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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers,
and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Tsakiris, and this episode of Skeptiko is yet another
in this series I've been doing on Atheism.
Now I do feel a need to tell you a little bit about how I came to do this interview
because, as you know if you've listened, you just heard a similar kind of debate with philosophy
professor Dr. Stephen Law. Actually, these two interviews with Dr. Law and John Loftus
came about as the result of my interview on Episode 217 with Gary Marcus, because Gary
Marcus is this NYU professor of psychology, bestselling author, writes frequently on consciousness
issues, yet if you listen to the interview you'll hear how he stumbled with some basic
questions about consciousness.
And surprisingly—but I guess not surprisingly for me because I keep pounding on this drum—
he is essentially Atheistic in his thinking. That is, academia is Atheistic. You go to
a guy like Gary Marcus. He's not waving the flag for Atheism, but you push through just
a little bit and boom! There it is. The same kind of talking points parroted back to you
that you hear from Atheists.
So that led me to thinking I really need to revisit the Atheist proposition directly and
establish a dialogue with some Atheists. The way that I often do that is I go to Amazon
and I look for the bestselling books in the category I'm interested in. In this case it
was Atheism. I came up with Dr. Stephen Law's book and I also came up with John Loftus'
book. So it's kind of a numbers game in inviting guests on. You don't get everyone you ask.
A lot of times I'll go out with a couple of requests and hope to get one. In this case,
I got both of them. I got one and then a week later John Loftus responded and said, "Hey,
I missed the email but I'd be happy to do it." So I felt obligated and I felt like there
was enough of a difference between the two that I could pursue both of them.
They really cover two different aspects of the Atheism proposition. One is the philosophy
of science proposition that you heard from Dr. Stephen Law that I think doesn't hold
up very well. From the discussion we had, he doesn't really come off as sounding like
he has a very strong case. We'll leave that as it is.
And then the second is this religious thrust that you get from John Loftus, whose website
is all about debunking Christianity. But as you'll hear in this dialogue, it seems to
come up short and actually sounds somewhat convoluted once you get past some of these
silly, empty tomb Christianity kinds of debates.
Let me add one more thing that I've said in the past but I think bears repeating. These
kinds of interviews are among the most important kinds of interviews I can do, that I can bring
forward. I believe the #1 thing that holds people back from making their own personal
paradigm shift beyond the silliness of this "you are a biological robot" meme that gets
jammed down your throat, the #1 barrier is wow, there are so many smart people out there
that go along with that idea. How can all of these really smart people be wrong?
So in that sense, I think exposing how an Oxford philosopher and an NYU professor of
psychology and a well-known author and blogger, who really seems to have his stuff together
when he debates Christians, can stumble so miserably over basic fundamental questions
that we address every week on Skeptiko—questions of consciousness, questions of how we resolve
the overwhelming evidence that suggests that consciousness isn't solely a function of the
brain—is important.
I mean, that data is there and we talk about that data a lot. The big gap is why doesn't
that data penetrate? Why doesn't it make a difference? And that really requires studying
the people that you would expect to be in a position to know better. Who, for whatever
reason, have not allowed that data to penetrate their worldview.
Oh, and one more thing to add to this introduction before I let it go out the door. By the way,
there's quite a bit I have to say at the conclusion of this interview, so do stick around for
that.
But before we get there, one more thing to add. You've heard this charge so many times
of sandbagging, blindsiding, all that stuff that these guys say over and over and over
again whenever they lose. I almost forgot to but I managed to go back and look at the
original email that I sent to John Loftus when I invited him on Skeptiko. I have to
read this for you because here is a guy who is blindsided. Let's see how I invited him
on the show:
"Hi John. I'd like to know if you'd be available for an interview to discuss your blog and
recent book, The Outsider Test for Faith.
While I've enjoyed many of your withering attacks on goofy Christian Apologetics, I'm
always left wondering whether the science of human consciousness has been brought to
the table.
Do people have genuine spiritual experiences? Is our mind purely a function of our brain?
Are these topics/questions you've examined and would you be open to discussing them on
Skeptiko?"
Followed by my usual boilerplate about Skeptiko and some of our previous guests.
Blindsided, indeed. Okay, thanks for bearing through this long introduction. Here's my
dialogue with John Loftus.
(transcribed portion begins about half-way thru... audio provides full interview)
Alex Tsakiris: Let's get off the philosophy because I think we've ridden that horse as
far as we can. I appreciate you going in and digging into these things. I understand that
the main thrust of your work is this idea of debunking Christianity. You do a nice job
on your blog of this, as I mentioned earlier, bringing up all the cultural issues that surround
Christianity and Christianity's movement forward.
