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December 2, 2022

Added the sixty-fourth Freethinker Podcast YouTube Interview with Justin Tang About Traumatic Religious Experiences (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this roughly hour-long interview with Justin Tang, an “ex-vangelical” trauma-informed coach and hypnotist who specializes in the deconstruction of religious trauma, particularly how to […]

November 30, 2022

Added Is There Life after Death? (2022) by Merle Hertzler to the Empirical Arguments section of the Life after Death/Immortality page in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. Many people believe that something about our individual minds—a soul, if you will—lives on even after the brain has disintegrated. Ultimately, they see the […]

Is There Life after Death?

Many people believe that something about our individual minds—a soul, if you will—lives on even after the brain has disintegrated. Ultimately, they see the mind as a function of a soul that survives death, rather than as a function of a brain. But if a nonmaterial soul is really the seat of the mind, why do you even need a brain? What is left for the brain to do? Some propose that the brain is simply an interface to the body. But science has shown that it is the brain that is in charge. In this article, Merle Hertzler lays out the evidence that we think with our brains, not with immaterial souls. And the possibility of bodily resurrection doesn't fare much better. So we need to make the most of the one life that we know for sure exists because odds are, that's the only life that any of us are going to get.

The Absurdities of Sakshi Apologetics

Earlier this year Jeremy Shaughnessy was invited to attend a "How the Bible Changed the World" seminar in Poona, India, organized by Sakshi Apologetics Network of India. Many prominent Christian speakers in India participated in the event, including Christopher Singh, Ashish John, Asher John, Narendra Sahoo, and Chandrakant Wakankar. More often than not, these speakers either made historically, scientifically, and logically fallacious statements or drew from correct statements conclusions that were laughably mistaken. Although a Christian himself, in this essay Shaughnessy reviews many of the themes of this Christian apologetics seminar and how they regularly consisted of a string of non sequiturs.

November 5, 2022

Added the sixty-third Freethinker Podcast YouTube second Interview with Edward Tabash on the Conservative Turn in the Supreme Court (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Tune in to Edouard Tahmizian’s one-hour-and-twenty-minute interview with Los Angeles constitutional lawyer Edward Tabash as he surveys how the religious right-wing majority on the […]

November 3, 2022

Added the sixty-second Freethinker Podcast YouTube Interview with Myriam Valenzuela on Spirituality and Inner Consciousness (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Check out this over half an hour long interview with Myriam Valenzuela, the fitness, Yoga, and Hawaiian dance instructor who owns Aloha Yoga and Hula and founded the […]

October 31, 2022

Added Review of Eternal Life: A New Vision (2022) by Taylor Carr to the Conceptual Arguments section of the Life after Death/Immortality page in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. The fear of death has been a major struggle for human beings all throughout history, and we have found a variety of […]

Review of Eternal Life

The fear of death has been a major struggle for human beings all throughout history, and we have found a variety of ways to cope with this uncomfortable fact. Our world religions are man-made institutions designed to give comfort from this fear in the form of purpose, meaning, and life that transcend death. Embracing these realizations, John Shelby Spong's Eternal Life: A New Vision argues for the necessity of abandoning traditional theistic religion for the adoption of a more humanist, life-centered perspective. Nevertheless, Spong's labels for numerous concepts are often pointless and sometimes even confused. If the divine is fully experiencing the human, why call it the divine in the first place? What stands to be gained from calling the totality of human experience, and the sense of transcendent unity, God? Carr sees this as merely an attempt to ease the transition out of a system which is already in the process of collapsing.

Psychic Epistemology: The Special Pleading of William Lane Craig

In this paper John Loftus aims to expose the special pleading inherent in William Lane Craig's psychic (or spirit-guided) epistemology. After questioning the need for apologetics and warning about the monumental challenges to it, Loftus urges Christian apologists to become honest life-long seekers of the truth, to get a good education in a good field of study, to accept nothing less than sufficient objective evidence, and especially to determine how to know which religion to defend. He then goes on to sharply contrast these recommendations with the modus operandi of today's Christian apologists.

October 27, 2022

Added the sixty-first Freethinker Podcast YouTube Fourth Interview with Robert M. Price on Biblical Inerrancy (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Tune in to this roughly one-hour discussion between host Edouard Tahmizian and esteemed biblical scholar Robert M. Price as they discuss how biblical inerrantists try to deal with […]

Interview with Robert M. Price on Scriptural Inerrancy

Tune in to this roughly one-hour discussion between host Edouard Tahmizian and esteemed biblical scholar Robert M. Price as they discuss how biblical inerrantists try to deal with textual evidence of New Testament contradictions. The interlocutors canvas how inerrantists deal with an apparent misquote of Jeremiah by supposedly God-inspired Matthew in Matthew 27:7-10 (whose actual source seems to be Zacharias)—with Calvinists attributing it to copyist error, and others sometimes claiming that it refers to an unwritten prophecy by Jeremiah and so is not erroneous—solid evidence that the longer ending of Mark after Mark 16:1-8 was interpolated by someone other than Mark (someone who wanted to compile details from other Gospels about the risen Jesus to avoid an awkward ending to Mark's empty tomb narrative and give more "evidence" of the resurrected Christ via his resurrection appearances), and Price's take on whether Robyn Faith Walsh's reasons for thinking that Jesus mythicism is implausible stand up to scrutiny. Check out this novel interview with an indefatigable biblical scholar!

