What's New Archive ● 2016 ● June
What's New on the Secular Web?
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June 9, 2016
New in the Kiosk: Using Intelligent Design to Show There Is No God the Creator (2016) by Dor
"I discuss some of the implications of Intelligent Design, implications that may not have occurred to its believers. Putting aside, for now, the validity or otherwise of Intelligent Design, I argue that--using the believers'own arguments--it is possible to show that God is not the Creator. I do this by showing that the human body, rather than being the creation of a perfect god, is in fact a sign of engineering incompetence."
June 6, 2016
Added Is Acceptance of Evolution Evil? (2016) by Michael D. Reynolds to the Creationism - Evolution page under Science and Religion and the Naturalism page under Nontheism in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
An often overlooked religious criticism of biological evolution focuses on the alleged ethical consequences of accepting it, particularly increased immorality and harmfulness. In this essay Michael D. Reynolds describes and critiques one such criticism, that provided by biblical literalist John MacArthur and his historical forebears documented in Charles Sprading's Science Versus Dogma and Maynard Shipley's The War on Modern Science. MacArthur makes seven chief assertions about the ethical consequences of accepting evolution: (1) that naturalism and its acceptance of evolution removes the foundation of morality and causes immorality; (2) that accepting evolution prevents belief in spiritual things; (3) that acceptance of evolution entails that humans are no better than animals; (4) that conceding evolution robs human life of meaning or purpose; (5) that naturalism and its acceptance of evolution leads to nihilism; and that evolutionary concepts laid the groundwork for (6) Communist and (7) Nazi ideology. Reynolds concludes that MacArthur's assertions exemplify the rejection of rational, evidential thinking in favor of unquestioning credulity.