False Claims: Why You Should Be Skeptical Of John W. Loftus, IV
Posted in Blogosphere, Debunking Loftus, John W. Loftus on | 6 minutes | 9 Comments →
I want to preface this installment of the series by focusing on a comrade of Loftus’ named articulett–one of the people who literally trolled every thread I commented on–and now claims the following:
That wasn’t the first “creepy” thing that he wrote, clamat. He has made some “threatening” odd non sequiturs in a few posts and I haven’t read all his posts so there may be more.I started to skip over his posts when he started getting to scarily “irrational” from my perspective. I’m afraid of the irrational. If he believes in devils and demons and that atheists are such or in league with such, then he’s not someone I feel safe conversing with. And a couple time he referenced right wing sorts of rhetoric and it made me wonder if he might be a gun enthusiast. I don’t trust irrational people with guns– even if they are just on the internet. I may be over reacting, but I think the majority of theists posting here regularly are much “saner” sounding. [articulett]
I originally laughed at the irony of using the handle “articulett” while making basic spelling and grammar errors, but, this seems nothing less than blatant character assassination. It could be possible that articulett genuinely believes this heap of garbage, but I remain skeptical because—as usual—this “skeptic’s” claim is not accompanied by any positive evidence whatsoever, despite the fact that John’s out there telling everyone on his blog they should ask for positive evidence for that which they accept as true! Can the inanity really know no boundaries at DC?
Folks, I assure you I made no “threats” or “right wing” rhetoric or any weird gun comments at John’s blog, and I openly challenge anyone to prove otherwise. I’ve already organized an index of all my commentary at DC, so, my words are right there, ready for analysis. Would a person trying to avoid accountability for what they write provide such a courtesy?
Next up on the “let’s make any false claim we want despite the evidence” agenda, we have Loftus himself:
The thing is ana, I have addressed his concerns about me being a hypocrite since I never took the OTF. Then he repeated that accusation again up above. He doesn’t listen. He’s out to smear. It’s idiotic to claim I’m a hypocrite. … You see, cl is a moron who does not learn from me because he does not trust a thing I say. He is in attack mode. Surely not an attitude of mutual learning. And so he needs to become educated from his own side in order to engage us. He doesn’t trust a thing we say because like Satan we’re only here to deceive. [John W. Loftus]
If you look at the thread, you’ll notice that Ana asked John to address my claim instead of railing against my alleged character deficiencies. John, as you can see, replied that he did, but he didn’t–as you’ll see when I quote myself in a moment. He replied to the wrong claim!
Getting back to it, John’s claim that I labeled him a “hypocrite” regarding his failure to take the OTF is absolutely false. Either he isn’t actually reading what I say, or he’s deliberately lying. I do not know which is the case, but I do know those are the only options. The truth is, I was very careful to specifically avoid the charge of “hypocrisy” regarding John’s failure to take the OTF. This is because I honestly don’t know why John didn’t take the OTF he preaches. The fact that he didn’t doesn’t necessarily make him a hypocrite. Maybe he has reason for his exemption that I’m not privy to?
On a tangential note, I dislike those who take the liberty to attribute ill motives to other human beings in internet discussion, where we often lack helpful physical cues like inflection, posture and countenance. I take great pain to avoid charging people with things like “intellectual dishonesty,” because it’s near impossible to know if someone on the internet is really being dishonest. It’s all too easy to let prejudice and confirmation bias mistakenly fill the gaps in our irrational human minds. I’m much more likely to chalk up disagreement to the “communication breakdown” factor. We should pay our interlocutors the courtesy of good faith. Miracles can happen when we do.
Anyways, the evidence for my claim that John either isn’t reading or lying can be found in the very thread John made the aforementioned false claim on, right here:
In other threads, I’ve been accused of charging you with hypocrisy for pointing out the fact that neither your conversion nor your deconversion resulted from an OTF. As I replied then, I do not believe this fact can be attributed to hypocrisy on your behalf. However, this is the point where I will state–unequivocally–that you are being a hypocrite. You cannot say, “We should all ask for positive evidence for that which we accept as true” on the one hand, then turn around and literally litter the internet with claims unsupported by positive evidence on the other. That is hypocrisy.
Now, as you can see above, I most certainly did accuse Loftus of hypocrisy, but not regarding the OTF as he falsely claims. Rather, I charged him with hypocrisy because, as we discussed here, he cannot say, “We should all ask for positive evidence for that which we accept as true” on the one hand, then turn around and literally litter the internet with claims unsupported by positive evidence on the other. That is hypocrisy. I stand by that claim, and submit that I have justified it. Did I “repeat the accusation” that John is a hypocrite for not taking the OTF? No, a thousand times no! I never made that accusation. As far as I recall, I charged him with hypocrisy one time. I just explained why and provided the link. Yet, John thunders on about me not listening!
So, there are a few more reasons why you should be skeptical of John W. Loftus: he makes false and derogatory claims about people who challenge him, and either negligently overlooks or purposely distorts the things they say. If by chance Loftus decides to read this, hey buddy, no hard feelings, but… you’re in the wrong here.
Lastly, I’d like to ask anyone who feels I might be worth it to go to that thread and demand positive evidence for both articulett and Loftus’ false claims I’ve mentioned in today’s post. Ana is doing the best she can, but, as usual, they’re ganging up on her and making non-sequitur after non-sequitur. The question of why atheists at DC argue in packs aside, I think John would be more open to hearing what another atheist has to say on this matter, but I encourage anyone to get in there.
Back to your regular programming, and I promise the next few posts will not have anything to do with John W. Loftus.
internetchristian
says...I think you have conclusively shown your thesis to be true. Namely, that John Loftus currently can’t be trusted to be fair or reasonably consistent (of course, no one can be perfectly consistent).
