Appealing to insights of the great theologian Paul Tillich, Robert M. Price takes on the corruption of research when it has a defensive agenda. (Sadly, this video was taken down from YouTube) via Your Thoughts?
-
Intro Link and Graphics

-
Newest Posts
-
Top Categories
Welcome Links
METAETHICS
Goodness Is A Factual Matter (Goodness=Effectiveness) Grounding Objective Value Independent Of Human Interests And Moralities Effectiveness Is The Primary Goal In Itself, Not Merely A Means Non-Reductionistic Analysis Of Values Into Facts On The Intrinsic Connection Between Being And Goodness Deriving An Atheistic, Naturalistic, Realist Account Of Morality On Good And Evil For Non-Existent PeopleTELEOLOGICAL / CONSEQUENTIALIST ETHICS
How Our Morality Realizes Our Humanity Maximal Self-Realization In Self-Obliteration: The Existential Paradox of Heroic Self-Sacrifice My Perfectionistic, Egoistic AND Universalistic, Indirect Consequentialism (And Contrasts With Other Kinds) On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues and Vices (5)VIRTUES
Rightful Pride: Identification With One’s Own Admirable Powers And Effects The Harmony Of Humility And Pride Conceptual Problems For The Ideal of Unconditional Love How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways Call It Volitional Love Rather Than Unconditional LovePLEASURE, PAIN
What Is Happiness And Why Is It Good? Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods What Does It Mean For Pleasure And Pain To Be “Intrinsically Instrumental” Goods? Subjective Valuing And Objective Values My Perspectivist, Teleological Account Of The Relative Values Of Pleasure And PainGOOD WITHOUT GOD
On The Incoherence Of Divine Command Theory And Why Even If God DID Make Things Good And Bad, Faith-Based Religions Would Still Be Irrelevant The Separability Of Metaethics From Questions Of Theism Are Sex and Morality Merely “Evolutionary Tricks”? For God or Morality? On Those Who’d Hold Morality Hostage For Faith Being Personally Moral Is Not Enough, Atheists Need A Coherent Metaethics Can You Have A Heart Without Having “The Heart of God”?MORAL PLURALISM
Towards A “Non-Moral” Standard Of Ethical Evaluation Further Towards A “Non-Moral” Standard Of Ethical Evaluation Moral vs. Non-Moral ValuesMORAL MUTABILITY
Mutable Morality, Not Subjective Morality. Moral Pluralism, Not Moral Relativism. How Morality Can Change Through Objective Processes And In Objectively Defensible WaysMORAL INTUITIONISM
Against Moral Intuitionism Rejecting And Reconciling Moral Intuitionist Ideas With My Naturalist Account Of GoodnessSUBJECTIVISM
I Am A Moral Naturalist, Not A SubjectivistRELIGION WITHIN REASON
Against Accommodationism: Religion Has NO Rightful Claim To An Unencroachable “Magisteria” Of Its Own True Religion? How Jon Stewart Dropped The Ball On The Faith And Science Quesiton (But How Religion Can Be Redeemed Nonetheless) Why I Think Theistic Religion’s Psychological Grip Can Be Weakened Or BrokenTowards Atheistic Religions (Or Away From Them, Depending On How You Define “Religions”)MEANING AND "SPIRITUALITY" WITHIN REASON
On Defending True Spirituality And Taking The Word Back From Spiritually Bankrupt Fundamentalism I Am Interviewed About My Personal (Atheistic) Religiosity/Spirituality Is It A Waste Of Time For Atheists To Care About Spirituality? On The Meaning Of Meaning Character As Fate And Environment As Variability Not “I’ll Pray For You” But “I Love You”APOSTASY
Apostasy As A Religious Act (Or “Why A Camel Hammers The Idols Of Faith”) Sex And Apostasy Defending Apostates’ Intellects Against A Dismissive Christian ApologistSYMPATHY FOR THE RELIGIOUS
Can You Really Love Religious People If You Hate Their Religion? What Can An Atheist Love In People’s Religiosity? The Complicated Relationship Of An Apostate To His Religious Friends And His Reilgious PastCIVILITY BTWN ATHEISTS AND THEISTS
