[ Author Index | Subject Index ]
The Modern Library contains material written during or after 1970, which tends to be more scholarly than Kiosk material.
Richard Carrier Foster1
Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000) 1. Who is David Foster? Richard Carrier David Foster received his technical training at King’s College London and has the degrees of M.Sc. and Ph.D, retiring in 1993 from a career as a scientific consultant. He has written […]
Richard Carrier Improbable Moral
Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction] Richard Carrier 5. Who Would Join a Moral Order? Every scholar of antiquity has noted the broad interest among the ancient Greeks and Romans in philosophies that promoted a strong moral order. Every great philosophy was morally demanding—in fact, that is precisely why […]
Richard Carrier Indef 4c
Clark’s Survey of Other Religions (1999, 2005) Richard Carrier [Part 4C of a larger Review of In Defense of Miracles.] The Problem of Competing Claims David Clark aims to tackle a particular problem defined by Hume: as Clark puts it: “If Christian televangelists and New Age cultists both appeal to miracles in support […]
Richard Carrier Musonius
On Musonius Rufus: A Brief Essay (1999) Richard Carrier Since this man deserves far more publicity than he has ever gotten in the modern age, I have written this short essay. He exemplifies the sort of man who should have been venerated and made the founder of a world religion, but was not, yet […]
Richard Carrier Resurrection 2a
This file has been relocated: it is now Section I of Probability of Survival vs. Miracle: Assessing the Odds.
Richard Carrier Resurrection 3e
This file has been relocated: it is now Section V of General Case for Spiritual Resurrection: Evidence Against Resurrection of the Flesh.
Richard Carrier Resurrection Rubicon
Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story (6th ed., 2006) Richard Carrier The Rubicon Analogy James Holding claims that we have as much evidence that Jesus rose from his grave as we have that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon (“Julie’s River Run: On Comparing the Rubicon to the Resurrection“). There are numerous errors […]
Richard Gale Freedom
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 […]
Rob Sarver Chap11 Opening
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 […]
Robert Price Beyond Born Again Chap6
________________________________________ 75 Beyond Born Again Section II– The Evangelical Apologists: Are They Reliable? Chapter 6: Guarding An Empty Tomb In Chapter 5, I dealt with the most common arguments for the reliability of the gospels. Now I want to discuss a special case, the arguments advanced for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At the outset […]
Robert Price Price Rankin About
Mars Hill Forum #35 JESUS: FACT OR FICTION? A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin Held At Unitarian Church Montclair, New Jersey January 11, 1997 Transcribed by Pieter Crow DR. ROBERT M. PRICE is Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Drew University and Adjunct Instructor of Philosophy, Religion, and Classics at […]
Roger Ericson Fatherless
What Would Father Do? A Review of Faithof the Fatherless by Paul C. Vitz by Roger Ericson [This review was originally published in Volume 8, Number 2, of Skeptic magazine.] In Faithof the Fatherless [Hardcover, Paperback], Paul C. Vitz joins the ranks of Michael Behe (Darwin’sBlack Box [Hardcover, Paperback]) and Michael Drosnin (The Bible Code […]
Science Creationism
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 […]
Stephen Parrish Viable Values
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 […]
Taner Edis Review Of Joshi
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 […]
Testimonials Vuletic
From Believer to Atheist Mark I. Vuletic [The following paper was presented to the public on September 17, 2000 in an event entitled "Christian Becomes Atheist, Atheist Becomes Christian," and was sponsored by the Jesus Forum. The paper describes how I became an atheist, and was delivered after a talk by my co-speaker, Paul Smith, […]
Theism Christianity Character
Character of Jesus Atheists for Jesus (Off Site) This site is “designed to provide a method of communication between religious and nonreligious people who believe in the message of love and kindness put forth by Jesus.” The Justified Lie by the Johannine Jesus in its Greco-Roman-Jewish Context (2020) by John MacDonald In this article John MacDonald […]
Theism Christianity Whynot
