13
Nov
2009
Why I Became an Atheist by John Loftus
Jenners, it’s all your fault I read this book. Actually, I think it’s your husband’s fault as I believe you once told me that he came up with the “phone an author” part of the Take a Chance Challenge (in which one randomly opens the phone book, points to a name, and must read a book by an author with the same last name).
I wouldn’t have picked up this book, subtitled “a former preacher rejects Christianity” on my own. In general, I find books about why God doesn’t exist depressing (on the other hand, for all of the religion books I read, I rarely read anything that’s trying to, say, prove the literal truth of the Bible as I don’t believe that either). AND if I were to read a book about why God doesn’t exist, I would turn to a bona fide scientific genius like Richard Dawkins, not somebody who used to be a preacher and now isn’t (more on that to come later in the rant).
And really, I didn’t so much read this book as skimmed it. I read the first few chapters, and skimmed the rest, after repeatedly falling asleep or getting annoyed while reading.
My annoyance was mainly because it read like someone’s term paper, citing philosophers and their theories briefly, and then saying why someone else refutes them, briefly (didn’t I just say that another book read like a term paper? Yes, I did. It’s true of both of them). So, either you have to be really familiar with everyone from Thomas Aquinas to Kant, in which case, why are you bothering to read about this, or you have to keep Wikipedia up at all times in order to follow Loftus’ arguments.
And, if you aren’t familiar with these theological arguments, it will be even harder to follow because Loftus starts to sound like an old dusty manuscript, as when he discusses St. Anselm’s ontological argument, and he’s all, “…understand God to be a being than which nothing greater can be thought.” And does he ever, btw, give a flat out definition of the world ontological? No. The best he gets is more mish-mashed words, that only skim the surface and go no deeper. The best we get is five points: “1. On the assumption that that than which nothing greater can be conceived is only in a mind, something greater can be conceived because…blah blah blah.” Seriously, the whole damn thing lasts only a couple of pages. If I’ve wet your appetite for Ontology, here’s the Wikipedia article. Sometimes Wikipedia really is the best source. At least when you compare these two.
Mostly, however, this book refutes Christianity, not Higher Powers in general. I mean, check out some of these chapter titles: 17. Was Jesus Born of a Virgin in Bethlehem? 18. Was Jesus God Incarnate? 19. “The Passion of Christ”: Why Did Jesus Suffer? 20. Did Jesus Bodily Rise from the Dead? Truly, I will go with a Biblical scholar to answer these questions, if I want them answered, though Loftus does write that he basically has “the equivalent of a PhD degree in the philosophy of religion.”
Loftus admits right up front that he has an axe to grind against Christianity. He was a happy preacher, having an affair, and then got all conscientious about it, broke it off, only to have his lover publicly accuse him of rape. Then his whole congregation turned against him and none of the higher ups in the Church reached out to comfort him. Then, he got a divorce from his wife, who stood by him all this time (he doesn’t say why they got divorced, but of course, it’s often said that infidelity is a symptom), and got remarried to another woman who wasn’t keen on going to Church, so he stopped going and then realized there is no God.
To me, John Loftus sounds like the kind of sophomoric douche bag you meet at a coffee shop, who knows just enough about religion and philosophy and science to sound really smart, but really just talks in circles. He might be a great guy, but at this point I’m too irked to think otherwise.
I thought of giving away this book, but since I bought it, I’m going to sell it to my local used bookstore and hopefully get at least a few bucks back.
Buy Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity on Amazon
If you like this book/author, you might like:
(my reviews in blue)
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong
The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong
The Case for God by Karen Armstrong
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong
The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson
Thou Art That by Joseph Campbell
Belief or Non-Belief? by Umberto Eco and Cardinal Martini
The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design by Richard Dawkins
A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love by Richard DawkinsFinding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth R Mille
Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell
Biblical Nonsense: A Review of the Bible for Doubting Christians by Jason Long
Christian No More: On Leaving Christianity, Debunking Christianity, And Embracing Atheism And Freethinking by Jeffery Mark
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by David Mills
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists by Dan Barker
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up by John Allen Paulos
Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy by David Ramsay Steele
The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture by Shayne Schuldt
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
Other works by John Loftus:
Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains
Why I became an Atheist: Personal Reflections and Additional Arguments
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails
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Back up! Step away from the term papers.
Lol! “He was a happy preacher, having an affair…” Maybe he just wasn’t good at his job!
Yikes. I think I’ll stick with Dawkins too.
Loftus does write that he basically has “the equivalent of a PhD degree in the philosophy of religion.”
I hate to imagine what Loftus thinks adds up to ‘basically’ a PhD degree besides actually EARNING a PhD degree. Lord…think I’ll pass on this one. I’ve always wanted to read Dawkins’ Blind Watchmaker.
Yeah, I think anyone that gives themselves a “basically” degree is probably a douche. This is why even though I had the experience of leaving a large religion, I don’t read anything by other people who have done the same because they are rarely true discussions of faith, doctrine and such but really just ranting and posturing with a few tidbits of stuff that they picked up along the way.
I love that your review generated such controversy! I’m currently reading ‘an athiest’s guide to christmas’ which is a little bit funny at least and less depressing than your typical ‘god doesn’t exist’ book
It’s unethical to write a review based on nothing but skimming. The author and your readers deserve better.