Is Debate Between Believers And Non-Believers Inevitably Futile? The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth—But With No Name Calling When (And How) Should We Bother To Push The Issues? On Meeting People Where They Are TOP Q: “How Is It Fair To Question Other People’s Identity-Forming Beliefs While Demanding Respect For One’s Own Belief-Formed Identities?” Top 10 Tips For Reaching Out To Atheists Does Faith Make You An Idiot? What’s Wrong With Prejudice And Is It Prejudicial To Dislike Someone Over His Bad Thinking? PZ Myers Shouldn’t Sound Like Sarah PalinROMAN CATHOLICS
The Pope’s Weaselly Excuses For Church Child Abuse In The ’70sAPPLIED ETHICS
Ricky Gervais, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, And Ethical Dilemmas In Comedy Legalism Over Life: Nun Supports Life-Saving Abortion And Gets Excommunicated Moral Actions, Moral Sentiments, Moral Motives, and Moral Justifications: More On The Nun Excommunicated For Approving A Life-Saving AbortionPROBLEM OF EVIL
On God As The Source Of Being But Not Of Evil Why Worship Someone With Mysterious Motives?ATHEIST SOLIDARITY
The “A” Word Who Cares About Atheists? You Might Be An Atheist Even If You Hate The New Atheists My Atheistic Reply To Rabbi Adam Jacobs’s Open Letter To The Atheist Community Are Atheists An Oppressed Minority?THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
The Religious Conservative’s False Choice: “Big Brother” Or “Heavenly Father” Thoughts On The Ethics Of Private Vs. Publicly-Mediated Generostiy How Christian Beliefs And Values Are No More Creditable With America’s Founding Than Islamic OnesREASONS FOR ATHEISM
No, I’m Not An Atheist By Faith, Here Are My Arguments. Beyond Agnosticism: More Details About How I Know Various Kinds Of Gods Do Not Exist, Based On Scientific And Philosophical Reasons The Cosmological Argument, The Composition Fallacy, And More Reasons Not To Believe In God Do New Atheists Unjustifiably Shirk Their Burden For Evidence?ERIC STEINHART ON METAPHYSICS
6 Basic Kinds Of Answer To The Question “Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?” The Positive Content of Atheism Why Materialism is Unscientific The Simulation Hypothesis The Secret Agreement between Atheists and TheistsAGNOSTICISM, ATHEISM, & THEISM
Disambiguating Faith: How A Lack Of Belief In God May Differ From Various Kinds Of Beliefs That Gods Do Not Exist Distinguishing The Atheist Agnostic, The Theist Gnostic, The Atheist Gnostic, and The Theist Agnostic Agnostics Or Apistics? Disambiguating Faith: The Evidence-Impervious Agnostic Theists Atheists Have Affirmative Positions On The Status Of Evidence And On The Standards Of BeliefFAITH AS LEAP
Disambiguating Faith: Faith Which Exploits Infinitesimal Probabilities As Openings For Strong AffirmationsJUSTIFIED BELIEF VS. FAITH BELIEF
Disambiguating Faith: Not All Beliefs Held Without Certainty Are Faith Beliefs Disambiguating Faith: Defending My Definition Of Faith As “Belief Or Trust Beyond Rational Warrant”FAITH AS CHOICE
Disambiguating Faith: Implicit Faith Disambiguating Faith: Why Faith Is Unethical (Or "In Defense Of The Ethical Obligation To Always Proportion Belief To Evidence") How Faith Is Not Like Other (Revisable) Reflexive Assumptions (6)TRUST VS. FAITH
Disambiguating Faith: Trustworthiness, Loyalty, And Honesty Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Loyally Trusting Those Insufficiently Proven To Be TrustworthyFAITH AS TRADITIONALISM
Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Tradition Disambiguating Faith: Blind Faith: How Faith Traditions Turn Trust Without Warrant Into A Test Of Loyalty Disambiguating Faith: The Threatening Abomination Of The FaithlessUNCERTAIN BELIEFS
Rational Beliefs, Rational Actions, And When It Is Rational To Act On What You Don’t Think Is True Disambiguating Faith: Faith As GuessingBETTER THAN FAITH
