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The word faith is an ambiguous one and its various connotations get hopelessly confused with each other in ways that muddle many arguments about the ethical and epistemological justifications for holding beliefs on faith. Because of this, I want to write several posts here which disambiguate faith’s various senses and evaluate the worth of each [...]
Archive for August, 2009
Disambiguating Faith: Trustworthiness, Loyalty, And Honesty
August 11th, 2009 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Disambiguating Faith, Ethics, Faith, Featured, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues 
Tags: Faithfulness, Honesty, Loyalty, Trustworthiness 
11 Comments »On “Concern-Troll Apologists”
August 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Daylight Atheism exposes a disingenuous tactic for addressing atheists: Concern trolling is defined as masquerading as an ally or a friend in order to offer your enemies “helpful advice” that, if taken, would hurt and undermine them. For example, take this condescending report by Zoe Brennan of the U.K. Daily Mail on the summer camp [...]
Same Facts Different Views?
August 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Is the difference between a creationist and an evolutionist just a choice of interpretive frameworks to apply to the same facts? Is the problem only their disagreement in “presuppositions?” PZ Myers explains why this isn’t so as part of his report on his trip to the Creation “Museum” which discusses the sign pictured below with Blaghag: This is their [...]
Posted in Christianity, Creationism, Epistemology, Evolution, Faith, Fundamentalism, Geology, Intellectual Vices, Intelligent Design, Philosophy of Science, PZ Myers, Religion, Religion and Science, Religulous, Science Tags: Ancient Egypt, BlagHag, Conceptual Relativism, Creation Museum, Creationism, Dinosaurs, Epistemological Relativism, Ice Age, Interpretation, Mastadon, Presuppositionalism No Comments »Almost All My Opinions Remain Disputable
August 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In a previous post I discussed part of my thought process in leaving Christianity and then contrasted my experience in Christianity, spent desperately trying to rationalize what were apparent falsehoods, with my experience of thinking free of faith ever since: it took me (and is taking me) years to painstakingly develop my own constructive conception [...]
What Happens When Christians “Let The Holy Spirit Illumine The Bible?”
August 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke A former Christian explores psychologically and logically what the Christian is actually describing when referring to the Holy Spirit’s guidance in reading the Bible: In retrospect I find that this “Holy Spirit” that was silently giving me “Knowledge of God” and “evidence” was merely my own understanding and desire for the Gospel to be the [...]
His Mom Doesn’t Take The Atheism News Well
August 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Poor kid. Your Thoughts?
Philosophical Or Psychopathic?
August 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke This made me laugh: If you are able to rise to this challenge, if you are able to honestly examine the moral arguments in favor of slavery and genocide (along with the much stronger arguments against them), then you are likely to be either a psychopath or a philosopher. Snipped from Jonathan Haidt and Fredrik [...]
Posted in Ethics, Moral Psychology, Philosophy Tags: Fredrik Bjorklund, genocide, Jonathan Haidt, Psychology of Philosophers, Psychopaths, Slavery No Comments »Sundaily Hilarity: Trusting in Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
August 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke via Unreasonable Faith
Proving The Existence Of Atheists
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Iambilly tries to do it to an elderly stranger after helping her out of a jam she didn’t even realize she was about to be in had he not intervened. Her reply led to his attempt to prove the existence of atheists: She beamed at me and said, “Oh, you are so wonderful. You are [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Prejudice, Religion Tags: Misconceptions of Atheists No Comments »‘Nuff Said Award Winner:Vorjack
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In this thread at Unreasonable Faith, a poster starts a discussion by talking about how he left his life in porn to become a Christian. When confronted with the idea that everything he says he learned about God in the Bible came from human beings, the convert from the porn world in reply claimed that [...]
Posted in 'Nuff Said, Atheism, Francis Collins, Religion Tags: Dualism, Dvaita Dualism, Hindus, Panentheism, Pantheism, Religious Interpretation, Signs, Trinity, Vishnu, Zoroastrianism No Comments »Is The Unhinged Fringe A New Phenomenon In America?
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke One Andrew Sullivan reader argues no: They have always been with us, the people who believed in manifest destiny, who delighted in the slaughter of this land’s original inhabitants, who cheered a nation into a civil war to support an economic system of slavery that didn’t even benefit them. They are the people who bashed [...]
Lincoln And Religion
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Christopher Hitchens reviewing Michael Burlingame’s new book, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, has this brief discussion of Lincoln and religion: Lincoln sought a deft means of negotiating the shoals of the religious question. Burlingame’s highly diverting early pages show Lincoln being actively satirical in matters of faith, lampooning preachers, staging mock services, and praying to God [...]
