Doubting John: He Still Lies Today!

[Babaloo]

VERSES FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Proverbs 17:5b, 24:17, 25:21 (New International Version) Whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished. Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice. . . . If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

Psalm 34:14b . . . seek peace and pursue it.

Matthew 5:5,7,9,44 I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, . . . Blessed are the meek. . . Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. . . .Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. . . .

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

2 Cor. 10:1 I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ . . .

2 Peter 2:21-23 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
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JUST TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD (NOT PICKING ON ANYONE, BUT JUST TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO REALIZE HOW SELECTIVE ONE CAN BE WHEN REMEMBERING ONLY THE BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO "UNBELIEVERS" OR TO "BELIEVERS." THE FORMER OF WHICH SEEMS TO BE COVERED, SO THOUGHT I'D ADD SOME INFO CONCERNING THE LATTER.)

The sorrows of one person's s life does not constitute convincing evidence of the falsity of their metaphysical/religious beliefs.

Neither do the joys/good fortune of one person's life constitute convincing evidence of the truth of their metaphysical/religious beliefs.

Loftus has his share of sorrows as do each of us, Ecclesiastes, like other ancient literature points out that all flesh is grass and liable to sorrow of a wide variety. Neither is your information on Loftus up to date per what I'd read after that. He re-edited the book months earlier and was only O.K.ing final edits during the period in question. And his wife and he have not completey split per the later info I read.

Christians drink, divorce, suffer depression, have sex outside marriage (including gay sex and drugs), suffer illnesses (from kidney stones and allergies to far more dire illnesses and accidents, like the minister who was electrocuted in his own baptismal font; or worshipers getting struck by lightning; or Oral Roberts' daughter going down in a plane crash; or a Texas evangelist and his choir going down in a plane crash, or a Christian musician's son accidentally running over their adopted baby; or a faith healer dyng young of cancer; or another faith healer dying of booze and drugs) or any number of bad things that have happened to Christians, physically, psychologically, financially.

Everyone is subject to bad things happening to them. So it's doubtful that trolling addiction rates or mortality statistics will aid very much in pointing us toward the one true religion or one true form of prayer or worship. (If sobriety is one's determinant, note that the vast majority of Muslims don't drink at all.)

Speaking of statistics, one study in the mid-1800s showed that boats carrying missionaries to foreign lands tended to sink at approximately the same rate as boats not carrying missionaries. Neither are people who experience spontaneous remissions from cancer only found among the most devout. See here and here.

In our own day, the drought in Texas demonstrates that a state with plenty of churches, including the largest Southern Baptist Church in the U.S. cannot pray its way out of a natural disaster, and that natural disasters strike whole states with plenty of Christians, and not just cities like New Orleans.

