Modern Library

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Rest of the Book The remainder of this commentary will touch on a few issues in the remainder of the book. I had collected sufficient notes for a detailed review of each chapter, but these were lost when my computer died forever, before I finished with chapter 7 (though I have a few hand-scribbled […]

Review of God and the New Atheism (2009) Bart Klink Review: John F. Haught. 2007. God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. 156 pp. The term “the new atheism” is used quite often lately to denote the current revival of popular atheism, especially […]

At the Intersection of “Metaphysical Naturalism” and “Intelligent Design” by Bill Schultz Table of Contents Introduction God Is What We Define God To Be Dimensions Beyond Our Senses TANSTAAFL A Brief Romp Through Flatland Our Universe As Art Into The Extra-Dimensional Reality “Metaphysical Naturalism” and “Intelligent Design” Some Conclusions Further Reading Acknowledgements Footnotes Introduction I […]

The Compatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism (2003) Brian Holtz   In “The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism” (1998), the U.T. Austin philosopher Robert Koons argues that “Nature is comprehensible scientifically only if nature is not a causally closed system–only if nature is shaped by supernatural forces.” Koons’ fundamental mistake in his paper is […]

U.S. Supreme Court Decisions (arranged by date) Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879) Court finds that the federal antibigamy statute does not violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947) Court finds that a New Jersey law which included students of […]

  A2. Water and Vapor and Noah’s Flood Attempting to supply the water for Noah’s flood is a much greater problem than one might realize. True, one can simply say that God did it and leave it at that. However, that argument will support the cosmological views of any and every religion, and they all […]

Dr. Hovind (G1): The assumption that the geologic column is a base from which to calibrate the C-14 dates is not wise. G1. With a halflife of only 5730 years, carbon-14 dating has nothing to do with dating the geological ages! Whether by sloppiness or gross ignorance, Dr. Hovind is confusing the carbon-14 "clock" with […]

Young-earth "proof" #13: If we divide the amount of various minerals in the ocean by their influx rate we get only a few thousand years of accumulation. Therefore, the earth is young. 13. In the case of aluminum we "get" only 100 years! In the case of sodium we "get" 260 million years. Where Dr. […]

Young-earth "proof" #8: At the rate many star clusters are expanding, they could not have been traveling for more than a few thousand years. Without more detail, I can only guess as to the nature of Dr. Hovind’s argument! As it is worded above, it remains something of a mystery. I believe that some creationists […]

Meet the Debators The topic for this debate is: Is There a Secular Case Against Abortion? Arguing For A Secular Case Against Abortion is Jennifer Roth Jennifer Roth works as a system administrator for the Academic Outreach divisions of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She sits on the board of directors of the Seamless […]

On The Issue of Euthanasia: The debate over euthanasia or assisted suicide has been raging within the media. Public awareness and opinion on the variety of issues involved has reached unprecedented levels. Also called "mercy killing", euthanasia evokes a great deal of emotional reaction and moral indecision, often at the expense of a rational investigation […]

On The Subject of Pornography: Pornography, once considered a taboo subject, is now readily available for all to enjoy or rail against. Porn includes a variety of forms from mild to obscene to extreme and it is available in diverse media. Pornography has been blamed for a decrease in the morality of society, for the […]

Eight minutes. A lot of ground to cover in eight minutes. Let’s return just a minute to the question of whether one belief excludes another. My point was that if you have certain theistic belief, a well-fleshed out, alright, a detailed theistic belief, what you are saying is everyone who believes in something different than […]

CHAPTER 11 Distinctions Between Literary and Religious Humanism In retrospect, I think it was inevitable that some persons would be overlooked who should have been asked to sign the manifesto and others asked whose positions were not fully known. We were, after all, working under pressure, with no budget, and with very little clerical help. […]

Preface About the Author Edwin Henry Wilson was born on August 23, 1898, in Woodhaven, New York. He was raised in Concord, Massachusetts, where he attended the First Parish Church, a Unitarian fellowship. Wilson’s father had no use for the church; it was his mother who introduced him to Unitarianism, albeit of the conservative variety. […]

For the purposes of contrast and comparison, I’ll frame my response to Till over against the evidence I presented for the resurrection. First, I argued that the basic evidence for the New Testament is found in the fact that the New Testament documents are reliable, having more evidence for them than for any other book […]

Questioner #1: My first question is to Mr. Horner. Mr. Till says that Christianity is so much like a lot of other, I’ll call them pagan religions, that were developing around the same time. My question to you is, why would you think that if this is so, why did Christianity flourish so much and […]