You Can Now Pre-Order My Revised Book
By John W. Loftus at 2/07/2012
Click here: Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.It has 540 pages (not 480). It's such a massive revision my publisher is treating it as a new book.
It's instructive to compare this with something else Loftus recently said:
January 6, 2012 at 8:05 am John W. Loftus
Some people on my Facebook page know that my wife and I separated on August 1. We split what little money we had and she took the car. Out of my half I had to buy another one. She moved to an apartment in Ft. Wayne near her mother. Three weeks later I filed for divorce. On November 8th it was final. I wasn’t happy about this at all. It devastated me. I couldn’t eat and some nights I drank myself to sleep. And yet during this time I edited the chapters of my revised book, Why I Became an Atheist, and I finished co-writing the debate book God or Godless, with Dr. Randal Rauser. I also kept blogging and responding to emails as respectfully as I could, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was short with people at times. I tried to find and state some reasons why I’m still important when my own world was crashing in on me. I was going through the motions, after all, life still goes on.
Question: Is someone who’s drinking himself to sleep and just going through the motions in the emotional and intellectual condition to be arguing against Christianity? What quality of analysis do you expect in that state of mind?
Actually, his state of mind could be better, don't you think. He mentioned his "heart" was not in it, so, that could be a good thing I would think.
ReplyDelete"Question: Is someone who’s drinking himself to sleep and just going through the motions in the emotional and intellectual condition to be arguing against Christianity? What quality of analysis do you expect in that state of mind?"
ReplyDeleteAmusingly, John Loftus answers this very question in a recent post:
"I think it can be demonstrated that when people are emotionally engaged they do not think or argue well at all. That's why it is said that 'love is blind.' Romantically involved couples do not see the faults in their lovers that others see. Likewise, when people are angry with someone there is literally nothing good that person can do. Emotions get in the way of sound reasoning. This can be seen everywhere we look. When people are experiencing a great amount of stress they are told not to make any important decisions. The reason is clear. Because they probably won't make good ones. When people have an emotional commitment to some sort of project they will continue pursuing it even after it has been shown to be a failure. That's why successful businesses need 'new blood' with 'new ideas' every so often."
Some people on my Facebook page know that my wife and I separated on August 1. We split what little money we had and she took the car. Out of my half I had to buy another one. She moved to an apartment in Ft. Wayne near her mother. Three weeks later I filed for divorce. On November 8th it was final. I wasn’t happy about this at all. It devastated me. I couldn’t eat and some nights I drank myself to sleep. And yet during this time I edited the chapters of my revised book, Why I Became a Christian, and I finished co-writing the debate book God or Godless, with Dr Richard Carrier. I also kept blogging and responding to emails as respectfully as I could, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was short with people at times. I tried to find and state some reasons why I’m still important when my own world was crashing in on me. I was going through the motions, after all, life still goes on.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Loftus and his cohorts would ballyhoo that about just a tad. What an admission!
You were drinking yourself silly WHILE you were working on this supposedly intellectual book? Whaaaaaa?
I think he thinks he can whip us all with half his brain tied behind his back.
ReplyDeleteHi Rho,
ReplyDeleteFrom what you wrote, I kinda feel sorry for apostate John Loftus.
Maybe God will use John Loftus's misery to alert John to turn to Jesus.
ReplyDeleteThat would be really great.
If that happened it wouldn't prove Calvinism. But it would be inductive evidence for the Fourth Point.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I guess being inebriated is good, though, isn't it, if Jesus made water into wine?
ReplyDeleteI have access to an advance reading copy of the New Edition of WIBA.
ReplyDeleteBombshell Announcement: in the New Edition Loftus CHANGES THE REASON FOR HIS DECONVERSION.
In WIBA he gave Three Main Reasons, two of which were emotional.
In the New Edition, it is a Single Different Reason.
His credility is shot...apparently since he was going through the divorce and all when he was preping this, the forgot which story was which.
This is going to backfire on him.
You failed to include the rest of what I wrote about my divorce, which I'm sure you will all be happy to hear:
ReplyDeleteWe did date each other but it was a rocky relationship, on and off again until December 26th when it looked like it was finally over.
