Modern Library

Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story (6th ed., 2006) Richard Carrier   General Case for Insufficiency: The Event is Not Proportionate to the Theory   According to the Christian theory, God is god of All Humankind, and more than that, He is god of All the Universe. This is inconsistent with the proof offered […]

Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story (6th ed., 2006) Richard Carrier   General Case for Spiritual Resurrection: Evidence Against Resurrection of the Flesh   I do not believe Jesus survived. Still, the fact that we can cast some doubt on it (see Probability of Survival vs. Miracle) proves that an apparent “resurrection” was not […]

This file has been relocated: it is now Section III of Rebutting Lesser Arguments.

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. […]

________________________________________ 127 Beyond Born Again Section III– Can Evangelical Theology be Born Again? Chapter 10: Toward Evangelical Maturity Never has Evangelical biblical scholarship been so mercilessly run through the wringers as it was in James Barr’s Fundamentalism (1977). Many of his reviewers criticized Barr for not offering any alternative to what he tore down. This […]

Review of The Case Against Christianity (1998) Robert M. Price   Michael Martin, The Case Against Christianity. Temple University Press, 1991. 273 pp. ISBN 1-56639-081-8 (hard cover); 0-87722-767-5 (paperbound). Reviewed by Robert M. Price. After a dozen years of active involvement as a born-again Christian, and another twenty as some sort of Liberal Protestant, I […]

By This Time He Stinketh The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus (1997) Robert M. Price   He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all. –Samuel Taylor Coleridge Have you ever wondered […]

The Sinai Argument (2001) Shlomi Tal   The question of whether the revelation of God to the ancestry of the nation of Israel took place is of great importance to the Jewish faith, comparable to the Empty Tomb debate in Christianity. As do fundamentalist Christians with the latter, Orthodox Jews base the faith on the […]

A Critique of Fundamentalism (2000) Steven J. Conifer [The following essay was delivered before the spring 2000 meeting of the West Virginia Philosophical Society, held April 7-8 at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV.] I. Introduction I shall herein assess fundamentalism, namely, that of the Christian variety. The New Standard Encyclopedia defines the term as […]

Why I Am No Longer a Christian (2003) Ruminations on a spiritual journey out of and into the material world Kendall Hobbs I have found it a rare occurrence to come across a Christian evangelist (living in the United States, evangelists are almost always Christian) who does not have serious misunderstandings of my beliefs and […]

Theistic Arguments: Books Related reading available through the II Bookstore.    Argument to Design/Cosmological Arguments: Cosmology Evolution   Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species (USA) Materialism Science & Philosophy Argument from Miracles/Religious Experience Logic Skepticism Ontological Arguments Logic Materialism Science & Philosophy Moral Argument/Divine Command Theory Ethics Existentialism   Frederick Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil (USA); (UK)   On the Genealogy of […]

Hugh Ross Farrell Till‘s Responses to Hugh Ross’s Biblical prophecy-fulfillment claims: Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (Part 1 of 3) Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (Part 2 of 3) Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim (Part 3 of 3) The Fine-Tuning Argument (1998) by Theodore Drange Currently, a very popular theistic argument is the so-called “fine-tuning […]

Hinduism Induced Religious Conversions: An Affront To Hindus (2002) by Balgrim Ragoonanan Ragoonanan explores some typical misunderstandings of Hinduism, provides useful information for both Christians and Hindus on the nature of Hinduism, and explains why Christian proselytizing is an affront to Hindus. [Editor’s note: This article is presented as an article of interest regarding Hinduism. […]

Other Theistic Arguments Various articles related to general and other arguments for the existence of God(s). In addition to the articles below, see also related Debates, Reviews, and Links. To purchase related reading, go to the Secular Web Book Store. Argument from Confusion [ Index ] An atheological (i.e., argument for the nonexistence of a God) from […]

The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (1986-electronic edition 2000) Thomas Sheehan   Appendix: Notes on Rabbinical Literature A. THE MISHNAH In the centuries after the closing of the Pentateuch (ca. 400 B.C.E.), and particularly from 270 B.C.E. onward, there grew up alongside the Written Law of the Pentateuch a rich oral […]

Wittgenstein on Seeing (1999) Travis J. Denneson The basic evil of Russell’s logic, as also of mine in the Tractatus, is that what a proposition is is illustrated by a few commonplace examples, and then pre-supposed as understood in full generality. –§ 38, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Volume I You need new conceptual […]

