The Infidel Delusion!

Ever since The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (TCD) came out we've been expecting deluded and irrational attacks. One such going the rounds now is the laboriously long treatment by the Christian crackpots at Triablogue, which they have amusingly titled The Infidel Delusion (I say amusingly because the "I know you are but what am I" tactic only reinforces the stereotype that many Christians are emotionally stunted children--who also have no grasp of irony).

I shall publish responses to their ill-conceived rebuttals to my own chapters in TCD eventually (since I love dispelling misinformation in my fields of expertise), but I wanted to start with a more general illustration of how irrational and deluded they are (and thus of what it means to be irrational and deluded). More replies are being developed by other contributors to TCD (see link provided on the Official TCD Website). 

Their entire collection of rebuttals is a good example of a delusional construct. It's built on delusionally failing to read statements in the very same text which contradict them, delusionally misreading statements in the text and then rebutting the whole book by rebutting things it never said, and delusionally believing that logically fallacious arguments are rationally sound. And all that in an attempt to avoid the conclusions of the book: that they are all deluded precisely because they refuse to take the Outsider Test for Faith for fear of its results, and consequently they fail to admit the demonstrated inconsistencies in their belief system, by building an even more elaborate system of inconsistencies that possess the superficial appearance of being correct. That this is the only way to maintain belief in Christianity is precisely why Christianity must be classified as a delusion.

Here I will simply pick a selection of examples (I could list dozens more; there's at least one fatal goof for every chapter). And this just from their intro summary.

Part 1: Why Faith Fails

Triablogue response to TCD Chapter 1 (David Eller, "The Cultures of Christianities"): "Eller’s belief that there is no real Christianity, but instead thousands of Christianities, actually destroys the basis for The Christian Delusion by rendering the idea that there is such a thing as Christianity (singular) to refute moot."

Here is their argument analyzed formally:

1. There are many different Christianities.
   
   
2. If there are many different Christianities, no two Christianities have any elements in common.
   
   
3. If no two Christianities have any elements in common, then no collection of essays purporting to refute Christianity can refute Christianity.
   
   
4. TCD is a collection of essays purporting to refute Christianity.
   
   
5. Therefore, TCD cannot refute Christianity.

Premises 2 and 3 are blatantly false. Premise 2 is false because all Christianities share core elements in common, without which no relevant form of Christianity is true, e.g. that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that believing this secures us eternal life. So all one need do is refute those to refute them all. The one is shown to be improbable in Chapter 11 of TCD, and the rest is shown to be improbable by Parts 1 through 4 of TCD. Therefore, all the many forms of Christianity addressed by Eller are refuted in TCD. Since Premise 2 is false (both in fact and in principle), Conclusion 5 is unsound. Their rebuttal from Eller's first chapter is therefore irrational. 

Premise 3 is false as well, because obviously a collection of essays can collectively refute a whole array of Christianities, by attacking overlapping sets of Christianities. Indeed, Part 1 of TCD applies to any and all forms of Christianity (not just one single form of it). Since Christianity has not passed the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF), i.e. when Christianity is judged by the same standards as other religions, Christianity is no better supported than any other religion (and therefore no more likely to be true than they are), and Part 1 of TCD proves beliefs that have not passed the OTF are very probably false, therefore Christianity tout court is already refuted thereby. One can only retreat from this conclusion by trying to get Christianity to pass the OTF. Which the remaining chapters in TCD show can't be done for any relevant form of Christianity.

Hence all the other chapters refute different forms of Christianity, and thus TCD collectively refutes all relevant forms of Christianity. All "The Bible is God's Word" Christianities are refuted in Part 2; all "God is Good" Christianities are refuted in Part 3; all "Jesus is the Son of God" Christianities are refuted in Part 4; and all "Christianity is Necessary for Science and Morality" Christianities are refuted in Part 5; with all those Christianities eliminated, there are no significant Christianities left to rebut. And even those are eliminated by Part 1.

