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The Day John Loftus Quit A Video Debate
First and foremost, hello to you all. I'm glad to see this is finally up and running again. I am a very old lurker from the old forum. Do you guys know if Holding frequents this resurrected board? On to my subject title:
I've watched the recent debate between Max Mills (Christian apologist and founder of "A Debate Show Without An Interesting Name") and John Loftus (the popular student-turned-atheist of William Craig and founder of debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com) numerous times. The subject was whether or not the Bible condones animal cruelty, and it resulted in a very telling lopsided victory for Max Mills.
Max Mills, in a mere 45 minutes smashes through an argument from Loftus which contains logic parallel to some of Loftus' other arguments against God. Loftus wielded Genesis 1 as if Mills would immediately buckle under the pressure, however Mills refuted it quite easily. Mills suggests that we view God's statement as a blessing, rather than an evil commandment. Loftus' response was... interesting.. to say the least. He became observably angrily evasive and annoyingly repetitive. His immediate response to Mills is that "well, other Christian authors disagree" (22:28 and 16:20 in the debate) without giving an in-context grounding for that. Let's just forget the in-context grounding, though. Loftus is knocking on the door of a strange appeal to authority with that sort of response. Mills even points out at 22:40 that it's an argument from popularity. It is immediately after that when Loftus starts to unravel mentally and physically.
One other very important part of the debate was animal sacrifice. Loftus says it is "brutal" and "unnecessary". Loftus again threw this out there as if he wielded a nail-in-the-coffin against the Bible. Mills surprised him by actually using biblical sacrifice as an argument for the Bible showing concern for animals. He pointed out that sacrifice is "how they [Hebrews] slaughtered their meat". Max educated Loftus on a process of butchering animals which involved taking it to an altar, being supervised, and it being a must for you to kill the animal yourself. 'Obviously, this is a million miles ahead of the way we slaughter animals today', Mills basically pointed out. And Mills, then, topped the sweet refutation off with Lev. 17:10-11, which speaks of banning the consumption of blood because "the life of the animal is in the blood". Loftus responded with the same. He was observably uneasy, very repetitive, and very angry (especially towards the end). You can see those traits flowing from him while he tried to depend on a very irrelevant "life force was a magical force" defense (19:11 in the video).
At 42:35 you see Loftus just exasperating, "I'm done here", goes off on a literal rant and quits the debate with a cowardly ad hominem at 43:38. This bit of the debate was very unprofessional on Loftus' part. I'm apt to consider Loftus' behavior as outright cowardly.
It's a very easy victory for the Bible thanks to Max Mills rushing at a subject that many Christians are very uneasy about defending. Cheers to Max Mills!
I expect Loftus to try to sweep this under the rug and do his best to hide it from everyone (including William Craig), whom Loftus constantly challenges. It appears to me that Max Mills [may have] also showed us that Loftus contains a very emotional grounds or foundation for his disbelief. It's something Craig suspects is true, which is why I hope this finds its way towards Craig's eyes.
I've watched the recent debate between Max Mills (Christian apologist and founder of "A Debate Show Without An Interesting Name") and John Loftus (the popular student-turned-atheist of William Craig and founder of debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com) numerous times. The subject was whether or not the Bible condones animal cruelty, and it resulted in a very telling lopsided victory for Max Mills.
Max Mills, in a mere 45 minutes smashes through an argument from Loftus which contains logic parallel to some of Loftus' other arguments against God. Loftus wielded Genesis 1 as if Mills would immediately buckle under the pressure, however Mills refuted it quite easily. Mills suggests that we view God's statement as a blessing, rather than an evil commandment. Loftus' response was... interesting.. to say the least. He became observably angrily evasive and annoyingly repetitive. His immediate response to Mills is that "well, other Christian authors disagree" (22:28 and 16:20 in the debate) without giving an in-context grounding for that. Let's just forget the in-context grounding, though. Loftus is knocking on the door of a strange appeal to authority with that sort of response. Mills even points out at 22:40 that it's an argument from popularity. It is immediately after that when Loftus starts to unravel mentally and physically.
One other very important part of the debate was animal sacrifice. Loftus says it is "brutal" and "unnecessary". Loftus again threw this out there as if he wielded a nail-in-the-coffin against the Bible. Mills surprised him by actually using biblical sacrifice as an argument for the Bible showing concern for animals. He pointed out that sacrifice is "how they [Hebrews] slaughtered their meat". Max educated Loftus on a process of butchering animals which involved taking it to an altar, being supervised, and it being a must for you to kill the animal yourself. 'Obviously, this is a million miles ahead of the way we slaughter animals today', Mills basically pointed out. And Mills, then, topped the sweet refutation off with Lev. 17:10-11, which speaks of banning the consumption of blood because "the life of the animal is in the blood". Loftus responded with the same. He was observably uneasy, very repetitive, and very angry (especially towards the end). You can see those traits flowing from him while he tried to depend on a very irrelevant "life force was a magical force" defense (19:11 in the video).
At 42:35 you see Loftus just exasperating, "I'm done here", goes off on a literal rant and quits the debate with a cowardly ad hominem at 43:38. This bit of the debate was very unprofessional on Loftus' part. I'm apt to consider Loftus' behavior as outright cowardly.
It's a very easy victory for the Bible thanks to Max Mills rushing at a subject that many Christians are very uneasy about defending. Cheers to Max Mills!
I expect Loftus to try to sweep this under the rug and do his best to hide it from everyone (including William Craig), whom Loftus constantly challenges. It appears to me that Max Mills [may have] also showed us that Loftus contains a very emotional grounds or foundation for his disbelief. It's something Craig suspects is true, which is why I hope this finds its way towards Craig's eyes.
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