Internet Infidels, Inc. is a

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

-based nonprofit educational organization founded in 1995 by Jeffery Jay Lowder and Brett Lemoine. Its mission is to use the Internet to promote a view that supernatural forces or entities do not exist (

metaphysical naturalism Metaphysical naturalism (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by ...

). Internet Infidels maintains a website of educational resources about

agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficien ...

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

freethought Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

humanism Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

secularism Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations. Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a si ...

, and other nontheistic viewpoints particularly relevant to nonbelievers and skeptics of the paranormal. Relevant resources include rebuttals to arguments made by religious apologists and

theistic Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred t ...

philosophers, transcripts of debates between believers and nonbelievers, and responses from opponents of a naturalistic worldview. The site has been referred to by one of its critics, Christian apologist

Gary Habermas Gary Robert Habermas (born 1950) is an American New Testament scholar and theologian who frequently writes and lectures on the resurrection of Jesus. He has specialized in cataloging and communicating trends among scholars in the field of histo ...

, as "one of the Internet's main Web sites for skeptics", and by skeptical physicist

Taner Edis Taner Edis (born August 20, 1967) is a Turkish American physicist and skeptic. He is a professor of physics at Truman State University. He received his B.S. from Boğaziçi University in Turkey and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins Univers ...

as "a major Web site serving nonbelievers". Its tagline is "a drop of reason in a pool of confusion".

Mission

Richard Carrier Richard Cevantis Carrier (born December 1, 1969) is an American historian, author, and activist, whose work focuses on empiricism, atheism, and the historicity of Jesus. A long-time contributor to skeptical web sites, including The Secular We ...

, former

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

, said that "the mission of the Internet Infidels has always been to defend and promote Metaphysical Naturalism". The organization formally adopts agnostic philosopher Paul Draper's definition of metaphysical naturalism as "the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system, which means that nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it. ... hisimplies that there are no supernatural entities, or at least none that actually exercises its power to affect the natural world." Internet Infidels aims to inform readers that similar views have been adopted around the world and across historical eras, to make hard-to-find information more easily available, and to encourage those who profess belief to review all of the arguments and evidence and come to their own conclusions.

Secular Web

The primary product of Internet Infidels is the Secular Web website
infidels.org
Its Modern Library section includes contemporary articles (1970–present) offering arguments that all religions are false (particularly

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

Mormonism Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects o ...

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...

, and

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

), arguments against the

existence of God The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorize ...

, critiques of arguments for the existence of God, and arguments for metaphysical naturalism. A series of written debates between prominent theistic and nontheistic philosophers covering these issues and available in the Modern Library is titled "God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence". The Secular Web also includes a section containing historical works critical of religion by

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—e ...

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

, and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

. The Secular Web Kiosk section features short, informal articles. These general interest articles include editorials, book reviews, commentary on social issues or public policy, satire, and fiction, among other things. Bruce B. Lawrence, the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion at Duke University, described the site as "hard to top" for "thoughtful material, extensive networking, and interdisciplinary flair."

IIDB

Until 2008 Internet Infidels hosted a discussion board, IIDB (Internet Infidels Discussion Board), but during 2008 IIDB was transferred to a new site, Freethought and Rationalism Discussion Board (FRDB). Both of those sites were eventually archived as FRDB became Talk FreethoughtTalk Freethought
/ref> in 2014. Talk Freethought continues in the tradition of IIDB and FRDB, hosting discussions on a number of subjects including philosophy, science, politics and of course, religion.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

infidels.org
(official web site) Atheist organizations Atheism publications Atheism in the United States Skeptic organizations in the United States Organizations established in 1995 1995 establishments in the United States Non-profit organizations based in Colorado Atheism activism