So I decided I would move across the country to be with my two brothers. When I told her that's what I was doing she had a complete turnaround, the likes of which took me utterly by surprise, saying she couldn't bear the thought of never seeing me again. The pain for her was just too great to think of losing me forever.
Now I'm basically living in Ft. Wayne with her. We'll be looking for a house together before too long. For us both it feels like new again! We're very happy together like never before.
Thanks for caring!
----
Oh, and this does nothing to show my arguments are wrong. In the case of WIBA I had written it during the months of March through to June, so I was only approving copyedit corrections to the text during my time of crisis.
----
Morriston is a liar for Jesus. Not even I have an advance reading copy. But even if for some reason he does he's lying about any change of mind about my deconversion. HIS credibility is shot.
Why'd you delete my comment, John Loftus?
ReplyDeleteI was only approving copyedit corrections to the text during my time of crisis.
ReplyDeleteAt least, that's what you remember doing during that time. Drink has a funny way of distorting memories.
I had also written:
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have some of the usual ties that can bring separated couples back together. We didn't have any kids between us. Our families got in the way to some degree. We are atheists so there is no perceived divine command telling us that marriage is for life with the ensuing guilt that stems from it, causing couples to reunite for the wrong reasons (even though Christian marriages break up at a higher rate than atheist marriages).
We did it despite the lack of kids, despite some family hostility, and despite the fact we are both atheists. We did it even though we were divorced. And we are very happy.
Again, thanks for caring. You have once again proved you really do not care for people as people. You're only interested in your faith and you'll trash anyone who disagrees.
Nice!
I LOLed.
ReplyDeleteHow many faulty assumptions and misleading claims were in that red herring comment? There's more than 4 that I can count.
On your own view, why would anyone care about any other mound of moist carbonaceous goo, except that which comprises them?
What you perceive as "you" doesn't exist John. Minds don't exit in the way you "think". They are just emergent properties of complex chemistry driven by physical laws into a temporary pattern that mimics design.
Your feelings are illusion and your drunkenness isn't anything but another variable in an ever changing pattern amongst the chaos.
Your opinions are nothing more than a predetermined result of an inescapable chain of causal events. They have no actual meaning. They are the smell of effervescing orange soda.
Spare me and anyone else your fatuous blustering.
Mr. Fosi, you're a PhD student?
ReplyDeleteWhere?
Given the nature of this site I take it you're probably a compatibilist with regard to metaphysical freedom and by extension your thought processes.
Why is it that I suffer from different consequences than you do with regard to my conclusions, given evolution?
See this.
For someone who has freed himself from the shackles of theism and stepped into the glorious light of enlightened atheism, Loftus does come across as a sad, bitter and twisted old man.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before, no matter how you cut it, Loftus' life is consumed by God.
[Reposted sans typo]
ReplyDeleteWhat's the point, John?
Having any sort of discussion at all is meaningless. Just chemical reactions causing the motion of larger constructs, giving rise to an apparent pattern in electrons or sound waves. Eventually the pattern changes to something else, until it ceases altogether. Duration and form change but no meaning can be ascribed.
Ontogeny is illusion, therefore "meaning" is illusion. Everything is unintended since there are no agents to intend it. Patterns in molecules are transient, ultimately leading to a homogenization of the universe, if "thoughts" generated by a self-assembling decision engine can be "trusted" to produce anything objective.
Yet, here you are, just another in a vast number of purposeless patterns of matter, eliciting chemical responses from me, another of those patterns.
Isn't it all grand?
Mr. Fosi, let me just say that I was once where you are about this. Without thinking about it I believed the options were between my particular narrow sect within Christianity and metaphysical naturalism. Since I couldn't stomach the conclusions of metaphysical naturalism I felt justified in my particular narrow sect within Christianity.
ReplyDeleteThat is most emphatically not the case.
I have no hopes of convincing you of anything so I bid you adieu.
I wish you well. Cheers.
It is good that you have no hope, if such a thing as "goodness" can be said to exist in a universe devoid of ontology or agency. Hope, if you had it, would be only another illusion.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, "I" will continue "my" inexorable journey, pinioned by chance, into the void.
I'd say thanks for stopping by, but what would be the point? You couldn't do anything else.
