To: average joe who wrote (18666 ) 12/21/2011 2:24:06 AM From: Greg or e 1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 69300 May062011 Debunking John Loftus Skilled rhetorician John Loftus deftly demonstrates 1 how poor Osama bin Laden was simply the victim of religion, like the rest of the silly theists: Osama Bin Laden was probably a good man; sincere, devout and God fearing. What’s John’s definition of “good”? ‘Cause mine tends not to involve planning to fly planes into buildings and killing thousands of people (but that’s just me). And is there any particular support for these claims? Is Loftus privy to evidence that bin Laden was a genuine and truthful person? Of course he’s not! Ditto to evidence of whether bin Laden was devout or God-fearing. But having to provide evidence would get in the way of his point. But all it takes to make good people do evil is religion. Keep that in mind. Here’s what you really want to keep in mind: if it will support his worldview, Loftus will make things up. Again, he has no evidence in the first place to conclude that bin Laden was a “good” man. But even if he did, he furthermore has no evidence that it was his religion as opposed to anything else (nationalism, childhood trauma, indigestion) that made him “do evil.” In fact, the weight of the evidence, that is the hundreds of millions of Muslims who don’t decide to kill thousands of people and strap bombs to children’s chests and so forth, would argue against the fact that it was his religion that led to bin Laden’s doing evil. He was deluded in the same way as other believers. So, again, he was deluded in the “same way” as other believers, even though millions of them manage not to turn into bloodthirsty terrorists. Some delusions cause more harm than others though. Well, which ones? It might be useful to know! Perhaps in that case, we can just deal with those delusions , rather than impugn all religious belief, no? The problem is he will never know he was deluded. Yeah, when I first heard that bin Laden had been killed, that’s what upset me as well. Now, let’s have some fun re-writing Loftus’ post as a mad-lib: [Clearly-evil person] was probably a good man; [three adjectives that describe people I don’t like] . But all it takes to make good people do evil is [the thing I don’t like] . Keep that in mind. That is the lesson of his life. He was deluded in the same way as other [people I don’t like] . Some delusions cause more harm than others though, and he caused a great deal of it. The problem is he will never know he was deluded. Neither will any of the rest of [the people I don’t like] . What a waste of a life. For example: Josef Stalin was probably a good man; sincere, respectful, and committed to the cause of socialism . But all it takes to make good people do evil is atheism . Keep that in mind. That is the lesson of his life. He was deluded in the same way as other atheists . Some delusions cause more harm than others though, and he caused a great deal of it. The problem is he will never know he was deluded. Neither will any of the rest of the atheists . What a waste of a life. You can play at home! Works best for ages 2–6. In case his sense gets the better of him and Loftus decides to alter the post (or what I like to call “pulling a Loftus”), here’s the screencap . ?