Disambiguating Faith: Are True Gut Feelings And Epiphanies Beliefs Justified By Faith? Disambiguating Faith: Faith Is Neither Brainstorming, Hypothesizing, Nor Simply Reasoning Counter-Intuitively Disambiguating Faith: Faith In The Sub-, Pre-, Or Un-consciousFAITH AS RATIONALIZATION
Disambiguating Faith: Faith As A Form Of Rationalization Unique To Religion Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Deliberate Commitment To Rationalization Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Subjectivity Which Claims ObjectivityDOUBT VS. FAITH
Disambiguating Faith: Faith Is Preconditioned By Doubt, But Precludes Serious Doubting Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Tradition’s Advocate And Enforcer, Opposed To Merely Provisional Forms Of Trust Disambiguating Faith By Soul Searching With Clergy GuyCHILDREN'S REASONING
Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Corruption Of Children’s Intellectual JudgmentATHEISM DIFFERS FROM FAITH
Evangelical Atheism? Is Reason My “God” In Whom I Have “Faith?” Is Reason My "God" 2: On Authority, Uncertainty, and Inexplicability Is Reason My "God" 3: What It Means To Be A Rational Being Is Reason My God 4: On Reason As An Authority Answering Accusations Against Atheists: The Charge We Naively Blame All War On Religion Atheist Groupthink?DEISM VS. THEISM
On The Possible God Of Philosophy And Cosmology Vs. The Personal, Historical God Of FaithPOLITICAL VALUES
Some Suspicions About The Superiority Of Liberal Moral Values Philosophical Ethics: Hobbes On The Source Of Authority Philosophical Ethics: Rawls’s Maximin Principle Some More Thoughts On Rawls’s Maximin Principle And Fairness Philosophical Ethics: Can We Uphold A Moral Law And A Principle That We Should Break It? How Christian Beliefs And Values Are No More Creditable With America’s Founding Than Islamic OnesEPISTEMOLOGY
Clarifying The Relationships Between Dogmatism, Skepticism, And Properly Proportioned Belief Evolution and Epistemology If Faith Isn’t Publicly Justifiable, How Can It Provide Justification At All?METAETHICISTS
Philosophical Ethics: On G.E. Moore’s Notion Of Good As An Indefinable Non-Natural Property Philosophical Ethics: From G.E. Moore’s Non-Naturalism To C.L. Stevenson’s Emotivism Philosophical Ethics: A.J. Ayer And The Emotivism Of A Positivist Philosophical Ethics: J.L. Mackie’s Error Theory And Jonathan Harrison’s Critique Thereof Philosophical Ethics: R.M. Hare On Moral Consistency As A Form Of Logical Consistency Philosophical Ethics: Bruce Russell On Theories About What Makes An Action Rational Or Not Philosophical Ethics: Does Calling Someone Evil Explain Anything About Them?KANT
Philosophical Ethics: Kant, The Good Will, And Rational Actions Philosophical Ethics: "But Why MUST I?" Kant’s Ironic Formulation Of Liberty As Duty Philosophical Ethics: A Possible Kantian Formula For Determining The Permissibility Of Self-DefenseMOTIVES
Philosophical Ethics: Whether It’s Worth It To Be Just With No Incentives Or With DisincentivesETHICS OF HOMOSEXUALITY
An Argument For Gay Marriage And Against Traditionalism Judge This: No Gay Kissing On Modern Family? Happy National Coming Out Day 2009! Unreal Discrimination?GAYS AND CHRISTIANITY
Bishop of Church of England Doesn’t “Share Same Faith” As Those Who Accept Homosexuality A Follow Up Post On Gays And Christianity Confronting Conservative Christians With The Consequences Of Their Homophobia Gays and Christianity 3: If God Exists and Is Good, He Cannot Oppose Gay Love Contortions Of Catholic Philosophy: Eve Tushnet Argues Gay Sex Is Not OK But Sex Changes AreDISCRIMINATION
Sexism And Sensitivity On Gary Bauer’s Claims That American Muslims Get Better Treatment Than American ChristiansRELIGION'S VICES
Is God Needed For Us To Care About Starving Kids A World Away? Religion As A Morally and Politically Ambivalent Force Answering Accusations Against Atheists: The Charge That Atheists Have Faith TooSCIENCE VS. FAITH
