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I am seriously tempted to repost at least half of Hank’s posts since they’re so frequently so perfectly worded. Earlier tonight I excerpted from Stephanie’s eloquent case for forgetting. Here, for contrast, is Hank explaining the logic of “never forgetting”: Have you ever been stabbed in the back? By which I mean, really betrayed by [...]
Archive for September, 2011
In Honor of Firefighters
September 11th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke Today, remembering 9/11, I have been thinking about parts of two posts I wrote in 2009 which mean a lot to me, in which I meditated on the bravery of the firefighters. One of the posts is about my father, a retired New York City firefighter and fire marshal, and the other is about the [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Duty, Duty, Virtues, Virtues 
Tags: 9/11 Firefighters, Firefighters, Heroism, William Fincke, William X. Fincke, William Xavier Fincke 
No Comments »In It Together
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke James Baldwin, as quoted earlier this afternoon by Mayor Bloomberg: The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. Your Thoughts?
Forget
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Stephanie has a sublime and thought provoking meditation on the value of forgetting. Her whole piece is subtle and poignant, so read it in full: We don’t always learn the right lessons from history. We make myths and stories before our understanding matches our need to make sense of surreality. We don’t understand the scope [...]
Boy, Theology Is Hard: Archbishop Dolan Says God Used 9/11 To End Atheism In New York
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke We atheists are often accused of not taking on any serious theological arguments but picking on the low hanging fruit—the superstitious mythical obviously false bullshit that actual ordinary believers actually believe. We are assured that if only we engaged the serious thinkers of the great faiths we would have to respect the depth of what [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religulous, Religulous, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State Tags: Religious Intolerance of Atheists 10 Comments »Get Out Your Bullshit Detectors
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The “Redneck” Blue Collar Atheist has worked with plenty of animals in his time and apparently he can get deep piles of bull shit on demand and he’s threatening to use as much of it as necessary to counter my latest sally in our escalating blog war:
Why Clergy Rightfully Have No Place At A 9/11 Memorial (Or Any Civic Ceremonies)
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Some clergy have been upset that they were explicitly excluded from today’s ceremonies about 9/11. I alluded to this, with a link where you can read more, in the following critical remark yesterday: some [are taking] the opportunity [of 9/11's tenth anniversary] to selfishly feel aggrieved because their religion and its pseudo-authority and pseudo-comforts are neglected. [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Free Speech, Free Speech, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Jesus, Jesus, Law, Law, Law & Politics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Prayer, Prayer, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats Tags: 9/11, Funerals, Memorials, Rituals 6 Comments »What A “War on Terror” Should Mean vs. What it Has Meant
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Princeton’s emeritus philosophy professor Michael Walzer is co-editor of Dissent. He is not a George W. Bush yes-man. But he thinks that “war on terror” is a legitimate concept even as many leftish thinkers oppose it as a confusion. People argue that terrorism is a tactic, not a specific enemy you can target. In “Terrorism [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Politics, Politics, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Torture, Torture, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Michael Walzer, Terrorism, Terrorism and Genocide, Walzer on Terrorism, What is Terrorism?, What is wrong with Terrorism? 3 Comments »Islam, 9/11, and “True Religion” (Or “What Could George W. Bush Mean When Talking About True Islam?”)
September 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke What did it mean when George W. Bush talked about Islam really being a “religion of peace” and argued that it was not to blame for the murderous actions of terrorists? Bush was (and is) a true believing Evangelical Christian. How could he argue for a “true” interpretation of Islam when Islam is a falsehood [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Faith, Faith, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, Koran, Koran, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism 9 Comments »The Philosopher King As The Jester Mayor?
September 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Antanas Mockus, a mathematician and philosopher, decided to put his creatively shameless teacher’s sensibilities to the task of governing a violent city of 6.5 million, filled with corruption and thieving gangs of street children: When many hated the disordered and disorderly city of Bogotá, he wore a Superman costume and acted as a superhero called [...]
Internecine War At Freethought Blogs: Philosopher vs. “Redneck” Edition: Free Will And The Real World Smackdown
September 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke As far as I have noticed, there has not been a blog war between any of the Freethought Blogs (or, er, since we all moved here anyway) so I was a little trepidatious of going and picking apart the every word of a quick comment on one of my posts by my new favorite blogger, Hank [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Ethics, Ethics, Faith, Faith, God, God, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Psychology, Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Psychology Tags: Free Will 19 Comments »Your Thoughts On How Best To Remember 9/11?
September 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke What are your thoughts on all the 9/11 coverage? What do you think are the most important things for remembrances of the day and analyses of the last decade to do or not do in relation to this anniversary? Tomorrow I hope to have the time to write a few posts on a few major [...]
