As of lately I came to the descision that it was time to have my own little rant in a collection
of many. What I mean by this is that I have here written an article ranting about a particular individual in
mind that has been written about on many sites elsewhere.
Today we will be talking about the world's one and only John W. Loftus. You may already
recognize this name as the author of the blog titled "Debunking Christianity" or maybe you have even visited TheologyWeb.com to see John in action by promoting and soliciting his book "Why I rejected
Christianity" in the majority of his posts. John in all honestly is one of the most interesting characters
you will find on a Google index, and not necessarily because of the supposed 'greatness' of his blog. After some
online dialouge between John and myself (and others of course) I couldn't help but go through the energy and effort
to waste my life making another article that would investigate whether John was irrational and self-deluded, stupid,
or maybe even all of the above.
John Loftus is one of the most foremost atheists out there. His most notable personality
traits are his ability to essentially delude and convince himself of downright falsehoods, or, if you choose to believe, his
outright shameful dishonesty. He would be your farthest bet from an individual who actually practices in telling the truth.
John will make statements that other atheists might want to be cautiously aware of associating themselves with, if indeed
such individuals are intelligent enough to see the problems galore. Such issues like those involving the origins of morals
are just one out of many jaw-dropping examples: "...I no longer think it's wrong to hate or lust,
I suppose. Those things are fantasy, and I can discipline myself enough to keep such fantasies in my head. They can lead to
wrong actions, I know, so I still have to guard against them, and I do." What John probably doesn't consider
is the maximum human capability for keeping one's self under control over their thoughts. As tempting as it
is to act upon our thoughts, we usually have somewhere in our natural human instincts, a tick which drives us over the
edge, but not that Loftus ever considers those hypothetical circumstances. Not suprisingly, other
atheists have also criticized John for his lack of logical thinking and intelligence.
There might also be reasonable inference that Loftus the Locust has emotional issues and wrestles
deeply with his internal manhood. He reveals that his history was plagued with sexual affairs, as Loftus apparenlty writes
in his book: "...I worked day after day with the executive director, whose’ name was Linda.
She practically idolized me. She did everything I said to do, and would call me daily to help her deal with various situations
that came up from the running of the Shelter, along with her personal problems. What man doesn’t want to be worshipped?
I guess I did. I was having problems with my own relationship with my wife at the time, and Linda made herself available.
I succumbed and had an affair with her." (Why I rejected Christianity, pg. 22)
On John's TWeb profile, we see that John displays his profile signatures to be as poetically pathetic as possible. His most recent and current one
to date reads:
Personally attacking me is like pouring gasoline on the flames on
my passion. I get stronger. I've told you that from the beginning. You didn't believe me. Maybe someday you will.
It's certaintly a message that would persuade anyone to sympathize for the poor man, certaintly
not to give in and conclude that John speaks from suppressive experience, or that John is innocent on the charges, and the
good ol' theists at TWeb have nothing better to do than to pick on poor John because they were once bullied as kids. No, this
is another method John uses to get people to believe his arguments and become convinced by them, which eventually leads up
to more solicitation for the new revision of his book. Obviously, he isn't very good for being a self-advertiser and his methods
of grabbing attention are the oldest to be found in the book of trickery.
JOHN LYING LOFTUS?
If there is anything to be honestly said on part of John's moral character, it is that John
has an apparent knack for lying and not admitting it firsthand. In a popular forum thread posted by JP Holding of Tektonics.org, Holding did a Whois lookup search to track the author of a "mirror site" John was
advertising on the DC blog. John states:
I recently noticed another blog that apparently started up in March which is very critical of J.P. Holding,
here. I personally do not like Holding, but I'm probably not going to waste my time on him, except to point out what others
are saying about him.
Unfortuanetly, the sources to many of these quotes are now links gone defunct, which
suggests that Holding's expose of Loftus shows that Loftus desperately covers up evidence which exposes his wrongdoings. Admitting
the truth is the last thing on John Loftus' mind, even when it has been proven.
Holding brings up the biggest piece of dirt in this little expose, a Whois code on the ownership
of the "other" blog "advertised":
-
<feed>
<id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637087862117528188</id>
<updated>2007-05-26T09:37:42.003-07:00</updated>
<title
type="text">J.P. Holding</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://jpholding.blogspot.com/"/>
<link
rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://jpholding.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default"/>
<link
rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4637087862117528188/posts/default"/>
-
<author>
<name>John
W. Loftus</name>
With this sort of undeniable in-your-face evidence (or rather, "proof") John Loftus has nothing
better to do than to efface the sources of which the evidence was derived from. And before any admittance can be extracted
by good ol' Honest John, he responds:
Technically, I didn't lie.
Comment: What's that
supposed to mean? A lie is a lie John, technicalities are only necessary when clarifying technical details. You did
none of this.
Prove to me I did.
Comment: We did, and
the evidence provided reveals an inevitable conclusion.
Besides, it doesn't matter that you know I started
the Blog. I don't care. People will still visit there regardless, and I will continue sending people there.
Comment: Didn't John
just remark that he wanted proof that he lied about the blog???