I was peeking through my google reader and noted this Triablogue entry. It's about John Loftus, a friend of mine.
ReplyDeleteThe mention of "inebriation" brought to mind the days when beer or wine were the drink of choice for all ages. (Better a
permanent drunkenness than chronic diarrhea from drinking impure water--and you wouldn't believe the amount of alcohol that was consumed per man at America's first Constitutional Convention, amazing they could stand, let
alone think.)
As for modern day Christians trying to give up drink via prayer, you don't hear about their stories except when they succeed. Though the failures to overcome drink are legion. As is all the backsliding after each "revival."
Asa Alonzo Allen (1911-1970) was a prominent, flamboyant and controversial Pentecostal "healing evangelist" of the 1940s-1960s. On June 14, 1970, listeners in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines were hearing a recorded message from A. A. Allen on his radio program saying: "This is Brother Allen in person. Numbers of friends of mine have been inquiring about reports they have heard concerning me that are not true. People as well as some preachers from pulpits are announcing that I am dead. Do I sound like a dead man? My friends, I am not even sick! Only a moment ago I made a reservation to fly into our current campaign. I'll see you there and make the devil a liar." At that moment, at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, police were removing A. A. Allen's body from a room strewn with pills and empty liquor bottles. The man who had once said that "the beer bottle and gin bucket" should have been on his family coat of arms was dead at 59 from what was said to be a heart attack but was in reality liver failure brought about by acute alcoholism. (p.88, The Faith Healers by The Amazing Randi)
AA Allen wasn't a Christian. He was a Word of Faith heretic. Think Benny Hinn.
ReplyDeleteNext.
I don't know how he does it, time and time again, but Ed Babinski never fails to derail a post or thread by his off-topic comments.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's a bit tricky to tell if Babinski is simply an oafish blunderbuss who doesn't know any better or if he's in fact a master troll trying to level up to guru troll.
Given this thorny predicament, and maybe the precariousness of it is indicative of his masterly trollishness, I'll give Babinski the benefit of the doubt and take it he's a master troll in search of prey to defeat and experience points to gain. As such, I'm compelled to warn others not to feed the troll lest they're taken away to be made into a juicy trollish dish. Beware the Trollinski!
"Though the failures to overcome drink are legion. As is all the backsliding after each "revival."-Edward
ReplyDeleteSure Christians fail, and fall back. I have. Yet, the truth of faithfulness is that Jesus is faithful. Look how He worked with Peter, one of His best friends, and most accomplished disciples.
"We are atheists so there is no perceived divine command telling us that marriage is for life with the ensuing guilt that stems from it, causing couples to reunite for the wrong reasons.."-John
I will be married for 39 years. Why my wife loves I'll never completely understand. We both love Christ, and so His love abiding with us both, is such a tremendous blessing.
And guilt can be a good thing.
What if you went and commited adultary. Would you fell okay, and your wife be good with that?
There are a lot of similarities in marriage for the Christian and atheist, yet the huge diference is though we love one another, and live for each other, we together live for Jesus our Savior and God, who loves us, and died on a cruel Cross for our sins.
Glad your marriage is doing good. Hope one day you see Christ in His truth.
John Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"Oh, and this does nothing to show my arguments are wrong. In the case of WIBA I had written it during the months of March through to June, so I was only approving copyedit corrections to the text during my time of crisis."
1. I suspect this is an ex post facto justification by Loftus.
2. However, even if it's the truth, even if Loftus wrote his book prior to his crisis, it must not have been too long prior to the crisis, I don't think, given he said his crisis occurred at the copyeditorial stage.
Moreover, there are often preceding factors in a person's life which contribute to a crisis. A crisis doesn't usually come out of nowhere.
Sort of like before a big earthquake hits there are precursory seismic patterns which occur. Or prior to the full blown onset of a disease there are often signs and symptoms indicating not all is well with the individual.
So there still could have been preceding stress factors, emotional hangups, and the like which in turn could've interfered with Loftus' state of mind while he was writing Why I Became an Atheist. I mean I think it's still possible Loftus wasn't in the best state of mind to write reasonably about his atheism even if he wrote it prior to his crisis, given that he would've had to have written it not too long prior to his crisis.
