What's New Archive ● 2015 ● August
What's New on the Secular Web?
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August 31, 2015
New in the Kiosk: Social Realism (2015) by Richard Brown
"Based solely on scientific principles and research, a book could be written counseling us humans about how to treat each other ethically. This book might contain a scientifically based purpose for humanity. Science-based principles of effective parenting could be taught in public schools so that all future parents would learn them."
August 17, 2015
New in the Bookstore: The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself (2006) by Randel Helms.
All books are written for or against some point of view, and the books of the Bible are no different. Bible book authors were often motivated to write because they wanted to challenge or correct those who had written before them. As Helms explains, The Bible is a war zone, and its authors are the combatants. Read about the prophets calling the other prophets blasphemers, the Paulist Christians labeling the Jacobite Christians dogs and sinners, and vice versa, and the apocalyptic authors erring again and again, but continuing to predict anyway (using as their sources the errors of previous apocalyptic theories).
August 6, 2015
New in the Kiosk: The Epicurean Revival (2015) by Hiram Crespo
Hiram Crespo discusses "The Four Cures" which are at the heart of the doctrine of Epicurus of Samos. He invites you to study Epicurus, and to engage yourself and others in philosophical discourse. He promises that your life will be enriched as a result.
August 4, 2015
Added Religious Attitudes toward the Disabled (2015) by Michael Moore to the Psychology of Religion, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism pages under Theism in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
In this essay Michael Moore provides ample evidence that discrimination against the handicapped is often doctrinally justified in all five of the major world religions today. Moore cites not only direct scriptural support for discriminatory attitudes toward the disabled, but also actual instances of such discrimination by religious perpetrators and even apologists' use of explicit arguments for holding handicapped persons in low regard. The specific example of religiously inspired discrimination against the disabled illustrates the more general point that believers can use scripture to rationalize virtually any human behavior.