What's New Archive » Internet Infidels

What's New Archive ● 2001 ● July

July 31, 2001

Added George W. Bush Launches 'Values Campaign' (2001) to the Opinions section of the Kiosk.

President George W. Bush's new "values campaign" is the latest evidence of an administration that is determined to merge religion and government, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

July 27, 2001

Added the Atheism Web Logic FAQ to Faith and Reason and Reference Desk

This FAQ on the basics of formal and informal logic is the best on the web, and includes a large list of different kinds of informal fallacies. It has been here for years, but hasn't been properly indexed on our site until now.

Replaced "The Five Officers" (2000) by Mark Vuletic with a new version, "The Nine Officers" (2001)

Vuletic has updated the essay to include more points of view, now nine in all.

July 25, 2001

Added "Why Be Moral?" (2001) by Keith M. Parsons

Parsons argues that the question, 'Why be moral?', is no more of a problem for the nontheist than for the theist.

July 24, 2001

Added "Electing Atheists to Political Office" (2001) by Edward Tabash to the Features section of the Kiosk.

It is long overdue that people who do not believe in any god are elected to significant political office. Atheists must start electing some of their own, and Eddie Tabash, the only admitted atheist to run for political office in 2000, describes what is necessary for this to happen, and how we need to overcome crippling assumptions and prejudices and start getting politically savvy, just as the Christian Right has done.

July 20, 2001

Added "Response to James Hannam's 'In Defense of the Fine Tuning Design Argument'" (2001) by Richard Carrier

Response to James Hannam's defense of the Fine Tuning Argument for a Creator. Lists and discusses several sweeping problems with even carefully-stated versions of the argument like Hannam's.

Updated the The Case Against Immortality by Keith Augustine to respond to attempts by Douglas Stokes and William Hasker to make room for disembodied conscious existence after death despite strong evidence for the dependence of consciousness on the brain.

July 19, 2001

Updated the Call for Papers

Did we request a paper arguing that metaphysical naturalism is more likely true than false? This request has been removed from the Call for Papers. Keith Augustine's Master's thesis contains precisely the sort of argument we solicited.

July 16, 2001

Added Coming Soon! The Official "Internet Infidels" T-Shirt! by Molleen Matsumura

Added In Defense of the Fine Tuning Design Argument (2001) by James Hannam

The Internet Infidels have long been interested in publishing theistic defenses of the fine-tuning argument against our criticisms, which are collected among our many essays on the Design Argument in general. James Hannam is the first to oblige, and the following essay is his defense of the Fine Tuning Argument for a creator. He argues that atheists have yet to refute the Fine Tuning argument to Design, and therefore we may have reason to believe there was a divine creator. The Internet Infidels will respond in a forthcoming essay by Richard Carrier.

Added Sai Baba's Miracles: An Overview (1992) (Off Site) by Dale Beyerstein to Arguments from Miracles

Beyerstein presents, in summary form, descriptions of the paranormal claims made about Indian guru and holy man Sri Sathya Sai Baba, as well as the various investigations of them that have been done.

July 15, 2001

Added Some Atheist Poetry (2001) by Brandon Seger to the Agora section of the Kiosk.

An atheist reflects on his views with a grab bag of lymericks and short verse.

Added Secular Humanist Thoughts: A Letter to the Brainerd Daily Dispatch (2001) by Sally Morem to the Opinions section of the Kiosk.

Minnesota's own intrepid secular humanist, Rod Sheffer had a letter to the editor published in the Brainerd Daily Dispatch, defending secular humanism. On June 17, a reader from Deerwood, MN, responded with some outrageous attacks on secular humanism, including the charge that it sponsors or sanctions genocide. Sally Morem, President of the Humanists of Minnesota, wrote this reply.

July 14, 2001

Updated the Call for Papers

Added a request for a paper arguing that metaphysical naturalism is more likely true than false.

July 13, 2001

Completely revised and updated the Help Needed page.

Added Bush 'Faith-Based' Initiative Clears House Ways and Means Committee (2001) by to the Agora section of the Kiosk.

A key component of President George W. Bush's "faith-based initiative" cleared the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday, and the plan is now headed for a vote in the full House, despite its serious church-state flaws.

July 12, 2001

Added a Stephen Jay Gould author page

From this page you will find links to several off-site essays by Gould on evolution, science, and religion.

July 10, 2001

Added Supernaturalist Explanations and the Prospects for a Theistic Science or "How do you know it was the lettuce?" (1997) (Off Site) by Robert T. Pennock

We are pleased to be able to make this paper available again. It was once linked on our site but went offline for some years. This is a paper presented at a conference on "Naturalism, Theism and the Scientific Enterprise," March 20-23, 1997, at the University of Texas, Austin. Pennock disputes the soundness of Phillip Johnson's proposal for "Theistic Science" in this detailed paper, which expands and draws on material from Pennock's book Towerof Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism.

Added The Wizards of ID (2000) (Off Site) by Robert T. Pennock

Published in Metaviews 089 (October 12, 2000), in this letter Pennock responds to William Dembski and criticises "Intelligent Design Creationism," arguing that Dembski is a young Earth Creationist in sheep's clothing and that Intelligent Design Theory is sectarian Christianity and bad science.

Added Creation and Evolution of a Controversy (1999) (Off&Site) [ PDF format only ] by Robert T. Pennock

This is the first chapter of Pennock's book Towerof Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism.

Added a "Postscript" to Response to Massimo Pigliucci's Review of The Design Inference (1999) by Mark Vuletic

Added four paragraphs to Section 3d ("Could the Original Gospel Have Been of a Spiritual Rather Than a Physical Resurrection?") of Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier.

Adds evidence from Philippians and analyzes relevant material in the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible.

July 09, 2001

Revised The Date of the Nativity in Luke (new 3rd ed., 2001) by Richard Carrier.

Reformatted the essay, added one section, slightly reorganized another.

Completely revised and updated the entire Arguments for the Existence of God Section of the Modern Library.

Completely reorganized, many new essays added, all subdirectories revised, two new subdirectories added (Argument from Holy Scripture, Other Arguments). Thank you Stephen Welch!

Replaced the obsolete footnotes with the correct footnotes in The Argument from Reason for the Nonexistence of God and A Critique of Fundamentalism by Steven Conifer.

July 04, 2001

Updated the Events Section.

Secular Student Alliance will hold their 2nd Annual National Conference: Godless Grassroots: kicking ass for the new enlightenment on
9 - 12 August in Columbus, Ohio. Click here for more information.

July 02, 2001

Added FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to the Magazines section.

July 01, 2001