Sure, Loftus might not have completely cracked just yet, but the cracks could've already been showing. If so, it could be enough to indicate Loftus didn't quite have a sound mind when he wrote his book.
And thus his own words which I quoted above could still apply to him.
John Loftus said:
ReplyDelete"Oh, and this does nothing to show my arguments are wrong. In the case of WIBA I had written it during the months of March through to June, so I was only approving copyedit corrections to the text during my time of crisis."
1. Loftus is backpedalling from his original statement.
2. Also, his original statement wasn't confined to revising his book, but to the new book he coauthored with Rauser. As such, Loftus' contribution to God or Godless would still be a case of "[e]motions get[ting] in the way of sound reasoning."
Admitted liar Lofus can claim he has not changed the reason for his deconversion, but in the advance reading copy of WIBA (new edition) which he has to have he states ONE general reason for his deconversion.
ReplyDeleteBut in the earlier version of WIBA he gave THREE MAIN REASONS, two of which were emotional and which he leaves out of this edition.
He is already setting up his excuse; he was drinking too much and got confused. I can see it now! LOL!
So, mark my words, when the new edition comes out in March, the truth about this will be exposed.
QUESTION:
ReplyDelete"Why would anyone care about any other mound of moist carbonaceous goo?"
REPLY:
"Mound of moist carbonaceous goo?" Attempts to belittle naturalism via mere wordplay gets one nowhere. Neither does it prove that a supernatural brain-mind dualism exists. Even Christians admit that their bodies and brains have a carbon-based structure, and without ingesting oxygen molecules they'd pass out and die. Per Christian theology Jesus became a mound of moist carbonaceous goo, and God created man from mud/dirt (or from apes if you're a theistic evolutionist). It seems that in the minds of some Christians some things just aren't worthy of being the substrate of humans. Neither do all Evangelical Christians favor brain-mind dualism. Christians who are brain-mind monist debated their dualist brethren in a "viewpoints" book published by Zondervan or Intervarsity.
Carbonaceous goo in the form of an amoeba detects and traps prey. Not bad for a single cell of carbonecaous goo. A species of worm with only 100 or so neurons is able to find food, mate, survive. Again, not bad for some carbonaceous goo with only a hundred neurons. Humans have something like 100 billion neurons and a trillion connections between them. No wonder we can perform more amazing tasks than that worm. But is it a supernatural miracle that humans can so vastly out perform worms that have only 100 neurons?
Is it a supernatural miracle that human exist as a social species, learning from one another, enjoying interactings with one another? We are not an asexual hermit species. Most of us care about more than just ourselves. If we didn't we wouldn't be a large-brained social species (compare other large-brained social species from parrots to dolphins, elephants and apes). And humans started agriculture and civilization before Abraham was born (if there was an Abraham). They built temples thousands of years before Abraham. See http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text "built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza."
Also, here's an interesting factoid. Seven billion Homo sapiens probably had lived and died before Jesus was ever born. The Population Reference Bureau estimates that Homo Sapiens (whose earliest appearance in the fossil record was around 50,000 BC) surpassed seven billion dead way back between 8000 BC and AD 1. That doesn't count earlier extinct human species like Neanderthals and Homo Erectus the later of which goes back over a million years earlier. Such folks never heard of Moses or Jesus. They but they were social, founding towns, farms, writing, cities. All the while living relatively short lives, suffering nature's misfortunes. Not bad for carbonaceous pre-Christian, pre-Moses, pre-Abrahamic, goo.
Not bad for carbonaceous pre-Christian, pre-Moses, pre-Abrahamic, goo.
ReplyDeleteAs if you know what "bad" and "not bad" are, outside your own opinions.
(Word verification: hering. That fits.)
A. A. Allan, the heretic. Though not to his church and the people who were certain had been healed by God through him.
ReplyDeleteWhy exactly ARE their heretics who read the Bible and express their love of Jesus and their trust in God's power? You'd think the Holy Spirit might intervene at some point and set such folks straight. But the Holy Spirit didn't intervene concerning the verses added on to the end of Mark, which were canonized.