Read What You Need to Find Out

William Lane Craig admonishes truth-seekers to stay away from “infidel material.” Are those who haven’t bought into the hype really “the wrong people” to consult on questions whose answers have not received Craig’s blessing? This fall, we urge you to keep reading & watching infidel material—and go where the research takes you. You don’t need […]

October 13, 2022

Added the sixtieth Freethinker Podcast YouTube Interview with Bill Gaede & Jason Thibodeau on Mathematical Physics (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian in this one-and-a-quarter hour interview with Rational Science podcaster Bill Gaede and Cypress College philosophy professor Jason Thibodeau as they explore […]

October 1, 2022

Added the fifty-ninth Freethinker Podcast YouTube Interview with Jonathan Sheffield on the Reliability of the Bible (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian for over an hour with Anglican and Christian apologist Jonathan Sheffield as Jonathan overviews his case for the reliability of both the Old […]

September 30, 2022

Added A Response to Clement Dore’s Soul-Making Theodicy (2022) by Leslie Allan to the Evidential Arguments from Evil page under Arguments for Atheism in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. The soul-making theodicy seeks to explain how belief in the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God is compatible with […]

A Response to Clement Dore’s Soul-Making Theodicy

The soul-making theodicy seeks to explain how belief in the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God is compatible with the evil, pain, and suffering that we experience in our world. The theodicy purports to meet nontheists' arguments from evil by articulating a divine plan in which the occurrence of evil is necessary for enabling the greater good of the character-building of free moral agents. Many philosophers of religion have leveled strong objections against this theodicy, and theistic philosopher Clement Dore has responded to them. In this essay, Leslie Allan questions the effectiveness of Dore's counterarguments to two key objections to the soul-making theodicy.

The Demon, Matrix, Material World, and Dream Possibilities

René Descartes searched for certain knowledge, a goal that was long ago abandoned by most philosophers. But a lack of certainty does little to undercut the need for sufficient evidence before accepting a proposition about the nature of our experience in this world. All we need to do is think inductively rather than deductively, think exclusively in terms of probabilities, and understand that when speaking of sufficient evidence what is meant is evidence plus reasoning based on that evidence. I know as sure as I can know anything that there is a material world and that I can reasonably trust my senses. I conclude that the scientific method is our only sure way for assessing truth claims.

September 23, 2022

Added the fifty-eighth Freethinker Podcast YouTube Interview with Robyn Faith Walsh & Dennis R. MacDonald on their Differences (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Tune in with Edouard Tahmizian in this over one-hour interview with New Testament scholars Robyn Faith Walsh and Dennis R. MacDonald for a novel first-of-its-kind […]

Interview with Robyn Faith Walsh & Dennis R. MacDonald on their Differences

Tune in with Edouard Tahmizian in this over one-hour interview with New Testament scholars Robyn Faith Walsh and Dennis R. MacDonald for a novel first-of-its-kind conversation on the literary imitation of ancient Greek poetry and philosophy in the canonical Gospels. Does Mark imitate Virgil (who in turn imitates Homer)? Or is there a stronger case for imitation of Virgil in Luke-Acts? How do Mark and Paul deploy ideas in similar ways? In what ways do Achilles—and especially Hector—find their parallels in the Gospels? These and other questions are addressed before the discussion turns to the bigger-picture view of literary networks and mimetic chains where authors imitate other imitations. Given the common background agreement between Walsh and MacDonald about the 'game' that the ancients were playing in their writings, where do their perspectives diverge on Q source material? One must separate the question of whether there ever existed a Q document from the question of whether such a document, assuming that it did exist, can ever be reconstructed into a meaningfully readable document today (especially since there are several plausible reconstructions of Q). Can Q reasonably be viewed as a collection of the sayings of John the Baptist? And what should we make of Jesus mythicism? Do Jesus mythicists selectively cherry-pick the historical evidence, or not? Does it even matter whether a historical Jesus existed since the Gospel Jesus is clearly not the historical Jesus anyway? Check out this fantastic interview with world-class philologians finally getting together to discuss the interpretation of literature while highlighting their areas of interest and respectful disagreement!