Ex-Christians Testimonials Why I Am Not a Christian Why I Am Not a Christian (2006) by Richard Carrier In this explanation of why he is not a Christian, Richard Carrier outlines the top four reasons why he rejects Christianity: God’s silence, God’s inactivity, lack of evidence, and the overt conflict between discovered reality and Christian […]
Theism Links
Theistic Arguments: Links to Other Resources Formal debates between theists and nontheists on topics relating to the theistic arguments: Cosmological Design Miracles Moral Ontological Scripture Transcendental Wager Other To purchase related reading, go to the Secular Web Book Store. Argument from Holy Scripture: Biblical Criticism [ Index ] Selected articles on modern Biblical criticism and scholarship. Biblical […]
Theism Wager
Pascal’s Wager In the seventeenth century the mathematician Blaise Pascal formulated his infamous pragmatic argument for belief in God in Pensées. The argument runs as follows: If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But […]
Thomas Sheehan Firstcoming Two
The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (1986–electronic edition 2000) Thomas Sheehan II How Jesus Was Raised From the Dead Soon after Jesus died, something dramatic happened to his reputation: His followers came to believe that he had been raised from the dead and was alive with his heavenly Father. This enhancement […]
Tyler Wunder Davis 4
IV. Support for the Core Facts of Core Facts Before considering the inevitable confrontation between these two most persuasive cases, I will briefly describe some of the evidence marshalled by Habermas in support of the premises of his abridged apologetic. Identifying these supports is extremely important, for apart from sheer authority-approval and appeal to “shared […]
Were Humans Intelligently Designed?
Were Humans Intelligently Designed? Science Says No! by Bill Schultz Table of Contents Introduction Why You Can’t Exactly Copy Christy Brinkley Electronic Chips: Design vs. Evolution The Human Genome Is A Mess Correlating Evolutionary and Geological History My Conclusion: Science Denies “Intelligent” Design Further Reading Acknowledgements Footnotes Introduction As an officer of the Internet Infidels, […]
Brian Pietruszewski Gish
Some Questions for Duane Gish (1998) Brian Pietruszewski [Note: The following questions were written in preparation for a visit by Duane Gish to Rice University. They are meant to be confrontational and asked face-to-face with Gish.] 1. Why does your web page tout “research” that attempts to dispute potassium argon (K-Ar) dating at Mt. […]
Church State Flag
Flag Desecration Amendment Although the issue of flag desecration is normally thought of as a free speech topic, it is also a church-state separation topic. Proposals to outlaw desecration of the U.S. flag may reasonably be viewed as blasphemy laws. Is the American flag a secular symbol or a sacred icon? (1998) by Edward Tabash […]
Dave Matson Young Earth Additional Topics Problems
A5. A Couple of Ice Age Problems Dr. Hovind believes that there was only one ice age which began sometime after Noah’s flood ended, that being around 4300 years ago by his reckoning. Thus, the world moved from a warm, tropical climate to an ice age only a few thousand years ago. There are […]
Dave Matson Young Earth Geologic Column Out Of Place
Hovind (G4): Polystrata fossils, missing layers, layers out of order, misplaced fossils, and layers in reverse order all invalidate the geologic column. G4. None of these charges amount to a hill of discarded beans. We can’t examine every claim that has been made, but we can look at a few examples. a) Polystrata fossils. By […]
Dave Matson Young Earth Specific Arguments Moon Isotopes
Young-earth "proof" #6: The Moon contains considerable quantities of U-236 and Th-230, both of which are shortlived isotopes that would have expired long ago if the Moon were 4.5 billion years old. Thorium-230 is an intermediate decay product of uranium-238 which has a half-life of about 4.468 billion years (Strahler, 1987, p.131). Thus, it will […]
Dave Matson Young Earth Specific Arguments Topsoil
Young-earth "proof" #16: Topsoil takes only a few thousand years to form. The present thickness of topsoil indicates a young earth. 16. Those "scientific" creationists who trot this plum about must be delirious! Do they really believe that we should wind up with x miles of topsoil (or some such nonsense) after billions of years? […]
Debates Secularist Abortion
First Rebuttal Jennifer Roth In his opening statement, Mr. Carrier identified two sources of disagreement on moral issues: disputes over facts, and disputes over values. I agree with his assessment; however, some disputes do not lend themselves to easy categorization. Take, for example, the question of when a human individual comes into existence. The answer […]