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Archive for September, 2011
The Good Simple Folks of Alaska Who Really Know Sarah Palin Speak…
September 18th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke In a new documentary by Nick Broomfield: One after another classmates and relatives come forward to grind axes and shiver at the prospect of a Palin presidency. They’re joined by former campaign managers, chief strategists, PR agents, mentors, preachers and policemen, all singing from the same hymn sheet: Palin’s ruthlessness and venom for revenge knows [...]
Encouragement
September 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Sierra writes about the impact of an English professor’s encouragement in opening her mind to her possibilities outside of the narrowly circumscribed life she was expecting from being raised in Christian patriarchy: One evening, as Bill handed me a paper I’d written with his comments, he asked, “Did you ever think of being a professional [...]
Clerk In New York Refuses To Sign Marriage Licences For Gay Married Couples
September 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Ledyard town clerk Rose Marie Belforti tacitly admits to imposing theocratic law on her constituents in blatant disregard for the actual laws she is tasked with enforcing: That all changed in August when Belforti sent a letter to the Ledyard town board two weeks after the Marriage Equality Act became law in New York, allowing [...]
The Religious Conservative’s False Choice: “Big Brother” Or “Heavenly Father”
September 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The following is a repost from February 23, 2011: In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in [...]
What Anti-Faith Commercials Could Look Like
September 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAKzYr4-wg&feature=player_embedded (video via Hank) So, the premise, legally banning religion is of course something we should not take seriously. But these mock ups of commercials for more generally and informally discarding bad religious ideas and ending identity-based divisiveness in religion are really valuable as anti-faith messages. Maybe some day when simply saying “You Can Be Good [...]
So… What If Your Only Options In A General Election Were Santorum, Perry, Palin, and Bachmann?
September 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Who is the least of all evils and why? Your Thoughts?
On Rejecting Faith in Morality
September 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Update: Joel Marks has replied to this post and to my first follow up post. I have reedited this post to incorporate his remarks at the end. Joel Marks is at the Center for Bioethics at Yale University and is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven. Though writing on ethics throughout [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Personal, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Skepticism, Skepticism 
1 Comment »Straw Dogs and The Human Mind
September 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Seeing the trailer for the upcoming remake of Straw Dogs made me think about the brilliant original film and about the shockingly violent and brutal lengths that a previously cowardly mathematician goes to to defend his home from invasion against threatening workmen, two of whom have already raped his wife. And whenever I think about [...]
The Evils of the Sermon on the Mount (Part 1)
September 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Progressives, regardless of whether they are liberal Christians or non-believers, like to accuse fundamentalist Christians of ignoring Jesus’s supposed message of love and tolerance which is supposedly epitomized by his remarks in the Sermon on the Mount. Actually reading the Bible, Jesus does not actually always live up to the billing progressives give him as [...]
Posted in Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Jesus, Jesus, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Sex, Women's Issues 
Tags: Sermon on the Mount 12 Comments »Did Theocrats Swing Weiner’s District Republican?
September 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Robbie George, the conservative Princeton Professor who opposes same-sex marriage, writes of an under-reported influence in Weiner’s Queens district (NY-9): In the run up to the election, a group of Orthodox rabbis, most from Brooklyn, but including others, notably Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky and Rabbi Simcha Bunim Cohen, two nationally prominent Orthodox Jewish authorities, published a [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Judaism, Law, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats 1 Comment »A Living Illustration of the Problem With Trying To Love The Gay Person But Hate Her Gayness
September 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The AP reports: Barbara Von Aspern loves her daughter, “thinks the world” of the person her daughter intends to marry and believes the pair should have the same legal rights as anyone else. It pains her, but Von Aspern is going to skip their wedding. Her daughter, Von Aspern explains, is marrying another woman. “We [...]
‘Nuff Said Award Winner: Discidius
September 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke HUMANCENTiPADGet More: SOUTHPARKKyle Broflovski,Eric Cartman,more… On Reddit, in a retort to a plea to stop patronizing people by telling them to read their Bibles and see the supposedly obvious things they are missing, discidius nails many Christians and makes the point for encouraging them to read their Bible more: Most Christians treat the bible like [...]