I think John Loftus is getting close to the level of untrustworthiness that Richard Carrier has fallen. Carrier has been shown to be careless, sloppy, and not even attempting to check his bias at the door. This can be seen conclusively in his recent debate with WLC on the resurrection,
Found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqoRVplbW5Q
comments he made on Bayes Therom in his article on the topic
article found here: http://www.richardcarrier.info/CarrierDec08.pdf
and degradation of the McGrews with Luke at CSA
Here: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=10150
And responded to here: http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/01/richard-carrier-on-bayes-theorem.html
and here: http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/01/lydia-mcgrew-rebuts-richard-carrier.html
and here & here: http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/01/richard-carrier-replies-on-lydias-blog.html
http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2011/01/odds-form-of-bayess-theorem.html?showComment=1294516826483#c8684968774214098658
and his errors on the domesday watermills found here:
http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2011/02/richard-carrier-and-domesday-watermills.html
and I could go on and on and on.
Keep up the good work in showing how John Loftus isn’t just making normal human errors (like we all do) but rather is someone to be quite weary of, Christian and Atheist alike.
cl
says...internetchristian,
Hey there. Thanks for stopping by. Your first comment got swallowed up by my link filter. I was a bit perplexed by your second link, as it contained just a single letter, but now, I think it’s a reasonable assumption you were testing. Am I right?
At any rate, thanks for the video, and all those links. I’m familiar with some of them, I’ll definitely peruse the others as time allows.
Also, I checked out your site this morning. Your post on the “blank stares” over the question, “what is the gospel” got me thinking: the general trend in what I’d call “the dumbing down of America” doesn’t seem to restrict itself to secular issues. I would assume many young people in church are doing the same as many young people in school: participating with their bodies, while their minds are on Twitter and Facebook.
It’s really depressing and somber, IMHO.
Matt
says...I have similar experiences in youth group work. One thing that I think is important is to find ways to constantly review (though you have to be creative and do it in a new way). Also, humans are not good passive learners. The appeal of facebook and twitter is that you get to do something. If learning could be done by pressing a learn button we’d all know everything. I’ve found that students (not just elementary school) connect best when they get to participate in their learning experience. All twitter and facebook did was give students the option of what comes naturally to humans. Of course they’re not interested in the other stuff!
I’ve been to youth services where the leader just throws a Bible verse or two at the group and then has them break off into group discussion which tends to go off track. Then he brings them back together and tosses in a slightly uplifting interpretation of the Bible verse and attempts to make it relevant to them. Needless to say afterward if you ask them “what did you learn at church today” they can honestly go home and say “nothing.” Passive learning. No check for understanding.
internetchristian
says...@cl
You nailed it clL. I posted the comment, but then it didn’t appear. So then I tried posting it again, and it said it was already posted. So then I tried to post something I thought would surely get through, the letter ‘q’. It did. I figured you would sort things out on your end.
I think you are correct as well on youth being elsewhere with their minds. Like I like to say “No one is where they are”. We are all victims of this to a certain extent. But the youth I’ve interacted with seem to exemplify it incredibly! I
Very sad indeed.
internetchristian
says...@Matt
Thanks for the advice Matt. How have you gotten people to participate in a fashion that facilitates their learning?
BTW, what you described in the last paragraph is exactly what the person who came before me did. Hmmm.
GearHedEd
says...For what it’s worth department: I posted this after the “incident”…
For the record: I was neither condemning cl nor applauding John for banning him. I only started hanging out in DC in May 2010, so I don’t know if cl had been here before then; but when I first started reading cl’s comments he(?) did come across as intentionally abrasive in a lot of threads. To be fair, it seemed as if he was mellowing out somewhat in recent days (at least when commenting with me–perhaps because he sensed that he had identified a crack in my reasoning, or a soft spot in my atheism? who knows…). On the other hand, some of the other commenters continued to deliberately provoke him, or so it seememd to me.
I’m with John, as far as wanting to have a respectful, educated discussion of the issues. If all we do is hang around to hurl insults at each other, then what’s the point?
Not sure what your previous level of interaction with John in particular was like over there; most of the time, he throws something out and then never comments on it himself.
And even though my perception of your style was “abrasive”, that doesn’t say anything about content, which seemed sound for the most part, and with which I never had a problem.
A quick question (and maybe yoo can send me to a link for further reading rather than post it all over again if it’s already spelled out elsewhere): What’s your basic theme for having a blog? I see that you consider yourself a “freethinker”, but most of the time, that’s seen as being incompatible with theism…
gearheded
says...Oh, BTW, that was yesterday at 2:52 PM on the “I Still Want a Respectful…” thread.
cl
says...Hey there GearHedEd,
Well, in true freethinker fashion, I care not for the opinions of the masses who wish to define the term according to their own narrow prejudices and convention.
As far as the theme of this blog, I appreciate your question. I used to have an “About” page, but I pulled it because I didn’t like the way it was written. Somebody else asked a similar question the other day, and I promised to put the page back up. It will essentially contain snippets from the first chapter of my upcoming book. So, check back over the next few days, if you wish. The short story is, I’m technically some form of Christian.
As for the rest of your comment, I will most certainly get to it, and I would really l like to hear your response when I do. Life calls.
Matt
says...internetchristian,
What I’ve found is that church youth leaders forget that they are teachers as well as shepherds. Basically you should familiarize yourself with standard teaching practices you would learn getting a credential and hold yourself accountable to the planning and creativity it requires.
Because we’re starting to get off topic I’d rather not write a bunch of comments about education. If you want to have a conversation about this we can email each other or I can set up a post at my blog (or you on yours) where we can discuss these things.