Neither has the Holy Spirit been able to set straight a gargantuan number of earnest Bible readers over the ages, and Jesus lovers, including Arminian Protestants, Catholics, preterists (of different types who can't stand each other). So what exactly chance is there for the rest of the non-Calvinist Reformed world? Heck, Calvinists couldn't even stick together after Calvin's day. I bet there's conservative Reformed Churches whose congregations have split up over this or that matter, and who had to go out and found a different church with a new pastor. Not to mention the conservative-moderate-liberal Calvinist theologial spectrum.
Why does Steve rant so much against Dave Armstrong and vice versa? Why did Steve rant against J.P. Holding for a while and vice versa, with Holding ranting against James White, and vice versa? Steve even softened for a bit during that interlude he had with J.P. Holding, sending me a very calm nice email. What happened to that Steve?
Speaking of the use of the word obsession, anyone can see via reading your site that you are obsessed with Loftus and with anyone else at all who happens to disagree with you on nearly any matter at all. And you tend to trade personal insults as to the others' intelligence or morality quite freely, instead of simply responding to the point. For instance if Dawkins says something about what a violent or mean spirited character God is portrayed as being in the O.T., you start insulting Dawkins. Being a Calvinist you can't even deny what he's saying, you glory in God's just revenge, claiming its perfect and portrayed perfectly in every passage of the Bible. Can you prove that? No. You just assume it. And you blame others for speaking at all, saying anything at all that disagrees with your view as if they should know better than to question your presuppositions concerning inerrancy. And how everyone else is murderous goo in your eyes, which you claim are also the same eyes God sees everybody with. Nice self-contained theology there, and quite vengeful toward the diversity in society, which has always existed in society, which exists even in the world of theology as stated above.
It seems the "fun" of being a Reformed Christian in a world of diverse opinions is simply to act like a grumpy wordly person and insult people to death and chalk up your behavior to your spiritual maturity and superior divine insight.
But many people are playing a similar insult game all over the web. Communication is not easy, insults are cheap. And you guys seem to have picked up the tactics from the world in general. A worldly pursuit if there ever was one.
Has Loftus mentioned any of you in any of his books by name?
Or are you so insecure you have to depict the sorrows of one man's life as evidence of his damnation (or God's vengeful hand) instead of simply admitting that Loftus has his share of sorrows as do each of us, and all flesh is grass and liable to sorrow of a wide variety.
In ten years has Steve Hays or J.P. Holding gained much except the personal satisfaction of receiving some emails from people who agree with them? Loftus receives his share of such emails. So have I since the publication of Leaving the Fold. So we're all inspired by receiving positive feedback from others. That's a universal phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if you guys could call down fire from heaven we could see what God's will really is. As it stands it seems like all one needs to understand the will of God is the Bible and whichever commentaries one's church finds acceptable. (smile) J.P. Holding has gotten into social science commentaries. Though it does not appear that any of the major scholars in that field are inerrantists, certainly not to the extent J.P. remains.
Lastly, history demonstrates, along with Christian history, that thinkers and scientists don't always lead happy-go-lucky lives. Some of the most creative people in the arts and sciences have been manic-depressives, suffered divorces, struggled with alcohol/drugs/sex addiction, etc. Even the Catholic historian in Britain who condemned some adulterous "intellectuals" in a book of the same title wound up having it revealed that he'd been seeing a mistress for many years.
The wife of a former president of the Southern Baptist convention, and TV preacher, Charles Stanley, was divorced not long ago. She is not allowed to explain in the divorce settlement exactly why she sought the divorce.
The president of a nationwide Evangelical group of ministers was found having sex and taking drugs with one or more gay men.
Calvin on the other hand was so unforgiving he sought the death penalty for adulterers, several of whom were tossed into the river tied up, and sought the death penalty for children who struck their parents, one was executed, while others were hung by their armpits from gallows to show they deserved the death penalty. Calvin also wanted all the witches in Penney executed, and he wrote letters to governors try and get one of former fellow Christians in Geneva executed, the one who wrote a book that dared to call into question Calvin's view that magistrates must execute heretics.
Calvin wrote similar letters to Britain and Poland magistrates. And he almost never missed a Consistory meeting and was nearly always the one to hand out verbal admonishments to folks called before the Consistory, harsh admonishments about nearly anything and everything. But Geneva changed after Calvin. The whole Calvinist world changed, splits occurring, etc. Very Darwinian.
