Abortion is not Immoral and Should not be Illegal by Richard C. Carrier It is always refreshing debating someone who is not fanatically attached to a bizarre worldview.  We always come to enlightened agreement on many issues.  This is one of the reasons I believe secularism is the correct view–whereas theism leads to greater dispute […]

Abortion is not Immoral and Should not be Illegal by Richard C. Carrier I. Disputed Facts In Jen Roth’s first rebuttal, several factual arguments are made that I do not believe are correct.  I will address these first.  However, these factual disputes are not very major–they do not go to the heart of the debate.  […]

by Richard C. Carrier Fundamentals of Agreement and Disagreement Jen Roth has composed her case well, and I can see this debate will be of great value to everyone, not only secularists.  I will begin with the major points of fundamental agreement and disagreement between us.  Roth is quite right when she identifies the two […]

Abortion is not Immoral and Should not be Illegal by Richard C. Carrier   Introduction This opening argument against the immorality and illegality of abortion is simple, short and largely unoriginal: the arguments have all been voiced and heard a thousand times before. As will become apparent, the present argument leaves numerous fundamental assumptions as […]

About the Abortion Debate The topic for this debate is: Is There a Secular Case Against Abortion? The debaters have agreed to the following debate format: Opening statements, submitted independently of one another, 18 April, 2000 First rebuttals, submitted independently of one another, due 1 May, 2000 Second rebuttals, submitted independently of one another, due […]

On The Issue of Abortion: Abortion remains one of the more divisive moral issues in America today. The controversy over its legal and moral status rages on. Several labels have been invented to define the variety of stances available on the issue. Pro-Life is often synonymous with Anti-Abortion, and related partially to Anti-Choice. Pro-Choice is […]

Debates Is Creationism True? [Index] God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence (2007) [ Index ] edited by Paul Draper Should We Believe in God? [Index] Why Be an Atheist? [Index]

Book Review: David O’Connor, God and Inscrutable Evil: In Defense of Theism and Atheism, Lanham/London, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, pp. xiii + 273, $28.95 paper, $78.50 cloth. (To purchase the book, click on the image of the book cover to the right.)   “There is a great deal of evil in the world, much of […]

Asa and Archer: Does the Bible contain errors? David Zaitzeff   The Bible contains many passages which seem to contradict other passages. Unbelievers, skeptics and modernist Christians see these passages as evidence the Bible contains errors. Conservative or “fundamentalist” Christians respond with books on “Bible difficulties.” These books attempt to explain the contradictions. The usual […]

Young-earth "proof" #27: The oldest tree in the world is 4300 years old. 27 . What does the age of a tree have to do with the age of the earth? If, in fact, the oldest tree is 4300 years old, so what? Perhaps Dr. Hovind is impressed by the fact that such a tree […]

Young-earth "proof" #16: Topsoil takes only a few thousand years to form. The present thickness of topsoil indicates a young earth. 16. Those "scientific" creationists who trot this plum about must be delirious! Do they really believe that we should wind up with x miles of topsoil (or some such nonsense) after billions of years? […]

Youngearth "proof" #1: The sun is shrinking at 5 feet/hour which limits the earth-sun relationship to less than 5 million years. The shrinking-sun argument contains two errors. First, and by far the worst, is the assumption that if the sun is shrinking today, as might be detected over a period of years, then it has […]

Young-earth "proof" #8: At the rate many star clusters are expanding, they could not have been traveling for more than a few thousand years. Without more detail, I can only guess as to the nature of Dr. Hovind’s argument! As it is worded above, it remains something of a mystery. I believe that some creationists […]

Young-earth "proof" #22: The largest stalactites and flowstones could have formed in about 4400 years. 22. Since when is the age of the earth related to the age of a stalactite? If, in fact, a fat stalactite can form in 4400 years, so what? However, it does seems a bit suspicious that the minimum age […]

