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I have never liked General McChrystal being allowed to run our Afghanistan operations. Long before his current foolish comments in Rolling Stone that have gotten him fired and replaced by General Petraeus, he should have been brought up on charges of war crimes: “Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. ‘Will [the Red Cross] [...]
Archive for June, 2010
McChrystal The Torturer
June 23rd, 2010 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Andrew Sullivan, Law & Politics, Military, News Discussion, Politics 
Tags: Stanley McChrystal, Torture 
No Comments »Rightful Pride: Identification With One’s Own Admirable Powers And Effects
June 23rd, 2010 Daniel Fincke Pride is essentially the personal identification with something admirable. When I am rightly proud of my traits, I rightly take the traits themselves each to be admirable in one way or another and rightly take myself to be admirable insofar as they are part of me and expressions of me. When I am rightly proud [...]
The Hard Evidence Against A Literal Adam And Eve
June 23rd, 2010 Daniel Fincke Jerry Coyne explains why the proposed idea of a single pair of original human ancestors is refuted by what we know of our evolutionary ancestry: Over at the Templeton-funded BioLogos website there has been a lot of discussion about the historicity of Adam and Eve. This is a problem because scripture claims these two were [...]
Posted in Bible, Biology, Christianity, Creationism, Evolution, Religion, Religion and Science, Science Tags: Adam and Eve, Jerry Coyne, Literal Readings of Genesis No Comments »Camels With Hammers Turns 1 Year Old Today
June 22nd, 2010 Daniel Fincke THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to all of you who keep reading and who commenting on Camels With Hammers and who keep sharing links with your friends and with all sorts of social media sites. Running this blog over this past year and watching your support and enthusiasm for the blog grow has been [...]
A Quick, Belated Post For Yesterday’s “Atheist Solidarity Day”
June 22nd, 2010 Daniel Fincke Yesterday was the first annual “Atheist Solidarity Day” but since I was too busy to blog I never got around to doing anything special for it here. So, now I hereby affirm, in honor of “Atheist Solidarity Day”, that I’ve got your back, fellow atheists. Your Solidarity?
Disambiguating Faith: Why Faith Is Unethical (Or “In Defense Of The Ethical Obligation To Always Proportion Belief To Evidence”)
June 21st, 2010 Daniel Fincke A couple of weeks ago, I argued that there was a real distinction between “lacking a belief in any God or gods” on the one hand and “believing there is no God (or gods)” on the other hand. Primarily I saw the heart of the distinction as resting with the difference between on the one [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Disambiguating Faith, Duty, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Evidence, Faith, Featured, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Law, Metaethics, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Politics, Rationalism, Religion, Religious Extremism, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Skepticism, Teleology, Virtues, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Agnostic Atheism, Agnostic Theism, Belief, Belief Apportioned To Evidence, Evolutionary Epistemology, Evolutionary Ethics, Gnostic Atheism, Gnostic Theism, Indirect Consequentialism, Moral Formalism, Moral Rationalism, Principle of Sufficient Reason, Rational Belief 10 Comments »On The “Compassion” In The Catholic Bishops’ Letter To Congress Against Gay Rights
June 21st, 2010 Daniel Fincke Recently, United States bishops petitioned Congress to not protect gays from being fired for their sexual orientation. Andrew Sullivan already precisely attacked the bishops’ immoral political calculation by which they explicitly committed themselves to a perverse moral contradiction whereby they simultaneously concede that homosexuality is to a significant extent not a choice and argue that [...]
Posted in Andrew Sullivan, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Politics, Religion, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Same Sex Marriage Tags: ZJ Jones, ZJemptv No Comments »Daily Hilarity: A New Pope In A Galaxy Far, Far Away
June 21st, 2010 Daniel Fincke The absurdity of religious ceremonial pretensions are clarified a bit: Thanks to Heather for the link. Your Thoughts?
Daniel Dennett: Can We Know Our Own Minds?
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Daniel Dennett explains various limitations on our introspective understanding of our own consciousness. Your Thoughts?
Christopher Hitchens Vs. Laura Ingraham & Doug Wilson
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke They start talking after an opening minute of some Gospel Bob Dylan: Your Thoughts?
“The Law Of God Which Is Above Human Rights”
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Any religion, or interpretation of a religion which takes the view that the law of God can be above human rights cannot be immune to violating human rights. In this case, we have an Iranian cleric calling for unveiled women to be treated like criminals as though they were drug traffickers, robbers, or terrorists: Guardian [...]