How Belief In “Theistic Evolution” Is Nearly As Much A Denial Of Science As Creationism Defending The Apparent Truth Of Evolution’s Mindlessness The (Jesuit) Father Of The Big Bang Theory In What Sense Religious Scientists Shouldn't Exist What’s Wrong With Religious Scientists? More Thoughts On Scientists In The Public Square When Should A Scientist’s Faith Disqualify Him From Scientific Institutional Authority? On Unjustifiably Leveraging One’s Credibility Against Faith and In Defense of Naturalism and Induction (7)MODERATE RELIGION
Will The Real Atheists Please Stop Kneeling The Value Of Religious Moderates And The Danger Of Isolating Religious And Political Fundamentalists What’s In A Name? On Redefining Belief In God Rather Than Rejecting It Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellecuals 1 Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals 2 Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals 3 Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals 4ANTAGONISTIC ATHEISM
On The Alleged Intolerance Of The New Atheists Towards “Faitheists” In Defense Of Mocking And Embarrassing Religion My Thoughts On Blasphemy Day On The Uses And Abuses Of Religion In Art: The Lines Between Expression, Tolerance, Respect, Fear, and Torture Why Atheists Should Not Give Up Challenging Theism And TheistsBAD BIBLE
Why Progressive Interpretations Of The Old Testament Still Do Not Justify Its God Morally How Genesis Is Not Only Literally False, But Metaphorically False True And False In Adam And Eve The Christian Logic Of Power, Pride, Humility, Free Will, Original Sin, And All-Consuming Divine Narcissism You Are Not A Bible Character You Are Not A Biblical Character 2: Father Freeman’s Reply You Are Not A Bible Character 3: On Believing Without Proof-
Your Thoughts
- Alan Cooper: Your use of the word “function” (rather than something more neutral such as “effect)...
- James Sweet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S pecial_pleading
- Heuristics: Theist here. Why is there something rather then nothing? This is because God is a necessary being, he...
- Daniel Fincke: Thanks so much, Richard!
- Richard Wade: Congratulations! I was hoping for the past couple of weeks to hear this news. I wish you all the best,...
- Daniel Fincke: Hey, thanks, John! Hopefully you will find more of my unpacking of what’s going on in...
- John M.: Hi Daniel, This is my reading of Nietzsche on morality and it’s so nice to see you interpret him in...
- Daniel Fincke: Thanks, everyone. Colin, I will make a point to address Nietzsche and evolution at some point. To do...
- Norman: What an awesome experiment in human behavior! – The woman actor who was lesbian – just became a...
- Tisha Irwin: I love this idea.
-
Blogroll
- Planet Atheism
Close preview
Loading... - The Daily Dish
Close preview
Loading... - You Are Not So Smart
Close preview
Loading... - Secular News Daily
Close preview
Loading... - Blag Hag
Close preview
Loading... - Peaceful Atheist
Close preview
Loading... - Clergy Guy
Close preview
Loading... - Leiter Reports
Close preview
Loading... - Philosophers Anonymous
Close preview
Loading... - The Philosophy Smoker
Close preview
Loading... - Less Wrong
Close preview
Loading... - Friendly Atheist
Close preview
Loading... - Unreasonable Faith
Close preview
Loading... - The Prosblogion
Close preview
Loading... - Anderson Brown
Close preview
Loading... - Brain Hammer
Close preview
Loading... - Butterflies and Wheels
Close preview
Loading... - Common Sense Atheism
Close preview
Loading... - Sendai Anonymous
Close preview
Loading... - Greg Laden
Close preview
Loading... - Why Evolution Is True
Close preview
Loading... - Evolving Thoughts
Close preview
Loading... - Pharyngula
Close preview
Loading... - Greta Christina
Close preview
Loading... - Daylight Atheism
Close preview
Loading... - Debunking Christianity
Close preview
Loading... - Philosophy Sucks!