“Basically” was our intrepid skimmer’s word. John Loftus says: “I have three master’s degrees in the area of the Philosophy of Religion along with some Ph.D. work. I majored under William Lane Craig and earned a Th.M. degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1985.”
You do realize that many people go on from undergraduate degree right into a combined masters/doctoral program, which can take them only three more additional years of full time study to get a Ph.D., don’t you? And many of these degrees don’t require a foreign language. I had both Greek and Hebrew and I earned not one but three master’s degrees with an additional year and a half in a Ph.D. program.
Remember, I didn’t say I had a Ph.D. degree.
Why all the fuss about this? Sheesh.
If you cannot read a book of this depth just admit it’s your problem, okay?
As you have now seen, Loftus is obsessed with mentioning, and then defending, his poor credentials. This makes him say things like (quoting roughly from memory), “I probably know your arguments better than you do,” and so on. All over the Internet, Loftus acts surprised that people go after him on this issue. Yet he is the one who brings it up in a multitude of contexts, including (most abnormally) his published work. (One could forgive such public masturbation in the blogosphere, an intrinsically less serious venue). He even tries to bolster his case with these bad credentials, saying we have an intellectual obligation to listen to him in particular. And he loves quoting people who themselves are deluded into thinking his credentials are either (a) good or (b) relevant, which thereby hurts their reputation.
Theoretically, if it weren’t for his many former statuses (”preacher,” “Christian,” “apologist,” etc.), his having been a student of someone much smarter than him (”William Lane Craig”), and so on, we’d have to just evaluate his arguments. But as you’ve pointed out, he doesn’t have any arguments, he just has the apologist’s propensity for excerpting other people’s arguments.
Not surprising that you couldn’t finish the book which, as you say, sometimes doesn’t read like a book at all.
I’m not obsessed here. I’m merely responding to a criticism about my credentials. I can do that without being thought of as obsessed, can’t I? Joshua is not an objective person in my opinion, which can easily be seen in this statement of his that “he [John] doesn’t have any arguments.” Really? But then he thinks William Lane Craig is no better than a “snake oil salesman” too. As a Christian he has an axe to grind and is probably one of the most unjustifiably arrogant people I think I’ve ever known on the web.
If either of you don’t like my book, then fine. I am very interested in what people think of it, since I’ll probably get the chance to revise it in a year or more.
Actually. I think the obsessed one here is Joshua since he seems to want to dog my steps whenever someone offers a derogatory review of my book. The problem is that these kind of reviews are few and far between.
The obsession is evidenced by (1) proclaiming your bad credentials in every forum you publish in, (2) using your bad credentials to suggest Christians should especially buy your book, (3) finding apparently all instances of criticism of your bad credentials online to respond to. My answer is no, you can’t do this without being thought of as obsessed. Thank you for your interesting question.
Really. The point isn’t that your book doesn’t contain any arguments. It excerpts plenty of other people’s arguments.
As for the insults in my direction, I’ll just grant all of them for the sake of argument, since I don’t care. My point here was merely to affirm the experience of this particular blogger.
~snicker~ This is quite funny to read. When you become an author, or any sort of artist for that matter, you have to be able to take the feedback without overreacting. That means good and bad. So someone didnt like your book…get over it.
~snicker~ This is quite funny to read. When you become an author, or any sort of artist for that matter, you have to be able to take the feedback without overreacting. That means good and bad. So someone didnt like your book…get over it.
Really good Jenn! You said………nothing.
Whoa, down boys. The main points of my review are this: The book is terribly written and it seems that Mr. Loftus has it in for Christianity. I read another review on the intarwebs that said that it should be called “Why Christianity Sucks” and I couldn’t agree more.
Robert~ I commend your abilty to cut and paste. You must be proud of yourself.
This sounds like the stupidest book ever written. I appreciate your honest and hilarious review because you always so right on…….!! Thanks for letting me know NEVER to pick this one up.
I subscribe to your blog so have sent you an email on your latest post, which left me wanting to read the original post/review of Loftus’ book. The first question that came to mind was, “Wow Bibliofreak must be a huge blog of New York Times proportions; otherwise, how did this author come to even respond to this review?” (Answer: he googles himself everyday). Now granted, I consider Bibliofreak well written, comprehensive and entertaining….when I guffaw out loud… I subscribe, but is this the first time an author has done this concerning one of your reviews? It is evident the word “obsessive” that Blanchard used was, indeed, correct. The proof is in Luftus’ caustic remarks and the fact that he surfs the web to condemn those who don’t gush and coo over his long “term paper”, every one knows term papers put people to sleep. Ever have to help a friend and was forced to read one?? Of course it’s interesting to the writer, but rarely to anyone else!
I hope I get some vitriolic response too or I’ll feel left out!
Oh dear. My (belated) apologies on you having to go through this book due to my husband’s fault. Really, I will punish him severely … possibly by forcing him to read this book.
The story of why he left the church just seems to illustrate that he had some problems of his own that had nothing to do with the church.
And I rather enjoyed the back and forth commentary in your comments … quite a little thing going on between those two, hmmmm?
A very interesting book and a review. It’s great to have an ex priests point of view and it to resonate with a normal person’s outlook on life.