Bad Evolutionary Psychology: Attractiveness
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Sendai Anonymous tears into Satoshi Kanazawa for His ridiculous research trying (and failing) to link “attractiveness” with reproductive strategies and reproductive success, and all sorts of vacuous claims regarding “attractiveness”. His statistics proved to be flawed and were many times criticised, which Kanazawa obviously ignored. He also claimed that women are getting more “attractive” faster [...]
Posted in Evolutionary Psychology Tags: Attractiveness, Satoshi Kanazawa, Sendai Anonymous No Comments »Round Up Of More Creation Museum Responses
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Yesterday morning we liveblogged the creation museum twitter feed and then provided a wealth of photos from that same feed from yesterday afternoon. Today we profiled some of the videos circulating the ‘net and commented on one of the first mainstream media news stories about the event. Now here come some more odds and ends [...]
Video From Secularist Field Trip To Creation Museum
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke If you have not already, see Camels With Hammers‘ coverage of yesterday morning’s creation museum twitter feed here. For yesterday afternoon’s flood of photos, see this thread. Here’s frightening video of a Creation “Museum” dinosaur. You can tell it’s impressive by the way one of the women surrenders to prolonged, uncontrolled yawning halfway through: Below [...]
Posted in Creationism, PZ Myers, Religulous, Videos Tags: Adam and Eve, Creation Museum, Derek Rogers, Noah No Comments »Are American Christians Really That Easily Offended?
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke From an article by the American Institute of Physics about yesterday’s Creation Museum field trip led by PZ Myers: William Watkin, a chemist living in Indiana, challenged one exhibit’s suggestion that the Grand Canyon could have been carved in hours by a process similar to how volcanic mudslides can rapidly create canyons in softer rocks. [...]
Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Featured, Fundamentalism, Islam, News, News Discussion, Political Secularism, Religion, Secularism Tags: Creation Museum, Offense 4 Comments »Ned Kahn’s Wind Sculptures
August 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Beautiful stuff. This is called “Articulated Cloud” and this video of it in motion is must see. The description: Articulated Cloud – Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, Pittsburgh, PA. 2004 Composed of thousands of translucent, white plastic squares that move in the wind, the artwork is intended to suggest that the building has been enveloped by a [...]
Posted in Arts Tags: Architecture, Articulated Cloud, Buildings, Ned Kahn, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Children's Museum, Sculpture No Comments »BlagHag Checks In
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Jennifer has her own photos of the Creation Museum trip up and they’re terrific, here’s a clue about what she learned today: For the morning photos and commentary from the whole group tweeting see here if you haven’t already and for the fuller, clearer afternoon set of photos go here.
“Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed”
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Via Dread Tomato Addiction comes this brilliant looking follow up to Ben Stein’s Expelled. RichardDawkins.net explains more about the controversy. A taste: the team has moved on to promoting other theories that they feel are being suppressed by the scientific community. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed tells of how Sex Theory has thrived unchallenged in the [...]
Creation Museum Highlight Tweets 1:30-6:30pm
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Earlier today I liveblogged the highlights of the first 5 hours of Creation Museum discussion from the official twitter feed of PZ Myers and the Secular Student Alliance Trip (#Creozerg). Click here for those highlights. Now this thread features the rest of the major tweeting from the afternoon, picking up where I left off with [...]
The Evil Atheist Philosophy Professor Vs. A Piece Of Chalk
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In response to a long running urban legend/chain intellectually insulting e-mail (which Snopes has a really good write up of here) comes this terrific comic stripization: The version of this story that deserves a separate cartoon of its own is a really disgusting one in which the professor’s closing challenge to God is to strike [...]
PZ Myers Atop Triceratops
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Riding high in the saddle just like Adam did 6,000 years ago is shamed former-evolutionist PZ Myers after he learned the truth of creationism from his tour of Ken Ham’s museum today:
Posted in Atheism, Creationism, Intelligent Design, PZ Myers, Religion and Science, Religulous Tags: Creation Museum No Comments »RIP John Hughes
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke No one mixed the sentimental and the comic better than John Hughes. Before there was Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen movies there was John Hughes, the king of teen comedies which treated like teens like human beings. Many of his films are part of the firmament of my film imagination. I cannot imagine a world [...]
Posted in Film Tags: Ben Stein, Bill Paxton, John Hughes, Macaulay Culkin, Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald No Comments »Religulous: Michael Sweet’s “Ain’t No Safe Way”
August 7th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Another embarrassing favorite of mine from my teen years as a Jesus Freak. This one from former Stryper lead singer Michael Sweet wins in the “Abstinence Only” category:
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