Archive for August, 2008

Today’s show discusses moral judgment, particularly with respect to the work of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Though by no means the final word on the subject, both made significant contributions to our understanding of moral development. Piaget’s model for moral development included only two stages. He observed that children younger than 10 or 11 consider moral dilemmas in a more rigid way than older children. Older children have a much more nuanced view of rules and moral judgments. Kohlberg used Piaget’s model in developing his more detailed six stage model of moral development. His model consists of: Stage 1 – Obedience & Punishment – rules exist, are fixed, and are handed down by some authority figure (parents or “God”). Something is wrong if you get punished for it; if you don’t get punished, it’s not wrong. Stage 2 – Individualism & Exchange – rules are no longer seen as fixed. There is still a preoccupation with punishment, but it’s now seen as a risk to be avoided and not the determinant of whether something is right or wrong. There is also an emphasis on fairness, and a belief that it’s okay to break a rule if someone is being “unfair.” Stage 3 – Good Interpersonal Relationships – children at this stage are usually entering their teens. The focus at this stage is on motives – a consideration of someone’s motives, good or bad, informs moral judgments about their behaviors. Stage 4 – Maintaining Social Order – this is the law & order stage. The concern in this stage broadens to encompass considerations of society as a whole instead of just interpersonal relationships. The focus is on how laws help create a smoothly functioning society. Most adults stop at this stage of development. Stage 5 – Social Contract & Individual Rights – this is the beginning of thinking about society in a...
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Since many people that read this blog are also fans of the show, I thought I’d make people aware of our new Fan Appreciation page on the Atheist Experience web site. The page will gather together web-based works done by Atheist Experience fans that have promoted our show. Of course, it’ will grow over time with new content as we become aware of it. I wanted to give a special thanks to people who take clips of our show and re-post them in other venues, usually YouTube. Those little nuggets have gotten the show a lot of free advertising and we really appreciate being able to reach new audiences. On the page above, we’ve gathered those clips and indexed them by episode number. There are about 90 of them now. Who knew? They’re all in one place if you need just a little bite of atheism to help you make it through your day! As always, send us feedback to the tv show e-mail if you see something that can be improved in some way.

So last month, while preparing for a show on “Foolish Atheists,” I suggested three groups associated with atheism that might fit the bill: Communists, Raelians, and Objectivists. Nobody was interested in sticking up for Communists or Raelians, but we did get some email about criticizing Objectivism, both pro and con. So what good is having an atheist show if you can’t step on a few toes? I’m personally critical of the libertarian thought that comes from Ayn Rand, but since my political beliefs aren’t the issue here, I’m going to try to stay away from that topic as much as I can manage. Instead, I want to focus on the weird cult-like status that Rand attained, and some oddities about her philosophy that make “Objectivism” seem not so objective. Here come some links (check this post right before the show because I may add more): Wikipedia article on Objectivism Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature, a blog critical of Ayn Rand A post from the above about “Second-Handers“. The comments section is especially amusing due to the fact that one of the Objectivist commenters attacks the author by saying “From the content of this blog alone I judge that you are a second-hander, a parasite on Ayn Rand, and to buy your book would be to enable that” – thereby providing an unwitting demonstration of the term “second-hander” as a well poisoning technique. Alice in Wonderland: A critique of Ayn Rand from a Libertarian perspective The Unlikeliest Cult In History by weird beliefs investigator Michael Shermer Just for fun, here’s tvtropes.org explaining just which cliches are scattered throughout Atlas Shrugged. I’ll discuss a few of my favorites: “Mary Sue” (both Dagny Taggart and John Galt filling the role as idealized stand-ins for the author); “Author Filibuster” (56 pages worth of uninterrupted prosyletizing!) and “Anvilicious.”...
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This was nice. Of course, it’s funny that it’s all about the recent hilarious punking of Matt by that little scamp Microbiologychick. But that’s part of the humor. “Eve”‘s silliness was actually not beyond the pale. It was a pitch-perfect performance of the stupid too many real people out there suffer from.

As an update on this situation, I just went back to check for Sona’s blog, and the new upgraded version, “Atheism the incoherence of the Illogic.” Results: Sorry, the blog at sonasblog.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs. and The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available. The internet can be a very ephemeral place. I do, however, find it interesting that the four “Ph.D’s” who were supposedly unconnected to Sona reacted to adversity in exactly the same fashion as Sona did: by pulling the whole thing down in a huff.