Christianity Biblical Criticism Biblical Errancy Bible Codes Character of Jesus Christian Worldview Christian Apologetics & Apologists’ Web Sites Criticisms of Christian Apologetics & Apologists Ex-Christians Historicity of Jesus Jesus Seminar Prophecy Resurrection Shroud of Turin Why I Am Not a Christian General Argument from Insufficient Knowledge of the Bible for the Nonexistence of the God […]

Christian Science A Skeptic Looks at Christian Science (1999) (Off Site) by Jeffrey Shallit An old joke has it that Christian Science is like grape nuts–it is neither “Christian” nor “science.” The author critically analyzes Christian Science health claims from a scientific and philosophical frame of reference, offering along the way some fascinating information on […]

Buddhism Oil and Water: Monotheism and the Buddha’s Dharma (2001) (Off Site) by Gan Uesli Starling A Buddhist philosopher responds to the often heard claim of persons being both Buddhist and theist, presenting five striking points of divergence between Buddhism’s core doctrines and the concept of God, and then citing Buddhist scripture showing that Lord Buddha […]

Theistic Arguments: Books Related reading available through the II Bookstore.    Argument to Design/Cosmological Arguments: Cosmology Evolution   Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species (USA) Materialism Science & Philosophy Argument from Miracles/Religious Experience Logic Skepticism Ontological Arguments Logic Materialism Science & Philosophy Moral Argument/Divine Command Theory Ethics Existentialism   Frederick Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil (USA); (UK)   On the Genealogy of […]

Argument from Holy Scripture: Scientology Aleister Crowley (Off Site) by Jeff Jacobsen “Hubbard had connections with the occult. He was, at one time, Aleister Crowley’s pal. It shows in his work, too. Apart from that, the idea put forward in the OT’s–to have control over matter, energy, space and time–is very much indebted to gnosticism.” Dianetics […]

Argument from Holy Scripture: Mormon Scripture Book of Abraham [ Index ] In 1835, Joseph Smith acquired a collection of papyrus fragments from a traveling Egyptian show. He claimed to be able to translate these fragments, and the Book of Abraham is the result. The articles selected here confront the origins and “divine” nature of this text. […]

Argument from Holy Scripture: Holy Qur’an Cosmology and the Koran (2001) by Richard Carrier Muslim Fundamentalists are fond of claiming that the Koran miraculously predicted the findings of modern science, and that all of its factual scientific claims are flawless. There are two important objections to this claim that I will make, one pointing to […]

Argument from Holy Scripture Divine inspiration is often claimed for features of religious texts, constituting evidence of God’s existence or the truth of a religious doctrine.  In addition to the articles below, see also related Debates, Reviews, and Links. To purchase related reading, go to the Secular Web Book Store. The Bible: Bible Codes [ Index ] […]

Arguments for the Existence of a God Apologists rely on a variety of arguments to substantiate the existence of a God, or to support the claims of divinity by a particular denomination’s founder(s) or for its sacred texts. This section contains material that confronts and rebuts these theistic arguments. Links below are to the most […]

Theism Arguments for the Existence of a God Christianity Hinduism Islam Judaism Mormonism Psychology of Religion Oil and Water: Abrahamic Monotheism vs. the Buddha’s Dharma (2001) (Off Site) by Gan Uesli Starling A Buddhist philosopher responds to the often heard claim of persons being both Buddhist and theist, presenting five striking points of divergence between Buddhism’s […]

The author has requested that he be referred to as “Gaunilo II.” We have therefore moved his files into a new directory. The address for his files is now: /library/modern/gaunilo2/late.html Please update your links. Thank you.

The author has requested that he be referred to as “Gaunilo II.” We have therefore moved his files into a new directory. The address for his files is now: /library/modern/gaunilo2/late.html Please update your links. Thank you.

The author has requested that he be referred to as “Gaunilo II.” We have therefore moved his files into a new directory. The address for his files is now: /library/modern/gaunilo2/late.html Please update your links. Thank you.

