Richard Dawkins, after learning about the terrible news of Douglas Adams' death, writes a heart-wrenching lament to the science-fiction writer, humorist and all-together great mind who will be sadly missed by many.
Intelligent Design is the name used by the latest attempt to incorporate teleological explanations as part of science. The claim is made that scientific data cannot be understood naturally but require the additional element of purpose, divine or otherwise. In the minds of at least some of its proponents, the evidence in support of their position has become so strong that they propose, in the name of fairness, that it should become part of science texts and be taught in the science curriculum. However, as I will show, intelligent design arguments are little more than new variations on the ancient argument from design. While the proponents of Intelligent Design are generally not biblical literalists or Young Earth Creationists and accept most of what modern physics and cosmology sat about the cosmos, they still insist that that cosmos had to be the result of some outside agent––based on scientific arguments. The intelligent design movement is a kind of stealth creationism, creationism by another name.
The first part of this essay discusses what naturalism in the philosophy of religion should entail for one's ontology, considers various proposed criteria for categorizing something as natural, uses an analysis of these proposed criteria to develop theoretical criteria for both the natural and nonnatural, and develops a set of criteria for identifying a potentially supernatural event in practice. The second part of the essay presents a persuasive empirical case for naturalism based on the lack of uncontroversial evidence for any potential instances of supernatural causation, with particular emphasis on the lack of evidence for supernatural causation in our modern scientific account of the history of the universe and in modern parapsychological research.
Drawing on his own experiences as a devotee of a New Age religion, Tabash argues that the universality of searching for the transcendental, and the different sources attributed by people of different perspectives as the cause of lofty experiences, yields no additional evidence in our world of a supernatural being that undergirds reality.
Barefoot criticises Tattersall's defense of naturalism, supporting C.S. Lewis' argument that reason cannot be produced by any mechanical organism and therefore must be supernatural.
Richard Carrier looks at a prime example of the "genre" of medical literature that declares Jesus died, and finds it hopelessly wanting, especially for their incompetent historical method.
Did you know that our familiar calendar is pagan through and through? This intolerable situation must be stopped! A call to action for all true Christians.
There is so much blabbering God talk coming from the phony politicians today that you want to throw up. They can't make a statement without ending it with "God bless you ... and God bless America." Our first six Presidents, Humanists and Deists, would find this talk repugnant.
You are not going to believe you are reading the next paragraph. You had better go get another cup of coffee and sit down, maybe even hold tight to the edge of the breakfast table for balance.
Tired of seeing Christian conservatives have all the fun of grousing
at welfare queens getting free rides at taxpayer expense? It's time to get
them to pay for the free ride their imaginary superfriend has been enjoying!
An unbelieving firefighter puts a challenge to the Christian God, using a perspective through the eyes of a profession where the disconcerting tragedy of child deaths cut to your core and, unfortunately, is dealt with all too frequently.
While grieving over his grandfather's passing and preparing a eulogy for him, Lankford discovers some crucial differences between the way believers and nonbelievers handle death.
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink," John Lennon told a London Evening Standard reporter thirty-five years ago on March 4, 1966. These words shocked America and infuriated a young man who would eventually take Lennon's life.
We know from the first-century Jewish historian Josephus that three main sects dominated first-century Palestine: the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. Green asks the question "from which did Jesus emerge?" and takes us on a fascinating tour of the evidence.
Our opponents discovered our plot to introduce queer values via Teletubbies, teens stopped listening to our backward-masked Satanic rock music, and Alan Greenspan thwarted our attempt to control the world's money supply. What's an evil atheist to do?
Does the seemingly inescapable use of imperfect metaphors in the explanation of concepts within evolutionary theory mean more than a simple inadequacy of human language? Or, as the author purports, could it mean that hidden within the non-intelligent, non-purposeful, and unconscious workings of natural selection lies a cosmic Gepetto tinkering with his toys? Just in time for Darwin Day, Secular Web editors thought, why not make our readers rowdy with this little gem.
The following article demonstrates how countries throughout the world can, and are being devastated, by religious conflict. The religious revivalism currently sweeping South Asia has ambitions of political and cultural reform, opening the door to all brands of extremism. Hindu supremacists have become a powerful force in India and pose a serious danger to all opposing worldviews. This weeks feature offers Secular Web readers an opportunity to learn more about this important subject.
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