Close preview
Loading... - PEA Soup
Close preview
Loading... - The Reason Project
Close preview
Loading... - Richard Dawkins
Close preview
Loading... - Experimental Philosophy
Close preview
Loading... - Epiphenom
Close preview
Loading... - Vridar
Close preview
Loading... - The Secular Outpost
Close preview
Loading... - Certain Doubts
Close preview
Loading... - Cynical-C
Close preview
Loading... - The Philosopher's Eye
Close preview
Loading... - Eye Of The Storm
Close preview
Loading... - Missing Shades of Grue
Close preview
Loading... - Infinite Zombies
Close preview
Loading... - It's Only A Theory
Close preview
Loading... - Mind Hacks
Close preview
Loading... - xkcd
Close preview
Loading... - BrainEthics
Close preview
Loading... - My Mind On Books
Close preview
Loading... - The Frame Problem
Close preview
Loading... - Secular Humanism
Close preview
Loading... - Atheist Revolution
Close preview
Loading... - Center for Inquiry
Close preview
Loading... - The Ethical Warewolf
Close preview
Loading... - Shane Wilkins
Close preview
Loading... - Atheist Media Blog
Close preview
Loading... - Al Stefanelli
Close preview
Loading... - Ethical Realism
Close preview
Loading... - Misplaced Grace
Close preview
Loading... - Specter Of Reason
Close preview
Loading... - Philosophy, et cetera
Close preview
Loading... - Critiquing Humanity
Close preview
Loading... - Brains
Close preview
Loading... - Philosophy Bites
Close preview
Loading... - Rust Belt Philosophy
Close preview
Loading... - Box Turtle Bulletin
Close preview
Loading... - 3 Quarks Daily
Close preview
Loading... - Phronesisaical
Close preview
Loading... - Glenn Greenwald
Close preview
Loading... - The Daily What
Close preview
Loading... - Balloon Juice
Close preview
Loading... - Overcoming Bias
Close preview
Loading... - PolitiFact's Truth-o-Meter
Close preview
Loading... - The Philosophers' Magazine
Close preview
Loading... - Thoughts Arguments and Rants
Close preview
Loading... - Adventures In Ethics and Science
Close preview
Loading... - Think Tonk
Close preview
Loading... - Go Grue
Close preview
Loading... - Feminist Philosophers
Close preview
Loading... - Udo Schuklenk's Ethx Blog
Close preview
Loading... - Roger Ebert's Journal
Close preview
Loading... - Informed Comment
Close preview
Loading... - The Consternation of Philosophy
Close preview
Loading... - What Is It Like To Be A Woman In Philosophy
Close preview
Loading... - The Superficial
Close preview
Loading... - Sacred River
Close preview
Loading... - Enduring America
Close preview
Loading... - Raging Rev
Close preview
Loading... - Liberal Atheist Hippie
Close preview
Loading... - The New Camels With Hammers
Close preview
Loading...
- Planet Atheism
-
Counter and Badges
Category Archives: History
How Apologetic Goals Compromise Christian Apologists’ Historical Research
June 8, 2010 – 11:00 amBy Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Christianity, Jesus, Religion | Tagged Apologetics, Paul Tillich, Religious Apologetics, Resurrection of Jesus, Robert M. Price | Comments (0)Sarah Palin And Her Naked Theocratic Intentions
May 8, 2010 – 8:59 amI keep wanting to give a thorough response to every bit of ignorance, revisionism, corruption, self-contradiction, condescension, unfounded persecution complex, hypocrisy, and philosophical crudity in this video, coming not only from Sarah Palin but also from Bill O’Reilly, but each line from both of them is so packed with them, that I keep getting overwhelmed [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Christianity, Fundamentalism, Politics, Religion, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Sarah Palin, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocrats | Tagged 1st Amendment, America's Founding Fathers, Bill O'Reilly, Founding Fathers, Revisionist History | Comments (0)The Story Of Human Rights
April 30, 2010 – 9:20 amBy Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Videos | Tagged Human Rights, United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights | Comments (0)Thomas Jefferson vs. Sarah Palin
April 21, 2010 – 1:48 pmBy Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Miracles, Political Secularism, Politics, Sarah Palin, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocrats, Videos | Tagged Thomas Jefferson | Comments (0)President's Daily Hilarity: George Washington
February 15, 2010 – 12:00 amHappy President’s Day! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA&hl=en&fs=1&] Your Thoughts?
