.png){kind=logo}
I wholeheartedly recommend you go to Aaron Jentzen’s reverbnation page by clicking here if you love “elegaic baritone” (as his webpage puts it). He reminds me of everything I love about Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, and Matt Berninger (lead singer of The National). And similar as his voice is in general style to these guys’ [...]
Archive for July, 2009
Aaron Jentzen, “Great Inventors” and “Magnetic West”
July 29th, 2009 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Indie Music, Indie Rock, Music 
Tags: Aaron Jentzen, Cellofourte, Leonard Cohen, Matt Berninger, Nick Cave 
No Comments »Lenin, Mao, and the Enlightenment
July 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Andrew 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 [...]
Posted in Fundamentalism, History, Secularism Tags: Andrew Stuttaford, Enlightenment Values, John Gray, Lenin, Mao, Timothy Garton Ash No Comments »The First “‘Nuff Said” Award
July 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I love posters who disagree with me and through doing so open up whole new questions and angles to pursue, so everybody please keep your thoughtful and insightful challenges and contrasting opinions rolling in in the comments section. But every now and then there’s a different delight reading your comments and that’s the one that [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Political Secularism, Secularism Tags: Authoritarianism, Freedom, Oblio, R.E.M., Robert Heinlein No Comments »In Praise Of Public Schooling
July 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In reply to this post in which I contrasted my experience as an Evangelical in public high school in the secular northeast to a midwestern girl’s struggles to be an atheist in high school in the midwest, Dave Smith, Camels With Hammers’ trusty webmaster and blogger, writes: Maybe, as you mentioned, it was because I [...]
The Coming Clash At The Creationist Museum
July 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke On August 7, biologist, anti-creationist, activist atheist and blogger-extraordinaire PZ Myers will be headlining a massive convergence of secular evolutionist atheists (including a large contingent from the Secular Student Alliance) upon Ken Ham’s infamous “Creation Museum”. Myers and the Secular Student Alliance have been promoting participation in the big visit for weeks and yesterday, Myers [...]
Posted in PZ Myers, Uncategorized Tags: Creation Museum, Ken Ham, Phyrangula, Secular Student Alliance No Comments »Psychotic Reasoning, The Will To Believe, And Religious Interpretations Of The Mentally Ill
July 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Yesterday morning, The Friendly Atheist’s Hemant Mehta analyzed stories of mothers who murdered their babies under religiously interpreted delusions with a critical eye towards the religions which put certain fantasies in their heads. In reply to criticisms of his making this connection that came from skeptigirl (in this terrific post on psychosis you should read), [...]
Posted in Atheism, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, News Discussion, Psychology, Religion and Science, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: A.J. Burger, Andrea Yates, Ascetics, Belief Without Sufficient Evidence, Demon Possession, Dena Schlosser, Epilepsy, Ethics of Belief, Evidentialism, Mental Illness, Mystics, Otty Sanchez, Prophecy, Psychopathy, Religious Justification, Saints, skeptigirl, Superstition, Visions, Voltaire, William James, WK Clifford 1 Comment »Sam Harris’s Case Against Collins
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke President Obama’s recent choice to head the National Institutes of Health was Francis Collins who was both head of the human genome project and is an outspoken proponent of the complementarity of religion and science. Here are some of Sam Harris’s objections to his nomination: Why should Dr. Collins’s beliefs be of concern? There is [...]
Posted in Atheism, Cultural Secularism, Francis Collins, Fundamentalism, News Discussion, Political Secularism, Politics, Problem of Evil, Religion and Science, Secularism, Separation of Church and State Tags: Accommodationism, Altruism, Behavioral Economics, Free Will, Frontal Lobe Syndrome, Immortal Soul, National Institutes of Health, Neuroscience, Psychopathy, Sam Harris, Spiritual Hunger, Superstition No Comments »Homeless Man Leaves Behind $4 Million Estate
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Via BlagHag comes a really cool story, check out the whole thing: An article in the online newsletter of a Catholic mission in Phoenix revealed that Walters died two years ago at the age of 76. He left an estate worth about $4 million. Along with the money he left for NPR, Walters also left [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics Tags: Altruism, Homeless, Richard Leroy Walters, Rita Belle No Comments »The Epistemological and Metaphysical Case Against Obama’s Birth Certificate
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Heretical Ideas just rocked my world: It might seem, to the average person, that the “Birthers” must have a tough time proving their case. After all, Barack Obama has released his Certification of Live Birth (pictured above), which meets all the requirements for proving one’s citizenship to the State Department. The authenticity of the certificate [...]
Posted in Atheism, Barack Obama, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Faith, Intellectual Vices, Political Satire, Politics, Religious Satire, Satire Tags: Barack Obama, Barack Obama's Birth Certificate, Birthers, Cognitive Relativism, Hawaii, Heretical Ideas, Law of Attraction, Norse Myths, Philosophical Naturalism, Relativism No Comments »Illusionist Derren Brown Explains The Techniques Of Self-Proclaimed Psychics
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke 6 parts, start here: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Skepticism, Videos Tags: Barnum Effect, Charlatans, Cold Reading, Derren Brown, Frauds, Mediums, Psychics, PT Barnum, Richard Dawkins, Scam Artists No Comments »Absurdities And Atrocities
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke This story is beyond horrific: The scene was so gruesome investigators could barely speak: A 3 1/2-week-old boy lay dismembered in the bedroom of a single-story house, three of his tiny toes chewed off, his face torn away, his head severed and his brains ripped out. Officers called to the home early Sunday found the [...]