Young-earth "proof" #7: Space dust would be vacuumed out of our solar system by the Poynting-Robertson effect in a few thousand years. Since that is not the case, the earth is very young. The Poynting-Robertson effect is an effect that sunlight has on small dust particles orbiting the sun. The continuing absorption of sunlight robs […]

Young-earth "proof" #21: Given the rate of sediment transport into the ocean by the world’s rivers, the ocean basins should have a much thicker layer of sediment than they actually have. Only a small amount of sediment is on the ocean floor, indicating a few thousand years of accumulation. This embarrassing fact explains why the […]

Young-earth "proof" #9: Saturn’s rings are unstable which indicates that they are less than millions of years old. If Saturn’s rings are less than millions of years old, then what of it? That doesn’t prove that the planet is less than billions of years old. Recent study suggests that the rings are not older than […]

Young-earth "proof" #24: Given the rate of salt influx to the oceans, they should be much saltier than they are if the earth were billions of years old. 24. Dr. Hovind is assuming that salt cannot be removed from the oceans. The more sophisticated creationists, such as Melvin Cook, know better than to make that […]

Young-earth "proof" #23: The Sahara desert is expanding; it can only be a few thousand years old. 23. The present Sahara Desert really is only a few thousand years old. About 7 or 8 thousand years ago the area underwent a pronounced wet phase and portions of it were habitable parkland where cattle could be […]

Young-earth "proof" #20: The earth’s rotation is slowing down, meaning that the earth can’t be older than a few million years. 20. Presently, the earth’s rotation is slowing down 0.005 seconds per year per year (Thwaites and Awbrey, 1982, p.19). At least Dr. Hovind doesn’t use the horrendous rate of 1 second per year which […]

Young-earth "proof" #19: The size of the Mississippi River delta divided by the sediment accumulation rate gives an age of less than 30,000 years. 19. Since when does the age of the earth have anything to do with the Mississippi delta? If the Mississippi delta is, in fact, 30,000 years old, what of it? Because […]

Young-earth "proof" #18: The incredible pressure found in oil and gas wells indicates they have been there less than 15,000 years. (Presumably, the oil or gas would have escaped long before then.) 18. The incredible pressure found in oil and gas wells indicates that the oil and gas have been effectively trapped. The initial, slow […]

Young-earth "proof" #25: The current population of Earth (5.5 billion) could easily be generated from 8 people in less than 4000 years. If the earth were really billions of years old, the human population would have gone through the roof! 25. Yes, and by the same reasoning 8 germs could populate every cubic inch of […]

Dr. Hovind: It only takes one proof of a young earth to decide between CREATION and EVOLUTION. This magic bullet mentality, the tendency to rely on a single, isolated argument to win all the chips, has gotten creationists into more trouble than possibly anything else. Unfortunately, Mother Nature does not bestow a little, gold ribbon […]

Young-earth "proof" #17: Erosion rates limit Niagara Falls to an age of less than 10,000 years. Therefore, the earth is young. 17. If Dr. Hovind is right, then the Niagara Falls are less than 10,000 years old. What of it? Since when does the age of the Niagara Falls have anything to do with the […]

Young-earth "proof" #5: The Moon is receding a few inches each year. Less than a million years ago the Moon would have been so close that the tides would have drowned everyone twice a day. Less than 2 or 3 million years ago the Moon would have been inside the Roche limit* and, thus, destroyed. […]

Young-earth "proof" #6: The Moon contains considerable quantities of U-236 and Th-230, both of which are shortlived isotopes that would have expired long ago if the Moon were 4.5 billion years old. Thorium-230 is an intermediate decay product of uranium-238 which has a half-life of about 4.468 billion years (Strahler, 1987, p.131). Thus, it will […]

Young-earth "proof" #2: Given the rate at which cosmic dust accumulates, 4.5 billion years would have produced a layer on the moon much deeper than observed. By implication, the earth is also young. The most amazing thing about the cosmic dust argument is that it is still being used! It has coasted along on obsolete […]