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September 7, 2021

Added the third Freethinker Podcast YouTube interview with David Fitzgerald (2021) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. In this half-hour dialog with Jesus mythicist David Fitzgerald, a one-time member of the now defunct Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, host Edouard Tahmizian explores Fitzgerald’s reasons for denying the historicity of Jesus, which were […]

September 3, 2021

Introducing the Secular Web’s first Freethinker Podcast interview on YouTube: an interview with James McGrath (2021) added to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. In this 45-minute dialog with Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Literature at Butler University, host (and Internet Infidels social media manager) […]

The House of David and the Chinese Zhou Dynasty: A Comparative Study

Kings David and Solomon are said to have ruled over a huge kingdom that stretched from the Euphrates River to as far as the border of Egypt (according to the Bible). Archeological confirmation of the existence of such an expansive kingdom is inconclusive, however. Some apologists hold that evidence for their reign would not have survived some three millenia later. In this essay, however, Robert Shaw considers a similarly sized civilization, contemporaneous with that of David and Solomon, to explore what remnants of a three-thousand-year-old polity can reasonably be expected to be discovered today.

August 31, 2021

Added God is Not the Source of Morality (2010) by Raymond D. Bradley to the Moral Arguments and Divine Command Theory pages under Arguments for the Existence of a God in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. In this overview of why we should accept that God is not the source of […]

God is Not the Source of Morality

In this overview of why we should accept that God is not the source of morality, Raymond D. Bradley first outlines four kinds of crimes that God willingly admits to causing, committing, condoning, or commanding, if the holy scriptures are to be believed: crimes against humanity, war crimes, licensing moral mayhem and murder, and crimes of torture. Since any one of these would contravene morality, a being responsible for them could hardly be said to be a source of morality. There is an explicit contradiction between God's moral perfection and his scriptural crimes since, as Bradley says, "a morally perfect being would not do anything that is morally wrong." So which core belief are traditional theists willing to give up to avoid this contradiction?

Worse than Even Our Greatest Fears: A Two-Thirds Religious Right Majority on the Supreme Court

In this nearly hour-long speech to the Center for Inquiry, constitutional lawyer and secular activist Edward Tabash warns of the consequences of the horrific two-thirds religious right-wing majority on the United States Supreme Court: a rapid move toward ever-greater legal privileges that only the religious can enjoy. Religious objectors are quickly becoming the only members of society who are now permitted to discriminate against third parties. The Court is allowing them to use their faith to avoid complying with our country's anti-discrimination and employment protection laws.

August 17, 2021

Added Worse than Even Our Greatest Fears: A Two-Thirds Religious Right Majority on the Supreme Court (2021) (Off Site) by Edward Tabash to the Religious Discrimination and Government Promotion of Religion page under the Separation of Church and State page in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. In this nearly hour-long speech to […]

Why I am an Apostate

In this largely autobiographical account of why he is now an apostate, James McCartney reflects on the difference between a mere skeptic and former believer who undergoes a kind of deconversion over time. McCartney recounts how his first school teacher, his diligence at Presbyterian Sunday School, and a poem by Robert Burns led him to reject the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and those of other churches like it.

July 31, 2021

Added Does the God of Evangelical Christianity Exist? The Drange-McHugh Debate (2003-2004) [ Index ] by Theodore M. Drange and Christopher McHugh to the Atheism: Debates and Theistic Arguments: Debates pages in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. The “lost” Drange-McHugh debate on the existence of the God of evangelical Christianity was originally conducted […]

The Failure of Mathematical Formulations of Hume’s Maxim

Several commentators have attempted to reduce Hume's maxim about miracles to a formula in the language of probability theory. This paper examines two such attempts, one of which is based on the probability of the alleged miracle conditioned by the testimony for it, and the other on its unconditional probability. The conditional probability leads to a formula that is valid—though only when qualified—but not useful, while the unconditional probability results in an invalid formula. The utility of expressing Hume's maxim in terms of probability theory is shown to be questionable, and an alternative approach is presented.

June 30, 2021

Added The Failure of Mathematical Formulations of Hume’s Maxim (2021) by Stephen Nygaard to the Argument from Miracles and Resurrection pages in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. Several commentators have attempted to reduce Hume’s maxim about miracles to a formula in the language of probability theory. This paper examines two such […]

On the Existence of Barbers and God

A popular advocacy video on YouTube attempting to rebut arguments from evil has been disseminating among Christian religious organizations for about a decade. In an attempt to show that arguments from evil for the nonexistence of God fail, the video likens them to arguments from (human) longhairs to the nonexistence of barbers. In this article, James R. Henderson refutes the suggested theodicy that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God allows apparently gratuitous evils to occur because God wants more human beings to come to Him of their own free will.