History (as well as Christian history) demonstrates that thinkers and scientists don't always lead happy-go-lucky lives. Some of the most creative people in the arts and sciences have been manic-depressives, suffered divorces, struggled with alcohol/drugs/sex addiction, etc. Even the Catholic historian in Britain who condemned adulterous "intellectuals" in a book of the same title wound up having his long-time mistress reveal that he'd been committing adultery. Even the past president of the Southern Baptist convention, and famed TV preacher, Charles Stanley, had his wife apply for a divorce and part of her settlement was to remain mum on the exact reasons. The president of a nationwide Evangelical group of ministers was found having sex and taking drugs with one or more gay men.
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Over a hundred children were taken captive in a schoolhouse hostage situation in Russia (2004), which included several children of Baptist missionaries, who died in the final act of that hostage tragedy. Prior to the children's deaths an email was sent out worldwide by the Baptist World Alliance begging for prayers for the children.
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Five Southern Baptist aid workers were in Mosul, Iraq, to provide clean water to the city. While driving on the east side of the city the Baptists' car came under attack. One couple was new to the mission field. The husband had just graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2002, and his wife was still officially a student there. Another couple were longtime missionary veterans, having worked most of the last 25 years in Honduras. They were scheduled to leave Iraq later this month to close their Honduran headquarters and permanently relocate to Iraq. Also killed in the attack was a single woman who converted to Christianity in 1997 and had recently quit her job . . . to work full-time in missions . . . In February, a taxi carrying several Independent Baptist church planters (not Southern Baptists) was attacked as it returned from Babylon to Baghdad. John Kelley, pastor of Curtis Corner Baptist Church in Wakefield, Rhode Island, was killed in the shooting. Three others were injured. [The article further explained that it was not the fact that they were missionaries that got them killed, but they had lost their way in the streets and simply driven into the wrong side of town and were gunned down simply for appearing to be Americans.] -- reported in Christianity Today
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A few years prior to 2006 on the television news program, 20/20, the story was told of a South American missionary's small airplane that was gunned down with the missionary inside by a military jet aircraft who mistook the tiny missionary's plane as a drug-runner's plane.
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In Pucuro, Panama, three missionary men were taken away from their families in 1993. After eight long years of praying for the safe return of the men, their families recently learned that they had been killed by their captors five years previously.
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The Christian (who later became a missionary) and about whom the Oscar winning movie, "Chariots of Fire" was made, died of a brain tumor while a missionary in China.
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In the 1800s Francis Galton examined the insurance rates for ships. He reasoned that ships carrying missionaries and pilgrims should have lower rates since frequent praying by the occupants should decrease the number of accidents. He found that the rates were the same; ships carrying missionaries and pilgrims sank just as often as other ships.
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PASTOR KILLED BY LOOSE WIRE DURING BAPTISMAL SERVICE IN FRONT OF 800 PEOPLE
Kyle Lake, 33, pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, died Sunday after being electrocuted while standing in the church baptismal during a morning service. Lake received a shock while adjusting a microphone before baptizing a woman… About 800 people were attending the service, which was more than usual due to Baylor University’s homecoming weekend, reports the Associated Press. Lake was a rising leader in new church movements such as Emergent. Lake is survived by his wife and three children.--CT Staff, “Pastor Electrocuted in Baptismal: Pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco Dies After Adjusting Microphone.” Christianity Today, posted 10/31/2005
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FAITH HEALER DIES IN HIS EARLY 50s OF CANCER
I looked up the survival rate for his disease "Overall, the one-year relative survival rate for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is 70 percent, and the five-year survival rate is 51 percent." "With thousands praying for him, he lasted a month." - John Tyrrell
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FAMOUS FAITH HEALER, NOT DELIVERED FROM BOOZE AND DRUGS, DIES
Asa Alonzo Allen (1911-1970) was a prominent, flamboyant and controversial Pentecostal "healing evangelist" of the 1940s-1960s. On June 14, 1970, listeners in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines were hearing a recorded message from A. A. Allen on his radio program saying: "This is Brother Allen in person. Numbers of friends of mine have been inquiring about reports they have heard concerning me that are not true. People as well as some preachers from pulpits are announcing that I am dead. Do I sound like a dead man? My friends, I am not even sick! Only a moment ago I made a reservation to fly into our current campaign. I'll see you there and make the devil a liar." At that moment, at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, police were removing A. A. Allen's body from a room strewn with pills and empty liquor bottles. The man who had once said that "the beer bottle and gin bucket" should have been on his family coat of arms was dead at 59 from what was said to be a heart attack but was in reality liver failure brought about by acute alcoholism. (p.88, The Faith Healers by The Amazing Randi)
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FIVE CHILDREN GATHERED AROUND A CROSS ARE KILLED BY LIGHTNING DURING RELIGIOUS CEREMONY
Five children between 9 and 16 years old died and several others suffered burns when lightning struck a white-painted metal cross set on a hill in the town of Santa Maria del Rio, Mexico, early on Sunday. “The lightning went straight into them and killed them instantly,” local Red Cross chief Eduardo Suarez said. Several families had been participating in a midnight ceremony as part of a local religious festival that centers around the cross.
“Lightning kills 5 Mexican children in prayer: Youths between 9 and 16 die praying at metal cross in central Mexico,” Reuters, April 24, 2006
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ELEVEN CHURCHGOERS KILLED BY LIGHTNING
About 40 people had gathered in the Church of Central African Presbytery in Mzimba, South Africa, when lightning struck on Saturday afternoon, said Fletcher Ndhlovu, an elder of the church. “Strong lightning struck the church building, sending everybody into shock,” Ndhlovu told AFP. The victims were taken to the district hospital “where 11 people were pronounced dead on arrival,” said Mzimba hospital physician Barton Jere. “The persons arrived here when they were already dead but we admitted eight people and 10 others were treated as out patients,” Jere told AFP. “They were all in a state of shock.”
“Lightning Kills 11 In Church,” Dec. 18, 2005
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MAN HOLDING CROSS IS KILLED BY LIGHTNING
A man died after lightning struck a metal cross he was holding during a funeral in a village near Ljubljana, the Slovenian news agency STA reported Thursday. It said the 62-year-old man died in hospital Wednesday evening, several hours after the incident in the village of Brezovica. Another person at the funeral was slightly injured.-- Reuters, “Man Dies After Lightning Strikes Metal Cross,” June 23, 2005
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BOY SCOUTS KILLED BY LIGHTNING
A 15-year old Boy Scout (the Boy Scouts of America do not tolerate people who are openly atheist, agnostic, or unwilling to say in the Scout Oath they they will serve God) was killed and three others were injured last night when a bolt of lightning hit the log shelter they were sleeping in. Last Thursday, a 13-year-old Scout was killed by lightning in California. Four Scout leaders were electrocuted in Virginia earlier that week. -- “Utah Boy Scout Killed By Lightning: Another Tragedy Hits Organization,” August 3, 2005
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WOMAN STRUCK DOWN BY LIGHTNING WHILE PRAYING
Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown, 65, stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama. She said “Amen” and… lightning suddenly exploded in her house, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured. Fire officials think the lightning likely struck across the street from the couple’s home and traveled into the house through a water line. The lightning continued into the couple’s backyard and ripped open a small trench. -- “Woman Hit By Lightning While Praying,” Associated Press, May 30, 2006
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INDEPENDENT FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
Lightning caused a fire that destroyed a century-old church in Churubusco, Indiana… Charter Oak had completed a new addition within the last year and had plans for further expansion. It is part of the Independent Fundamentalist Churches of America, an association of independent churches.
Associated Press, “Lightning Destroys Century-Old Church,” November 17, 2005

