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I was really irritated last night by Derren Brown’s choice to use his lottery trick on national TV in Britain to propagate fundamentally bogus mathematical thinking and to convince a group of people that their belief in their abilities to reach into the subconscious was able to generate knowledge of winning lottery ticket numbers. It’s [...]
Archive for September, 2009
Judge This: Derren Brown False Lesson In Mathematics For Britain
September 12th, 2009 
Daniel Fincke Portrait Of A Parasite: The Tongue Eating Isopod
September 12th, 2009 Daniel Fincke From the BBC via Pharyngula comes this ugly monstrous little parasitic bastard who eats his host fish’s tongue and replaces it with itself: Your Thoughts?
If These Are God’s Miracles, Where Are His Priorities?
September 12th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Brand new from ZJ: The French have a spring that is alleged to perform miracles. ZJ reasons that even if it did perform miracles it wouldn’t speak much of the deity behind them: Mr. Deity on the other hand seems to understand these criticisms and that’s why he never intervenes: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Divine Intervention, Jesus, Mr. Deity, Prayer 
Tags: 9/11, African starvation, argument from ignorance, Atheism, cancer, Christianity, Death, Faith Healing, France, genocide, God, Holocaust, hunger, inaction, interventionist, malnutrition, marian apparition, mary, medical bureau, medically inexplicable, Miracles, miraculous events, plague, Religion, roman catholic church bishop, rwandan, sanctuary our lady of lourdes, shrine, spanish flu pandemic, spring water cures, Starvation 
No Comments »As It Happened 8 Years Ago Yesterday
September 12th, 2009 Daniel Fincke The live footage of the second plane hitting the south tower on September 11, 2001 as broadcast on numerous New York television stations and national news outlets and as it looked and sounded in real time footage which was broadcast only later. It goes without saying that the footage is disturbing. Here is the official [...]
Posted in Faith, Fundamentalism, History, Religious Extremism, Videos Tags: 9/11, Terrorism, Twin Towers, World Trade Center No Comments »An Increasingly Messianic Military In Israel?
September 12th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Seems like ours is not the only military turning to religious zealotry and desire for holy war for motivation. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Judaism, Religion, Religious Extremism, Separation of Church and State, Videos, World Affairs Tags: Holy Wars, Israel, Military Rabbis No Comments »How Did Derren Brown Predict The Lottery?
September 12th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Earlier this week, Derren Brown gave the illusion of predicting the lottery numbers before they were revealed in real time on national TV in Britain. Here’s that original video in case you missed it: Now here is his bullshit explanation of how he did it. Why his explanation makes no sense: He took inspiration from [...]
Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Admirable Infinite Commitment For Finite Reasons
September 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke May your strength give us strength, may your faith give us faith, may your hope give us hope, may your love give us love. In recent weeks I have distinguished and criticized numerous distinct belief formation and justification practices which go by the name of “faith.” I have argued that it is neither rational nor [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Disambiguating Faith, Duty, Ethics, Faith, Featured, Moral Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Virtues Tags: 2001, 9/11, 9/11 Firefighters, Bravery, Commitment, Courage, Faith as Courage, Infinite Commitment, Kierkegaard, Proportioning Actions To Reasons, September 11, Supererogatory, Will No Comments »Into The Fire
September 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
Posted in Music, Videos Tags: 2001, Bruce Springsteen, City In Ruins, Into The Fire, Memorials, September 11, The Rising, You're Missing No Comments »Beliefs Have Consequences, Including Religious Ones
September 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke ZJ has another predictably perfect video brilliant in unpredictably sharp ways: There are those who say that religious beliefs are not at the root of certain behaviors that appear to be caused by religion. Even when the actions of the religious are completely in line with their beliefs, even when they openly proclaim that they [...]
Posted in Atheism, Religion, Religious Extremism, Videos Tags: Africa, African Witch Hunts, Behavior, Beliefs, Determinism, Fatalism, Religious Violence, Witches Witch Hunts No Comments »God’s Cool Designs
September 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke An older Edward Current piece, brilliant as all of them: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Atheism, Intelligent Design, Problem of Evil, Religion, Religious Satire, Videos Tags: Edward Current No Comments »God Is In The House
September 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke As I’ve mentioned before: As far as I go, no singer/songwriter better explores the theme of religion or better employs religious imagery than Nick Cave. Very few people write either religious music or music about religion that avoids either preaching on its behalf or railing against it. Nick Cave is liberated from any creedal loyalty [...]