You are the dishonest one.
Comment: Excellent kindergarten rebuttal, but no substance whatsoever that
would lead to the convinction that Holding is "dishonest". Certaintly not in the way John Loftus continually has been.
Funny, when I go there I don't find the link. Is it broken?
Comment: Funny, didn't John just admit that it was his blog a few posts
back?
The drama still perpetuates in John's pity excuses and reasoning for simply not admitting to being deceptive towards
his audience:
Technically speaking it isn't a lie since I did in fact recently notice (as in "see" "read" or
"observe") that Blog. Just because I did not say everything I knew about that Blog does not make what I said a lie.
Comment: Yet of course after everything having been proven that the blog was your sockpuppet and
continually denying it isn't lying either, of course.
Where does anyone have an ethical duty to say everything that he or she knows? If you can
make that case, then anyone who does not say everything he knows about any given topic is lying.
Comment:
Ignorance is the second option of choice, but don't confuse the two.
You and others are so slipshod about such basic distinctions as these, it's no wonder you argue
the way you do.
Read through Sissla Bok's book on Lying. It'll open your eyes to some basic distinctions.
Comment: We would have reasons to be convinced of these 'distinctions' if indeed there was no good reason
for suggesting that John used a sockpuppet. Of course we can go on repeating ourselves, John is too spineless to listen.
Comment: When confronted with the undeniable, John Loftus resorts to changing the subject by re-directing
dishonesty on another person having proved him dishonest.
Just when you thought that John would have stopped with the irrelevant redudancy and obfuscating on this topic,
comes more suprises:
Look, I'm an atheist. With you and yours I never had any credibility to begin with. So it's not
surprising you say that I don't now. In fact, you would've been honest if you had said that before this thread, because from
your perspective you wouldn't believe me no matter what I said.
Comments: Why is it that fundamental atheists always think that they're arguments suck something horrible
because they are atheist? It surely has nothing to do with the fact that they can't handle simple logic that a five-year old
child could, it has to do with them being atheist. We know that John is wrong in this claim because even fellow religious
skeptics have cofronted him.
EXAMPLES OF BAD SALESMANSHIP BY JOHN LOFTUS
John Loftus is probably one of the worst salesmen in the sales department. John literally employs the worst reasoning
possible in making his book a convincing work of scholarly writing. In addition, John's salesmanship reveals a great deal
of information on his financial circumstances:
Norman Geisler Reviews Doubting John's Book
Source: http://theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?p=2024209#post2024209
Have you read my book? Sheesh. Why would Geisler, and James Sennett recommend it to others then, along with Daniel
Dennett and Dan Barker. Why does Prometheus Book want to publish it?
Comment: John somehow thinks getting recommended by other atheist writers and authors
is like winning a golden medal in recognition for his book. "Why does Proetheus Books want to publish it?" Maybe it's because Prometheus
Books is an atheist publishing company?
October 2007 Screwballs thread, pg. 4
You won't be laughing when one of your believing followers reads my book and rejects his or her faith. But it
will happen more than once. Your lame arguments will not be able to keep them in the fold no matter what you do. Why? Because
the truth is not on your side. In order to win an argument you must start by being right. That's why you won't win this.
Comment: Actually I'm not convinced solely by JP's arguments against Loftus' book as I am unconvinced
of Loftus' book by Loftus himself.
I personally cannot wait to see you squiggle and squirm when my book comes out, 'cause people
will ask you to answer me. 
That'll be so much fun to watch, because you won't be able to do it. To answer my argument you will have to answer it all,
for if you cannot do so on all points, any one of which destroys your case, you have not done your job.
Comment: Why does John insist on appealing to his book in an argument but cannot actually bring the
argument forth himself? Isn't he the author of this great book?
I consider my book to be one long single argument. You have to read the whole of it to feel the
force of it. Only people interested in my whole argument will read it even if I posted it (come on now, 400+ pages), and if
they are interested in reading it, they will also buy it.
Comment: Is John so stale in
his arguments that he needs "400+ pages" to make a convincing argument????
I'm not interested that much in the money from the book sales, but I won't hand out my book to
people who are only interested in defaming my character, either.
Comment: But he does insist on advertising his book to people "who are only interested in defaming my
character" in addition to calling them "idiots" and other "ad-hominens." And is John really disinterested in making
profits from his book?
I can't tell you how many times Christians have asked me for a free copy. I'd
be broke had I done that.
Comment: Perhaps what John means is that he would be "broke" because of the expenses of getting a book
published and doesn't mean this in the strict sense. Then again, what other sort of reasoning would a person have for spamming
advertisements for their book?
Anyway, as I said, people here at TWEB have motivated me. It's too late now to change anything,
but I just want you to know. I warned you. You will laugh to each other, but you will also cry when a person or two you know
loses his or her faith because of it. These people can just thank you. It will happen in the future.
Comment: Even if John's book was to make a good deal in sales, does this say anything about the content
of his argument in all honesty? Does it gurantee a critical well-spoken perspective? Does it gurantee that everything in that
book will be 100% true and irrefutable?
THE LOCUST STRIKES BACK
