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What's New Archive ● 1998 ● October

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What's New?

The following is an itemized list of new items available on the Secular Web.

• October 28, 1998

• • Added Why Does Religion Persist? Faith Culture and the Brain to the Events Page

  • Added Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries by Paul Fregosi to the Islam section of the II Bookstore

  • Added The Origins of the Koran by Ibn Warraq to the Islam section of the II Bookstore

  • Added Why Atheism? by George H. Smith to the atheism section of the II Bookstore

• October 27, 1998

• • Significantly updated the Creation/Evolution section of the II Bookstore

• October 23, 1998

• • Added The Barker-Shelly Debate to the events page

  • Added Paranormal and Superstitious Beliefs to the events page

• October 22, 1998

• • Added Science of Religion to the events page

  • Added Defending Science to the events page

  • Added Building a Humanist Future to the events page

  • Added the upcoming speech by Jeffery Jay Lowder to the events page

• October 21, 1998

• • Added Freethought Contacts Page to the people section

• October 20, 1998

• • Added Agape and Masculinity in the Promise Keepers Movement (Off Site) by Kevin Healey to the Christian Worldview in the Christianity section.
    The author concludes that the PK's goal of agape, or unconditional love of others, will not be realized so long as violent war metaphors and ideological holstility to women's equal involvement, gays, and lesbians are promoted within the group dynamic.

• October 19, 1998

• • Added an existentialism section to the II Bookstore.

• October 16, 1998

• • Added "The Death of Matthew Shepard" (1998) by William Edelen to the features section of the Secular Web
    Matthew Shepard died last Monday morning. A gay young man in the prime of his life brutally and horribly murdered. The insanity of it demands that a question be asked by every sensitive human being in America.

• October 15, 1998

• • Added September 1998 Feedback to the 1998 feedback of the Feedback Section.
    Letters and rants from our readers along with our highly illuminating replies!

  • Added Without God, Without Creed by James Turner to the atheism section of the II Bookstore

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• October 14, 1998

• • Added Secular Couples mailing list to the list of secular mailing lists

• October 13, 1998

• • Added a request for a review of William Dembski's The Design Inference to the Call for Papers

• October 9, 1998

• • Added Non-Believer Former-Members of the Worldwide Church of God (Off Site) to the ex-Christians section of the Modern Library
    A resource for former members of the Worldwide Church of God

• October 8, 1998

• • Added a request for a paper on "Church-State Violations in prison" to the Call for Papers

• October 6, 1998

• • Added "Fool, Charlatan or Evangelist? C.S Lewis, Josh McDowell, and the 'Trilemma'" (Off Site) by Andrew Rilstone to the The Jury Is In Related Links page
    Rilstone argues that "The trilemma, like the figure of Aslan, is intended to be a wake-up call to such people, encouraging them to see the Biblical Christ for the first time. If McDowell wishes to claim that it proves more than this, he has no right to attribute this claim to C.S. Lewis."

  • Added the October 1998 issue of The Happy Heretic by Judith Hayes

• October 5, 1998

• • Added "The Craig-Curley Debate" (1998) [ Index ] (Off Site) to the William Lane Craig page in the section on Christian apologetics and apologists

• October 3, 1998

• • Added "Moral Subjectivism Revisited" (1998) [ 11K ] by Keith Augustine
    Augustine's response to Theodore Schick, Jr.'s arguments against the subjectivity of moral values.

  • Added "Is Morality a Matter of Taste?" (1998) [ 20K ] by Theodore Schick, Jr.
    Schick critiques moral subjectivism and cultural relativism, concluding that basic objective moral standards exist.

• October 1, 1998

• • This month's web.scan [ 5K ] deconstructs the most sick and offensive "Christian" site yet. Be warned.

  • Added "Review of Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box" (1998) [ 9K ] by Peter Atkins
    Peter Atkins argues that "the danger of this -- and why it receives so much attention -- is partly that it is so well written (or so some find; I among them, I must confess). I learned a huge amount from it (I think), and it was only my wary eye that held me back from slipping along with the argument. Moreover, here we have a real, and very competent (but deeply misguided) scientist purveying some very good science and pointing up some very important omissions in our current understanding. Dr. Behe and his book must be as gold-dust among the dross of the general run of creationists and their so-called literature. The general reader will not know the limitations of his argument, or be aware of his misrepresentations of the facts, and will easily be seduced by his arguments. After all, it seems so very much easier, and certainly avoids a lot of intellectual effort, to accept that God did it all, even though we have to interpret the carefully coded allusions to this incompetent figment of impoverished imaginations."

  • Added October issue of the Internet Infidels' Newsletter

See "What's New?" for past months.

We also recommend checking the following pages to keep abreast of recent changes at the following highly recommended sites:

• American Civil Liberties Union
• American Humanist Association
• Council for Secular Humanism
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, Inc.
• National Center for Science Education
• Operation Clambake (anti-$cientology site)
• Skeptic's Society
• Talk.origins Archive