What's New on the Secular Web?
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January 17, 2012
New in the Kiosk: "This Is Wisdom" - John and the Gospel of Hate (2012) by Daniel June
This article charges the Revelation of John to be among the most hateful and heartless books ever written, which, if it does not negate the "gospels" of God's Love, then exposes what is really meant by the words "For God so Loved the World."
January 14, 2012
New in the Bookstore: Murder in Lecture Hall B (2011) by Michael Martin.
Now for something different: A novel by well-known author of nonfiction, Michael Martin... Professor Louis Jordon is a man of reason, and when you're rational there's no place for panicky superstitions or unfounded conclusions. That made him the perfect professor of Philosophy with an emphasis in Religions and Murder. It also makes his class the wrong place to commit a murder. So when a young activist is murdered during his lecture, Jordon will stop at nothing to find the killer. But can he catch the killer before becoming the next victim?
December 28, 2011
New in the Kiosk: Why the Abundance Theory of Creation Fails (2011) by Horia George Plugaru
"How can God be both a perfect being and the creator of the universe? Doesn't the fact that he created the world imply that he had a need or want? Otherwise, why would he bother creating anything at all? But then, if he had a need that implied the existence of the universe in order to be fulfilled, it seems he is not perfect: he lacks something. But by definition, a perfect being could not lack anything. So if the universe exists, God is not perfect, so God does not exist."
December 22, 2011
New in the Bookstore: The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies--How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths (2011) by Michael Shermer.
Bestselling author Michael Shermer's comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. Interlaced with his theory of belief, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not a belief matches reality.
December 10, 2011
Added The Presumption of Naturalism and the Probability of Miracles: A Reply to Keith Parsons (2011) by Don McIntosh to the Naturalism, Argument from Miracles, and Other Theistic Arguments pages in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
In Chapter Four of Science, Confirmation, and the Theistic Hypothesis, Keith Parsons defends the dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence as part of a general critique of miracle claims which aims to defend naturalism as a rational operating philosophy against potential defeaters. In this defense of miracle claims Don McIntosh argues, first, that for any unknown the burden of proof falls equally upon naturalists and supernaturalists; second, to repudiate all miracle claims in one fell swoop with a mere presumption of naturalism renders naturalism unfalsifiable and unscientific; and third, estimating the prior probability of miracles introduces an element of subjectivity that makes any general probabilistic argument against them suspect. These points leave open the possibility of confirming specific miracle claims on the basis of historical evidence and eyewitness testimony.
December 7, 2011
New in the Kiosk: Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism (2011) by James R. Henderson
"I'm not sure how I would prove that my cousin's unicycle isn't a god; perhaps it is inscrutable and isn't showing its powers right now. The same goes for the carton of grapefruit juice sitting in my refrigerator right now. When the definitions are wide open, when gods are allowed to be careful not to leave fingerprints, agnosticism looks like it's forced on us."
November 30, 2011
Updated the Call for Papers page for the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
Substantially updated the list of book reviews sought for publication in the Secular Web Modern Library and added a request for a rebuttal to a paper on the Argument from Reason under the Theistic Arguments section of the Call for Papers page.
November 17, 2011
New in the Kiosk: Jesus as Cipher (2011) by Daniel June
What is unique about Jesus, in a way more extreme than the others, is his lack of soul. To put it in mythological terms, "Jesus was emptied out on the cross"—he is unique among mortals in that his soul was completely annihilated on the cross. He became a cipher, a projection screen: he lacks any depth or reality in himself, and yet retains enough integrity to hold our ideals up.
November 10, 2011
New in the Bookstore: Fading Faith: The Rise of the Secular Age (2010) by James A. Haught.
Fading Faith chronicles the decline of faith world-wide as well as in America and predicts that America is traveling the same path to secularism that has been traveled by all the other developed nations of the world.
October 28, 2011
New in the Kiosk: Open Hearted (2011) by Ronald Aronson
Undergoing life-saving surgery, Ronald Aronson realized that there is a force beyond ourselves giving our lives meaning. It just isn't God.
October 13, 2011
Updated biographical information on the author page for Michael Martin in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
Substantially updated the list of books, articles, and reviews by Michael Martin to include dozens of previously unlisted, recent, and forthcoming publications.
October 11, 2011
New in the Kiosk: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Is Not an Argument (2011) by James R. Henderson
One will sometimes hear theists "argue" for god's existence by posing the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" (I am treating the case where the theist is not giving the cosmological argument but rather simply trying to get this question to do all of the existential work). The atheist's inability to give a naturalistic explanation is taken to be proof of god. I argue that this is no argument at all. Rather, it is the identification of a problem that requires explanation. God, of course, is one explanation, but then evidence must be marshaled to support god's existence (or whatever explanatory principle one invokes), and that evidence must go beyond the mere existence of the universe—the thing to be explained cannot be evidence for the explanatory principle.
October 6, 2011
New in the Bookstore: The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True (2011) by Richard Dawkins.
Magic takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used in order to explain the world. But there is another kind of magic, the magic of reality—science. Packed with clever thought experiments, dazzling illustrations, and jaw-dropping facts, The Magic of Reality explains a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena. What is stuff made of? How old is the universe? Why do the continents look like disconnected pieces of a puzzle? What causes tsunamis? Why are there so many kinds of plants and animals? Who was the first man, or woman? This is a page-turning, graphic detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist as well.
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