September 8, 2022

Added the fifty-seventh Freethinker Podcast YouTube third interview with Keith Augustine on Afterlife Research (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 45-minute interview with Keith Augustine as they canvass Augustine’s recent exchange with prominent psychical researchers in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE). On […]

August 31, 2022

Added Can Naturalism Make Room for Reincarnation? (2022) by R. N. Carmona to the Conceptual Arguments section of the Life after Death/Immortality page in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. When one normally thinks of reincarnation, one has in mind a caricature, an oversimplification. Modern-day science can be marshaled in to lend […]

Can Naturalism Make Room for Reincarnation?

When one normally thinks of reincarnation, one has in mind a caricature, an oversimplification. Modern-day science can be marshaled in to lend support to a kind of reincarnation. The combination of traits that make you you, no matter how multifarious, are finite. This implies that given a long enough time, some sentient being, whether Homo sapiens sapiens or something very similar to our own species, will come to believe in the same you that you believe constitutes you. This, to my mind, is how naturalism makes room for "reincarnation." Thus naturalists should shun the habit of dismissing an idea because it is religious or apparently supernatural. However, while such a naturalistic conception of reincarnation is logically coherent, it still exceedingly unlikely, and that fact should count for something. Ultimately, reincarnation is incompatible with naturalism, but not because it is too mystical—but rather because even the strongest "steel man" notion of reincarnation considered here is undermined by the simple fact that one's full set of experiences is very unlikely to recur in the life of another person no matter how long the universe goes on.

August 23, 2022

Added the fifty-sixth Freethinker Podcast YouTube third interview with Robert M. Price on Mythicism as Scholarship (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. In a June 2022 interview with Edouard Tahmizian, New Testament scholar Dennis R. MacDonald admonished Richard Carrier for misappropriating his work in the service of Jesus mythicism. […]

August 15, 2022

New in the Kiosk: Psychology is Not a Science—But Fear Not (2022) by Justin Ykema In this article, Justin Ykema argues that psychology fails to meet the criteria necessary to qualify as an empirical science. Particularly problematic is how psychology could ever fulfill those criteria centered around the concepts of testability and reproducibility. However, this […]

Psychology is Not a Science—But Fear Not

In this article, Justin Ykema argues that psychology fails to meet the criteria necessary to qualify as an empirical science. Particularly problematic is how psychology could ever fulfill those criteria centered around the concepts of testability and reproducibility. However, this controversial conclusion should not be taken to imply that psychology has nothing to offer that is worthy of study. On the contrary, Ykema argues, psychology can thrive as a discipline centered on the statistical analysis of the data collected by psychologists, but as more of a mathematical pursuit than a scientific one.

August 9, 2022

Added the fifty-fourth Freethinker Podcast YouTube third interview with Dennis R. MacDonald on Mimesis, Richard Carrier, and Jesus (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this 45-minute interview with New Testament scholar Dennis R. MacDonald on his September 2022 3-volume reference work Synopses of Epic […]

August 1, 2022

Added the fifty-third Freethinker Podcast YouTube fourth interview with Richard Carrier on Jesus mythicism (2022) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Join Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian in this nearly 40-minute interview with historian and freethinker Richard C. Carrier as Carrier responds to New Testament scholar Dennis R. MacDonald’s statement […]

July 30, 2022

Added In Defense of a Subjective Condition on Proving Religious Miracles (2022) by Alberto G. Urquidez to the Argument from Miracles page under Arguments for the Existence of a God in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. The argument from miracles is typically held to motivate not only the conclusion that God […]

Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise from the Dead?

The resurrection of Jesus is a fundamental belief to Christians. But nonbelievers have to reconcile the fact that any resurrection occurrence would break the laws of biology with the fact that very early Christians had unshakeable beliefs that Jesus had risen from the dead. Two possibilities exist for those with a naturalistic worldview. Was the Resurrection a hoax to which they all subscribed, or did they genuinely believe in its reality? In this essay, Robert Shaw addresses this question with his characteristic sagacity.

In Defense of a Subjective Condition on Proving Religious Miracles

The argument from miracles is typically held to motivate not only the conclusion that God exists, but also that one should believe 'in' God. In other words, if God exists, so the argument goes, then we must also adopt whatever religious precepts and practices God happens to command. In this essay, Alberto G. Urquidez challenges that presumption. Even if successful—as dubious as that supposition is—an argument from miracles does not entail religious belief in God. Such belief requires further subjective ascription of strong religious significance. A religious miracle obligates religious conversion, which goes beyond rational assent to religious propositions. Since arguments from miracles are descriptive rather than normative, they are insufficient to obligate religious conversion. Once the the necessary conditions for establishing a religious miracle are laid bare, Urquidez shows that they render it impossible to objectively establish a miracle so as to be a just foundation for a religion.