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A new documentary Silent Partner profiles gay partners of military personnel who have to go back into the closet to protect their partners’ careers in the military: Ben Cartwright has been a passionate advocate for gay rights for 12 years. He is a regular at gay pride marches, has a pod-cast and writes for a [...]
Archive for July, 2009
Silent Partners
July 18th, 2009 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Film, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, News 
Tags: "Silent Partner", Discrimination, Don't Ask Don't Tell 
No Comments »Daily Hilarity: Gabriel Iglesias’s “Hot And Fluffy”
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Discovered this guy only today, start with this video and keep watching, he’s hilarious:
Naturalism As True By Definition
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Jason Streitfeld weighs in on the question of naturalism or supernaturalism, treated by Sean Carroll here, John Pieret here, and Shane and me in these this post and then this one. Streitfeld’s post is excellent so read it in full. Scientists do not rely on any notion of the supernatural to formulate their conception of [...]
Posted in Atheism, Biology, Creationism, Divine Intervention, Evolution, Law, Naturalism, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Physics, Religion and Science, Science Tags: Creationism, Intelligent Design, Jason Streitfeld, John Pieret, Metaphysics, Methodological Naturalism, Occam's Razor, Philosophical Naturalism, Scientific Demarcation, Scientific Method, Sean Carroll, Simplicity, Supernatural, Supernaturalism No Comments »Faitheists
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I love it—this is the great new name from one of Jerry Coyne’s readers for referring to: those atheists who are nonetheless soft on faith (i.e., atheist accommodationists). the kind of people, like Michael Ruse, who say, “I am an atheist, but . . .”. In other words, the folks who, says Daniel Dennett, have [...]
Posted in Atheism, New Atheism, Religion and Science, Secularism Tags: Accommodationists, Faitheists, Jerry Coyne No Comments »Female Performance Anxiety?
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke A week ago we pointed readers to a study that provided evidence women tend to psyche out when they think they are playing chess against men and perform worse than they are capable. Here Laura Woodhouse from thefword.org shares her own anecdotes about underperforming at tasks when she is around men. She finds herself [...]
Posted in Feminism, Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Sciences, Sociology Tags: Women No Comments »Theocrat of the Week: Stuart H. Schwartz
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke If you read one bit of off the Richter insane bit of hagiography mixed with 21st Century-style right wing populism, persecution complex, theocratic fantasies and claim to power prophetic powers all year, make it this article from Liberty University’s Stuart Schwartz. Sarah Palin loves God. God loves Sarah Palin. And that is why they hate [...]
Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In honor of Metric’s appearance promoting their new album “Fantasies” on David Letterman just now, here is the song in which Metric’s lead singer Emily Haines first completely mesmerized me (and many others). Her voice and performances are so completely alluring that I keep going back and listening to her even though her song writing [...]
Can Scientists Infer About Naturalism And Its Limitations?
July 18th, 2009 Daniel Fincke John Pieret is not thrilled with Sean Carroll’s foray into the philosophy of science and metaphysics from Thursday. Particularly, he is (rightly) critical of Carroll’s dismissal of major theories of scientific demarcation as mere “mottos” and his apparently unnuanced and uncritical preference for Occam’s Razor in all cases. Only in the final paragraph does he [...]
Posted in Academic Disciplines, Cosmology, Divine Intervention, Epistemology, Law, Naturalism, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Physics, Religion and Science, Science Tags: Creationism, Disciplinary Rigor, Intelligent Design, Inter-disciplinary, John Pieret, Metaphysics, Methodological Naturalism, Occam's Razor, Philosophical Naturalism, Samir Okasha, Scientific Demarcation, Scientific Method, Sean Carroll, Simplicity, Supernatural, Supernaturalism No Comments »Daily Hilarity: “Mr. Deity and The Evil”
July 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Dave’s posts on karma and on The Thinking Atheist’s very well made video on the problem of evil earlier tonight stirred some thoughts on the subject in me that I hope to sketch out at another time. In the meantime, I felt like this is a good time to post one of the best Mr. [...]
Posted in Comedy, Hilarious, Mr. Deity, Problem of Evil, Religious Satire, Satire, Videos No Comments »Is Karma Incompatible With Atheism?
July 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke An excellent question posed by a Scot, a reader at The Friendly Atheist. While Richard gives a fine answer supposing belief in a supernatural version of Karma, I find several of the comments interesting and more akin to the way I’ve used the term. Gary says: Actually, the word “karma” is sanskrit and simply means [...]
Posted in Atheism, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Physics, Uncategorized, Virtues Tags: Buddhism, Hugh Everett, Karma, Luck, Virtue No Comments »Did You Know You Could Blog From The Airport?
