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 […]

Review of ‘Atheism and Theism’ (1999)   Alexander Pruss and Richard Gale   The following article is a review of the “great debate” by J.J.C. Smart and J.J. Haldane. The original debate was published by Blackwell Publishers in 1996. This review will be published in FAITH AND PHILOSOPHY in January 1999.   The participants in […]

  Why Alston’s Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective (1994) Richard Gale The following article was originally published in PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Vol. LIV, No. 4, December 1994.   Within each of the great religions there is a well established doxastic practice (DP) of taking experiential inputs consisting of apparent direct perceptions of God (M-experiences) […]

Why I Am Not a Christian (2006) Richard Carrier   Introduction The Top Four Reasons I Am Not a Christian Are… 1. God is Silent 2. God is Inert 3. The Evidence is Inadequate      A Digression on Method      Hero Savior of Vietnam 4. Christianity Predicts a Different Universe      Origin and Evolution of Life      The Human […]

The Problem of the Virgin Birth Prophecy (2003) Richard Carrier   In March 23 of 2003 I received the following question by email. I was encouraged to publish my answer online, since it would be of help to many others faced with the same question.[1] Some of my advice is applicable to many other questions […]

Translations (Bibliography of Skepticism in the Ancient World) (1998) Richard Carrier (copyright 1999)   Translations The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations, Julia Annas, and Jonathan Barnes (editors and translators), New York, Cambridge University Press, 1985., 203 p. Augustine, Against the Academics, John J. O’Meara (translator), Westminster, Md., Newman Press, 1950, 213 p. […]

Proving a Negative (1999) Richard Carrier   I know the myth of “you can’t prove a negative” circulates throughout the nontheist community, and it is good to dispel myths whenever we can. As it happens, there really isn’t such a thing as a “purely” negative statement, because every negative entails a positive, and vice versa. […]

Thallus: An Analysis (1999) Richard Carrier   [A formal peer reviewed version of the research in this article is now available in volume 8 of the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, under the title “Thallus and the Darkness at Christ’s Death” (PDF). The new article updates and supersedes the old.] This is a preliminary […]

Ten Things Wrong with Cosmological Creationism (2000) Richard Carrier   A short series of exchanges on cosmological creationism which largely transpired in our August and October feedback pages touched upon every issue that I have often visited and continue to visit in my discussions with creationists. In this essay, I now present several objections which […]

Tai Solarin: His Life, Ideas, and Accomplishments (1995) Richard Carrier   The most famous and controversial atheist and secular humanist in African history (if not the only one of any real renown) was the Nigerian nationalist Tai Solarin, who sadly passed away at the age of 72 in 1994. I wrote a paper on Tai […]

Supplements (Bibliography of Skepticism in the Ancient World) (1998) Richard Carrier (copyright 1999)   Supplements Sage, Saint, and Sophist: Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman Empire, Graham Anderson, New York, Routledge, 1994, 289 p. Annas, Julia, “Doing Without Objective Values: Ancient and Modern Strategies,” in The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic […]

Fundamental Flaws in Mark Steiner’s Challenge to Naturalism in The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem (2003) Richard Carrier   This is a critical rebuttal to Mark Steiner’s book The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem (1998). Steiner argues that naturalism appears to be false because nature is fundamentally mathematical. Carrier argues otherwise. […]

Comprehensive Bibliography on Skeptical Thought in the Ancient World (1998) Richard Carrier (copyright 1999)   This bibliography is not as complete as I would like. However, it does contain every reference that could be found in every relevant electronic database known to me (and accessible through Columbia University), including everything that could be found in […]

Test Your Scientific Literacy! (2001) Richard Carrier   Do you think you know what science is? You may be surprised. Scientific literacy is hard to acquire and is not widespread. Science is, after all, a very complex and nuanced affair that can only be truly understood with wide experience and deep thought. It took the […]

Scientific Studies (Bibliography of Skepticism in the Ancient World) (1998) Richard Carrier (copyright 1999)   Scientific Studies Biddle, Bruce Jesse, and Marlin, Marjorie M., “Causality, Confirmation, Credulity, and Structural Equation Modeling,” in Child Development, Vol. 58, Feb., 1987, pp. 4-17. Bower, Bruce, “True Believers: the Thinking Person May Favor Gullibility Over Skepticism,” in Science News, […]

Research Notes and Protocols (Bibliography of Skepticism in the Ancient World) (1998) Richard Carrier (copyright 1999)   What I Have Done In compiling my bibliography, I employed the following resources, which are mainly (though not exclusively) electronic databases: The Database of Classical Bibliography (and the ensuing issues of L’Année Philologique), The Guide to Historical Literature, […]