What's New Archive ● 2001 ● October
October 31, 2001
Added Where Science and Religion Disagree (2001) (Off Site) by Taner EdisTalk given by a physicist as part of a panel presentation on "Science and Religion," sponsored by the Philosophy and Religion Club of Truman State University, October 15 2001.Added Australian Radio Interview with Ibn Warraq: Why I Am Not A Muslim (Off Site)
Courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Company, we are happy to provide a link to this Australian radio interview with Ibn Warraq, a secularist Muslim intellectual born on the Indian subcontinent and educated in the West. He believes that the great Islamic civilisations of the past were established in spite of the Koran, not because of it, and that only a secularised Islam can deliver Muslim states from fundamentalist madness. Link takes you to a Real Audio recording and written transcript.Added R.A.W.'s Page of Jokes, Limericks, and Off-Color Tales (Off Site) to the Humor section.
Added Is There Scientific Evidence that Intercessory Prayer Speeds Medical Recovery? A Debate (2001) (Off Site)
Transcript of the March 13th, 2001, debate between William Harris, PhD, Saint Luke's Hospital, Kansas City, MO, and Irwin Tessman, PhD, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, provided by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and the Campus Freethought Alliance. They also provide a page with Related Links and Information.Added Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Off Site) and The CSICOP Annotated Skeptic Bibliography (Off Site) to the Mysticism and the Paranormal page.
Added Oil and Water: Monotheism and the Buddha's Dharma (2001) (Off Site) by Gan Uesli Starling.
A Buddhist philosopher responds to the often heard claim of persons being both Buddhist and theist, presenting five striking points of divergence between Buddhism's core doctrines and the concept of God, and then citing Buddhist scripture showing that Lord Buddha very specifically negates any and all theist doctrine.Added Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe (2001) by Matt Young.
Can you apply a skeptical empiricism to religious beliefs? The author answers, "yes," and religion comes up short. In place of theism he offers what Einstein called a cosmic religious feeling, in this adapted excerpt from Young's new book on the subject, No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe.Updated Was There a Big Bang? I Honestly Don't Know, now 2nd ed., 2001, by Richard Carrier.
Originally written in 2000, the 2nd edition, completed in 2001, reformats the essay, revises the presentation in some places, qualifies or clarifies some conclusions, and adds some new material, but is not radically different from the original.Updated The Date of the Nativity in Luke (4th ed., 2001) by Richard Carrier.
Added material to footnotes 16.1 and 10.4. The first covers material discussed in the forums about the Jewish attitude toward the concept of a census, the second covers a bogus grammatical argument begun in Yahoo Groups.
October 30, 2001
Added "The Iron Cross" by Mark I. Vuletic to the Agora section of the Kiosk.Admittedly (and unashamedly) bitter poem about the "miraculous" cross found in the ruins of the World Trade Center.
October 28, 2001
Added Review of Naturalism: A Critical Analysis (2000) by Graham OppyOppy reviews Moreland's and Craig's anthology attacking naturalism.
October 22, 2001
Added "One Nation, Under Reason" by Tony Oros to the Agora section of the Kiosk.A short diatribe against the pseudo-spiritual backlash of September 11th.
October 17, 2001
Added The Terrors of Islam (1994) (Off Site) by Antony Flew.Flew argues that Islam is one of the "Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy that lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad." He demonstrates the Koranic basis for Islamic hatred of infidels and then points out why this religion is not credible.Added Turning away from Mecca: A Review of "Why I Am Not A Muslim" (1996) (Off Site) by Antony Flew.
Renowned atheist philosopher Antony Flew gives a short but positive review of the book, and argues that it should be in libraries everywhere.Added Statement by Ibn Warraq on the World Trade Center Atrocity (2001) (Off Site) by Ibn Warraq
"Not all Muslims or all Arabs are terrorists. Nor are they implicated in the horrendous events of Tuesday. Police protection for individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions must be increased. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Terrorist Tuesday is to wilfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam the long-term strategy and individual acts of violence by Usama bin Laden and his followers make little sense."
October 16, 2001
Updated headnote to We Need $100 from 100 People: Help Make the Secular Web State-of-the-Art!.Ironically, we started our fundraising campaign a day before the attacks. We can't complain that other pressing charity needs have stymied us a bit, but we need so little, that we are hopeful we can make our target. It has been 30 days and we've raised $6300 toward our $10,000 goal. Please help support us! Become one of the last 37 people we need to get us over the top.
October 13, 2001
Updated "Is 'Freethinker' Synonymous with Nontheist?" by Jeffery Jay LowderIn this update to his much-discussed Secular Web Feature, Lowder responds to 2 objections to his article: (1) Lowder's conclusion entails that Evangelical Christians cannot really think, and (2) freethought does not include a commitment to exercise reason or critical thought. Lowder shows that both objections are based on misunderstandings of his argument.
October 12, 2001
Edited The Date of the Nativity in Luke (now 4th ed., 2001) by Richard Carrier.Due to rising misunderstandings of the text in the Forums, some verbal retooling and explanation was added throughout.Added "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Secular View" by G. Ethan Jordan, Ph D.
Deted link to Debate on Design (1998) (Off Site)
An April 1997 debate between Chris Lesley and Mark Harpt appears to have vanished from the web.Added Book of Mormon Research Page (Off Site) by Curt van den Heuvel
Many links to materials by Curt van den Heuvel have changed so drastically that some individual essay links were removed from the whole Mormonism section and in their place we have added to the main Mormonism page (and author page) a link to his "Book of Mormon Research Page" instead, a large collection of skeptical research on Mormon history and writings by an agnostic ex-Mormon.
October 10, 2001
Added Online Books Catalogue on Religion and Atheism to the Reference Desk.A list of books available online compiled by the University of Pennsylvania, from the Library of Congress subject category BL, "Religion: General, Miscellaneous, and Atheism."Added a link to The Testimonium Flavianum (Off Site) by Peter Kirby.
Kirby evaluates the arguments for and against the authenticity of the references to Jesus in Josephus.Corrected minor errors and clarified details in Section 3j: What Good are "Anonymous" Eye-Witnesses Anyway? of Why I Don't Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier.
October 09, 2001
Added "Hail to the Chief" by Mark I. Vuletic to the Agora section of the Kiosk.Praise for Tony Blair's recognition of nonbelievers.
October 03, 2001
Added "A Secular Revelation" by Brandon Seger to the Agora section of the Kiosk.A short story about a secular student's disclosed faithlessness to his family.
October 01, 2001
Added "After the Terrorist Attack" by Michael Hurben to the Agora section of the Kiosk.Hurben offers some of this thoughts following the terrorist attack of Septeber 11.
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