The first is that most of the questions raised in order to call into question the “black-and-whiteness about Lobdell’s belief system” are either answered or alluded to in his book, which the lecture was over. Lobdell writes in his book about working with the positive outcomes of faith in people’s lives as well as the negatives, and not just those in Christianity. He even discusses in great depth “the resiliency of the victims.” Many of these criticisms of Lobdell and his work are resolved by reading his book. I understand his lecture may have been lacking these background details, but I am sure it would have gone too long if it had. I assume that the majority of the people who attend his lectures want to hear the abridged version of his story, and are more interested in the latter half of his story anyway.

My second dispute is that while conferring upon Mr. Lobdell the title of lacking in objectivity while reporting on stories of faith while this article seems littered with bias. It is written from a prospective in which the good choice of action when confronted with problems of faith is to adapt as many enjoyable religious ideas from as many religions or belief systems as possible. It would seem as though the author had already concluded that Atheism was an incorrect outcome. Once again, the idea that Lobdell had “thrown the baby out with the bathwater” is answered repeatedly in his book as he addressed being a “Cafeteria Catholic” by using the Catechism’s teaching that, “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.”

Although it may seem that I have treated William Lobdell with a form of reverence, such is not the case. I simply find this critique of him to be lacking in investigative background and suffering from bias toward the conclusion that a religious hodgepodge is ideal.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/12/21/closet_christian/index.html

Say not, this is the truth, but so it seems to me to be, as now I see the things, I think I see.