Judge This: Miep Gies, Heroic Or Merely Dutiful?
January 12, 2010 – 9:47 amIn ethics there is an interesting question as to whether there are any such things as supererogatory deeds, meaning whether we should consider certain moral deeds which require great courage or sacrifice to be obligatory upon everyone or whether they are too demanding to be minimally necessary for everyone and therefore extraordinarily special and signs [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Duty, Ethics, Featured, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues | Tagged Anne Frank, Germany, Heroism, Miep Gies, Moral Courage, Nazis, Supererogatory | Comments (0)Christmas Unwrapped–The History of Christmas
December 25, 2009 – 9:00 pmFrom the History Channel and via Too Many Tribbles, comes this fascinating and informative five part special: Your Thoughts?
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Christianity, Religion, Videos | Tagged Paganism, Yuletide Festivals | Comments (0)What Is Halloween?
October 31, 2009 – 9:39 amBy Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Videos | Tagged Halloween, Pagan Traditions, Pagans | Comments (0)What Motivated Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot?
October 29, 2009 – 1:31 pmBy Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Atheism, Atheist Videos, Secularism, Videos | Tagged Hitler, Non Stamp Collector, Pol Pot, Stalin | Comments (0)Biblical Slavery, In Context
September 24, 2009 – 1:35 amDoes the Bible REALLY endorse slavery, when read in CONTEXT??? Yes, yes it does. Leviticus 25:44-46: ‘As for your male and female slaves whom you may have– you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Atheism, Bible, Featured, God, Judaism, Religion, Videos | Tagged 1 Timothy 2:9, 1 Timothy 6:1, American Slavery, An Atheist Reads The Bible, Biblical Atrocities, biblical denial of human rights, Exodus 21:20-21, Leviticus 25:44-46, Old Testament, ProfMTH, Slavery, Slavery in the Bible, The Brick Testament, Titus 2:9 | Comments (0)As It Happened 8 Years Ago Yesterday
September 12, 2009 – 3:04 amThe live footage of the second plane hitting the south tower on September 11, 2001 as broadcast on numerous New York television stations and national news outlets and as it looked and sounded in real time footage which was broadcast only later. It goes without saying that the footage is disturbing. Here is the official [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Faith, Fundamentalism, Religious Extremism, Videos | Tagged 9/11, Terrorism, Twin Towers, World Trade Center | Comments (0)The Imperial History Of The Middle East In 90 Seconds
August 31, 2009 – 9:01 pmChristianity And Lithuania
August 21, 2009 – 9:51 amABC News reported on the discovery of another CIA secret prison that was being used for some period of time between 2001-2005. This one in Lithuania. Red explores its long bloody history and one of its recurring themes: Vilnius has a long and bloody history. There are mass graves there containing the remains of tens [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Christianity, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Law, Politics, Religious Extremism, Roman Catholic Church | Tagged CIA Black Sites, Gediminas, Lithuania, Mikhail Muravyov, Napolean, Nazis, Perkunas | Comments (0)Daily Hilarity: Mr. Deity’s Creative Gift For His Chosen People
August 19, 2009 – 1:32 pmBy Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Atheism, Comedy, Hilarious, Mr. Deity, Parody, Religious Satire, Satire, Videos | Comments (0)Dispelling The Myth That Nazism Was An Outgrowth Of Darwinian Atheism
August 16, 2009 – 7:04 pmIn April of last year, Richard Dawkins wrote this letter (which should be read in full) to someone duped by the slander that Darwinian atheism led to Hitler’s ideals and goals: His horrible bidding was done by millions of ordinary German footsoldiers, and the great majority of them were Christians. Many were Lutheran, and many [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Ethics, Metaethics, PZ Myers, Politics, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism | Tagged Adolph Hitler, Artificial Selection, Ben Stein, Christian Anti-Semitism, Darwinism, European Anti-Semitism, Expelled, Herbert Spencer, Hitler and Atheism, Hitler and Catholocism, John D Rockefeller, Mein Kampf, Michael Shermer, Natural Selection, Political Ethics, Richard Dawkins, Science and Ethics, Social Darwinism, World War II | Comments (0)The Meaning Of The Parthenon
August 16, 2009 – 2:01 pmCamels With Hammers regular (and my former student at Fordham), Evangelos has revived his blog and has a fascinating post which weaves together all the various things that Greece has stood for, both to Greeks and to the rest of the West at various times and places, and which explains how the competing attempts to [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Arts, Culture, Religion, World Affairs | Tagged Architecture, Byzantines, Classicism, Classics, Elgin Marbles, Enlightenment, Enlightenment Appropriation of Greek Symbols, Evangelos Vekios, Greece, Greek Orthodox Church, Greeks, Hagia Sophia, Humanism, Parthenon, Symbols | Comments (0)Were The 20th Century Wars A Rebuke To Reason?
