Prologue This essay originated as a post to the Ex-Tian mailing list, a mailing for ex-Christians. A common question among ex-Christians who become atheists is whether or not to “come out” as atheists, or to pretend to be a Christian when around friends and family. This essay is my answer to that question. Should ex-Christians […]

A Response To “The Skeptic’s Prayer” Robby Berry “The Skeptic’s Prayer” is a tract taken from the Handbook Of Christian Apologetics, by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. I first learned of the tract when Jeff Lowder posted it to the Usenet newsgroup, alt.atheism. What follows is my response to the tract. Introduction The following prayer […]

Life In Our Anti-Christian America Robby Berry   Prologue During a recent exchange of flames and frivolity on a local Usenet group, a newsgroup available only to students of Ohio State University, somebody made the observation that America was an “anti-Christian” society. As an Atheist, I am well aware of the extent to which religion, […]

Opening Remarks   Background My purpose in composing a rebuttal to Chapter 11 of Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict (hereafter ETDAV) is to correct some of the historical errors and point out the assumptions made by McDowell in this volume. Having myself witnessed how Christians use ETDAV as an evangelization tool, it is […]

Rebuttal to ETDAV, Chapter 11 Rob Sarver Opening Remarks  

The Witch Killers of Africa (2003) Richard Petraitis   In June of 2001, villagers of Congo’s northeast provinces began a bloody witch eradication campaign, sparing neither neighbor, nor friend. Alleged witches were unceremoniously hacked apart by machete-wielding vigilantes, bringing about a scene of carnage unmatched since the machete killing-sprees of the Rwanda Crisis. The innocent […]

Joseph Kony’s Spirit War (2003) Richard Petraitis   The year 2001 saw no cessation in the magic wars fought on the African Continent. The Twenty-First Century’s arrival witnessed yet another tribal revolt, fueled by magical belief, raging in Nigeria’s Oil Delta. In the Delta, members of the Egbesu Cult, (the war god of the Ijaw […]

From Simbas to Ninjas: Congo’s Magic Warriors (2003) Richard Petraitis   In 2002, a lightly-armed band of Congolese rebels attacked a capital city airport in a desperate bid to seize a vital military target. They wore magic charms across their bare chests to ward off government bullets. A firefight erupted with the Democratic Republic of […]

Why I Left the Mormon Church Richard Packham   I left the Mormon church in 1958, when I was 25 years old. That was a long time ago: David O. McKay was the prophet, seer and revelator. There were only eight temples, and none of them owned a movie projector. Every ward had its own […]

Joseph Smith as a Prophet Richard Packham   The Latter-Day Saints (“Mormons”) hold as among the first and most important principles of their religion, on which all the rest is based, that the founder of their church, Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-1844) was literally a prophet of God, if not the greatest prophet ever to have […]

The Man with No Heart: Miracles and Evidence Richard Packham   The problem of evidence for miraculous occurrences has frequently been discussed in TSR. It sometimes takes the form of an exchange between Farrell Till and some inerrantist. Till: “Extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence.” Inerrantist: “Then miraculous events require miraculous evidence, and since you don’t […]

R. M. Adams’s Theodicy of Grace (1998) Richard Gale   The following article was originally published in Philo, 1 (1998) pp. 36-44. Robert M. Adams, in a brilliant, thought-provoking essay, “Must God Create the Best?”[1], puts forth a theodicy for God’s creating inferior people to those he could have created or, in general, a less […]

Swinburne’s Argument from Religious Experience (1994) Richard Gale The following article was originally published in Reason and the Christian Religion, ed. by Alan Padgett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).   I have long admired Richard Swinburne’s work, not only for the way it has raised the level of discussion in the philosophy of religion by […]

Freedom and the Free Will Defense (1990) Richard Gale   The following article was originally published in SOCIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall 1990.   It is my purpose to explore some of the problems concerning the relation between divine creation and creaturely freedom by criticizing various versions of the Free Will […]