What's New Archive ● 2005 ● September
What's New on the Secular Web?
See also: Events & The News Wire
Secular Relief Efforts
Internet Infidels is deeply saddened by the destruction caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These events have severely impacted thousands of people, and we support the ongoing relief efforts. Below are links to three secular charities that are directly supporting the aid efforts in the affected areas:
American Humanist Association
Atheist Alliance Hurricane Donation Fund
Center for Inquiry / SHARE
September 27, 2005
Added "Idols" by Clark Nielsen to the Agora section of the Kiosk.
"Idols" is a fictional tale involving "The Great Giraffe," the overseer of a village whose inhabitants depend upon his divine presence for their happiness. "When the great giraffe is happy, the village is happy. That is the way."
September 22, 2005
Revised Entropy Explained (2003, 2005) by Richard Carrier
Carrier has completely revised this addendum to Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: The Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster's The Philosophical Scientists to make his points about entropy clearer to Secular Web readers.
September 16, 2005
Revised Review of In Defense of Miracles (1999, 2005) by Richard Carrier.
Updated to current Secular Web HTML standards, added more recent references and links, updated or revised several paragraphs to align with Carrier's new book Sense and Goodness without God and his work in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, and collapsed two previous pages into one, with corresponding editorial adjustments.
September 7, 2005
Added The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (MP3) (2005), an interview with Jeffery Jay Lowder and Dr. Robert M. Price to the Secular Web Radio Show index page.
InfidelGuy (Reginald Finley) interviews Jeffery Jay Lowder and Dr. Robert M. Price, who discuss their new and highly anticipated book, The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave. Lowder is the former president and cofounder of the Internet Infidels, and Dr. Price is a noted author and former Fellow of the Jesus Seminar.
September 1, 2005
Current Feature: Moral Relativism and the Catholic Church (2005), by John Bice
Although the church's animosity toward the concept of moral relativism has achieved a great deal of press coverage, there has been reluctance by the media to state the obvious: the Catholic Church has engaged in moral relativism repeatedly throughout its history. Calls for moral absolutism will only slow the increasing sexual and social freedom of women, the recognition of equality for homosexuals, and the advancement of science. If history is any guide, the church will eventually be forced to reinvent itself once more and embrace modern moral judgments regarding these issues. At which point, no doubt, the church will pretend it never believed anything different, and insist that its current moral beliefs are absolute and represent the unchanging truth as given by god.
Book-of-the-Month: Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History (2003)
Constantine's Sword is a sprawling work of history, theology, and personal confession by James Carroll (the author of An American Requiem, among many others). Carroll begins his landmark project by describing contemporary Catholic remembrances of the Holocaust and the Church's intolerable legacy of hostility towards Jews. He then surveys Catholic anti-Judaism beginning with the New Testament and proceeding through the early Church, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, and World War II.
Special Feature: A Cafeteria Pope (2004), by Jan Brazill
(First published in March, 2000.) The Church characterizes those who pick and choose what to believe to be "cafeteria Catholics." Citing a long list of sins of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II conveniently omitted his own crime against women and children, thus making his own apology a "cafeteria confession."