Posted in Islam, News, News Discussion, World Affairs Tags: Ayatollah Ahmad Alam Hoda, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Iran No Comments »The Thing That Made The Things For Which There Is No Known Maker
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Strictly deriving belief in the Christian God logically from the problem of where everything comes from: It’s amazing how the problem of how something comes from nothing leads to so many obvious and unavoidable truths, isn’t it? Your Thoughts?
Bruce Bawer: Multiculturalism, Freedom of Speech and Appeasing Islam
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Bruce Bawer is a gay liberal and the author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. And below is a powerful speech. If you don’t have time for the whole thing, at least make time for the first part: The description of the video [...]
Noah’s Ark: God, Giraffes, & Genocide
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Thanks to Gordon for the video. Your Thoughts?
Muslims Illegally Shutting Down Streets Of Paris For Prayer
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Last week we mentioned that a proposed street festival of pork and wine protesting Muslims praying in the streets was prohibited from occurring in Paris. Here is footage of such prayer sessions, which apparently are meant to be an act of civil disobedience: Thanks to Tony for the link. Your Thoughts?
Therapist And Ex-Jehovah’s Witness Discusses Their Uses Of “Mind Control” Techniques
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Unfortunately, her descriptions of “cults” also apply to mainstream religions. Thanks to Jake, Raven, and Justin for the link. Your Thoughts?
The Perils Of Modern Book Burning
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke xkcd, of course. Bigger. Your Thoughts?
United Arab Emirates Court Sentences Teenage Gang Rape Victim To Prison
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke The weak, cruel, unjust, and barbarically stupid misogyny of laws in the Islamic world never ceases to sicken or anger me: A court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has convicted an 18 year old girl (”LH”) to one year in prison for “consensual sex.” The UAE court convicted her because she agreed to be alone [...]
Workshop To Teach Public School Teachers How To Proselytize In School
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Because no legal or moral principles matter more to some fundamentalists than their drive to evangelize: “Every day, 55 million American children and their teachers show up for school. For the nearly 90% who attend a public school, the ACLU and other anti-Christian organizations have systematically stripped almost every vestige of Christianity from their schools. [...]
Posted in Christianity, Fundamentalism, Law, Law & Politics, Politics, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Separation of Church and State Tags: First Baptist Church of Central Florida, Florida Baptist Convention, Liberty Council, Religion In Public Schools, Separation of Church and School, Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools No Comments »Con Edison Celebrates LGBT Pride Week
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Their official YouTube page explains: Con Edison celebrates LGBT Pride Week by displaying the Rainbow Flag in lights on its 425-foot historic tower on 14th Street in Manhattan. When played in real time, the “Rainbow Effect” takes one minute for each of the colors to circle the tower. The new LED lighting system was installed [...]
Zombie Harmony
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Do you like long, slow, lumbering walks on the beach? Thanks to Sarah. Your Thoughts?
Zakir Naik Compares Outspoken Apostasy To Treason And Supports Capital Punishment For It
June 20th, 2010 Daniel Fincke And that’s not all: On Osama bin Laden, [Zakir Naik] has said: “If he is terrorizing the terrorists, if he is terrorizing America the terrorist, the biggest terrorist, every Muslim should be a terrorist.” And now he is coming to Toronto in a couple of weeks for what “is being described as the largest Islamic [...]
Posted in Islam Tags: Apostasy, Islamic Death Penalty For Treason, Shaykh Saed Rageh, Zakir Naik No Comments »Daily Hilarity: Dave Allen On Religion
June 19th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Hilarious and insightful stuff: Thanks to Bruce for the link! Your Thoughts?
Posted in Christianity, Comedy, Hilarious, Roman Catholic Church, Videos Tags: Dave Allen, Stand Up Comedy, The Trinity No Comments »Here Be Dragons
June 19th, 2010 Daniel Fincke A well produced introductory film on how to think critically when sifting through pseudo-scientific pop culture from Brian Dunning, author of Skeptoid: Critical Analysis Of Pop Phenomena and the podcaster and blogger behind Skeptoid. It’s a terrific, lively, highly informative resource, especially for your less critical and informed friends. (thanks to Ky for the link) Your [...]
Posted in Skepticism Tags: Brian Dunning, Critical Thinking, Pseudoscience, Skeptoid, Superstition No Comments »
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