I think there's a lot of sense among intellectual people and academic people that hey, that's
really not so much of an issue in our society anymore. There's this waning of Christianity.
But I think what you do on your website is point out that that's not really always the
case and there is still this strong cultural movement towards this very bracketed kind
of view of the world that comes from Christian dogma.
John Loftus: That's my focus, yeah. That's my niche. It's basically a destructive kind
of game. I don't want to use the word "game" so much as strategy. Strategy would work.
My focus is on destroying. Destroying ideas. It's debunking and saying, "This is wrong
and I doubt it and there's no evidence for it." I don't necessarily focus on constructing
a metaphysical, naturalist worldview. Others do that much better than I do and I learn
from them.
But I have a single-minded purpose to debunk the influence of Christianity in this society
and in the world. There are many reasons for it and that's because I think faith ultimately
causes harm to the people of faith and others as they are involved in society. So if I can
get rid of that influence or if I can minimize it even in a small way for future generations,
I think that's a good thing. I think that people need to think for themselves rather
than mindlessly quote from the Bible or the theology based on it. I've seen too much in
my life that leads me to think people would be better off without it.
Alex Tsakiris: I think we're probably in synch there. I think I'm probably a kind of iconoclast,
a destroyer as well, but I guess I set my sights a little bit differently because the
last topic I'd bring up, you've talking a lot about the evidence there and that you
are evidence-based. What I really focused on is falsifying this "biological robot" claim,
this mind=brain idea. It's falsified all over the place and I've got dozens of very well-qualified,
highly respected researchers who suggest that's the case.
One of the main topics we talk about on this show a lot is near-death experience research
science. Published papers. A lot of people don't know that there are over 100 peer-reviewed
scientific papers on near-death experience. I'm wondering—have you looked at near-death
experience science at all? Have you dealt with it on your blog? I know it's not in your
book because I looked there. Any thoughts on that?
John Loftus: Well, Victor Stenger wrote a chapter in my anthology, The End of Christianity,
where he looked at Dinesh D'Souza's claims of those sorts of things...
Alex Tsakiris: Hold on. Victor Stenger's been on the show. I don't think he fared very well.
I don't think his chapter on near-death experience holds up. He doesn't know what he's talking
about. But Dinesh D'Souza is not a near-death experience researcher. He's a Christian Apologist.
So one of the things I think a lot of Atheist folks don't understand is I'm not talking
about people that have an axe to grind. I'm talking about people at university who are
publishing in peer-reviewed journals. These are not people who have a preconceived idea
or thing that they're driving for. They're saying, "This is a medical mystery." The doctor
says, "This guy got up off the table after being resuscitated and said, 'This is what
I saw.' That's a medical mystery I need to investigate." Anyone would be curious about
investigating it. So they have and this is what they've found out. That's evidence that
I think we have to confront and deal with one way or another.
John Loftus: Oh, I agree. All I can do is point you to the experts. Again, that's not
my focus. Keith Augustine and Michael Martin, the Atheist philosopher. Keith Augustine is
the Executive Director and Scholarly Paper Editor of InternetInfidels.org. They've done
a lot of research on those sorts of things and I think...
Alex Tsakiris: No, they haven't but that's okay. It's not your thing, I get it. But those
people haven't done anything...
John Loftus: You know what? I have a predisposition against those sorts of things because I have
no clue what the difference between what a mind and brain is. I don't know where the
mind is located. I don't know how the mind works.
I know you can have brain damage and all of a sudden it affects the mind. Now explain
that. I know there are a lot of things that can happen—a stroke, a seizure, Alzheimer's.
Why is the mind affected by those things? It seems like if you just start whittling
away at the brain you'd have no mind left. That seems to be a supervening type of evidence
over to these experiential claims. I don't know. I haven't done those sorts of researches
but I know there are a lot of things that neurology is now discovering about the brain
that explains any phenomena that we might want to explain.
I just claim that sort of argument, philosophical, evidential as it is, to be supervening until
I can see some clear evidence that ghosts exist. I don't even understand how ghosts
can walk through walls. You know, these movies that depict ghosts. Why are they standing
on the ground? Why don't they just fall into the middle of the Earth? Why aren't they just
floating in the air?
These sorts of things, I have a predisposition to call them all "loony" before looking at
them. I know you disagree—that's fine. Disagree. But until you can explain why neurology is
explaining more and more about why we think and how we learn to think and what reaches
of the brain we think with and how to do brain surgery and use drugs to cure the mind, then
I don't assent to the proposition that there's a mind in the first place.
I don't know any invisible entity that can exist outside of the physical body in the
first place. But where does it exist? Is it in my toe? Does it exist in my knee? Why is
it located up here? Why do you think the mind is here and not in my nose? Or why is it not
my whole body? If it's my whole body, why not identify it with my whole body?
