Recently an opinion poll showed that a majority of Americans want evolution taught in U.S. public schools. Americans should use extreme caution before considering this as an argument for the teaching of evolution over creationism (or vice-versa). Evolution should be taught because it’s the best scientific theory with the most favorable evidence on its side […]

People who agitate for the display of the Biblical Ten Commandments in schools, courtrooms, and other public places demonstrate a limited knowledge of the Bible. To isolate and emphasize the first ten commandments of the Hebraic Law is contrary to the way in which the Law was understood, not only by Jews but by Jesus […]

After months of bitter fighting and accusations of religious bigotry, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has named the Rev. Daniel Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest, as the new House chaplain. The controversy over the position erupted in December when Hastert and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) ignored the recommendations of a bipartisan House committee […]

Tacitus’ Fragment 2: The Anti-Roman Movement of the Christiani and the Nazoreans (2000) Eric Laupot University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa ABSTRACT There is little consensus as to the historical nature of the sect identified by Tacitus in Annales 15.44 as the Christiani. Nor is there any firm consensus on the authenticity and historicity of all of […]

Best of the Modern Library OLD PAGE: New page here: Best of the Modern Library Church-State Separation The Christian Nation Myth (1999) by Farrell Till Our founding fathers established a religiously neutral nation, and a tragedy of our time is that so many people are striving to undo all that was accomplished by the wisdom […]

Forrest argues that philosophical (or metaphysical) naturalism is supported by (1) the demonstrated success of methodological naturalism; (2) the massive amount of knowledge gained by methodological naturalism; (3) the lack of a method or epistemology for knowing the supernatural; and (4) the subsequent lack of evidence for the supernatural.

Theology & Falsification: A Golden Jubilee Celebration (2000) Antony Flew [Note from the Editor of Philosophy Now: Can religious beliefs be disproved? If not, what does this imply? 1950 saw the first appearance of a short article which changed the way theologians look at the problem. Antony Flew describes the circumstances in which he wrote […]

The Little Known Literary Battles Between the Gospel Writers (1999) James W. Deardorff Abstract: The most obvious solution to the Synoptic Problem (order of priority among the New Testament Gospels) has been rejected by most scholars since the 19th century largely because of embarrassments it was causing for the church and/or their own theologies. However, […]

“The Society of Humanist Philosophers 1999 Conference” (1999) by James Still “Al Gore on Arrogant Atheists” (1999) by James Still If the message boards are not yet crawling with the news they soon will be: U.S. Vice President and Presidential candidate Al Gore admitted that he was a born-again Christian. During a 60 Minutes interview, […]

To the extent that loyalty to religious traditions, and appeal to religious authority, are analogous to an appeal to alien political traditions—to that extent a discountenancing of such appeals will be, by parity of reasoning, appropriate within a liberal democracy. Citizens should be free to pursue their religious commitments, so long as those are not incompatible with secular order; but religious reasons as such, not otherwise warrantable, have no place in our political discourse. That is not because they are not "political reasons", but precisely because they are—or are too close to being so. They retain, in spite of their historical divergence from politics, a structurally identical role for appeals to authority, tradition, legal precedent, group solidarity, and the like.

Bradley argues that if objective moral values exist, then any god who commits, commands other to commit, or condones acts which violate objective moral values, does not exist.

On June 24, 1999, a patron of the Secular Web challenged one of Donald Morgan's "Bible Absurdities" with this simple paragraph: "Remove genesis 8:20 from the absurdities list. They sacrificed one of each clean animal--they brought 7 pairs [GE 7:2] of each clean animal onto the arc." What ensued was a dialogue between then Editor in Chief of the Secular Web, Richard Carrier, and Donald Morgan regarding the alleged absurdity of sacrificing animals that were taken aboard the Ark for the purpose of preservation.

Earlier this year, an actual blasphemy law was introduced into the New York State Senate. This measure would make it a crime to ridicule any religious belief or ridicule any concept of a deity upon which such beliefs are based in any public place. This bill is clearly unconstitutional in that it violates both Religions Clauses and the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment. This bill would give religionists special rights to silence those who disagree with their beliefs, placing the state on the side of assisting religious believers in suppressing public expressions of dissent, thus violating the Establishment Clause. It would also punish people for expressing their views on matters of religion, thus violating the Free Exercise Clause. In prohibiting speech because of the specific content and message of that speech, this legislation violates the Free Speech Clause. The letter to the New York State Senate contains a comprehensive constitutional argument as to why this measure is completely unconstitutional.

William Alston's Perceiving God argues that some mystical experiences should be regarded as perceptions of God analogous to the perception of physical objects in sense experience. I conclude that there are several reasons for doubting that mystical experience generally—or Christian mystical experience specifically--can be a form of perception, even given Alston's epistemic commitments.

(1999) In submitting this, my last installment, I wanted to make sure that I thanked Dr. Drange adequately for a very stimulating debate. Throughout he has conducted himself both as a scholar and gentleman, and this, despite the fact that both callings are currently against federal law. Before writing this section, I sat down and […]

(1999) In my opening statement I presented two arguments for the nonexistence of the Christian God. They were the Argument from Nonbelief (ANB) and the Argument from Confusion (AC). Pastor Wilson attacked them in his first rebuttal, I defended them in my second, and then he raised some further criticisms in his third. I shall […]

The Anthropic Coincidences, Evil and the Disconfirmation of Theism (1995) by Quentin Smith“The anthropic principle or the associated anthropic coincidences have been used by philosophers such as John Leslie (1989), William Lane Craig (1988) and Richard Swinburne (1990) to support the thesis that God exists. In this paper I shall examine Swinburne’s argument from the […]

(1999) In my first rebuttal, I took Pastor Wilson’s argument to be what I called “the Argument from Rational Thought” (ART). However, in his reply, Wilson indicated that I had misinterpreted his opening statement and that he was not actually putting forward an argument for the existence of God. What a bummer! It had certainly […]

(1999) In his second rebuttal Dr. Drange devotes himself to defending his two initial arguments against the existence of God, these being the Argument from Non-Belief (ANB) and Argument from Confusion (AC). Consequently, this seems as good a place as any to return once again to these arguments. What the ANB amounts to is the […]

(1999) Pastor Wilson divided his first rebuttal into two parts, one in which he attacked my opening statement and another part in which he supplemented his own opening statement by dealing further with his Transcendental Argument for God (TAG). I shall here address only the first part. The second part will be taken up when […]

(1999) Dr. Drange commented that I had not provided “any clear statement of the argument.” By this I suppose he means that I did not number my premises and end with a “therefore.” Nevertheless, despite the obstacles I placed in his way, Dr. Drange did quite a good job placing my argument in a form […]