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On Complaints About "Militant Atheism"

July 4, 2009 – 1:10 am

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

Daily Hilarity: Mr. Deity Explains Why Jesus Rode Into Jerusalem On A Donkey

July 3, 2009 – 2:19 pm
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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Jesus, Mr. Deity, Religious Satire, Videos | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Stochasticity

July 3, 2009 – 1:04 pm

Secular Right recommends this cool Radiolab episode about our purpose-seeking minds. The show is broken into three distinct segments and they get progressively more novel, scientific territory beyond simple Statistics 101 stuff (even though I think most of us need to have Statistics 101 drilled into us on a daily basis!)

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

Modernity? Pre-Modernity? Post-Modernity

July 3, 2009 – 8:19 am

Even though I just wrote an article trying to characterize “modernity” (and defend it), I think that all the claims that we are post-modern and all the pining for the pre-modern make me feel like Alan Jacobs in this piece: So when people tell me that they want to recover the wisdom of the pre-modern, [...]

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

Information Avoidance

July 2, 2009 – 8:25 pm

Ars technica considers an analysis of how our beliefs determine the information we allow ourselves to be exposed to: Analysis of the studies shows that people are almost two times more likely to select information that is congenial to their current beliefs and behaviors than they are to pick information that opposes them. That is [...]

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By Dave Smith | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

If Faith Isn't Publicly Justifiable, How Can It Provide Justification At All?

July 1, 2009 – 2:55 pm

Chris’s reply to part 2 of my series of objections to religious moderates and intellectuals: For the purposes of this post, I will identify two claims which many Christians accept (and which I understand you do not): (1) that the central claims of Christianity are true, and (2) that faith, properly understood, is a justified [...]

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

A Mathematician At The "Creation Museum"

July 1, 2009 – 2:14 am

Jason Rosenhouse relates his experience: Very frustrating, but entirely typical for creationists. They have a single intuition, that functional systems do not evolve gradually by undirected processes. Virtually all of their scientific arguments are based on attaching poorly understood jargon to that intuition. They have no real understanding even of what the questions are, much [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Wikipedia Is Written By Bitter Losers

July 1, 2009 – 1:03 am

Nicholas Carr on “sour Wikipedians”: In their report on the results of the study, the scholars paint a picture of Wikipedians as social maladapts who “feel more comfortable expressing themselves on the net than they do off-line” and who score poorly on measures of “agreeableness and openness.” Noting that the findings seem in conflict with [...]

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

Religion in the US Military

June 30, 2009 – 7:11 pm

A report from Al-Jazeera English “We’re government paid missionaries when we leave here.”

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Fundamentalism, Military, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

"Every One is Gay"

June 30, 2009 – 4:22 pm

Found this story through LoveAtheism.com—Democrats get into power and all of a sudden the entire animal kingdom has gone gay: Examples of same-sex behavior can be found in almost all species in the animal kingdom — from worms to frogs to birds — making the practice nearly universal among animals, according to a new review [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Homosexuality, Music, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Should Couples Stay Together For the Kids?

June 29, 2009 – 7:17 pm

Is it really better for the kids?  Johann Hari argues “no”: Professor Kelly Musick and Dr Ann Meier of Cornell University have carried out a study of children whose parents stay together for the sake of the kids. We all know some: parents who can’t stand each other, but have made a hard-headed decision to [...]

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

Jason Jones in Iran

June 29, 2009 – 6:55 pm

The Daily Show‘s expose on the extraordinary ordinariness of Iranian people can be found all in one convenient place now.  If you missed any of it, catch up! The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Daily Hilarity: George Carlin–"Religion is Bullshit"

June 29, 2009 – 4:32 pm

Greg Laden points out June 27th was a year since the death of George Carlin. Your Thoughts?

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Nap Advocacy

June 29, 2009 – 2:10 pm

I am a huge advocate of sleep.  Here’s a case for midday sleeping. They say it’s better for concentration, productivity, concentration, etc. than caffeine! It’s already 2:10 pm, so go get some sleep already if you haven’t already!

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Want To See How Philosophers Think?

June 28, 2009 – 6:21 pm

For logic, grammar, and semantics fans, this post and comments section are quite fun.

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Sundaily Hilarity

June 28, 2009 – 11:59 am
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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | 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)

Recession and Church Going

June 26, 2009 – 11:04 pm

It turns out that only the evangelicals, but not the overall public, increase church going each recession. ON THE campaign trail, Barack Obama famously claimed that blue-collar workers in Pennsylvania clung to religion because of bitterness over lost jobs. Americans are now truly fearful, as unemployment has mounted and house prices fallen. Yet the theory [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Jesus and Hell

June 26, 2009 – 8:55 pm

From Secular Planet Whenever I hear Jesus referred to as loving or merciful, I wince. While the gospels do contain some benevolent teachings, these are completely overshadowed by Jesus’ recurrent threat of unending torture for anyone who fails to accept his message. One cannot expect praise for preaching love while simultaneously executing divine blackmail. An [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Objections To Religious Moderates and Intellectuals (part 4)

June 26, 2009 – 4:28 pm

our remaining option is to study cognitively what factors are at play in religious participation—community building, personal and communal ritual, moral teaching, literary delight, artistic expression, sensual appeal, deep meditation, metaphysical imagination, historical connection, etc.—and we start systematically reforming the broader culture to meet more of these needs (so the government does not step in and try to exploit them and so that people unmoored from these things do not lose all direction in life or feeling of communal attachment).

In other words, we can figure out how religion uses these various good things to make many happy and virtuous, while figuring out outlets for people to have these benefits without the cost of cultivating their worst intellectual tendencies towards pre-Enligtenment habits of thought and without promoting the nasty streaks of ethical authoritarianism that come with characteristically religious forms of irrationality.

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

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)

Daily Hilarity: "Mr. Deity and the Really Big Favor"

June 25, 2009 – 2:45 pm

I couldn’t resist posting this one, even though just an hour ago I posted this one.

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Why Camels With Hammers?

June 25, 2009 – 11:15 am

Evangelos has asked and it’s a good question, so here’s a brief explanation: It’s a combination of two images in Nietzsche.  The camel comes from “The Three Transformations,” a section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  He is there describing transformations that the “spirit” must undergo.  First it must become a camel.  The camel represents austere, ascetic, [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

"True" Christianity? (part 2)

June 24, 2009 – 7:48 pm

Njustus writes in the comments section of this post: I certainly stand in awe of your attempt to comprehensively define Christianity. It’s a burden I’m not sure I could give myself. I of course could offer a definition, but I’m not sure I could do so without revealing more about myself than any objective concept [...]

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

Hope

June 23, 2009 – 7:52 pm

My colleague, Joshua Thomas has an excellent set of preliminary remarks on his views about hope on his blog, which I recommend you go check out. Here are a few highlights.  First he distinguishes dreams as the objects or aims of our hopes, distinct from hope itself, which he takes rather to be related to [...]

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By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Uncategorized | Comments (0)