Accordingly, as Premise 3 of their argument is also false, Conclusion 5 is even more unsound. So their rebuttal from Eller's first chapter is doubly irrational.

Triablogue response to TCD Chapter 3 (Jason Long, "The Malleability of the Human Mind"): Long "show[s] cultural background determines how one will believe. This sort of cultural relativism is a double-edged sword, however. If it works against Christianity, it is only at the expense of destroying atheism in the process."

Here is their argument analyzed formally:

1. Cultural background determines how one will believe.
   
   
2. If cultural background determines how one will believe, then this is as true for atheism as for Christianity.
   
   
3. If this is as true for atheism as for Christianity, then Christianity is not a delusion.
   
   
4. Therefore Christianity is not a delusion.

Here Premise 3 is not established. Nor is it even plausible. Because claiming atheism is a delusion "for the same reasons" in no way argues Christianity is not also a delusion. Thus the conclusion does not follow. This is therefore an irrational argument.

In fact, claiming atheism is a delusion merely because "Premise 1 is true" would entail Christianity is also a delusion (because Premise 1 is just as true for it as for atheism), thus refuting their conclusion. So they can't mean to argue that Premise 1 has that consequence (for atheism or any other belief). Surely what they should want to argue is that Premise 1 alone does not entail a belief is delusional. But of course Long does not argue that it does. All he argues is that because Premise 1 is true, we need to make sure our beliefs are not delusional. In other words, Long's chapter proves Christianity (like atheism and any other belief) needs to pass the OTF, and that if it does not, it's probably false (for all the scientifically established reasons he documents). They cannot avoid this conclusion with the irrational dodge they have attempted. Such avoidance behavior is typical of the delusional, however.

Moreover, John Loftus already rebuts their entire argument in Chapter 4 of TCD, demonstrating that Christianity is only a delusion because it has not passed and does not pass the Outsdider Test for Faith (OTF), whereas atheism does pass that test, and therefore Premise 1 does not entail atheism is a delusion, but does entail Christianity is a delusion. They don't want to honestly face this argument, so they come up with hundreds of pages of delusional excuses to avoid it.

In other words, the argument of TCD is:

1. Cultural background (and common psychological biases and mistakes) determines how one will believe (collectively proved by Eller, Tarico, and Long, in Chapters 1, 2, and 3), unless one corrects for these influences when deciding what to believe.
   
   
2. One can correct for these influences only by ensuring a belief will pass the OTF.
   
   
3. A belief that does not pass the OTF is very probably false (proved again by Eller, Tarico, and Long, and by Loftus in Chapter 4).
   
   
4. A belief that is maintained in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is probably false is a delusion.
   
   
5. TCD provides overwhelming evidence that Christianity does not pass the OTF (regardless of whether atheism also does not).
   
   
6. Therefore, TCD provides overwhelming evidence that Christianity is probably false.
   
   
7. Therefore, Christianity is a delusion.

Nothing argued in Triablogue's rebuttal to Long (or Loftus or anyone else for that matter) actually challenges any premise in this argument. And the argument is formally valid. Rejecting a sound and valid argument is irrational. And a belief that can only be defended by irrationality is a delusion.

Part 2: Why the Bible Is Not God's Word

Response to TCD Chapter 7 (John Loftus, "What We've Got Here Is a Failure to Communicate"): "If Loftus’s chapter is true, Babinski’s and Tobin’s [chapters] must be false!"

Here is their argument analyzed formally:

1. The Bible is unclear about many crucial and important things a God should want us to know (proved in Loftus' chapter).
   
   
2. If the Bible is unclear about many crucial and important things a God should want us to know, then it is unclear about anything and everything it says.
   
   
3. If the Bible is unclear about anything and everything it says, then Babinski’s and Tobin’s chapters must be false (because those chapters argue the Bible is clear about several embarrassing things).
   