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PLANE CRASH KILLS DAUGHTER OF FAMOUS PENTECOSTAL EVANGELIST AND HEALER
Rev. Oral Roberts claimed he had a dream in which God told him that his daughter-in-law, Patti, would be killed in a place crash if she ever left his ministry. Patti did leave the ministry, distressed at the way her husband, Richard Roberts, was being turned into a clone of Oral, and the way they rationalized their expensive lifestyles. But the year Patti left his ministry, she did not die in a plane crash, while Rebecca, Oral’s own daughter, did. See Patti Roberts' book, from Ashes to Gold
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FUNDAMENTALIST MINISTER DIES IN PLANE CRASH WHILE ON HIS WAY TO PREACH
On November 2, 1982, Rev. Lester Roloff (who had appeared a year earlier on “60 Minutes” stating his defiance of the what he called “Texas’s Godless juvenile home system”), along with a female staff member and a ladies singing trio, were killed when their plane crashed during a storm near Normangee, Texas, on their way to a preaching and singing service they were scheduled to conduct.

[Teallaura]

Ya know, had you spent a little more time reading the thread and less time composing that thing you might have realized that you were making a fool of yourself. Congrats on coming within a hair of the size limit restating the obvious.

[jpholding]

VERSES FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Yeah, here's one for you, Edski, since you're obviously not paying attention and think all this vomit you spewed up has any relevance to what anyone here said:

And be moderate in thy pace, and lower thy voice; for the harshest of sounds without doubt is the braying of an ass. -- Quran 31:18-19

[jpholding]

Realization:

Edski's stupidity is so disastrous that it trumps any potential list of disasters he could compose happening to Christians.

Conclusion:

Atheism is indeed false.


By the way, Edski, are you composing these diatribes on Furman's company clock again?

[ApologiaPhoenix]

I would read it all, but I want to spend Valentine's Day with my Mrs.

[David Beason]

Not really sure how john has a following hes pretty sloppy and dishonest, like hes claim that Dr.Habermas adds the empty tomb even thought only 75 percent of scholars agree about it, how ever I talked with Dr. Habermas and he told me that he doesn't even add the Empty Tomb in as one of the minimal facts

[Dee Dee Warren]

John has allegedly quit:

I have no more desire to engage Christians. They are deluded, all of them. I have never been more convinced of this than I am now. I have better things to do. I spent 39+ years of my adult life on a delusion. If I add the years of my childhood that's almost my entire life. Yet this is the only life I will ever have. It's time to move on, or at a minimum take a very long hiatus. I just finished what may be my last book, on The Outsider Test for Faith, to be published by Prometheus Books early next year. How many times do I need to kick the dead horse of Christianity? I don't think I need to say anything more. If what I have written isn't good enough then nothing is good enough for some Christians. What I intend to do is turn this blog over to a few qualified people. I'll still be a part of it and I suppose I'll post something from time to time. But I see no reason to waste large chunks of my time on this delusion anymore.

Though of course that will last as long as each time he has quit posting here...

He is rash and compulsive.

[fm93]

Not to mention stupid.

[Teallaura]

I keep telling you - if we hook up a generator to that revolving door he can power Tweb's servers for a year or two all by himself.

[The Moonshield]

If what I have written isn't good enough then nothing is good enough for some Christians.

Kind of sounds to me like he thinks his new book is basically the pinnacle of atheistic writing on the topic; so incredibly well written and full of such faultless logic that if it can't convince Christians of how wrong they are, nothing, not even other, obviously inferior writings on the topic by other atheists, possibly can.

[Teallaura]

Kind of sounds to me like he thinks his new book is basically the pinnacle of atheistic writing on the topic; so incredibly well written and full of such faultless logic that if it can't convince Christians of how wrong they are, nothing, not even other, obviously inferior writings on the topic by other atheists, possibly can.

A-yup. The fancy term for it is 'self delusion'. DJ has self delusion down to a science. I hear next year he plans to convince himself that he's really Napoleon....

[Raphael]

A-yup. The fancy term for it is 'self delusion'. DJ has self delusion down to a science. I hear next year he plans to convince himself that he's really Napoleon....

Apparantly the new delusion isn't people believing that they are Napolean, but rather reality show stars. So which reality show do you think DJ would think he is on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/sh...-show-disorder

[Chaotic Void]

Apparantly the new delusion isn't people believing that they are Napolean, but rather reality show stars. So which reality show do you think DJ would think he is on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/sh...-show-disorder

Jersey Shore

[KingsGambit]

Jersey Shore

How many hours in a tanning booth would that require?

Don't do it, John! It's bad for you.

[Teallaura]

Jersey Shore

I think you just insulted reality television and/or 'Snookie'.