What's New Archive ● 1999 ● March
March 28, 1999
Added Murphy's Law: Giordano Bruno by John Patrick Michael Murphy to the Freethought section of Faith and Reason in the Modern Documents section of our Library.
Most folks have never heard of Giordano Bruno, who was burned to death in the Square of the Flowers, in down-town Rome, on February 16, 1600, for the crime of thinking.
March 23, 1999
Added the1999 AFF Annual Conference - Cults, Psychological Manipulation, and Society: International Perspectives and Vanderbilt University's Chaplains Office and Affiliated Ministries Dialogue/Debate (Dan Barker & Rubel Shelly) to the Events page
March 20, 1999
Added Murphy's Law: The Religion of Hitler by John Patrick Michael Murphy to the Freethought section of Faith and Reason in the Modern Documents section of our Library.
An article by John Patrick Michael Murphy, the host of Murphy's Law, a weekly Freethought radio talk show in Colorado Springs.
March 17, 1999
Added a book reviews page to the creationism section of the Modern Library.
Added Chance, Necessity, and the New Holy War Against Science (1999) [ 10K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
A review of William A. Dembski The Design Inference. Pigliucci explains that evolutionists and scientists should care about this book because it "is part of a large, well-planned, and not at all secret conspiracy whose objective is nothing less than the destruction of modern science and its substitution with a religious system of belief."
Added God, Scientists, and Falsifiability (1998) [ 51K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
Pigliucci discusses Larson's and Witham's recent article in Nature which claimed that a sizable majority of scientists do not believe in God. Pigliucci also criticizes Gould's NOMA principle.
Added How to Misuse Darwin and (Almost) Get Away With It [ 10K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
A review of E. Caudill Darwinian Myths.
Added The Many Forms of Atheism [ 12K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
Review of George Smith Atheism, Ayn Rand, and other Heresies. Pigliucci declares that the book "should be in any rationalist's library."
Added Methdological vs. Philosophical Naturalism (1998) [ 12K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
An assessment of the 1998 debate between William Provine and Eugenie Scott on methodological vs. philosophical naturalism. Pigliucci argues that (i) the distinction smacks of political correctness, designed to maintain NSF funding of evolutionary biology research; and (ii) metholodogical naturalism implies philosophical naturalism.
Added A Refutation of Pascal's Wager [ 15K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
Pigliucci compares believing in God on the basis of Pascal's Wager to planning your retirement based on winning the lotto.
Added Science, Religion, and All That Jazz (1998) [ 9K ] (Off Site) by Massimo Pigliucci
A review of Summer for the Gods. "The author's objectivity, while commendable, is also appropriate, for the purpose of the book is not to resolve a scientific dispute (that has been settled long ago), but to present a historical explication of the case in its proper social context. This he achieves in a work that is scholarly, extremely well-documented, and an engrossing narrative accessible to a general audience."
Added Massimo Pigliucci author page.
Pigliucci is Associate Professor, Depts. of Botany and of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
March 7, 1999
Updated Council for Secular Humanism 1999 Conference - Why Does Religion Persist? Faith Culture and the Brain in the events page.
March 4, 1999
Added Nietzsche's The AntiChrist by Travis J. Denneson to Atheistic Moral Arguments section of Arguments for Atheism.
The author engages in an exposition of Nietzsche's The AntiChrist, paying particular attention to Nietzsche's argument that Christianity has poisoned philosophy with this nihilistic rejection of the body in favor of pure spirit.
Added Society and the Individual in Nietzsche's The Will to Power by Travis J. Denneson to Atheistic Moral Arguments section of Arguments for Atheism.
The author illuminates the central ideas and themes in the section of The Will to Power entitled "The Will to Power as Society and Individual." The author argues that Nietzsche is quite concerned with the damaging effects of society and the Judeo-Christian moral tradition on individuals. These overpowering forces suppress a human being's natural instincts toward the acquisition of power, thus keeping a person at the level of the herd, left to make peace with mediocrity. Nietzsche sees this keeping-in-check of the individual's instincts as nothing less than a revolt against nature.
March 3, 1999
Added Drange's First Rebuttal and Wilson's First Rebuttal in the Drange-Wilson Debate
March 2, 1999
Added the Skeptics Society - Conference 1999; "Reinventing Evolution: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory" to the events page .
March 1, 1999
Added the March issue of ii to the Internet Infidels Newsletter
Creation/Evolution Issue! Interview with University of Hawaii physics professor Victor J. Stenger, essay feature: Darwin and the Invisible Hand, metaphysical naturalism, and the evolution of a powerful meme. Also, is public education soon to be a thing of the past? UFOs, upcoming events, the wrath of Gupta, and much more!
Added March web.scan
Each month mathew dredges the bottom of the net to bring to you strange religious claims, flim-flam schemes, pop-culture memes gone awry, and the downright superstitious. This month mathew asks, are the Teletubbies gay? Is Elvis really dead? Is there hidden porn in Disney movies? Can your browser handle the upgrade to web.scan or will it crash on mathew's bizarre sense of humor?
Added "Books by Robert A. Heinlein (Part 2)" to the Fantasy and Science Fiction by Non-theists section of the II Bookstore
Robert Heinlein, the Grandmaster of Science Fiction was a non-theist. We have added the second of several sections devoted to his works. This second section contains ten of his books: Glory Road, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, I Will Fear No Evil, Job: A Comedy of Justice, The Menace From Earth, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, The Number of the Beast, Podkayne of Mars, and The Puppet Masters.