   
4. Therefore, "if Loftus’s chapter is true, Babinski’s and Tobin’s chapters must be false!"

Here premise 2 is obviously false. Both in principle and in practice. Nothing in Loftus' chapter argues, entails, or even implies Premise 2. Yet without Premise 2, Conclusion 4 is unsound. Hence Triablogue's rebuttal of Babinski and Tobin from Loftus is completely irrational.

Ironically, here we have the shockingly irrational and patently delusional black-and-white thinking that Tarico and Long warn against in their chapters. It's a fallacy of false dichotomy: either the Bible is entirely clear on every point, or it's entirely unclear on every point. Yet neither is even probable. Loftus only argues for the middle case (which the Law of Excluded Middle requires any rational person to take into account): that the Bible is only unclear in enough places to be a self-refuting foundation for Christianity.

Which means there is no inconsistency in TCD on this point. Nor is any inconsistency produced when the rest of us in TCD use some of the clear remarks in the Bible to make arguments from. Because that in no way entails we regard all other material in the Bible to be clear. Not only is a lot else certainly unclear, but a text can be clear as regards what it says happened on a particular occasion, but at the very same time be completely unclear as to what that's supposed to mean for us in terms of moral guidance or god's message. And Loftus' chapter concerns mainly the latter. His conclusion thus has no bearing on how the rest of us analyze the text of the Bible, or else it fully supports us (as when Tobin or I demonstrate the presence of contradictory claims, which is the epitome of being unclear). Hence believing his conclusion contradicts us is irrational. Which is proof again that Triablogue's authors are irrational. And therefore delusional.

Part 3: Why the Christian God Is Not Perfectly Good

Response to TCD Chapter 8 (Hector Avalos, "Yahweh Is a Moral Monster"): "Avalos’s moral relativism defeats his own argument."

Here is their argument analyzed formally:

1. Avalos is a moral relativist.
   
   
2. Avalos concludes the Christian God is morally evil in respect to Christianity's own moral ideals.
   
   
3. A moral relativist cannot consistently argue another moral system is inconsistent with itself.
   
   
4. Therefore, Avalos' conclusion is inconsistent with his moral relativism.

Here Premise 3 is false. The conclusion is therefore unsound. Which makes this yet another irrational objection to what is actually a soundly proved conclusion: that God is evil by Christianity's own standards. Avalos is simply arguing that Christianity is delusional because it is internally incoherent. Moral relativism makes no difference to whether that conclusion is true. Even if moral relativism is true, Christianity is still internally incoherent, and continuing to believe what has been soundly and validly shown to be internally incoherent is still delusional.

Meanwhile, moral relativism itself is internally consistent: Avalos can objectively prove the God of the Bible is inhumanly cruel (and he does; my online supplement The Will of God decisively supports him on this), which conclusion has no inherent moral status, and then from his own moral principles he can declare that cruelty immoral (and thus unworthy of worship) without requiring readers to agree with that judgment. But they still must agree with the first judgment, as inhuman cruelty is not a value judgment but an objectively defined set of behaviors. Anyone who then also shares Avalos' personal belief that inhuman cruelty is evil (which is the moral truth "relative to him") must also share his value judgment, too (that the OT God is evil), even if moral relativism is true. Otherwise they are being irrational. Which is exactly what the Triablogue crew is being.

Part 4: Why Jesus Is Not the Risen Son of God

Response to TCD Chapter 10 (Robert Price, "Jesus: Myth and Method"): "Price actually ignores the vast majority of modern scholarship in rejecting the very existence of Jesus as a historical figure."

Click to Enlarge!

Since Price in Chapter 10 of TCD nowhere argues that Jesus didn't exist as a historical figure, this would be an irrational objection to his chapter. However, I expect they will revise this paragraph soon, since it doesn't accurately state what's argued in their book, and from subsequent comments on this blog it sounds like this was not intentional (as I had wrongly assumed it was). It merely seemed to claim that Price's position on historicity was relevant to his argument in TCD (even though in fact it is not). Since I mistook them for arguing this in their summary, I retract my claim that they did, with apology.

