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 […]

A Critique of Fundamentalism (2000) Steven J. Conifer [The following essay was delivered before the spring 2000 meeting of the West Virginia Philosophical Society, held April 7-8 at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV.] I. Introduction I shall herein assess fundamentalism, namely, that of the Christian variety. The New Standard Encyclopedia defines the term as […]

The Argument from Reason for the Nonexistence of God (2001) Steven J. Conifer [The following essay is derived from my forthcoming book, The Plausibility of Atheism: Eight Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, which shall be available via amazon.com by June of 2001.] 1. Prefatory Comments I shall herein propound an evidential atheological argument which […]

A Critique of Fundamentalism (II) Steven J. Conifer [Author’s Note: The following is an extension of my essay “A Critique of Fundamentalism,” in which I critique chapters 1 and 5 of Henry M. Morris’ and Martin E. Clark’s The Bible Has the Answer. The essay is located on the Secular Web at https://infidels.org/library/modern/steven_conifer/fundamentalism.html.]   4.1. […]

The Argument from Consciousness Refuted (2001) Steven J. Conifer   I. PREFATORY REMARKS Many Christian philosophers (e.g., Richard Swinburne) advocate a theistic argument which has begun of late to garner considerable popularity in the literature. The argument is one from human consciousness, i.e., it appeals to the phenomenon of human consciousness as its main premise. […]

Critique of Josh McDowell’s Non-Messianic Prophecies Steven Carr   Related documents: “Prophecy Subject Index in the Secular Web’s Modern Library [ Index ] Links to various essays which address the argument from prophecy. “Exhaust Fumes (or Carr Repairs)” (Off Site) by James Patrick Holding Holding’s rebuttal to this essay. (Strangely, Holding does not provide a link to […]

Review of Viable Values (2004) Stephen Parrish Publishing on the Secular Web is not necessarily an endorsement of the mission of the Internet Infidels. Please note that Stephen Parrish has no interest in promoting metaphysical naturalism or the products advertised on this site. Review: Tara Smith. 2000. Viable Values: A Study of Life as the […]

Hidden History in Acts of the Apostles (2003) Sid Green   Background and Sources “The Acts of the Apostles” is often said to be a work of early Christian history, and although it is poor history, it does reveal vital historical information. We can deduce that Acts was written close to the beginning of the […]

The Sinai Argument (2001) Shlomi Tal   The question of whether the revelation of God to the ancestry of the nation of Israel took place is of great importance to the Jewish faith, comparable to the Empty Tomb debate in Christianity. As do fundamentalist Christians with the latter, Orthodox Jews base the faith on the […]

Genealogical Saga of Judaism (2001) Shlomi Tal Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One, it is written in Deuteronomy 6:4. Judaism is essentially the story of the relation between one human race and their deity. The tragic consequences of racial hatred in the past century do not retract from the […]

Those who closely study the origin, development, and structure of the universe tend to disbelieve in any spiritual dimension to it. Science has inadvertently discovered that religious pictures of the world are false; when speaking to the same questions, science and religion invariably get different answers. Cosmology has no need for a First Cause since the Big Bang might simply be a transitional phase in an infinitely old universe or, alternatively, there may be no "before" the Big Bang anymore than there is a "north" of the North Pole. Appeals to alleged fine-tuning are presumptuous: physicists extrapolating from the earliest well-understood moment after the Big Bang using the laws of physics alone would erroneously deem our universe inhospitable to life. How, then, can we reliably anticipate the likelihood of life arising in hypothetical universes with different laws? Even supposing that physical constants are in fact "tunable" (which they may not be), constants might take on different values in other universes; and as Carroll puts it, "intelligent observers will only measure the values which obtain in those regions which are consistent with the existence of such observers." Finally, cosmology betrays unintelligent design: entire classes of fundamental particles exist that would have no impact on life in they had never existed. Evidently, a simple materialist formalism could offer a complete description of the universe.

Historicity Of Jesus FAQ (1994) Scott Oser Disclaimer This "FAQ", often referred to as the "Historicity of Jesus" FAQ, is neither exhaustive, nor does it attempt to answer the question of whether Jesus of Nazareth really lived or not. In fact, in writing it I have purposely tried not to take sides on this issue. […]

Review of The Hidden Face of God (2007) Scott Oser and Niall Shanks   Review: Gerald L. Schroeder. 2001. The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals The Ultimate Truth. New York: The Free Press. 224 pp. Introduction (by Scott Oser) Schroeder’s Arguments from Physics and Cosmology (by Scott Oser)      The Argument for a Metaphysical […]

Physics and Religion The Anthropic Coincidences: A Natural Explanation (1999) (Off Site) by Victor J. Stenger Stenger argues that the fine-tuning argument is flawed because it assumes that only one kind of life, ours, is possible in every configuration of universes. Stenger also provides a naturalistic explanation for the anthropic coincidences. The ‘Big Bang’ Argument […]

Creationism Book Reviews Another Case Not Made: A Critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator (2005) by Paul Doland In this chapter-by-chapter critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator, Paul Doland comments on the general direction of the book before analyzing Strobel’s interviews with his various experts on specific topics. Topics […]

Duane Gish Duane Gish quote about ER 1470 (1997) (Off Site) by Jim Foley An example of Gish misquoting a scientist. Creationist Arguments: Duane Gish and Wadjak Man (1998) (Off Site) by Jim Foley Gish claimed that Eugène Dubois concealed information on the Wadjak skulls until 30 years after their discovery. Even after being shown […]

William Dembski William Dembski, a mathematician and philosopher, is one of the leaders of intelligent design creationism. Chance, Necessity, and the War Against Science (2000) (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci A review of Dembski’s Design Inference by biologist Massimo Pigliucci. Response to Massimo Pigliucci’s Review of The Design Inference (1999) by Mark Vuletic Vuletic replies to […]

Creationist Debates Is Creationism Science? (Gish-Zindler Debate) (1990) [ Index ] A debate between Duane Gish and Frank Zindler that was aired on a radio program hosted by Jim Bleikamp. Zindler tries to get Gish to move beyond merely attacking evolution and provide positive evidence for creationism. E-mail Conversation with a Creationist (Alan Hale vs. Anonymous) (1997) […]

Creationism – Evolution Book Reviews Debates Behe, Michael Dembski, William Gish, Duane Johnson, Phillip Is Acceptance of Evolution Evil? (2016) by Michael D. Reynolds An often overlooked religious criticism of biological evolution focuses on the alleged ethical consequences of accepting it, particularly increased immorality and harmfulness. In this essay Michael D. Reynolds describes and critiques one such […]

Science and Religion Creationism Physics Another Case Not Made: A Critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator (2005) by Paul Doland In this chapter-by-chapter critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator, Paul Doland comments on the general direction of the book before analyzing Strobel’s interviews with his various experts on specific […]