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Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity |  | Author: John W. Loftus
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.98
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Seller: frecksfictionandmore
Rating:  50 reviews
Sales Rank: 40746
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st pb ptg
Pages: 428
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 1591025923
Dewey Decimal Number: 211.8
EAN: 9781591025924
ASIN: 1591025923
Publication Date: August 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
For about two decades John W. Loftus was a devout evangelical Christian, an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and an ardent apologist for Christianity. With three degrees--in philosophy, theology, and philosophy of religion--he was adept at using rational argumentation to defend the faith. But over the years, as he ministered to various congregations and taught at Christian colleges, doubts about the credibility of key Christian tenets began to creep into his thinking. By the late 1990s he experienced a full-blown crisis of faith, brought on by emotional upheavals in his personal life as well as the gathering weight of the doubts he had long entertained.In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, Loftus carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The bulk of the book is his "cumulative case" against Christianity. Here he lays out the philosophical, scientific, and historical reasons that can be raised against Christian belief. From the implications of religious diversity, the authority of faith vs. reason, and the problem of evil, to the contradictions between the Bible and the scientific worldview, the conflicts between traditional dogma and historical evidence, and much more, Loftus covers a great deal of intellectual terrain. For every issue he succinctly summarizes the various points of view and provides references for further reading. In conclusion, he describes the implications of life without belief in God, some liberating, some sobering. This frank critique of Christian belief from a former insider will interest freethinkers as well as anyone with doubts about the claims of religion.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 50
 A bit too technical. Too bad author has personal flaw July 28, 2010
V. Wong
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
It would be more persuasive and powerful if the author didn't commit those "sins" and got "expelled" from the Christian circle before he became an atheist. I am not for Christian. I consider myself agnostic. This book is a bit too technical for me with a lot of arguments and I don't really like arguments. I do appreciate the information.
 I really enjoyed this book June 13, 2010
A. Scott
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have read a lot of literature on the philosophy and history of religion, but this is one of my favorites. It combines man's inner struggle (reminiscent of St. Augustine) with deep theological knowledge. The Outsider's Test of Faith is one of my favorite articles I have ever read on religion (if you were wondering, my other favorites are Paul Draper's Pain and Pleasure and Thomas Nagle's The Absurd). This book covers any argument for Christianity (and for God) I can think of, including: reformed epistemology, miracles, the anthropic principle, morality, prayers, historical Jesus,
I do not know if Mr. Loftus will take this as an insult, but he writes like an atheist version of William Lane Craig.
Thorough Rebuttal - No Vitriol June 7, 2010
Christopher Lee (Harrisburg, PA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the most thorough review of the claims of Christians, each with a rebuttal that is well documented and refreshingly free vitriol. If you have questions about the veracity of the Christian faith, you should read this book.
 Very narrow audience May 9, 2010
Dumas (NC, USA)
8 out of 21 found this review helpful
I was hoping from the description that this would be an autobiographical account of the author's journey from belief to atheism. But it's really more like Augustine's Confessions in reverse, a long dense philosophical justification of the author's final position.
I give this book one star because I think for most people, it's unreadable. It's written by an academic philosopher, for other academic philosophers. Unless you often read dense philosophical tomes full of quotations from other philosophers and many pages of footnotes, you probably will not find this book worthwhile.
Uh...Author Has No Clue April 21, 2010
ModRes (California)
13 out of 56 found this review helpful
This book is actually a joke, isn't it? If not, it should be. My favorite line in the entire book is after describing the narrative in Acts when Paul was bitten by a viper, Loftus argues, "I don't believe it happened like that." Wow. There you have it, folks! No need to go any further, because Loftus has convinced me! Woo hoo.
Loftus' book truly leaves a great deal to be desired. He is convinced he was a Christian, yet now says that he is just as convinced that God does not, nor ever has existed. Who said atheists were logical?
If Christianity was simply a pattern of living, Loftus might have a point, but since Jesus indicated to Nicodemus in John 3 that becoming an authentic believer means being born again, or born from above, He was obviously speaking of a spiritual transaction. In point of fact, this is what occurs when a person actually becomes a Christian. It is not doing things - prayer, tithing, going to church, preaching, singing hymns, and more - that makes a person a Christian. It is trusting in the efficacy of Jesus Christ and the atonement of His substitutionary death.
Loftus indicates that he left Christianity because of a lack of love within the (visible) church, more evidence from science, and yet another reason, which I cannot recall now (must not have been that important). It is tragic that an individual who claims to be not only a Christian, but a Christian pastor apparently does not know the Bible at all. If he did, he would certainly have understood that not everyone who attends church is an authentic Christian (he is a case in point) because there are many TARES among the WHEAT. The TARES look like, sound like, and can even act like Christians, but are not at all Christians. This parable was taught by Christ Himself in Matthew 15.
It should be clear that all those folks who claim to have been Christians yet are no longer could not have literally been Christians, in the spiritual sense. While they obviously believed themselves to be Christians they were Christians in name only, and were not authentic Christians, regardless of what they think, especially if we consider what Jesus says about it. Let's see...who to believe, "ex-Christians" or Jesus? Hmmm, let me think.
Loftus says he is happy. That's terrific and I'm glad for him, but the mendacity and arrogance of someone who thinks that because he believes he WAS a Christian at one time and is no longer, he must have been. However, he is now equally convinced that God does not exist, which simply proves that folks like Loftus are changeable like the wind. They have no staying power and they show us what a TARE actually looks like, nothing more and nothing less.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 50
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