In this argument, Loftus wants us to be wary of those who claim to have ultimate values. (Yes. That value of loving your neighbor as yourself is deadly.) He speaks of the Crusades for instance. What books has Loftus really read on the Crusades? Unfortunately, none are given. Why is it so awful that the Christians wanted to free Jerusalem? Does Loftus need to remember that this was in response to the Muslims going on their raid first?
Is it necessarily bad just because Christians fought it? Now I won’t defend all of the Crusades, but I don’t see how you can just make a blanket statement that all of them were wrong. Actually, I do see how you can do that. You can make such a statement if you don’t read the historians on them and instead assume that what you are told about them from anti-Christians is correct.
And slavery? First off, slavery was not just done by the Jews. It was done by everyone. It was seen as a way of life. Aristotle even told us that some people were meant to be slaves. However, this slavery was far different from anything seen in the Civil War time period. In fact, it was the coming of Christianity that eventually ended slavery.
Loftus also talks about scientific progress being impeded by Christians. I just wish he’d have given an example. The other crimes include forbidding same-sex marriage, impeding the progress of feminism, and intolerance and bigotry towards atheists and agnostics.
Let’s see. We think the first one is a sin and harmful to both parties and society as a whole. You need to show we’re wrong first. The second, we have nothing against women moving up in the world, but we have a problem if it’s a feminism that sees women as superior to men. As for the last, I’d like more agnostics and atheists to speak up. Go on and show how bankrupt your arguments are.
In all of this though, Loftus needs to wake up to the reality of what happens when there are no absolute values. Gulag Archipelago anyone? Would he prefer we jettison absolute values? If that’s the case, then he’s also just thrown out his argument from evil which is so precious to him. Never mind that we could just ask him the absolute value he’s appealing to to say these things are absolutely wrong or absolutely right.
I wish we could say there’s more, but sadly, there isn’t. It’s the kind of pedantic whining that seems to repeat itself constantly. We’ll look at argument five tomorrow.
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