Added Science, Morality, and the Death of God (2021) by Raymond D. Bradley to the Naturalism page under Nontheism, the Evidential Arguments from Evil page under Arguments for Atheism, the Argument to Design and Argument from Holy Scripture pages under Arguments for the Existence of a God, the Creationism page, and the Biblical Criticism page under Christianity, in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
In this greatly expanded version of his contribution to The Antipodean Philosopher, Raymond D. Bradley uses H. L. Mencken’s classic “Memorial Service” as a jumping off point to explain why he is an atheist, and not an “agnostic,” about the existence of any members of the category “gods.” Since which gods happen to predominate in the society into which one was born depends upon accidents of birth, how can anyone justifiably have confidence that any of the gods on Mencken’s list actually exist? Turning to our own Western monotheistic tradition, Bradley goes on critique the intellectual and moral defense that believers have mounted for the biblical God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with particular emphasis on “intelligent design” and “fine-tuning” arguments and how the pastorate feign ignorance about what their own biblical scholarship has uncovered about the all-too-human origins of their “revealed” sacred texts.
New in the Kiosk: An Epicurean Approach to Secularizing Rites of Passage (2021) by Hiram Crespo
Ritual is one of the most universally enjoyed human experiences, but it is often tangled up in supernatural claims that are insulting to our intelligence. Hiram Crespo, founder of the Society of Friends of Epicurus, discusses how the contractarian theory of Epicurean philosophy may be applied to the creation of rites of passage that retain their utility while being purged from superstition.
Recommended reading: Finite Human, Infinite Humanity: A History of the Universe and Theory of Everything (2021) by Richard Brown
Debates about God are highly emotional, but something is always missing—actual evidence that atheists, agnostics, and believers can all agree with. This book presents that evidence as part of humanity’s quest to understand our universe—scientific materialism and religious spiritualism. Rudimentary beliefs conceived thousands of years ago are traced through time to today’s modern views showing that science and religion are tightly intertwined: if science is the study of nature, then religion was the first science.