June 19, 2021

New in the Kiosk: On the Existence of Barbers and God (2021) by James R. Henderson A popular advocacy video on YouTube attempting to rebut arguments from evil has been disseminating among Christian religious organizations for about a decade. In an attempt to show that arguments from evil for the nonexistence of God fail, the […]

The Origins of the Beginning

Up to the present day, a large number of the followers of Abrahamic religions have insisted that the accounts of creation found in the book of Genesis are a literal historical account of past events. Do they have any basis in actual history? Are they original to the Hebrew people? If not, what or who inspired them? In this thorough examination of the history and mythology of the cultures surrounding ancient Israel, Jason Gibson compares the oldest creation myths of Mesopotamia with those found in Genesis to demonstrate a clear connection between ancient Hebrew beliefs and the Sumerian myths that predated them.

May 31, 2021

Added The Origins of the Beginning (2021) by Jason Gibson to the Biblical Criticism page under Christianity in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. Up to the present day, a large number of the followers of Abrahamic religions have insisted that the accounts of creation found in the book of Genesis are […]

May 6, 2021

This National Day of Reason, give Enlightenment values a voice in a world drowning in alternative “facts” by pitching in to help keep the Secular Web online today! Honor reason by encouraging others to give proper weight to vetted claims. Honor science by always testing, testing, testing claims against the evidence. Honor critical thinking by […]

Secular Power Changing America

America is now losing religion faster than any other nation. American churches lost 20% of their members in the past two decades. Two-thirds of teens raised in church drop out in their twenties. Southern Baptists lost two million members since 2005. Mainline Protestantism is fading to a shadow. Meanwhile, churchless Americans began soaring in the 1990s and climbed past one-fourth of the population. They tend to hold compassionate social views and have become a powerhouse in "Left Coast" politics. If they continue rising as a progressive political force, America will be a better place for it.

An Epicurean Approach to Secularizing Rites of Passage

Ritual is one of the most universally enjoyed human experiences, but it is often tangled up in supernatural claims that are insulting to our intelligence. Hiram Crespo, founder of the Society of Friends of Epicurus, discusses how the contractarian theory of Epicurean philosophy may be applied to the creation of rites of passage that retain their utility while being purged from superstition.

March 31, 2021

Added Science, Morality, and the Death of God (2021) by Raymond D. Bradley to the Naturalism page under Nontheism, the Evidential Arguments from Evil page under Arguments for Atheism, the Argument to Design and Argument from Holy Scripture pages under Arguments for the Existence of a God, the Creationism page, and the Biblical Criticism page […]

Science, Morality, and the Death of God

In this greatly expanded version of his contribution to The Antipodean Philosopher, Raymond D. Bradley uses H. L. Mencken's classic "Memorial Service" as a jumping off point to explain why he is an atheist, and not an "agnostic," about the existence of any members of the category "gods." Since which gods happen to predominate in the society into which one was born depends upon accidents of birth, how can anyone justifiably have confidence that any of the gods on Mencken's list actually exist? Turning to our own Western monotheistic tradition, Bradley goes on critique the intellectual and moral defense that believers have mounted for the biblical God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with particular emphasis on "intelligent design" and "fine-tuning" arguments and how the pastorate feign ignorance about what their own biblical scholarship has uncovered about the all-too-human origins of their "revealed" sacred texts.

Dating the Exodus: A Historical Conundrum

The story of Moses and the Exodus continues to be seen as a historical fact by many Americans, and its events are commemorated with a 'Seder' meal in over a million households every year. In this article, Robert Shaw considers whether or not the story can be placed comfortably into the timeline of Egyptian history as we currently understand it.