What remains relevant is the implication that we should hew to the consensus against Price. Price's chapter actually makes the strong argument that the Gospels contain a substantial amount of mythmaking about Jesus and the Church--which ironically (or perversely) "the vast majority of modern scholarship" completely agrees with. So either we have what "the vast majority of modern scholarship" actually says being cited as grounds to reject what "the vast majority of modern scholarship" actually says. Which is nearly the most irrational thing I've ever seen. Or we have special pleading (claiming the Gospels are special and thus not like other sacred biographies, and that fundamentalist scholars are special, and thus their opinions weigh more than the vast majority of biblical experts), which is, of course, still irrational.

Part 5: Why Society Does Not Depend on Christian Faith

Response to TCD Chapter 13 (David Eller, "Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality"): Eller's "evolutionary claims are insufficient to create any type of morality."

Eller doesn't argue for any morality being true in this chapter. So this objection isn't even pertinent. Rejecting a conclusion with such a non sequitur is the epitome of irrationality. Eller only argues that Christianity is not the source of all morality but is just one source among many for one morality among many, therefore Christianity cannot be considered the foundation for morality (and he's right). Even if "evolutionary claims are insufficient to create any type of morality" that would have no bearing on whether his conclusion is true. In fact, his actual conclusion is so well established in his chapter there can be no rational basis for rejecting it. That these authors thus retreat to an irrational basis for rejecting it is exactly how delusional people behave.

Response to TCD Chapter 14 (Hector Avalos, "Atheism Was Not the Cause of the Holocaust") and Chapter 15 (Richard Carrier, "Christianity Was Not Responsible for Modern Science"): "Avalos’s argument that atheism didn’t cause the Holocaust is irrelevant to the issue of whether Christianity is true...and Carrier’s historical claims that Christians are not responsible for modern science is...irrelevant to the issue of the truth of Christianity"

Neither Avalos nor myself argued that our chapters refuted Christianity. To the contrary, our chapters show examples of what sorts of delusions many Christians succumb to or resort to in order to bolster their delusional belief that Christianity is correct and necessary for modern society.

"God Is with Us!"

Thus, our chapters refute two common Christian delusions, not the Christian delusion as a whole. This brings us back to the very first chapter by Eller: Part 5 refutes a particular kind of Christianity, the kind based on the assumption that we need it, even if the rest of what TCD says is true (my online adjunct chapter, which didn't make the final cut for page count, adds a refutation of another common Christian delusion in this category: Christianity Was Not Responsible for American Democracy; Eller on morality adds a fourth). It's ironic to see Triablogue claim we must rebut different kinds of Christianity, and then when we do that by divvying the kinds up into five parts, they complain we aren't rebutting the whole of Christianity in each part. That's irrational.

Another significant point of our two chapters is that there are millions of people, even trained scholars, who actually are this deluded. If the Triablogue authors wish to concede that these are delusions, and that their fellow Christians should abandon them, we welcome their help in getting those delusions dispelled. But they cannot honestly deny that millions of Christians, even trained scholars, still embrace these delusions, as our chapters document both their widespread embrace, and that they are delusional. This should cast serious doubt on the ability of many Christians and even many Christian scholars to arrive at rational beliefs about the world and its history. If so many can be so wrong, even supposed experts, we have good reason to put everything else they believe to a sound, objective test. And that brings us full circle back to Part 1 of TCD: Christianity simply must pass the OTF. Because if it does not, it's delusional to persist in believing it.

[Update 2011: for a good summary of The Christian Delusion and how it actually quite soundly establishes all forms of Christianity as a bona fide delusion, see my entertaining Skepticon talk Are Christians Delusional?]