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Tag Archives: Religion

Genesis As A Scientific Account

June 29, 2009 – 10:29 pm
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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Creationism, Evolution, Religion, Videos | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Our Caveman Brains

June 29, 2009 – 9:43 pm

No one is immune—the question is whether we cultivate or counteract our natural cognitive fallacies. A professor at the University of Guelph, Prof. Davis has spent the past 20 years paying attention to the use of such seemingly benign phrases: “It was a sign,” “Thank God” and even “Good luck.” To him, such phrases reflect [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Epistemology, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Graphs Suggest Secular Countries Less Corrupt, More Peaceful

June 29, 2009 – 9:12 pm

An interesting graph: Here’s Tom Rees’s interpetation of the data: the graph (as shown on the right) shows a dramatic and strong relationship between religiosity and corruption. This does not mean that religion causes corruption. A more likely explanation is that a common, third factor explains both. And the obvious explanation is wealth. Rich countries [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Abortion, Atheism, Religion, Sociology | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Rainfall Caused By Frogs Marrying

June 29, 2009 – 8:58 pm

If they want rain so much, they should just move to New York! Thanks to Atheist Nexus for the link to this video and this summation of the story: “More than 250 people in northern Bangladesh have attended a wedding ceremony between two frogs as part of a ritual to bring rain to the parched [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Epistemology, Religion | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Voyage That Shook The World?

June 29, 2009 – 8:13 pm

PZ Myers with news of a creationist film coming: They’re doing it again. There’s a new movie being released, The Voyage That Shook the World, that you can tell from the tagline — “One man, one voyage, one book ignited a controversy that still rages today” — is creationist trash (hint: there is no scientific [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Creationism, Faith, PZ Myers, Religion | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

How Best to Support the Iranians? Larison vs. Hitchens

June 29, 2009 – 7:46 pm

Daniel Larison excellently states the case for personal support for Iranian freedom but non-involvement by the US government: Something that I don’t quite understand is why anyone would conclude that silence or minimal comment condemning the Iranian government’s violence by government officials requires that private individuals refrain from expressing their moral support. There has been [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Christopher Hitchens, News Discussion, Religion, World Affairs | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Beginning of the End of Radical Islam?

June 29, 2009 – 10:24 am

The Washington Post reports: Election and polling results show a diminishing influence of radical Islam acroos the Middle East and other Muslim countries. Radical political parties are losing clout, support for suicide bombing and terrorist tactics is dropping, and the deteriorating situation in Iran mark the beginning of the end of radical Islam. Regardless of [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, Religion | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Teenagers’ Limbs Cut Off For Stealing

June 29, 2009 – 6:23 am

as a crowd of 300 men, women, and children watched: Somalia’s capital Mogadishu was witness, Thursday, to the public amputation of the left leg and right hand from each of four thieves.  They were all teenagers, about seventeen years old. The thieves, were convicted of stealing some mobile phones and two guns by a Whahbist [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Islam, News, Religion, Theocracy | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

To Ban Or Not To Ban

June 29, 2009 – 5:55 am

A youtube point-counterpoint on this topic (on which I am still interested in your thoughts).  Click here for Njustus’s stab at the topic and my attempt to play devil’s advocate against him. Pro-ban: Anti-ban: Your Thoughts?

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Feminism, Pat Condell, Religion, Religious Rights, Women's Rights | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

How Faith Is Not Like Other (Revisable) Reflexive Assumptions

June 29, 2009 – 12:00 am

(It should not be necessary for understanding this post, but for the full backstory to this debate see my series on Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals, parts 1, 2, 3, & 4 and my post “On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues and Vices”) Shane writes in reply to my post “On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Authoritarianism, Epistemology, Ethics, Faith, Historical Ethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Miracles, Naturalism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Teleology | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Brigham Young Ends Three Year Youtube Ban

June 28, 2009 – 11:54 pm

The story. Sigh, banning things doesn’t make people morally good, it takes away even the opportunity for exercise of moral judgment. And, quite often it chokes off more good than it prevents evil.

