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Author Archives: Daniel Fincke

Now At Freethought Blogs

September 16, 2011 – 8:36 pm

Camels With Hammers can now be found at Freethoughtblogs.com/CamelsWithHammers.

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Animals

August 26, 2011 – 9:45 am

The world is where we live from WWF on Vimeo. Your Thoughts?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Important Camels With Hammers News

August 22, 2011 – 4:51 am

I am extremely excited to announce that I am moving to Freethought Blogs, a much more visible blogging network, one headlined by such prominent and influential atheist bloggers as PZ Myers and Ed Brayton (and, soon, Ophelia Benson and Greta Christina and more).  I am convinced that in a relatively short time this network will [...]

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Posted in About this Blog, Featured | Comments (2)

Nietzsche’s Immoralism As Rebellion Against The Authoritarian Tendencies Of Moralities

August 21, 2011 – 12:19 pm

Nietzsche casts himself, quite provocatively, as an “immoralist”.  In this post, I want to make clear what Nietzsche means by this term as a first step towards understanding the exact nature and scope of his hostility to morality.  As should already be apparent to longtime Camels With Hammers readers, I am optimistic about philosophy’s possibilities [...]

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Posted in Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Nihilist Quilting Project A Depressing Success

August 17, 2011 – 4:10 pm

The Onion reports: Your Thoughts?

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Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Hilarious, Parody, Parody, Satire, Satire | Comments (0)

Coming Soon To Camels With Hammers: More Nietzsche

August 17, 2011 – 3:59 pm

I wrote my doctoral dissertation primarily on Nietzsche’s philosophy. In the first four chapters, I developed a textual, systematic reading of Nietzsche’s views on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and in the fifth chapter I gave my own account of metaethics which attempted, on the one hand, to further develop, supplement, and systematize Nietzsche’s best ideas, [...]

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Posted in About this Blog, Featured, Nietzsche, Nietzsche | Comments (7)

“I Don’t Get No Respect”

August 11, 2011 – 11:57 am

In a Rodney Dangerfield mood today… Your Thoughts?

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Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Hilarious | Tagged , | Comments (0)

‘Nuff Said Award Winner: James Sweet

August 11, 2011 – 11:49 am

It’s time for another award for a commenter who says something that needs no further commentary. This time the award goes to James Sweet who offered this response to the post about hate messages against an atheist on Facebook: This is probably a minority of Christians who are like this. A significant minority, mind you, [...]

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Posted in 'Nuff Said, 'Nuff Said, 'Nuff Said, Christianity, Christianity, Featured, Jesus, Jesus, Morality, Morality, Philosophy Of Religion | Comments (0)

“How People In Science See Each Other”

August 10, 2011 – 3:56 pm

The absolutely brilliant and hilarious chart in most respects goes for the rest of academia too.  Only you’ll notice who is missing—we adjunct professors.  And that’s appropriate, since we are invisible. via PZ Your Thoughts?

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Posted in Hilarious, Science, Science | Comments (0)

Atheist Flooded With Death Threats After FOX News Appearance

August 10, 2011 – 12:27 pm

Andrew Sullivan reports: Blair Scott, a spokesman for the American Atheists, Inc., was subjected to over 8,000 death threats and other violent rhetoric after appearing on Fox News. Some examples: Your Thoughts?

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism | Tagged , , , | Comments (5)

Call Me A Freethinker

August 8, 2011 – 12:03 pm

All week, Eric and I have been volleying back and forth about the proper places of skepticism, on the one hand, and metaphysics, on the other, in an atheist worldview and self-presentation. I have argued that placing an emphasis on an evolutionary metaphysics as the primary identifier of an atheist worldview would be perceived as [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Faith, Featured, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Secularism, Skepticism, Skepticism | Comments (0)

The Perfect Links For The Christian Theocrats In Your Life

August 6, 2011 – 12:09 am

I do not think that the Bible or any other sectarian text should be the basis of one’s views on separation of church and state. Such views should be formed from a position of neutrality about all religious or anti-religious sources of authority and simply be grounded in fairness to each individual’s conscience. But for [...]

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Posted in Christianity, Christianity, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats | Comments (0)

Learn About Dark Matter In One Minute

August 5, 2011 – 11:45 pm

More one minute physics lessons here. H/T: Greg Laden Your Thoughts?

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Posted in Physics, Physics, Science, Science, Videos | Comments (0)

Disambiguating Faith: What About The Good Things People Call “Faith”? (Or “Why I Take Such A Strong Semantic Stand Against The Word Faith”)

August 5, 2011 – 2:25 pm

Goeff has an interesting reply to my post about how faith poisons religion.  In that post I talked about how religion is a vehicle for many people to get many good things.  Then I put the blame on faith for making it so religion does an inadequate job of providing those goods the best it [...]

