"PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS WORKS BY JOHN W. LOFTUS: “John Loftus knows from the inside what’s wrong with Christianity. Few people are better qualified to explain to those still in its clutches why they’d do well to leave, and he has assembled a fine team of colleagues to assist him in doing so. This book should convert a high proportion of those with the courage to read it.” --RICHARD DAWKINS (reviewing Christianity Is Not Great) “Loftus’s book is admirable for its bluntness and single-minded drive toward the belief that science--itself a human construct and thus as subject to flaws as religion--is mankind’s saving grace...Provocative.” - Kirkus Reviews (on The End of Christianity) “Without doubt one of the best books I’ve ever read on faith. A masterpiece." - PETER BOGHOSSIAN, author of A Manual for Creating Atheists (on The Outsider Test for Faith) “A must-read for believers and any atheists who want to debate them. Superbly argued, airtight, and endlessly useful, this should be everyone’s first stop in the god debate." - RICHARD CARRIER, author of Proving History (on The Outsider Test for Faith) “[T]he reader seeking a comprehensive disproof of Christianity as contemporary evangelicals defend it can do little better than to consult this volume." - Free Inquiry (on Why I Became an Atheist)
Description
This anthology of new critical essays written by experts in their fields, in honor of the late Victor Stenger, examines Christianity using established scientific criteria. Where science specifically touches upon the claims of Christianity the authors seek to show those claims lack the required evidence. The result is that Christianity is not a sufficiently evidenced religion. In his New York Times bestseller, God: The Failed Hypothesis, physicist Victor Stenger argued that claims of religion should be subject to the same standards of scientific rigor as any other truth claim. Taking this approach, the contributors argue that Christianity fails every known scientific test for truth. Stenger himself wrote a chapter for this volume before he died.In it he presents a brief history of ideas about cosmology, showing that Christianity's premodern understanding of the cosmos is incompatible with current scientific evidence regarding the origin and structure of the cosmos. Other contributors examine a wide variety of topics, including biblical archaeology, Intelligent Design, the Shroud of Turin, free will, the existence of the soul, the efficacy of petitionary prayer, and more. This challenging work is indispensable reading for both skeptical readers and open-minded people of faith.