Posted in Arts, Christianity, Culture, Cutural Criticism, Fundamentalism, Indie Music, Indie Rock, Music, Music Reviews, Music Videos, Pop Culture, Religion, Religious Satire, Sarah Palin, Videos Tags: "God Is In The House", "Hallelujah", "Mercy Seat", Dante, John Milton, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Red State America, Sarah Palin, Small Towns No Comments »Philosophy Degree Surprisingly Lucrative
September 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Not for me yet but apparently on average it’s a first step to more lucrative careers than more than half of the rest of the majors on this interesting ranking. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Education, Philosophy Tags: College Degrees, Philosophy Degree, Philosophy Majors No Comments »Daily Hilarity: Team Identification
September 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comedy, Hilarious Tags: Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Sketch Comedy, Sports, That Mitchell and Webb Look No Comments »Derren Brown Plays 9 World Class Chess Players Simultaneously And Loses To Only 3
September 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke And shows us the super-cool way he does it in this video. And don’t forget to check out his current trick (and my inspiration to go see more of his past videos) by clicking here. The trick is that he “predicts the lottery numbers” live on TV. Your Thoughts?
Harvard And Yale Lose Billions
September 10th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Rather mind-boggling numbers: Harvard’s endowment tumbled 27.3 percent in its latest fiscal year, largely because of problems with its private equity and hedge fund portfolios, lopping off $10 billion and shrinking its portfolio to $26 billion. Meanwhile, Yale University suffered about a 30 percent loss in its portfolio, to $16 billion, the university’s president disclosed in [...]
Gorgeous Wave Photography By Clark Little
September 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Click here for more stunningly beautiful photographs like these: Here’s Clark’s website and information about his new book, The Shorebreak Art of Clark Little.
Valedictorian’s Benediction Gets Way Out Of Hand
September 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Stick with this video to its bizarre ending. I oppose benedictions and forced group prayer in public institutions because of the offensive presumption to speak on behalf of a mixed group in the case of group prayer and the arrogant presumption that the audience accepts the authority of the giver of the benediction to invoke [...]
Laura Marlingmania
September 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke For tonight’s entertainment, here is about 70 minutes of the best of Laura Marling on youtube as conveniently culled by Camels With Hammers for you. Interview: Her amazing album is Alas I Cannot Swim. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Indie Music, Music, Music Videos, Videos Tags: "Alas I Cannot Swim", Laura Marling No Comments »What It’s Like To Be An Atheist
September 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Smoke had a great line last night on what it’s like being in a world where not only is religion dominant but where even most of the secularists (in Smoke’s specific case, this means his secular wife) cling to vague “spiritual” notions: I feel like Jimmy Stewart’s character in Harvey, in reverse; everyone but me sees the [...]
Ghosts
September 9th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Laura Marling has one of those rare voices and phrasing styles that seriously makes my heart hurt with its sublimity and keeps me repeatedly hitting the repeat button on my i-pod. Out of the nearly 9000 songs on my i-pod, those featuring Marling, Lisa Hannigan, Neko Case, Lykke Li, Amy Millan, Nina Persson, and Victoria Bergsman get the [...]
Tug Of War With A Child’s Mind
September 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Richard Wade regularly provides wise advice to readers with issues related to socially engaging the world as an atheist. Today he deals with a really interesting letter from an atheist struggling with his religious parents over the ability to raise his daughter as he sees fit: It’s no secret that my family is discouraged and [...]
Posted in Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Religion, Secularism Tags: Grandparenting, Parenting No Comments »Al Franken Draws US Map
September 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Neat stuff. Of course, having no drawing ability myself, I’m impessed if someone can draw a sandwich let alone the whole map of the US: via Pharyngula Your Thoughts?
Religious Professors Mocking Students’ Loss Of Faith
September 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke The Peaceful Atheist, a Wheaton graduate who lost her faith early in her time at the Evangelical college describes being alienated by Wheaton professors using anecdotes of their former students who’d left the faith as “cautionary tales”: While I was at Wheaton I only came out to 2 professors, and it took both an extremely [...]
Daily Hilarity: Do You Wanna Date My Avatar
September 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Via hurtlingthroughspace comes a charming send up of online fantasy geekhood:
Posted in Comedy, Hilarious, Music Videos, Parody, Videos Tags: Avatars, Do You Wanna Date My Avatar, Online Geeks, The Guild No Comments »
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