February 28, 2021

New in the Kiosk: Dating the Exodus: A Historical Conundrum (2021) by Robert Shaw The story of Moses and the Exodus continues to be seen as a historical fact by many Americans, and its events are commemorated with a ‘Seder’ meal in over a million households every year. In this article, Robert Shaw considers whether […]

Review of The Case Against Miracles

In The Case Against Miracles, John Loftus continues his counterapologetic project by focusing on miracle claims. Although ostensibly a multicontributor response to Lee Strobel's work, it passes over the point-by-point response format and instead provides a range of arguments that miracle claims should be met with incredulity. David Corner argues that apologists cannot even meet the basic criteria of showing that an alleged miracle has occurred, that it cannot be explained by natural causes, and that it is not simply a natural anomaly to established facts. Matt McCormick argues that the performance of miracles is inconsistent with God's traditional divine attributes. John Loftus argues that alleged miracles must be demonstrably impossible on naturalistic grounds while simultaneously meeting a high bar of evidence that they actually occurred. Darren Slade notes a major shortcoming in Craig S. Keener's overt enthusiasm for recording miracle stories without being able to verify them independently. Slade recommends that miracle investigators instead employ forensic and law enforcement methods like Criteria-Based Content Analysis and the ADVOKATE criteria for assessing eyewitness testimony. Other pieces argue that since the New Testament suggested an imminent return of Christ, the absence of Christ's return is evidence for the prophetic failure of the text; that the Bible is not an accurate source of history; and that specific miraculous claims within the biblical text contradict scientific discoveries. Loftus' penultimate chapter primarily serves as a response to Michael Licona's recent apologetic monograph on the resurrection of Jesus.

Does God Exist?

Does God exist? Perhaps, if you mean something metaphorical by "God," you might be able to honestly answer in the affirmative. Otherwise, the most we can say is "I don't know." But honest people can go farther and say that the existence of unseen spirits is unlikely. When you get down to it, the only evidence of God's existence is that holy men, past and present, say he exists. But if their assertions about God are as valid as their assertions about witches, their trillion-dollar empires rest on fantasy.

January 31, 2021

Added Review of The Case against Miracles (2020) by Gregory Michna to the Argument from Miracles, Resurrection, and Christian Apologetics and Apologists pages in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. In The Case Against Miracles, John Loftus continues his counterapologetic project by focusing on miracle claims. Although ostensibly a multicontributor response to […]

The Case Against Faith: A Critical Look at Lee Strobel’s The Case for Faith

Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith aims to answer the "toughest objections to Christianity" through interviews with well-known Christian apologists. In the introduction, Strobel lists what he calls Christianity's "Big Eight Conundrums"—including many of the questions that Secular Web author Paul Doland continually asked himself when he was still a Christian. Though Strobel generally does a good job of explaining the objections, the more Doland contemplated Strobel's interviewees' responses, the less satisfying he found those responses to be. This point-by-point critique aims to explain why Doland found each of these responses to be weak at best or preposterous at worst, and he was consequently forced to conclude that Strobel may have actually produced a case against faith. This latest edition includes extensive revisions to the section of Objection 2 concerning the rationality of belief in miracles.

Commentary on Paul Doland's Critique of Strobel's Case for Faith (n.d.) by Avue (Off Site)

While Paul Doland's critique of Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith shows a decent understanding of current issues within the Christian Church and the socio-religious issues surrounding the Church, he does not show a good understanding of Christianity itself. He shows this, for example, in his discussions of God as heavenly father, original sin, and salvation.

No Better than Strobel: A Reply to God and Science's Case for Faith (2020)

In his earlier Secular Web critique of Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith, Paul Doland concluded that by raising tough questions for Christianity but failing to adequately respond to them, Strobel (and his interviewees) inadvertently ending up producing a strong case against faith. A rejoinder to Doland's critique was subsequently published on the God and Science website. In this response to that rejoinder, Doland defends his original conclusion that neither The Case for Faith in particular, nor Christianity in general, provide believable and coherent answers to the sorts of questions that Strobel originally raised. Nor, for that matter, does the attempt by the God and Science website to rehabilitate Strobel's answers to Christianity's toughest questions.

December 21, 2020

Give the Gift of Secularism. We have been molding minds for a quarter century. You made this possible. Thank you! Help us continue to undo the damage wrought by millenia of dogma by pitching in to keep the Secular Web online today. Added a substantially revised edition of The Case Against Faith: A Critical Look […]

Were the Ancient Israelites Henotheistic?

Most people (whether they are religious or not) either assume or were taught that the Israelites were, and had always been, monotheistic: that they believed in only one God and thus worshiped Yahweh only. Is this idea based on truth, tradition, or maybe assumption? In this paper, Jason Gibson attempts to uncover the truth—a truth that most people are unaware of, and one that, were it common knowledge, could signal the end of all of the Abrahamic religions. Were the ancient Israelites henotheistic? If acknowledged, the answer could change the world as we know it.