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The season finale is here: Your Thoughts?
Archive for November, 2011
From Obsession With Christian “Modesty” To An Eating Disorder
November 23rd, 2011 
Daniel Fincke Sierra tells her story on No Longer Quivering: Modesty taught me that my first priority needed to be making sure I wasn’t a “stumbling block” to men. Not being sexually attractive was the most important thing I had to consider when buying clothes, putting them on, maintaining my weight (can’t have things getting tight!), and moving [...]
Lou Marinoff Explains Philosophical Counseling
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Lou Marinoff is the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the City College of New York and the author of Plato, Not Prozac! He is a founder of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. He appeared on Massimo Pigliucci’s Rationally Speaking podcast two days ago to explain the concept of philosophical counseling. It’s a fascinating and [...]
Answering Objections From A Moral Nihilist
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Earlier today I explained why moral nihilism is self-contradictory in reply to a comment by thedudediogenes on my earlier attack on moral nihilism from last Friday. thedudediogenes also wrote: How I look at morality is influenced most strongly by Nietzsche, Mackie, Leiter, Garner, Greene and Blackford. I think we project our moral sentiments onto the world. [...]
Why Moral Nihilism Is Self-Contradictory
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke My post against moral nihilism on Friday received many stimulating replies. I hope to address those replies, or their general concerns, as there is time and occasion in future posts. In this post–and in another I have written for later today–I want to start by answering thedudediogenes. He is the most seemingly self-conscious moral nihilist [...]
Posted in Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology 
19 Comments »Interviews With Animated, Enthusiastic, Wildly Gesticulating Philosophers
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Do you like animated enthusiastic philosophers who explain their views in lots of hand motions? Then take a look at this brief video of Raymond Guess. And, you know, there’s also me: Your Thoughts?
Full Video of Republican Theocratathon
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Last weekend the Republican candidates met for the “Thanksgiving Family Forum” where, except for Ron Paul, they each tried to prove they were the holiest Christian and, therefore, the most deserving candidate for president of our theocracy democracy. The actual discussions with the candidates do not start until 36 minutes in. And, as Jerry Coyne [...]
Posted in Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State 2 Comments »The Injustice of the Universe and Christianity
November 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Matt Dillahunty has a nice five minute reply to someone who believes in Christianity in order to believe justice will be meted out even to those escape worldly justice. He weaves several important considerations about the irrationality of basing a belief on such a desire and about the problems with Christianity’s views on justice: Your [...]
Calling Out And Debunking William Lane Craig’s Smears Against Infidels and Apostates
November 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Is William Lane Craig a philosopher? Some atheists seem to want to dismiss him as strictly a theologian and in no way a philosopher but sometimes he clearly attempts to make strictly philosophical arguments. By strictly philosophical arguments I mean ones whose premises make no necessary appeal to any presumed religious authorities but theoretically could [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Personal, Secularism, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian 
Tags: Apostates, Sex and Apostasy, Why People Leave Their Faith, William Lane Craig 16 Comments »Jesus Wouldn’t DARE Coerce People Into Charity!
November 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke You know, for a guy who’s supposedly all about hating gays, Jesus as sure had a lot of people’s arms up his ass using him as a ventriloquist puppet. As far as I’m concerned when nearly everyone except serious historians talk about Jesus as an authority who proves their own values are correct, they had [...]
Posted in Atheism, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Jesus, Jesus, Religion Tags: Easier For Camel To Go Through Eye of Needle, Hell, Jesus, Jesus and Ayn Rand, Jesus and Hayek, Jesus Rich People Hell, Lazarus and Rich Man, Libertarianism, Luke 16:19-31, Luke 6:20-26, Mark 10:17-25, Matthew 25:31-46, Occupy Jesus, Occupy Wall Street, Rich People, Rich Young Man, Sheep and Goats, Threats of Hell, Woe to the Rich 13 Comments »Atheists Perceived As Less Trustworthy Than Rapists??
November 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke I may have underestimated in the past just how bad misperceptions of us are: Consider one of the experiments. One hundred and five students read a brief vignette about a man who fails to take responsibility when he hits a parked van with his car, and then pockets money from a wallet he finds on [...]
Thinking According To Scale
November 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke PZ and Crommunist offer nice denunciations of the significance of a graphic which has been going around the internet which concludes that the chance of any given individual alive today ever existing was 1 in 102,685,000. Below the fold is the graphic, key snippets of their remarks and the lesson to draw for how we should consider [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Biology, Biology, Ethics, Ethics, Evolution, Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Probability, Psychology, Psychology, PZ Myers, PZ Myers, Science, Science, Sociobiology, Sociobiology Tags: Crommunist Manifesto, Grind the universe down to its finest powder, Hierarchical Reductionism, PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Richard Dawkins on Reductionism, Terry Pratchett, The Blind Watchmaker 3 Comments »Before I Deconverted: I Was A Teenage Christian Contrarian
November 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke A few weeks ago I began chronicling the story of my Christianity, my deconversion, and my personal and intellectual development post-deconversion. I began with the reminiscences, Before I Deconverted: My Christian Childhood and Before I Deconverted: Ministers As Powerful Role Models. This post is a series of recollections of my high school religiosity. Below I cover [...]