I find it interesting you wanted to interview me on The Outsider Test for Faith and you
have a pet peeve. Free will. I mean, if you wanted to interview someone about free will,
if you wanted to interview someone about near-death experiences, well then why don't you contact
someone who wants to talk about that who's done some research on it?
Alex Tsakiris: I have. I've got 200 shows.
John Loftus: You're trying to blindside me with the false pretense of talking about something
I know about and you want to talk about things that I haven't commented on yet. Watch out.
I can.
Alex Tsakiris: I don't get that. I hear that sometimes. John, you can ask me anything in
this field. You can ask me about Christianity. You can ask me about anything.
John Loftus: Your views intrigue me, I have to say.
Alex Tsakiris: Okay. But I don't understand. I told you how I came at this, right? I did
The Outsider Test for Faith. My point is really that this discussion is stuck in stupid. The
Atheist versus Christian debate is stuck on stupid and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of empty
tombs and codices and all this nonsense that doesn't get us to the real issue that we talked
about.
What are the claims of Atheism? If they stand up. If they're the right claims then I'm on
board. I want to know what the truth is. So if you can defend those claims then go ahead
and do it. But let me just say, I'm with you on The Outsider Test for Faith. I'm with you
on debunking Christianity. I'm saying, "Dude, turn the page and let's get on to the real
discussion." I don't know why you'd find that so offensive.
John Loftus: No, I didn't say I was offended. I just said that you want to talk about other
things. And that's okay. I mean, let's go with it. Basically you're telling me, "Okay,
move on. Christianity has been debunked. Now let's move on."
Alex Tsakiris: Kinda. Yeah, I am saying that.
John Loftus: That's fine. I understand the criticism. I'm not moving on though. And the
reason why is because there are still a majority of people out there who are Christians. I
just went to the Creation Museum in Kentucky a couple of days ago. I wrote about it on
my blog. It would be August 8th on my blog.
Alex Tsakiris: I saw it there.
John Loftus: Okay. It's just ludicrous. You should have seen the number of people lined
up for that and the money that it takes to build that. And they're building a second
part to it where they're going to have a life-sized Noah's Ark. And there are people paying $29
a hit to go through that.
Alex Tsakiris: They will.
John Loftus: These people write letters to their senators and they're a danger to society
and all I can do is argue them out of it and I'm going to continue doing that because that's
my expertise. Now, I can't know everything. You've got to admit that with yourself. No
one can know everything so I'm going to focus because I think that's where why particular
expertise is. And I'm going to continue doing so.
Alex Tsakiris: I think that's good. As I mentioned before, I think there's a lot of work to still
be done there and I think when we move past that and say we're way past that it's not
true. I think you point that out. But I do think, as you were scrambling around there
trying to do your mind equals brain thing, I understand the scramble. That's fair. But
it doesn't hold up, okay? Mind equals brain doesn't hold up. The near-death experience
science is solid. Vic Stenger, go listen to the interview. He's quoting the wrong people
just like you are. These are not people who have published in peer-reviewed journals.
John Loftus: So your listeners would know your views more than my listeners would know
your views. You don't accept Christianity. What do you accept? Just state briefly for
my listeners your own understanding.
Alex Tsakiris: I always think that's a funny question because it gets to the problem. It's
like, okay, if you're not Christian, what are you?
John Loftus: I'm just asking.
Alex Tsakiris: No, no. That's fine but I think it's part of the problem. It's the problem
really that you deal with is that's how we think of things. We think of things in such
a religious framework that if someone doesn't immediately sign up with one or the other,
we don't know quite how to peg him.
All I can say is that when we falsify the idea that you are this biological robot and
we accept that that's absurd, of course I have free will. Want me to raise my hand?
I raise my hand. Free will. I did it. There, I just proved the test. Once we get past that
and once we get past the idea that consciousness ends at death, which is again like you said
before only I don't think you want to accept it, but that's where the evidence points.
It just points that way.
I don't know what that means, John, but as you said with the planks in the boat, when
I cross that chasm and I say, "Okay, that's the evidence and I have to deal with it,"
a lot of things start falling differently in terms of how I orient myself to the world,
how I orient myself to other people, how I orient myself to morals, purpose, meaning
in life. So that is what I'm exploring, but I'm exploring it from the other side of the
chasm, if you will.
John Loftus: Other side of the chasm?
Alex Tsakiris: Being consciousness survives death. You are not a biological robot. I'm
on the other side of that.
John Loftus: Okay. I disagree. I've said why.
Alex Tsakiris: Of course you disagree. You say, "I am a biological robot. I am going
to stand by that." Right? That's what you're saying.
John Loftus: Well, there's no evidence for invisible beings, right? Entities.
