheistic worldview or not?

Now, that aside, chapter 2 is where things start to get interesting. John discusses the events leading up to his de-conversion. But, I was surprised at the complete lack of any relevant reason for why he would actually leave Christianity. I'll list the events surrounding John's crisis of faith, and let you decide for yourself whether they warrant a loss of belief.
He cheated on his wife with a woman named "Linda". This woman went on to falsely accuse him of raping her. [Loftus, p. 21-22]
Loftus abandons his belief in young earth creationism because of a correspondence with his cousin, "Larry", who was a lieutenant in the Air Force (woot!). [Loftus, p. 22-23]
Loftus' cousin, "Jeff", takes away (amongst other people, it seems) John's sense of a loving Christian community. [Loftus, p. 26]

Oh, this should be good. No "relevant reasons" for deconverting huh? Let's answer each one of these dubious examples just to show how this review doesn't hold up to any logical platform nor holds any water of its own:

• As I've already explained in my self-defense over the matter, when I was a Christian I perceived Linda the stripper to be Satan incarnate. Back in the days of my strong Christianity, I thought Linda's rack and large ass were to inhumanly shaped that she must have been a demon incarnated. That's "relevant reason" #1, wise guy.
• My cousin Larry showed me the science that was against Young-Earth Creationism and thus led me down my path to questioning the valid tenants of Christianity, if there were any. The Air Force is a technical branch of the military, and so I entrusted much of what Larry told me in favor of evolutionary science. Relevant reason #2.
• My ideas on the Christian community are still being held to this day as an atheist. I have already explained in part one and part two of why I deconverted in the first place as to why these reasons are relevant to my case. That's the third relevant reason. Guess IrishFarmer will have to pick out another argument against my deconversion story won't he?

Now IrishFarmer returns on the Young Earth Creationism issue again:

So, with that aside, I want to nitpick a few details. First, on Loftus' abandonment of young-earth creationism, I personally am not going to argue against this. At least not the result of his change-of-mind, only the means by which he arrived there. For instance, Loftus wonders why God would allow the universe to evolve, but not mankind. Which, again, seems to be a rather sophomoric treatment of the issue. He asks, "...if God took so long to create the universe, then why would he all of a sudden snap his fingers, so to speak, and create human beings? If time is not a factor with God when he created the universe, then why should time be a factor when it came to creating human beings?" [Loftus, p. 23]

Yes and the problem with this IS? That very argument IrishFarmer delusionally thinks he's rebutting infact brings up the point that God is not very intelligent. And if God is not smart, then which God is he? Of course, Christians believe that God sent himself to be nailed to a pair of boards just to "sacrafice" and somehow "please" himself. Maybe the Christian God is an idiot. There are certaintly good reasons to think so.

It seems Loftus might have this issue backwards. That is, he decides what makes the most sense in his own mind, and then presumably works backwards to support that decision with evidence. Whereas, I think the more rational thing to do is leave value judgements aside, see where the evidence leads, and then accept that even if the truth isn't what we expect, there either is a good reason for it, or there doesn't have to be a good reason for it.

Let's just keep on splitting hairs here, right? If I want to "support that descision with evidence" and then I go along the roads of seeing "where the evidence leads" then it is the same exact difference, idiot. Sheesh.

The final point I want to make is that John was involved in the Church of Christ. I've heard some bad things about the CoC, and many apostates reinforce my weariness. That is, John seems to have taken a very rigid, literal, black-and-white approach to his theology. For instance, much of his argument hinges on the inerrancy of Genesis.

Of course my faith as a Christian depended on the inerrancy of Genesis. You can't be a Christian and an evolutionist at the same time, as it goes against the precepts of the "inerrancy" argument. And why is it that Genesis sounds so familiar to other neighboring predating creation myths? Did God create the world in seven literal days as it says in the Bible, or did the universe evolve and God sat around waiting for man to show up when he could have done it in just a few seconds (or even seven days if he wanted too). What exaclty are you going to believe, the infallible, inerrant, literal Word of God or the secular reasoning of man influenced by "Satan"?

So here we see Irish Farmer's "review" of my book is clearly lacking in objectivity and reason. Christians will have to come up with waaay better arguments against my book.