The “Moral Argument” For Free Will Is A Morally Troubling, Hypocritical, Faith Position
September 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Many who believe that we have free will are what philosophers call “libertarians”. These are not necessarily libertarians in the political sense but in a metaphysical sense. Libertarians conceive of free will as incompatible with determinism. Their notion is that to the extent that our actions are determined by forces or factors which are beyond [...]
Posted in Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Ethics, Ethics, Faith, Faith, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Hypocrisy of the moral argument for free will, Libertarian Free Will, The Moral Argument for Free Will 25 Comments »Can Good Teaching Be Measured?
September 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In recent posts I have been arguing that if only we interpret the word “good” to mean “effective” we can ground our discussions of values (moral and otherwise) in facts about effectivness. I argue that in that context we can have greater and lesser degrees of goodness, measurable in terms of greater or lesser degrees [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Education, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 6 Comments »Republican Candidates Take Strong Stand Against Inoculating Girls Against Cancer-Causing Virus
September 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke My jaw dropped when Paul used the words “forcibly” and “sexually transmitted disease” and “12 year old girls” in the same sentence when describing something as basic to public health as inoculation against a virus that currently a full 50% of all sexually active men and women will get. If you did not know what the [...]
The Contexts, Objective Hierarchies, and Spectra of Goods and Bads (Or “Why Murder Is Bad”)
September 7th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I wrote a post which laid out the cornerstone of my theory of objective value. In it I argued that “goodness equals effectiveness”. Wherever one uses the word “good”, one could substitute the word “effectiveness” and the sentence would mean the same thing. My view is that since effectiveness is clearly a measurable and factual matter [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Why Murder is Bad, Why Murder is Wrong 5 Comments »Read the Nominated Posts and Vote in 3 Quarks Daily’s Contest For Best Philosophy Blog Post 2011
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The contest is here. You have until 11:59pm on September 11 to read through the nominees and vote. If you read any of them come back here and let us know what you think of them. Your Thoughts?
Believing Too Little Is As Bad As Believing Too Much
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke When formulating principles and practices for forming good beliefs and avoiding bad beliefs, the first thing we must keep in mind is that consciously affirming a belief, consciously affirming a disbelief, deliberately avoiding believing or disbelieving are all actions. When we choose our standards for what propositions count as worthy of our belief, our disbelief, or [...]
Asperger’s High
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke On one level this video is very funny but on another, it is terribly sad. I hope it does not offend anyone: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFt2aZvg3qE Your Thoughts?
“Stocking Is The New Planking”
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Remember that fad where people would lie face down like a board in uncomfortable public places and photograph themselves and put the picture online (until someone accidentally died doing it)? Well there is a website that has become the next big internet meme of imitation of the moment. Stocking Is The New Planking wants you to [...]
Suing The Devil
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Nobody makes terribly blunt and bluntly terrible propaganda movies like the Evangelical Christians: Not a bad cast selling their souls in this one. Surprising how many mainstream actors have been appearing in these preachy schlocky un-self-aware imagination-free self-parodies the Evangelicals make. The kind of pathetic thing is that I remember watching Devil’s Advocate as an [...]
Too Pitifully Doleful and Delusional To Hate
September 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Okay, so the whole theocratic, historical revisionist, mythologizing, founding-father-worshipping, flag-waving, warmongering, posturing, self-righteous, faux-libertarian, white resentment-based Christianist identity politics of the “Tea Party” usually completely repulses me. But there is something about the pitiful dolefulness and delusional foolishness about the corny song below (“I Heard George Washington Weeping”) that I find peculiarly endearing. Maybe it’s [...]
What I Think About The Need For Atheist Solidarity and Activism
September 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In previous installments of my “What I Think About” series, I have given the cliff notes version of my views on objective values, faith and religion, science and faith, religious moderates and liberals, “evangelical atheism”, and why I call myself a gnostic theist/agnostic adeist. In this post, I explain why I am so passionate about supporting other atheists and creating community [...]
St. Vincent’s “Cruel”
September 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I cannot figure out what I love more, her brilliant music or her unique and remarkable theatrically controlled facial expressions. Her videos always mesmerize me, she’s positively electric on stage, and the songs get deep under the skin. She’s one of the best of our time. Support genius, pick up Strange Mercy. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Indie Music, Indie Music, Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Music, Music, Music Videos, Music Videos, Videos 1 Comment »Scapegoating Through Song, Swedish Style
September 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke If you know how to sing in Swedish, sing along, otherwise be sure the subtitles are on (the cc button on the YouTube player): Via Friendly Atheist Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Homophobia, Homophobia, LGBTQAA, Parody, Parody, Political Satire, Political Satire, Satire, Satire, Videos Tags: Novelties 6 Comments »
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