August 2, 2009 – 6:00 pmCity of God argues that the New Atheists need to learn from history that reason is no guide to world-improvement If religion had motivated people to die for God and King, surely reason and science had made the dying that much nastier through the innovations of gas, flame-throwers, bomber aircraft, bigger artillery and the like. [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Featured, New Atheism, Political Secularism, Secularism, Technology | Tagged Bertrand Russell, Enlightenment, Enlightenment Ideals, Enlightenment Values, Middle Ages, Reason, World War I, World War II | Comments (3)Lenin, Mao, and the Enlightenment
July 29, 2009 – 2:45 amAndrew Stuttaford debunks John Gray’s charges that Mao and Lenin were “disciples of an Enlightenment ideology”. First Gray: Equating fundamentalism with terrorism is loose thinking, but the biggest drawback is the loss of historical memory that making the parallel entails. Much of the state terror in the past century was secular, not religious. Lenin and [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Fundamentalism, Secularism | Tagged Andrew Stuttaford, Enlightenment Values, John Gray, Lenin, Mao, Timothy Garton Ash | Comments (0)A Pro-Nazi Museum In Germany?
July 27, 2009 – 3:03 pmWell this is disquieting news… Jürgen Rieger, the vice-president of the party that seeks to ban all immigration and sever all ties with the EU, has submitted plans to authorities in Wolfsburg – home to car giant Volkswagen – for the museum intended to “show the people what this organisation did and what it meant”. [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in News, Politics, Racism, World Affairs | Tagged Germany, Jürgen Rieger, Museums, Nazis, NDP Party, Ralf Schmidt, Right Wing Extremism | Comments (0)On The Various Disciplines' Resources For Engaging The Enduring Questions
July 13, 2009 – 10:03 pmProfessor Jude Jones has stopped by to offer an excellent retort to my recent remarks in reply to her. Our topic is whether a new NEH call for grant proposals presumes that non-philosophers can address “the enduring questions” usually considered the domain of philosophy better than philosophers have or equal to how we have. Here [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Academic Disciplines, Education, Philosophy | Tagged Good and Evil, Happiness, Humanities, Literary Theory, Literature, Poetical Thinking, Psychology | Comments (0)Anachronistic Narratives and Students' Attempts To Understand Abolitionism
July 13, 2009 – 1:01 pmVia Open Left comes these remarks (worth reading in full) from Clio Bluestocking on the appallingly shallow and badly framed ways that her students are conceiving of the abolitionist movement: For example, in the past few years, I have read essays that refer to the conditions of slavery as a “lifestyle.” I have read essays [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Education | Tagged Abolitionism, Abolitionists, Clio Bluestocking, Open Left, Slavery | Comments (0)Happy Birthday, America
July 4, 2009 – 6:21 pmWe grow up with both so much mythologization and heroicizing of our founders and, in recent decades, a whole lot of necessary demythologizing and lamentations of our national failures, that is hard to simply appreciate what a novel and brilliant experiment it was to really found and design a nation based on a philosophy—and a [...]
By Daniel Fincke | Also posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, Independence Day, Philosopher Kings, Tributes | Comments (0)