Creation As a Pseudo-Explanation in Current Physical Cosmology Adolf Grünbaum   University of Pittsburgh   [This article was originally published in Erkenntnis 35: 233-254, 1991.] Introduction In his posthumously published The Direction of Time (1956, p. 133), Hans Reichenbach wrote: “At the present state of cosmology, it is very difficult to come to a conclusion […]

CHAPTERS 5 & 6: WHY I BELIEVE IN HEAVEN / HELL (Non Sequitur) After that long analysis of the chapter on creationism, I need a rest! Fortunately, the next two chapters in Why I Believe can be reviewed relatively quickly. The chapter on Heaven begins by first trying to establish the immortality of the human […]

The Essence Of Agnosticism by Bill Schultz The word “agnostic” was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley, and so there can only be one single point of departure for any discussion of the essence of agnosticism. That point is the definition of agnosticism chosen by Huxley himself: Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the […]

Religion And The U. S. Supreme Court – Now by Bill Schultz Table of Contents Introduction The Legacy of the Founding Fathers The “Sleeping Dog” 14th Amendment An Era Of Religious Orthodoxy The Great Change The Changed Law Evolves New Laws Against Religious Discrimination The Modern Teeter-Totter The Law as Things Stand Now The Law […]

School Vouchers Articles Achievement Effects of the Milwaukee Voucher Program by John Witte The Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Program’s Evaluation (August 14, 1996) by Jay P. Greene, Paul E. Peterson and Jiangtao Du A Critical Analysis of the Greene-Peterson-Du Paper (American Federation of Teachers) Educational Vouchers: […]

Question: Yes Dr. Craig, I’m slightly puzzled. You, um, said in the beginning of your argument that the universe cannot be infinite because it leads to, um, logical contradictions, such as, "How can you have inifnity minus infinity?", and I accepted your argument at that point. But then in my mind, God Himself cannot be […]

We will now look at several arguments, which may or may not be supported by Dr. Hovind, that enjoy a wide circulation. I will also present a couple of arguments indicating that the earth is much older than a few thousand years. Woodmorappe’s Collection of Bad Radiometric Dates Supplying the Water for Noah’s Flood Coal […]

It is a Poor Base for Calibrating C-14 Dating It is Based On the Assumption that Evolution is True It is a Fictitious Invention to Discredit the Bible It is Invalidated by Out Of Place Fossils and Strata The Assumed Age of a Sample Dictates the Method Used

Young-earth "proof" #12: The volume of lava on earth divided by its rate of efflux yields only a few million years. The earth is not billions of years old. 12. At present, when mountain ranges are actively being built up, the output of magma is almost certainly much higher than usual. There may have been […]

Young-earth "proof" #21: Given the rate of sediment transport into the ocean by the world’s rivers, the ocean basins should have a much thicker layer of sediment than they actually have. Only a small amount of sediment is on the ocean floor, indicating a few thousand years of accumulation. This embarrassing fact explains why the […]

Abortion is not Immoral and Should not be Illegal by Richard C. Carrier I. Disputed Facts In Jen Roth’s first rebuttal, several factual arguments are made that I do not believe are correct.  I will address these first.  However, these factual disputes are not very major–they do not go to the heart of the debate.  […]

Meet the Debators The topic for this debate is: Is There a Humanist Case For Capital Punishment? Arguing For Capital Punishment is Daniel Strain Daniel T. Strain, an artist by profession, lives in Houston, Texas. He is the founder and former Director of the Houston Secular Humanists (HSH) and the former Chair of the Houston […]

On The Subject of Multiculturalism: Our global community presents an enormous diversity of cultures, traditions, beliefs, and worldviews. Developed countries are often considered a "melting pot" for a variety of cultures that have immigrated, at one time or another, to the developed areas. This is especially prevalent in the "new world" of the Americas. Canada, […]

Islamic Hell: Absurdity of Science and Logic DenisGiron The Qur’an, like the Bible, teaches that God (called ‘Allah’ by Muslims) sends those who displease Him to Hell. However, one wonders is the concept of Hell is rational or logical. Does Hell really exist? The arguments offered here can also be applied to Christianity, but this […]