I Was a Big Bang Skeptic (2002) Richard Carrier The ultimate resource has now become available online surveying all the evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, compiled by professional cosmologists: Evidence for the Big Bang (2006), by Bjürn Feuerbacher and Ryan Scranton, in the Talk.Origins Archive. For readers interested in why we should believe the […]

You are probably looking for the article “Was There a Big Bang? I Honestly Don’t Know” by Richard Carrier. It has been removed from the web because I no longer agree with its argument. I have now stated and defended my new position in the essay ” I Was a Big Bang Skeptic” (2002). The […]

Two Examples of Faulty Bible Scholarship (1999) Richard Carrier   In response to remarks by Douglas Wilson in a debate with Ted Drange (see Wilson’s first rebuttal), I have written on two examples of how some Christians don’t understand the importance of scholarship in truly understanding the New Testament, centering around 1 Timothy. The first […]

What Can We Infer from the Present about the Past? (2006) Richard Carrier   In “Do No Miracles Today Imply None in the Past? A Critique of Richard Carrier’s Methodology,” Amy Sayers responds to an argument in my collection of essays “Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story” (6th ed., 2006). In particular, she responds […]

Isaiah also says this Servant will be “cut off” though “he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth,” then Daniel later says the Messiah will be “cut off” though “there is no legal judgment against him.” These sure sound like the same man. In fact, it sounds like Daniel is alluding […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum H: The Reality of Viral Evolution Richard Carrier   Richard Daniel has pointed out that the picture is more complex than this. First of all, “evolution doesn’t go in a straight line from simple to complex; it wanders […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum G: Microbial Replication Richard Carrier   Hoyle says in Our Place in the Cosmos: The Unfinished Revolution that “a typical time for replication under favorable conditions would be two or three hours” (p. 35) so that in a […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum F: Hemoglobin Protein Specificity Richard Carrier   Foster claims originally that hemoglobin consists of 574 proteins and that all must be specific, but later retracts this by admitting that only 516 are invariant, the remainder being neutral or […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum E: Zero Entropy Richard Carrier   Although there is no such thing as zero entropy in reality, it does exist as a mathematical ideal. In Thermodynamics: Foundations and Applications by Elias P. Gyftopoulos and Gian Paolo Bereth (MacMillan, […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum D: Precedents Richard Carrier   Since I wrote this, I discovered that a real expert, Bernd-Olaf Küppers, had already done something similar to what I do in the rest of this chapter. His work is rigorous enough to […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000) Richard Carrier The following material was updated in 2006, in light of the publication of Richard Carrier’s article, “The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities against a Natural Origin of Life,” Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November, 2004), pp. 739-64. An important discussion […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000) Richard Carrier The following material examines arguments officially and formally refuted in Richard Carrier, “The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities against a Natural Origin of Life,” Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November, 2004), pp. 739-64. Note the clarification added to Addendum C […]

Browse the Secular Web Bookstore for books on Freethought. Freethought Freethought Challenges of the ’90s (1992) by Fred Edwords Science and technology are transforming the world’s values more dramatically and more completely than organized religion has ever been capable of. Because so many people cannot deal comfortably with the moral dilemmas raised by the new […]

The Origin of the Word Agnostic Bill Young There is little doubt that Thomas Henry Huxley invented the word agnostic in the Spring of 1869. However, there is conflicting evidence about when this was and what it originally meant. According to R. H. Hutton, as published in the New English Dictionary, Huxley first used the […]

Agnosticism An Agnostic Theology (2010) by Kile Jones Insofar as theology depends upon revelation, can it possibly be agnostic? Kile Jones argues that an “agnostic theology” is not only not a contradiction in terms, but is an intellectually honest position that allows one to provide reasons for possible belief in God while simultaneously allowing reasons […]

Faith and Reason Agnosticism Freethought Logic FAQ Do Religious Life and Critical Thought Need Each Other? by Richard Carrier Text of a paper published in the Fall (1996) issue of Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, addressing why and how religious experience is to be approached critically, using Buddhist meditation as the central example. “Happy […]

Why I Am Not a Hindu Ramendra Nath Originally published by Bihar Rationalist Society (Bihar Buddhiwadi Samaj) 1993. Electronically reprinted with permission.   I have read and admired Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian. On the other hand, I have also read and disagreed with M.K.Gandhi’s Why I Am a Hindu. My acquaintance […]

Is God Dead? (An Introduction to Kya ishwar mar chuka hai?) Dr. Ramendra Nath Reader, Department of Philosophy, Patna College Patna University Originally published by the Buddhiwadi Foundation 216-A, S.K.Puri, Patna 800 001, Bihar, India Electronically reprinted here with permission. Foreword     Preface Introduction "Is god dead?" This is the literal meaning of the Hindi title […]

The Coherence of God: a response to Theodore M. Drange (2003) Ralph C. Wagenet   Theodore M. Drange, in his article Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey (1998), presents a collection of arguments designed to demonstrate that a being with the attributes commonly associated with God cannot exist because the attributes are mutually incompatible. If Drange is […]

§ Our Philosophy: Infidel Interview with Richard Carrier The Secular Web is the definitive resource for online atheists, humanists, agnostics and freethinkers. We’ve grown tremendously over the last five years as more and more people have come to see that metaphysical naturalism is a worldview that makes sense. In this interview, Editor-in-chief Richard Carrier describes […]

Produced for the Secular Web by T.J. Walker at TJWalker.com. § Infidel Interview with James Still Who are the Internet Infidels? Interview with James Still as president of the Internet Infidels, covering who we are, what we’re trying to accomplish, and our philosophy. [Listen] [Download RealAudio Player] Jan 31: Infidel Interview with Ed Buckner Ed […]

Produced for the Secular Web by T.J. Walker at TJWalker.com. § Infidel Interview with Jeffery Jay Lowder Lowder was the president of the Internet Infidels from 1995 until the beginning of 2000. He discusses the God question, atheism, and the purpose of the Secular Web. [Listen] Dec 14: Infidel Interview with Robert Price Price is […]

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Internal and External Causal Explanations of the Universe (1995) Quentin Smith   The following article was originally published in PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES in 1995 (Volume 79, pp. 283-310). PART ONE: THE FORMULATION OF THE CONTROVERSY I A certain controversy about explaining all contingent beings erupted in the 18th century and has continued up to the present […]

The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe (1988) Quentin Smith The following article was originally published in PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE in 1988 (Volume 55, No. 1, pp. 39-57). [Note by HTML transcriber: This transcription was performed under HTML 3.0, which was unable to display many mathematic symbols, some types of formatting, or simultaneously display more than […]

Swinburne’s Explanation of the Universe (1998) Quentin Smith The following review of Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. vi + 144) was originally published in Religious Studies 34 (1998): 91-102. I Swinburne’s Is There A God? presents a brief, updated version of his book, The Existence of God, in […]

Smith Closing Title TBA (2008) Quentin Smith     Continue the Debate Copyright ©2008 Quentin Smith. The electronic version is copyright ©2008 by Internet Infidels, Inc. with the written permission of Quentin Smith. All rights reserved.

Simplicity and Why the Universe Exists (1997) Quentin Smith   The following article was originally published in Philosophy 71 (1997): 125-32. I If big bang cosmology is true, then the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago with a ‘big bang’, an explosion of matter, energy and space from a singular point. This […]