[ Author Index | Subject Index ]
The Modern Library contains material written during or after 1970, which tends to be more scholarly than Kiosk material.
Nontheism Atheism Whymoral
Why Should Atheists Be Moral? Does the Christian Theism Advocated by J.P. Moreland Provide a Better Reason to be Moral than Secular Humanism? (1998) by Richard C. Carrier Carrier refutes Moreland’s claim that theism offers more and better reasons to live a moral life than atheism or secular humanism. Doing the Right Thing (1998) (Off Site) […]
Paul Obrien Gentle Atheism13
I want to discuss some emotional issues that religious beliefs serve to address and accommodate. Although it seems obvious that a belief should be concerned with the truth, it is less obvious to some that a belief’s implications help determine its worth. It is even less obvious that a belief needs to conform to one’s […]
Peter Kirby Tomb Appearance
Appearance Traditions The first appearances were to Peter and his associates. The first appearance recounted in the formula found in 1 Corinthians 15 is the one to Kephas. This is widely acknowledged to be the earliest and best evidence that is available. The Gospel of Mark, the oldest of the four, alludes to the appearance […]
Quentin Smith Anthropic
The Anthropic Coincidences, Evil and the Disconfirmation of Theism (1992) Quentin Smith The following article was originally published in RELIGIOUS STUDIES in 1992 (Volume 28, pp. 347-350). The anthropic principle or the associated anthropic coincidences have been used by philosophers such as John Leslie (1989), William Lane Craig (1988) and Richard Swinburne […]
Quentin Smith Universe
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 […]
Reason Agnosticism Agnostic
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 […]
Richard Carrier Bigbangredux
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 […]
Richard Carrier Carrier Wanchick Bios
Who We Are (2006) Welcome to Naturalism vs. Theism: The Carrier-Wanchick Debate. Here Richard and Tom explain who they are. Richard Carrier: Richard Carrier is a published historian and philosopher, with a several degrees in intellectual history, including an M.Phil. from Columbia University, where he is currently working on his doctorate in ancient science. […]
Richard Carrier Foster0
Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000) Richard Carrier Originally published in 1998 and revised in 2000. T A B L E of C O N T E N T S: Who is David Foster? Some of Foster’s Strange Notions Exercises in Self-Refutation Why Foster Needs […]
Richard Carrier Improbable Luck
Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction] Richard Carrier 18. How Successful Was Christianity? 18.1 Assumptions 18.2 Numbers: What the Christians Say 18.3 Numbers: What the Experts Say 18.4 With Whom Did Christianity Begin? 18.5 The Rise of World Christianity 18.6 Conclusion 18.1. Assumptions In previous chapters, we have sufficiently demonstrated that there was nothing […]
Richard Carrier Indef 4b
Geivett’s Exercise in Hyperbole (1999, 2005) Richard Carrier [Part 4B of a larger Review of In Defense of Miracles.] Going Too Far Douglas Geivett’s basic conclusion that it is possible to use miracles as evidence for the existence of God is formally correct (as is his reversed version of the argument, which I […]
Richard Carrier Moreland Naturalism
The Carrier Theory of Value and the Ethical Adequacy of Metaphysical Naturalism(2001) Richard Carrier In the May/June, 1996 issue of Promise, J.P. Moreland publisheda paper called “TheEthical Inadequacy of Naturalism” (pp. 36-39). In it he repeated anumber of fallacies and falsehoods about Secular Humanism that must berefuted, and in the process I will […]
Richard Carrier Resurrection 2
Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story (6th ed., 2006) Richard Carrier Probability of Survival vs. Miracle: Assessing the Odds After years of study as an historian, I now believe that Jesus simply died, and the rest was invented, consciously or not, by his disciples, as a means to carry on his teaching […]
Richard Carrier Resurrection 3d
This file has been relocated: it is now Section IV of General Case for Spiritual Resurrection: Evidence Against Resurrection of the Flesh.
Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story
Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story (6th ed., 2006) Richard Carrier Main Argument What follows is a half-hour lecture I have given on several public occasions, first at Yale on 26 October 2000 at the request of the Yale College Humanists and Secularists. It was followed by a Q & A session of nearly two hours. […]
Richard Gale Atheism And Theism
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 […]
Rob Sarver Chap11
Rebuttal to ETDAV, Chapter 11 Rob Sarver Opening Remarks
Robert Price Beyond Born Again Chap5
________________________________________ 62 Beyond Born Again Section II– The Evangelical Apologists: Are They Reliable? Chapter 5: Evidences That Demands A Mistrial “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest of man’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” — […]
Robert Price Price Rankin
Jesus: Fact or Fiction? A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin This debate was transcribed by Pieter Crow. About this Debate Opening Statement by Robert Price Opening Statement by John Rankin Dialogue Questions from the Audience Closing Statement by Robert M. Price Closing Statement by John Rankin
Science
Science and Religion Creationism Physics Another Case Not Made: A Critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator (2005) by Paul Doland In this chapter-by-chapter critique of Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator, Paul Doland comments on the general direction of the book before analyzing Strobel’s interviews with his various experts on specific […]
Testimonials Tallberg
… "And It Came To Pass"… Eric Tallberg As a somewhat recent convert to the secularist point of view, I feel I ought to say a few words (well, maybe a lot more than "a few") regarding how I came to a state resulting in my occasional and often misunderstood diatribes, both written and oral, […]
Theism Christianity Apologetics
Christian Apologetics and Apologists, Criticisms of Apologetics in General Lynn Anderson Greg Bahnsen W. David Beck Francis Beckwith Michael Behe E. Calvin Beisner Walter L. Bradley David Clark Paul Copan Winfried Corduan William Lane Craig Stephen T. Davis William Dembski Phil Fernandes Norman L. Geisler R. Douglas Geivett Duane Gish Gary Habermas Hank Hanegraaff J. […]
Theism Christianity Swinburne
Richard Swinburne An Analysis of Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God (2010) by Gabe Czobel On first appearance, Richard Swinburne’s The Existence of God offers a highly structured, coherent, and rigorous argument for God’s existence grounded in Bayes’ theorem, inductive reasoning, confirmation theory, the intrinsic probability of simple hypotheses, substance dualism, and moral realism. But […]
Theism Judaism Judaism
Judaism and Jewish Apologetics Guido G.B. Deimel “Those who wish to seek out the causes of miracles, and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adore as the interpreters of […]
Theism Transcendental
Transcendental Argument It is impossible, this argument claims, for any authoritative rationality (including an atheist’s) to emerge from inchoate matter — the existence of God must be assumed, therefore, in order to deny God’s existence. In addition to the articles below, see also related Debates, Reviews, and Links. To purchase related reading, go to the […]
Thomas Sheehan Firstcoming Three
The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (1986–electronic edition 2000) Thomas Sheehan III How Jesus Became God The first mention of Jesus anywhere in literature was made twenty years after he died, and is found in a text that records the already developed status of his reputation. Writing around 50 C.E., Saint […]
Tyler Wunder Davis 3
Naturalism’s Best Case: Christological Mythicism III. Naturalism’s Best Case: Christological Mythicism Recall that Davis characterized the naturalist’s most persuasive argumentative case as composed of the following claims: D1) the biblical testimony supporting the resurrection is unreliable, written years after the alleged event by unsophisticated, myth-prone people who were concerned with proclaiming statements of faith […]
Adolf Grunbaum Theological
THEOLOGICAL MISINTERPRETATIONS OF CURRENT PHYSICAL COSMOLOGY* Adolf Grünbaum University of Pittsburgh [This article was originally published in PHILO, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 15-34, Spring-Summer 1998.] Abstract: In earlier writings, I argued that neither of the two major physical cosmologies of the twentieth century support divine creation, so that atheism has nothing to […]
Anachronist Why I Believe 99 Concl
Conclusion I do not consider myself a Christian, or an atheist. If one were to pigeonhole my own personal philosophy with a label, it might be "weak atheist" or "strong agnostic," because any belief concerning God is completely nonexistent from my mind. However, I don’t reject all religion or spirituality out of hand. Religion and […]
Bernard Katz Critic
McDowell in the Critic’s Den (1982) Bernard Katz [NOTE: The following article appeared in the July/August 1982 issue of The American Rationalist.] Christian fundamentalist Josh McDowell has become quite rash in one of his latest books Prophecy: Fact or Fiction. For he is pinning his whole faith in Christianity on the "historical evidence for the […]