Confessions of an Australian Atheist Kim Walker During the Sydney Olympics, Australian slang became the focus of many a newspaper article. So perhaps you may have already come across the word wowser. Wowser is one of those old fashioned words that nobody really uses anymore, but its existence still speaks volumes about Australian society. So […]

From Believer to Atheist Mark I. Vuletic [The following paper was presented to the public on September 17, 2000 in an event entitled "Christian Becomes Atheist, Atheist Becomes Christian," and was sponsored by the Jesus Forum. The paper describes how I became an atheist, and was delivered after a talk by my co-speaker, Paul Smith, […]

… "And It Came To Pass"… Eric Tallberg As a somewhat recent convert to the secularist point of view, I feel I ought to say a few words (well, maybe a lot more than "a few") regarding how I came to a state resulting in my occasional and often misunderstood diatribes, both written and oral, […]

From Fundamentalist to Humanist (1997) Robert M. Price   Everyone is on a spiritual journey. Most of the time we are glad enough to admit this, but other times we want stability more than anything else, and at those times we are liable to fear religious change lest we fall away from hard-won truth. But […]

How I Walked Away Kenneth Nahigian I confess it now, my sin, my crime, the cancer on my soul. I am a backslider. If you didn’t wince, you aren’t in the club. A backslider is an ex-Christian, one who accepted his savior and then fell from grace. One who stood on the threshold of his […]

Why I Am No Longer a Christian (2003) Ruminations on a spiritual journey out of and into the material world Kendall Hobbs I have found it a rare occurrence to come across a Christian evangelist (living in the United States, evangelists are almost always Christian) who does not have serious misunderstandings of my beliefs and […]

  From Missionary Bible Translator to Agnostic (2003) Ken Daniels   Contents 1. Purpose of this testimonial 2. Life as an Evangelical Christian 2.1 2.1 Early years: Unquestioned faith 2.2 Crisis #1 2.3 Crisis #2 2.4 Marriage and missions 2.5 Crisis #3 2.6 Crisis #4: Return from the mission field 2.7 A brief recovery of […]

From Taoist to Infidel (2001) Richard Carrier My experiences with religion as a child were all good. My mother was a church secretary at a First Methodist Church only a block from our home, and I attended Sunday School fairly regularly, but my parents rarely insisted that I attend any sermons. The religion sold at […]

My Post-Christian Testimony Ian J. Carr If I may paraphrase a famous Christian: Free at last, thank God I’m free at last! I am a former Christian, early 40’s, a previous true believer who worshipped mainly in Fundamentalist circles (though never able to tackle hard-line evangelist doctrine with any enthusiasm.) My journey to freethought has […]

How I Became An Ex-Christian (n.d.) Robby Berry   I was raised in a Christian home for most of my life, but I never took it very seriously until 1986. I was fifteen, and I had joined a youth group called Campus Life (a high-school division of the infamous Campus Crusade for Christ) in February. […]

  Confessions of an Evangelical Atheist (2008) Amanda Avellone   What I Believed My Christian Experience Unbinding My Mind The Day I Saw Gray God’s Will and the Power of Prayer And Man Created God in his Own Image… The Word of God? Show Me a Sign The Agnostic Limbo My Conversion What I Believe […]

Testimonials From time to time, The Secular Web receives an interesting and well-written essay by a nontheist detailing how s/he became an atheist, agnostic, rationalist, and/or freethinker. These essays are often of interest to others who are challenging their own ideas, the dominant beliefs within their society, or who are simply curious to read the […]

Can Secular Philosophy Give Us Objective Morality? (2003) A review of Michael Martin’s Atheism, Morality, and Meaning (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2002) Taner Edis   Philosophers have a way of going on quests to find reasons for what already seems intuitively obvious. Especially if religion is involved–it is hard to see anyone believing in, say, God, […]

Exposing the Indefensible (2003) A review of S.T. Joshi’s, God’s Defenders: What They Believe and why They are Wrong (Amherst: Prometheus, 2003) Taner Edis   Many infidels will enjoy this book, which skewers some of the more popular (rather than scholarly) defenders of religious faith. Joshi has a sharp tongue, which he uses to good […]

An Argument from Consciousness and Free Will (2007) Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro             1. Free Will           2. Consciousness           3. Closing Remarks Naturalism and theism are two powerful accounts of the nature of the cosmos. While there is common ground between the two—for example, both affirm the existence of a stable physical world with laws […]

Objections to Melnyk’s Case for Physicalism (2007) Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro   1. Philosophy of Mind We are grateful for this opportunity to reply to Professor Melnyk’s systematic, clear paper entitled “A Case for Physicalism about the Human Mind.” According to Melnyk (henceforth M), “An individual item (object, property-instance, or process) is physical in […]

Reply to Melnyk’s Objections (2007) Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro   We thank Andrew Melnyk (hereafter, M) for his thoughtful response to our essay and begin with his suggestion near the end of his response that in principle theists can provide a good explanation of the emergence of consciousness. Our position is that theists can […]