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Posted in Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Faith, Faith, Featured | Comments (9)

Disambiguating Faith: How Religious Beliefs Become Specifically *Faith* Beliefs

August 5, 2011 – 12:36 pm

Faith is the deliberate will to believe, in advance of all future evidence and investigation, what one perceives to be either unsupported by evidence or even outright undermined by evidence. In this way faith is essentially a matter of will and not just belief.  Simply having a belief that is unsupported or undermined by evidence [...]

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Posted in Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy Of Religion, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion | Tagged | Comments (5)

Disambiguating Faith: How Faith Poisons Religion

August 4, 2011 – 1:04 pm

There are many wonderful parts of life that billions of people experience through a religious framework, at least partially to their benefit. Spiritual experiences mean a lot to many people and many people interpret their spiritual experience within the symbols, concepts, rituals, metaphysics, and community of their religious group.  Rituals enrich people’s lives by giving [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Skepticism, Skepticism | Comments (17)

What’s REALLY Wrong With Religion?

August 3, 2011 – 7:38 pm

As a college student, in my Christian days, I remember reading C.S. Lewis explain what made Christianity plausible to him.  He was persuaded that all the pagan myths that preceded the advent of Christianity were precursors of Christ.  The similarities between the Christ story and numerous myths that had gone before him were not the [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Faith, Faith, Featured, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion | Tagged | Comments (5)

Disambiguating Faith: Naturalism, Materialism, Empiricism, And Wrong, Weak, And Unsupported Beliefs Are All Not Necessarily Faith Positions

August 2, 2011 – 1:51 pm

Here at Camels With Hammers Eric Steinhart recently accused popular atheism with being guilty of faith in versions of naturalism, materialism, and empiricism on the grounds that their particular positions are “based on  weak arguments or no arguments at all”. But believing a position based on a weak argument is not the same thing as believing [...]

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Posted in Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Featured, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Philosophy | Comments (24)

Disambiguating Faith: How Just Opposing Faith, In Principle, Means You Actually Don’t Have Faith, In Practice

August 2, 2011 – 11:29 am

Eric writes: Popular atheism in America celebrates versions of naturalism, materialism, empiricism, and so on, that are often based on weak arguments or even on no arguments at all. Popular atheism in America is already faith – and I’m sympathetic to the Christians who refer to it as such. Unfortunately, popular atheism is often just as [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Faith, Faith, Featured, Religion, Religion | Comments (6)

van Gogh’s Batman

July 31, 2011 – 9:05 pm

By James Hance.  See more of, and support, his beautiful work here.  See Grover as Captain America by going to his Facebook page. Link via Laughing Squid.

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Posted in Arts, Arts, Comic Books, Comic Books, Comic Books, Culture, Featured, Pop Culture, Pop Culture | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Contra-Steinhart: Why We Should Not Identify As “Evolutionists”

July 31, 2011 – 10:33 am

While I agree with Eric Steinhart’s claims that atheists need to take metaphysics seriously and while I would be open to considering evolutionary models for answering metaphysical, ethical, and cosmological questions if they are promising, below I am going to briefly surmise several serious reservations I have to Eric’s suggestions that we ditch the term [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Biology, Biology, Cosmology, Cosmology, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Evolution, Evolution, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Science, Secularism | Comments (5)

Asking Richard Wade About Whether Believers Are Literally Deluded

July 8, 2011 – 11:57 pm

In seven previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the ethics of advising people to lie about [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Featured, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Social Psychology, Social Psychology | Comments (3)

Asking Richard Wade About Whether Believers and Non-Believers Should Avoid Marrying Each Other

July 7, 2011 – 11:15 am

In six previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the ethics of advising people to lie about [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Featured, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Religion, Religion, Secularism | Comments (3)

Asking Richard Wade About How Atheists Should Confront And Replace Religions

July 6, 2011 – 5:00 pm

In five previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the ethics of advising [...]

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Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Featured, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism | Tagged | Comments (6)

Gays, Jesus, and Judging

July 6, 2011 – 2:12 pm

In response to my earlier post praising a young Christian man who reached out with love to what he thought was a lesbian couple being berated by a cruel and judgmental waitress, Justin writes: Not to point out the obvious, but homosexuality is a sin, You have indeed not pointed out anything obvious.  Homosexuality is [...]

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Posted in Christianity, Christianity, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, God, God, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Jesus, Jesus, LGBTQAA, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion | Tagged , , | Comments (2)