July 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I never dreamed of such a thing—but here I am doing it. Now if only I had something urgent to say that I could make a real post out of this. Nope, nothing’s coming to me. So, I’ll just take this chance to thank everyone who reads this blog. It’s been a blast seeing the [...]
Further Towards A “Non-Moral” Standard Of Ethical Evaluation
July 17th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In reply to a recent post, Tyler writes: Your definition of ethics and morality is well taken and allows for further interesting debate on culture and moral systems but it still requires assumption of benefit. Defining phrases like “fully flourishing life” and “most excellent characters we can develop” require a standard of evaluation which I [...]
Posted in Authority, Duty, Ethical Pluralism, Uncategorized Tags: Arete, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Care, Equality, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Excellence, Fairness, Fruits and Ladders, Harm, Human Flourishing, Ingroup Loyalty, Jonathan Haidt, Justice, Metaethics, Moral Goods, Moral Psychology, Moralism, Motives, Non-Moral Goods, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Purity, Quality vs. Quantity, Sociobiology, Tyler Samien, Values, Virtues No Comments »Daily Hilarity: Toby on “Revenge of the Nerds”
July 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Posted in Comedy, Film, Hilarious, Videos Tags: American Splendor, Harvey Pekar, Judah Friedlander, Paul Giamatti, Toby Radloff No Comments »Science And Supernatural Hypotheses, Present and Possible Future
July 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Via PZ Myers, comes a long and recommendable argument by Sean Carroll on the philosophy of science and how scientific understanding of the world thus far precludes any room for miracles (thus making the religion and science incompatible). Excerpted from the much longer article with interesting things on the philosophy of science which I recommend [...]
You Are Not A Bible Character 3: On Believing Without Proof
July 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Father Stephen has graciously offered another reply to my challenges to him that he should apply to the Bible itself his excellent critique of contemporary figures who presumptuously interpret their experiences as though they are biblical characters. Father Stephen’s reply: I completely agree that Christ takes Scripture “out of context”. Excellent, as this can help [...]
Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Epistemology, Faith, Philosophy, Religion, Religion and Science, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Arguments for the Existence of the Universe, Belief Without Proof, Biblical Hermeneutics, Divinity of Christ, Epistemological Relativism, Figurative Readings of the Bible, genocide, Incarnation, Joshua, Literal Readings of the Bible, Presuppositions, Proof, Reason, Resurrection, Russian Orthodoxy, Standards of Evidence 4 Comments »iPurityrings
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke For just 59p, consumers can download an application that allows them to take a purity pledge and then display a silver ring on their phone to prove their commitment to abstinence. Its creator, Island Wall Entertainment, claims the product will appeal to the younger generation and those people who have not already committed themselves to [...]
Oba-”mom jeans?”
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Allahpundit is delighted that he might have started the latest meme.
Posted in Barack Obama, Baseball, Pop Culture, Videos Tags: All Star Game, Allahpundit, Hot Air, Mom Jeans No Comments »Texas Revising Social Studies Curriculum
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Via The Friendly Atheist. Among the changes recommended by the three conservative reviewers on the panel: Include more study of religious revival movements: Evangelist Billy Graham should be included on a list of transformational leaders of the 20th century and students in fifth and eight grades should study the colonial-era religious revival known as the [...]
Insect Cyborgs
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke The military is developing technology that, when surgically implanted into an insect, would allow us to control its flight: Instead of attempting to create miniature robots as spies, researchers are now experimenting with developing insect cyborgs or “cybugs” that could work even better. So far scientists can already control the flight of moths using implanted [...]
Daily Hilarity: Hitler Misinterprets Nietzsche
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Posted in Comedy, Hilarious, Videos Tags: Adolph Hitler, Holocaust, Nietzsche, Ricky Gervais, Stand Up Comedy No Comments »Sotomayor Throwing Left Wing Judicial Views Under The Bus?
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Georgetown law professor Michael Seidman is disgusted: I was completely disgusted by Judge Sotomayor’s testimony today. If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified. How could someone who has been on the bench for seventeen years possibly believe [...]
Philosophy Not As Exceptional, But As Specialized
July 15th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Recently in the philosophy blogosphere there has been a bit of a stir over a request for grant proposals from the NEH for new classes on the “enduring questions.” In response philosophy Professor Jude Jones and I have had several exchanges on questions related to the relative academic value of specialists from other fields teaching [...]
Tonight’s Bed Time Story: The Death of Bunny Munro
July 14th, 2009 Daniel Fincke By Nick Cave, read by Nick Cave: listen (and watch!) here!
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