Argument to Design According to the argument from design, or teleological argument, the design or order found in the universe provides evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer (or orderer) usually identified as God. A classic version of this argument appears in William Paley’s 1802 Natural Theology, where Paley compares the complexity of living […]

Theistic Arguments: Debates These are formal debates between theists and nontheists on topics relating to the theistic arguments: Scripture, Miracles, Design, Cosmological, Moral, Transcendental, and Other. To purchase related reading, go to the Secular Web Book Store. See also Atheism: Debates Argument from Holy Scripture: The Barker-Horner Debate: Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? […]

Cosmological Arguments Incorporating Aristotle’s notion of a “prime mover” into Summa Theologica and elsewhere, Thomas Aquinas famously formulated his version of the cosmological or “first cause” argument. According to this argument, the things which we see around us now are the products of a series of previous causes. But that series cannot go back in […]

Cosmological Arguments: Reviews/Critiques Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: The Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (Book Review) (2000) by Richard Carrier The errors in David Becks’ arguments for God in the book In Defense of Miracles are examined. The first of three arguments is the modern incarnation of the cosmological “first cause” argument, which […]

Cosmological Arguments: Related Links Atheistic Cosmological Argument [Index] From the II Modern Library. Craig, William Lane [ Index ] An index of articles confronting the arguments of the well-known Christian apologist. Evolution and Chance FAQ (Off Site) “Two matters that critics of evolutionary theory can be relied upon to misunderstand are the notions of chance […]

Ex-Christians Testimonials Why I Am Not a Christian Why I Am Not a Christian (2006) by Richard Carrier In this explanation of why he is not a Christian, Richard Carrier outlines the top four reasons why he rejects Christianity: God’s silence, God’s inactivity, lack of evidence, and the overt conflict between discovered reality and Christian […]

Richard Swinburne An Analysis of Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God (2010) by Gabe Czobel On first appearance, Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God offers a highly structured, coherent, and rigorous argument for God’s existence grounded in Bayes’ theorem, inductive reasoning, confirmation theory, the intrinsic probability of simple hypotheses, substance dualism, and moral realism. But […]

Shroud of Turin Special thanks to Steven Schafersman, author of the Skeptical Shroud of Turin Website for inspiring this page. New “Shroud” Claims Challenged as Spurious (Off Site) (1996) (CSICOP) Replies of skeptical scientists and investigators to “The Authentication of the Turin Shroud” (Off Site) Shroud of Turin Exhibition Renews False Claims of Authenticity (Off […]

Jesus Seminar Jesus Seminar Forum (Off Site) [ Index ] The Westar Institute (Off Site) (Off Site) by Robert J. Miller Robert J. Miller assesses this 1995 criticism of the Jesus Seminar & the author’s claims that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher & embodiment of divine wisdom [Journal of Higher Criticism 4.1 (Spring 97) 120-137]. […]

Select Christian Apologetics Web Sites Note: The following list of links is not intended to be a comprehensive list of Christian apologetics web sites; however, it does include many of what we consider to be the best apologetics sites on the Web. From these initial sites, interested readers will be able to find links to […]

Hugh Ross Farrell Till‘s Responses to Hugh Ross’s Biblical prophecy-fulfillment claims: Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (Part 1 of 3) Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (Part 2 of 3) Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (Part 3 of 3) The Fine-Tuning Argument (1998) by Theodore Drange Currently, a very popular theistic argument is the so-called “fine-tuning […]

Resurrection The Argument from the Bible (1996) by Theodore Drange “Almost all evangelical Christians believe that the writing of the Bible was divinely inspired and represents God’s main revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Bible contains special features which constitute evidence of its divine inspiration. This would be a use of the Bible […]

Prophecy The Argument from the Bible (1996) by Theodore Drange “Almost all evangelical Christians believe that the writing of the Bible was divinely inspired and represents God’s main revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Bible contains special features which constitute evidence of its divine inspiration. This would be a use of the Bible […]

Alvin Plantinga Alvin Plantinga Can’t Say That, Can He? A Review of Where the Conflict Really Lies (2016) by Richard M. Smith In Where the Conflict Really Lies, Alvin Plantinga maintains that any apparent conflict between science and classical Christian theism is superficial at best, and that the real conflict lies between science and the […]

Historicity of Jesus Order books on Christianity now Beckwith on Historiography (Review of In Defense of Miracles) (1999, 2005) by Richard Carrier Misunderstandings of historical method are rife in Francis Beckwith’s chapter in the book ‘In Defense of Miracles,’ and these are typical of all modern apologetics. Historian Richard Carrier gives a professional overview of why […]

Ex-Christians Books for Ex-Christians Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist and Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists by Dan Barker Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists by Edward Babinski Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell Farewell to God: […]

Biblical Errancy The Argument from the Bible (1996) by Theodore Drange Almost all evangelical Christians believe that the writing of the Bible was divinely inspired. They also believe that the Bible contains special features which constitute evidence of its divine inspiration. This would be a use of the Bible to prove God’s existence within natural […]

Biblical Criticism Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament (2016) by Matthew Wade Ferguson Unlike historical writing, the New Testament Gospels read like ancient prose novelistic literature. Outside of Luke, the Gospel authors say nothing about any textual sources for Jesus that they consulted, and even Luke does not name, explain, […]

William Lane Craig Articles The Anthropic Coincidences, Evil and the Disconfirmation of Theism (1992) 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 […]

Bible Codes About Minimal Skip by Brendan McKay (1997) (Off Site) Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick! by Brendan McKay (1997) (Off Site) The Bible Code: A Book Review by Allyn Jackson (1997) (Off Site) The Demise of Drosnin by Brendan McKay (1997) (Off Site) Hidden Messages and The Bible Code by David E. Thomas (1997) […]

Christian Worldview Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity (1993) [ Index ] by Robert M. Price Critical Review of Is God a Moral Monster? (2017) by Craig Vander Hart In Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, Paul Copan attempts a bold apologetic of the Judeo-Christian God’s moral status. The so-called new […]

Character of Jesus Atheists for Jesus (Off Site) This site is “designed to provide a method of communication between religious and nonreligious people who believe in the message of love and kindness put forth by Jesus.” The Justified Lie by the Johannine Jesus in its Greco-Roman-Jewish Context (2020) by John MacDonald In this article John MacDonald […]

Christian Apologetics and Apologists, Criticisms of Apologetics in General Lynn Anderson Greg Bahnsen W. David Beck Francis Beckwith Michael Behe E. Calvin Beisner Walter L. Bradley David Clark Paul Copan Winfried Corduan William Lane Craig Stephen T. Davis William Dembski Phil Fernandes Norman L. Geisler R. Douglas Geivett Duane Gish Gary Habermas Hank Hanegraaff J. […]

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 […]