Posted in 'Nuff Said, 'Nuff Said, 'Nuff Said Tags: Centipad, I-pad, Software User Agreement, South Park 4 Comments »7 Reasons Why I Label Myself An Atheist Rather Than An Agnostic
September 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I have never joined a political party and even though I deeply mistrust today’s Republican party, I do not identify as a Democrat or a liberal or a progressive. The most I will say is that politically I am “left leaning”. I am happy to take any number of stands on any number of issues [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Secularism Tags: Agnosticism, Agnostics, David Hume, Descartes 14 Comments »Philip Pettit On How Consequentialism Can Respect The Integrity of Agents
September 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Princeton professor Philip Pettit makes the case for consequentialism on this week’s Philosophy Bites. The voices and elocution of everyone in this interview are worth the price of admission. I love the way they pronounce al-Qaeda (“al-kay-ee-duh”) in particular. Your Thoughts?
Why I Blog
September 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke To avoid living my entire life like this: via Your Thoughts?
A Debate About The Value of Permanent Promiscuity
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: I think monogamy is a mistake as an ideal. I believe in permanent promiscuity. Kelly: You’re saying people should cheat on each other? Jaime: No, if there were no monogamy there would be no cheating. We do not have monofriendamy do we? We do not say you are “cheating” on one of your friends [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Sex, Virtues, Virtues 46 Comments »The Objective Value of Ordered Complexity
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I argue that the word goodness should be interpreted to mean, in the most fundamental sense of the word, “effectiveness”. I also argue that since effectiveness is a factual issue, goodness is a factual issue. These controversial positions of mine raise a lot of thought provoking questions and challenges from readers. I am using this [...]
What It Means To Me To Be Free
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I think that in some meaningful ways, human beings are free. In a couple of previous posts and in subsequent comments in their comments sections, I have been arguing for the ways that we are not free in a libertarian sense, i.e., our actions are not “undetermined” by forces outside our fundamental control. We are [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind Tags: Free Will, Libertarian Free Will, Mind, Mind/Body, Self, Soft Determinism, Soft Determinism's Free Will 5 Comments »Our New Design!
September 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Freethought Blogs got a beautiful redesign this morning! We look less squeezed and cluttered to my eyes and you can efficiently and quickly see where to find both the Camels With Hammers and the overall Freethought Blogs Recent Posts, Comments, Archives all in two multi-tab boxes relatively high up on the page on the right side. [...]
How Religious Bullying Makes Atheists So Angry: One New Atheist’s Story
September 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I thought I saw an atheist, with fur and pointed claws, And wicked teeth for chewing up Judeo-Christian laws, I ran, and tripped, and fell to earth, then hid behind a log— It caught me, though, and licked my face—of course, it was a dog. I thought I saw an atheist, though cleverly disguised Not [...]
CONGRATULATIONS DAVE AND MEAGAN!!!
September 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is a special, special day for Camels With Hammers as Dave Smith, our webmaster, has just announced to Facebook (and thereby given me permission to announce to the rest of the world) that he is engaged to his beautiful, brilliant, and utterly hilarious new fiancé Meagan. Dave is an old friend. We lived across [...]
Love Virginity
September 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Ophelia has been digging up so much horrifying misogyny and abusive teachings about the roles of women and love and sex in various contemporary fundamentalist, evangelical, explicitly patriarchal communities that my jaw hits the floor and my heart sinks to my stomach just about every time I read her indispensable blog. Last night she highlighted [...]
Laura Marling and St. Vincent Release Spectacular Albums Tomorrow (Tuesday 9/13/11)
September 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Seriously, two of the most gifted and groundbreaking women in pop music today are both releasing staggeringly good third albums of their careers. For the love of music stream Laura Marling’s A Creature I Don’t Know at the New York Times Magazine and St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy at NPR while you still can, if you doubt me. And/or support their amazing [...]
“Fashion is the language. Style is what we choose to say in it.”
September 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke One of my favorite quotes for several years now has been this one on the meaning of style, as defined in contradistinction to fashion, from Robert Solomon in his book Living with Nietzsche: What the Great “Immoralist” Has to Teach Us: Style, while it varies from person to person, nevertheless begins with exuberance, a ‘yes-saying’ [...]
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