"You'd think the Holy Spirit might intervene.."
ReplyDeleteHe does. Seldom. But nevertheless He does. So we need to always remember that.
"Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”-Dr. Luke, Acts 5:9
Ed Babinski, your friend Loftus has smeared a number of my friends on his blog, making all kinds of vile accusations.
ReplyDeleteYet when they try to reply, he blocks them or deletes them.
You see, he is a bully (he admits that as a young man that he actually assaulted people, in WIBA) and he is a coward because he won't allow a response.
And now he has changed to so called reasons for his deconversion in the latest addition of WIBA.
CHALLENGE TO LOFTUS: allow me to respond on a thread on your blog and I will prove everything I have said.
EDWARD T. BABINSKI SAID:
ReplyDelete“You'd think the Holy Spirit might intervene at some point and set such folks straight. But the Holy Spirit didn't intervene concerning the verses added on to the end of Mark, which were canonized.”
Why should we think that?
“Neither has the Holy Spirit been able to set straight a gargantuan number of earnest Bible readers over the ages, and Jesus lovers, including Arminian Protestants, Catholics, preterists (of different types who can't stand each other).”
You keep rolling out the same stale objections, even though I’ve responded to that before. You lack adaptive intelligence, Ed. You can’t think for yourself.
“So what exactly chance is there for the rest of the non-Calvinist Reformed world?”
Chance of what?
“Speaking of the use of the word obsession, anyone can see via reading your site that you are obsessed with Loftus…”
He writes/edits books on atheism, I respond. That’s how debate works.
“And you tend to trade personal insults as to the others' intelligence or morality quite freely, instead of simply responding to the point.”
Freethinkers should be able to think. Rationalists should be rational. Seems pretty germane to me.
“For instance if Dawkins says something about what a violent or mean spirited character God is portrayed as being in the O.T., you start insulting Dawkins. Being a Calvinist you can't even deny what he's saying, you glory in God's just revenge…”
Justice isn’t equivalent to “mean-spiritedness,” but thanks for illustrating your moral blindness.
“…claiming its perfect and portrayed perfectly in every passage of the Bible. Can you prove that? No. You just assume it.”
You’re the one who’s assuming what you need to prove, whereas I regularly present evidence for the Bible.
“And you blame others for speaking at all, saying anything at all that disagrees with your view as if they should know better than to question your presuppositions concerning inerrancy.”
Yes, they should know better than to question inerrancy.
“And how everyone else is murderous goo in your eyes, which you claim are also the same eyes God sees everybody with.”
You’re pretty emotional, Ed. Better check your blood pressure before you blow a gasket.
“Nice self-contained theology there, and quite vengeful toward the diversity in society…”
As if atheists are distinguished by their political tolerance.
Cont. “It seems the 'fun' of being a Reformed Christian in a world of diverse opinions is simply to act like a grumpy wordly person and insult people to death and chalk up your behavior to your spiritual maturity and superior divine insight.”
ReplyDeleteYou sound pretty grumpy yourself, not to mention other grumpy infidels like Loftus, Dawkins, PZ Myers, Hector Avalos, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, &c.
“Or are you so insecure you have to depict the sorrows of one man's life as evidence of his damnation (or God's vengeful hand) instead of simply admitting that Loftus has his share of sorrows as do each of us, and all flesh is grass and liable to sorrow of a wide variety.”
I didn’t criticize him for hitting the bottle when his wife left him. Rather, I made the common sense observation that somebody who’s drunk and depressed is in no rational condition to argue against the Christian faith.
“In ten years has Steve Hays or J.P. Holding gained much except the personal satisfaction of receiving some emails from people who agree with them?”
I don’t do apologetics for personal sanctification. My personal satisfaction lies elsewhere.
“As it stands it seems like all one needs to understand the will of God is the Bible and whichever commentaries one's church finds acceptable.”
I don’t confine myself to a list of preapproved commentaries.
“Lastly, history demonstrates, along with Christian history, that thinkers and scientists don't always lead happy-go-lucky lives.”
So what?
“Calvin on the other hand was so unforgiving he sought the death penalty for adulterers.”
You suffer from a vicarious fixation on Calvin’s life. The guy died in 1564.