What's New Archive ● 2009 ● August
What's New on the Secular Web?
See also: Events & The News Wire
August 22, 2009
New in the Kiosk: Alvin Plantinga's Assault on the Pursuit of Truth (2009) by Matthew Waitkus
Are evolution and naturalism incompatible? Matthew Waitkus provides a critical analysis and refutation of Alvin Plantinga's claim that evolution and naturalism are incompatible.
August 20, 2009
Added Animadversions on Kitzmiller v. Dover: Correct Ruling, Flawed Reasoning (2009) by Evan Fales to the Creationism page under Science and Religion and the Naturalism page in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
In his recent opinion on the legality of teaching intelligent design in the classroom (Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board), Judge John Jones correctly found against Dover, but did so by employing mistaken premises. Two unsound arguments appear in Section 4 of Kitzmiller, "Whether ID is Science." The first argument seeks to establish that ID is not a science by showing that it invokes supernatural causes outside of the purview of science. The second argument purports to show that even successful criticisms of Darwinism do not constitute evidence for ID. Neither flaw enhances the scientific credentials of ID, but each bolsters the erroneous perception that Darwinists assume as a matter of faith that either supernatural causes do not exist, or else cannot be investigated scientifically. A natural implication of this erroneous perception is that Darwinism is simply an alternative kind of faith, but in fact both Darwinism and many supernaturalistic hypotheses are amenable to empirical test.
August 9, 2009
New in the Kiosk: A Review of Robert Wright's The Evolution of God (2009) by LeGrande Blount
"Today we desperately need a new God—a God that is not an insult to our intelligence—a God that is as great as the endless cosmos. We need a just God that does not have chosen galaxies and a preferred life form—a life form that is told to slaughter other life forms. We desperately need a God that commands that we think, instead of believe and worship. We need a God to civilize us, not one that makes us savages." Robert Wright has made that effort."
August 4, 2009
New in the Bookstore: One Jesus, Many Christs: How Jesus Inspired Not One True Christianity, But Many (2000) by Gregory J. Riley.
Riley reveals that—from the very beginning—there was not just one true Christianity, but many different Christianities. Riley shows that early Christianity harbored major doctrinal differences about all aspects of Jesus' life, death, resurrection and divinity. United by passionate allegiance to Jesus as hero, these early, doctrinally diverse Christianities led to the development of the many different Christian churches today.