Alex Tsakiris: But you, as you live your life, you live your life like a biological robot.
John Loftus: Everybody does. That's all there is.
Alex Tsakiris: Okay.
John Loftus: Well, you have to look into the philosophical quandaries with trying to distinguish
between mind and body. I mean, I taught the Introduction to Philosophy classes that you
would probably be interested in looking at how they've tried to relate the mind and the
body. They just really can't do it. It's really ludicrous to see how they do that.
You need to look at the mind/body problem. Look at it reasonably, philosophically. I
know you say, "We have evidence for life after death," but there are contrary studies. I
mentioned a couple. Michael Martin and Keith Augustine. You don't like Victor Stenger,
so okay, fine, but there is certainly contrary evidence...
Alex Tsakiris: That's cool. I just talked to Stephen Law a couple of weeks ago, an Atheist
philosopher at the University of London, Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford or Cambridge—sorry,
I don't know which one I got wrong.
John Loftus: You probably blindsided him, too.
Alex Tsakiris: Dude, I get this all the time, blindsided. How are you blindsided? Why can't
you talk about this? Why wouldn't you be equipped to talk about this? I'll tell you what. The
fact that you feel blindsided says you haven't looked into this enough because these are
core questions. Core questions.
John Loftus: So you're going around like a gadfly, like Socrates, and try to ask people
about questions that they haven't studied up on to—well, fine. Do that. You're trying
to get Atheists to look at the evidence that you consider to be there. Even though you
reject Christianity, that's fine, but I'm not the one to ask on those things. I said
what my focus is and I think that the conclusions that there is a mind just don't hold up. Not
at all.
You say, "Why haven't you studied this?" Well, I don't know a lot about politics, either.
What if you blindsided me by asking me about gun control in America? I have some ideas
on it and I can point you to some writings about it. What if you asked me about immigration
reform? What if you asked me about Obama Care? You could do that if you wanted, but you're
asking the wrong person. I would have to say, "You need to talk to this expert or you've
got to talk to that expert." We can't know everything. And it's ludicrous for you to
think that I'm supposed to know everything.
Alex Tsakiris: John, what do you feel most blindsided by in this interview?
John Loftus: Well, I believe you asked me to talk about The Outsider Test for Faith
and we're not.
Alex Tsakiris: But what in particular did we talk about that you felt most blindsided?
John Loftus: I'll tell you what, Alex, if you don't have anything else more to say than
what you've said, then let's call this a day. Don't conclude by that that I'm giving up.
Don't say, "Oh, Loft just couldn't answer my questions." That would be ludicrous, as
well. I'm just saying do you want to talk about the topic or not? I gather you don't
and that's okay. Let's just call it a day. I've got other things to do.
Alex Tsakiris: I hear you and I appreciate the hour and I appreciate your work and the
book.
John Loftus: Thank you so much.
Alex Tsakiris: I wish you would just tackle that last question but if you don't want to
you don't have to. But what did you feel you were most blindsided by?
John Loftus: I tell you what. I'll let the listeners decide for themselves on this. I
don't want to discount your questions. I think you might be doing a service to Atheists by
raising these questions. So continue that. I encourage the exploration of all ideas.
Let's say that we do have free will. Let's say that there is an afterlife. That sounds
sort of like a Deist position to me. I'm not trying to put a label on you.
Alex Tsakiris: Not necessarily, but go ahead.
John Loftus: The Deist position is, I think, the only other reasonable position to take.
I think that it is within the realm of reason. In fact, Deism started as a movement in England
in the 1700s where they wanted to evaluate everything based on reason. Reason and evidence.
And Deism quickly degenerated into Atheism but there are still Deists around. I think
Christopher Hitchens said the only kind of god or religion they might accept would be
Deism as a mere possibility.
So that's fine. So pursue that if that's what you are. Pursue those kinds of questions,
but support me in my work. I think
you do. Support me in my work as I attack these Fundamentalist Christians because you
and I
are in agreement on this. You're not my enemy; you are my friend as you tackle all those
issues, as well.
Alex Tsakiris: Thanks again. The book is The Outsider Test for Faith.
John Loftus: Which we didn't talk about much.
Alex Tsakiris: You know what? For the folks who are going to tune out after the first
ten minutes, I think they heard a lot about it. And you can find out a lot about The Outsider
Test for Faith. There's a lot of good material out there on John's blog, www.debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com.
He talks about it and there are many reviews on there. There
are tons of reviews on Amazon. It's a very popular book, well received. The Outsider
Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion is True.
John W. Loftus, thanks for joining me—this is one of the toughest Skeptiko interviews I've ever
had, man. I hope the rest of your day goes better than this hour.
John Loftus: I'm
doing fine. Thank you.