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Religion | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Children's Bill of Religious Rights

June 28, 2009 – 9:30 pm

I have almost always found children’s choirs incredibly loathesome because almost always they are used to have children in unison preach bland platitudes which are simply empty words to kids.  Only recently I heard a great use of a children’s choir as part of the Decemberists’ new Hazards of Love album, which effectively just uses [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Religion | Comments (0)

Christian Belief as a Natural Phenomenon

June 28, 2009 – 8:05 pm

Since May, Valerie Tarico has been writing a six part series of articles called “Christina Belief as a Natural Phenomenon.”  Part 5 was just released last night.  I highly suggest reading through all the articles and would love your feedback in our comments section.  Your ideas from there might lead to future blog posts.  So [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Epistemology, Psychology, Religion | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Taking The Unity of Truth Notion Seriously

June 28, 2009 – 2:28 pm

Cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss on the incompatibility of God and science.  The whole piece is worth your time.  This succinct statement summing up the article, however, hits the nail on the head: My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Epistemology, Faith, Naturalism, News Discussion, Philosophy, Religion, Theocracy | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

France Considers Banning Burqas in Public and I Consider Haidt on Pluralism

June 28, 2009 – 12:00 pm

France, which has already banned headscarves in schools, purportedly as an effort to separate church and state, is now considering banning the burqa in public since it represents servitude and indignity for women (according to Sarkozy).  Click here for the full story and links to perspectives on the option. Would the effects of this be [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Applied Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Feminism, Islam, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, News, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Religious Rights, Separation of Church and State, Women's Rights | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Last Week in Gays

June 28, 2009 – 7:00 am

A round up of only some of the numerous interesting stories about the progress of gay civil rights covered this week by Box Turtle Bulletin: Ireland now has civil partnerships “with many (but not all) of the rights, priveleges, and responsibilities to same-sex couples.” In Texas, 57% now support some sort of recognition of gay [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Ethics, News, Religion | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Greg Laden's Qualms With Missionaries

June 28, 2009 – 1:45 am

Just learned about this from PZ Myers. Sounds most interesting, their last episode in their current format (before they switch to a podcast) starts at 8 am this morning. But more than just the concept of an atheist talk show is this really intriguing and morally urgent topic for today’s show: Missionaries tell us that [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Religion | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

New Interview With Richard Dawkins

June 27, 2009 – 11:59 pm

Via Richarddawkins.net

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Evolution, Religion | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

PZ Myers on the Incompatibility of Christian Faith and Science

June 27, 2009 – 8:17 pm

Related to the issues in my recent posts objecting to religious moderates and intellectuals, here are a few remarks from an excellent piece worth reading in its whole about why science and religion are not compatible from PZ Myers.  I encourage you to click the link and read the whole thing, but here are a [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Epistemology, Religion | Also tagged | Comments (0)

On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues and Vices

June 27, 2009 – 4:05 pm

Below I quote Shane’s reply to part 4 of my series, “Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals” (for further background to this debate, check out parts 1, 2 & 3) and reply to him.  The topic has evolved into questions of teleology and the “point” of life, so little background in previous installments should be [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Epistemology, Ethics, Evolution, God, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Prejudice, Religion, Teleology, Uncategorized, Virtues | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

This Week in American Theocrats

June 27, 2009 – 2:40 pm

This week’s American theocrat is Oklahoma state legislator, Sally Kern has offered this resolution (and click for video): WHEREAS, the people of Oklahoma have a strong tradition of reliance upon the Creator of the Universe; and WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and WHEREAS, this nation has [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, Religion | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Actions

June 26, 2009 – 2:36 am

Box Turtle Bulletin highlights these stories: The Southern Baptist Convention has ousted Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas over the church’s acceptance of gays. Even though that church had sent their own gay-tolerant pastor packing over a controversy surrounding photos of same-sex couples in the church directory, it appears that what remained still wasn’t anti-gay enough [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, News Discussion, Religion | Comments (0)

No More Theology Departments?

June 26, 2009 – 1:48 am

I still have to get to replying to a few outstanding comments but in the meantime, I figured I’d quickly address this question from Evangelos: would you contend that theology departments should not exist at the academic level, even if they were challenging traditional beliefs (I’m thinking of this fellow who appeared on Colbert a [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Education, Epistemology, Religion | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Why Worship Someone With Mysterious Motives?

June 26, 2009 – 12:59 am

The Conversational Atheist raises a good point: When you ask a person to explain God’s apparently contradictory actions, you will inevitably get a shoulder shrug, and perhaps a “How am I supposed to know the mind of God?” Atheists need to figure out the kinds of questions that get a bit deeper. Don’t ask a [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, God, Problem of Evil, Religion | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (5)

Objections To Religious Moderates and Intellectuals (part 3)

June 25, 2009 – 4:47 pm

Shane’s reply to this post addressing him (and you can find part 1 which initiated the conversation here): An excellent response! Much more in-depth than my teasing comment probably warranted. Sorry, but my response is a bit rambling. That comes with the blog commenting genre, I think. My earlier point wasn’t about intellectual virtues or [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Authority, Education, Epistemology, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Religious Moderates, Uncategorized, Virtues | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)