Finding And Combating Aging Genes
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Cynthia Kenyon at TED: via Colin Farrelly Your Thoughts?
Hemant Mehta Declares WAR on Freethought Blogs!
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Hemant Mehta, the internet’s friendly neighborhood atheist linked to a really interesting article on the founding of Patheos and the philosophy of its founders. They come across more as outsiders to religion sincerely devoted to providing accuracy and quality in the presentation of a range of viewpoints and to accomplishing the Herculean task of getting the [...]
Posted in About This Blog Tags: Digital Cuttlefish, Hemant Mehta, Patheos, Richard Wade 9 Comments »What Are Monkeys’, Chimps’, and Dogs’ Thoughts Like?
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this audio file from Philosophy Bites, philosopher of mind Tim Crane discusses what philosophical and psychological methods there are for potentially figuring out what kinds of minds and thoughts animals might have. He has the most to say about chimps, monkeys, and dogs. He is the author of The Mechanical Mind: A Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental Representation,Elements [...]
Mimicking the Brain in Silicon
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke MIT researchers make progress towards a potentially amazing accomplishment: For decades, scientists have dreamed of building computer systems that could replicate the human brain’s talent for learning new tasks. MIT researchers have now taken a major step toward that goal by designing a computer chip that mimics how the brain’s neurons adapt in response to [...]
The Eeriest Protest (Or Is It A Shaming?)
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke First some background. As you have likely seen by now, on Friday police pepper sprayed students at UC Davis: In response to that, one blogger suggested pepper spraying is torture. Do you think so? Also an assistant professor in English at the school, Nathan Brown, wrote an open letter to the Chancellor Linda Katehi. Linda [...]
What It’s Like To Be A Blogger
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this video, the blogger is played by the legendary Rick Moranis and the blog is played by a singing plant. The infuriating evil people one feeds to one’s blog are played by Steve Martin: (I was obsessed with this movie in 4th Grade. It remains one of my very favorites.) Your Thoughts?
Tim Minchin: “Just Don’t Be Cruel To ANYONE, Ever.”
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In the comments section of a Rebecca Watson post, Tim Minchin writes: I stay in a lot of hotels and travel in a lot of elevators. They are very helpful, what with their elevating properties and all. Sometimes, I am in an elevator with a woman. Just me and her. In this little, quiet, rumbly [...]
Maryam Namazie Attacks Shari’a And Defends Muslim Immigrants Against The Far Right
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke A great lecture and Q&A my estimable Freethought Blogs colleague Maryam Namazie: . An important excerpt from the Q&A: Look, George Bush says he attacked Iraq for women’s rights and I’m a women’s rights campaigner, but I don’t believe him. It’s possible that a politician will say something, that they’ve done something for a reason and, [...]
Posted in Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Feminism, Feminism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Islam, Islam, Koran, Koran, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Issues No Comments »Is The Use of Pepper Spray Torture?
November 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Yesterday digby discussed various cases of the use of pepper spray to argue that it is obviously torture. Is it torture? If it is torture but in some cases it could foreseeably prevent an altercation with greater likelihood of long term physical damage could it be justified nonetheless? Is it only unjustified when applied to non-violent [...]
Religious and Moral Conviction Provision Dropped From Anti-Bullying Law
November 19th, 2011 Daniel Fincke On Sunday, I wrote a dialogue debating the pros and cons of specifically exempting statements of “sincere religious or moral convictions” from being taken as bullying in an anti-bullying law for schools. I’m only seeing now that on Monday there was big news about the proposed exception that sparked this debate: Gay and Muslim groups [...]
A Philosophical Polemic Against Moral Nihilism
November 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jesse is undeterred by my argument that at least some of our moralities (or elements of them) can be objectively defended even though the physical universe (taken as an entirety) does not care about them: Daniel– I haven’t gone deeply enough through the other posts you linked to, and I will — but I think [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues 31 Comments »South Park Savages Dogmatic Agnostics
November 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Someone finally satirizes the agnostics for once, starting at 0:50 in the first video below and continuing through the others. (My own quibbles with agnostics are spelled out more philosophically and less humorously primarily in the posts 7 Reasons Why I Label Myself An Atheist Rather Than An Agnostic, Beyond Agnosticism: More Details About How [...]
Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Hilarious, Parody, Parody, Satire, Satire Tags: Agnosticism, Criticisms of Agnosticism, South Park on Agnosticism 2 Comments »
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