Posted in Atheism, Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, News, News Discussion, Psychology, Religion Tags: Andrea Yates, Dena Schlosser, Otty Sanchez, Psychopathy, Voltaire No Comments »Are Atheists An Oppressed Minority?
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Having gone to high school as a devout Evangelical Christian in a public high school on Long Island, this video is somewhat surreal to me. A world where everybody prays and atheists are shunned and harrassed? I would never have believed it in high school. But the truth is that both committed religious people and [...]
Daily Hilarity: Mr. Deity On Jonah And The Whale
July 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Brand new Mr. Deity: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comedy, Hilarious, Mr. Deity, Parody, Religious Satire, Satire, Videos Tags: Jonah and the Whale, Larry 1 Comment »Lykke Li Lo-fi
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Her debut album is amazing, one of my very favorites of the last several hundred I’ve bought. Her phrasing and her charisma are superb. Here’s a taste of her style performed with that authentic lo-fi bathroom sound…
Empirically Testing Theological Claims
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke PZ Myers recaps some of the highlights of what he found to be a frustratingly insubstantial discussion between historian of science Ron Numbers and creationist Paul Nelson. Myers writes: His example was to talk about the argument from imperfections, the fact that many of the points Coyne made as evidence of evolution were from sub-optimal [...]
A Pro-Nazi Museum In Germany?
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Well 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”. [...]
Posted in History, News, Politics, Racism, World Affairs Tags: Germany, Jürgen Rieger, Museums, Nazis, NDP Party, Ralf Schmidt, Right Wing Extremism No Comments »Is This Fraud Or An Objective Call To Democratic Vote?
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Fans of transparency in petitions and of political conflict, enjoy and weigh in! The Gay Atheist explains Driving Equality has released the full footage of the anti-gay signature fraud. Including a nice conversation with the man collecting the signatures where he explains his personal belief that being gay is not a choice and that gay [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, LGBTQAA, Political Secularism, Politics Tags: Gay Atheist, Petitions, Referendums No Comments »When (And How) Should We Bother To Push The Issues?
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Njustus offers a probing challenge to my recent post in which I defend Daniel Dennett’s argument that atheists should stand up for atheism rather than take the attitude that the religious beliefs that they do not share are good for their neighbors and should be encouraged. I argued that Dennett’s position is not “ideologically narrow” [...]
Does Faith Make You An Idiot?
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In reply to my recent posts on atheism and fundamentalism, a friend writes to me privately: Alright, first of all, I won’t pretend to have read everything with the thread or understand it all, but I do think I grasp the basic argument: Is it moral for atheists to try to get others to conform [...]
Posted in Atheism, Evidence, Evolution, Faith, Religion, Religion and Science, Secularism Tags: Civility, Insecurity, Irrationality 1 Comment »An Argument For Gay Marriage And Against Traditionalism
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I am puzzled by appeals to history to oppose gay marriage because history is only the story of what people have done and never of itself directly tells us anything about right or wrong. Results of history can serve as warnings about effective and uneffective approaches to goal x or goal y but what people [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Civil Rights, Cultural Secularism, Culture, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Gay Marriage, Homosexuality, Jesus, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Religious Secularism, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Social Psychology, Sociobiology, Sociology, Virtues Tags: Attractions, Aversions, Beauty, Civil Unions, Definition of Marriage, Disgust, Gay Adoption, Homophobia, Irrational Moral Judgments, John Richardson, Jonathan Haidt, Joshua Greene, King David, Michel Foucault, Misogyny, Nathan The Prophet, Nietzsche, Polygamy, Separate But Equal, Socrates, Traditionalism, Ugliness 12 Comments »Why Should Someone Else’s Faith Trump My Reason?
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke An excellent case for anti-theism from a Daily Dish reader: Though I would like to believe that I am a tolerant, open-minded person, it seems likely that I fall into the “anti-theist” category of atheists. I would not choose that label for myself, but it describes my attitude more or less. My strong feelings on [...]
Posted in Atheism, Bible, LGBTQAA, Politics, Probability, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy Tags: Alvin Plantinga, Anti-theism, Authoritarianism, Divine Command Theory, God of the Philosophers, Likelihood, Ontological Argument For The Existence of God, Plantinga's Ontological Agument For the Existence of God, Possibility No Comments »Muslim Women’s Freedom To Marry
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Thanks to the Atheist Media Blog Your Thoughts?
Posted in Fundamentalism, Gay Marriage, Islam, Koran, Videos, Women's Issues Tags: Arranged Marriage, Asra Nomani, Britain, Doha Debates, Forced Marriage, Hadith, Inter-faith Marriage, Islam In Europe, Marriage, Muhammad Habash, Sha'ria Law, Unanimous Consensus, Women's Rights, Yasir Qadhi No Comments »Daily Hilarity: Fire
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke A saying I heard from a friend on Facebook: “If you set a fire for a man, he is warm for one night. If you set a man on fire, he is warm for the rest of his life.”
Recent Comments