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There’s been some great discussion here about issues related to truth – thanks! Still, I’m surprised that nobody has yet addressed the claims about atheism and reverence for truth. The real issue for me is whether or not atheists tend to agree with my last paragraph: Paul Tillich wrote that “whatever concerns a man ultimately [...]
Archive for December, 2011
Do Atheists Worship Truth?
December 15th, 2011 
Eric Steinhart Although many atheists seem hostile to metaphysics, that hostility is misplaced. Any deep philosophical position is bound to presuppose some metaphysics. Pure reason is also highly abstract. Should pure reason be constrained by empirical evidence? How? All efforts to specify any criterion of empirical verifiability or falsifiablity have failed. Science today is highly abstract – [...]
Paternalistic Patriarchal Surgeons And A Philosopher’s Choice To Have No Children
December 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke A philosopher was faced with the choice between a vitally necessary surgery and giving up the chance to have children. This was an easy choice for her to make, but a hard one for the surgeons to accept: I assured the surgeons, my partner and I weren’t planning on having kids. Naively, I thought this [...]
Atheism and Beauty
December 14th, 2011 Eric Steinhart Some atheists seem to be inspired by a thorough-going hatred of metaphysics; perhaps even a thorough-going hatred of all abstract reasoning. They are radical positivists (or radical nominalists, but I’ll focus on positivism). Positivism is the doctrine that only that which is empirically verifiable has any truth or reality. And while radical positivism does imply [...]
Top Your Tree With the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
December 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke You can order one here. More atheist themed holiday decorations here. A closer view below the fold:
No, Professor Plantinga, Non-theism IS A Scientific Implication of Evolution
December 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In a New York Times profile, Alvin Plantinga, a generation’s most prominent Christian philosopher, says a lot of highly disputable things about the supposed rationality of theism and the supposed irrationality of naturalism and atheism. He does this in the process of summarizing some of the theses of his new book on science and religion, [...]
Criticizing Wicca: Energy
December 13th, 2011 Eric Steinhart On the basis of my reading of a few Wiccan texts, I said that Wiccans believe that their ultimate deity is the ultimate immanent creative power of being. This is an old Platonic idea. The existence of such a power of being is endorsed by a number of atheistic philosophers (like Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and [...]
Jokers
December 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke via Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comic Books, Comic Books, Comic Books, Film, Film, Unintentional Comedy, Unintentional Comedy 
Tags: Autograph Seekers, Batman 1989, Funny Pictures, Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson, Jack Nicholson vs. Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson's Joker vs. Heath Ledger's Joker, The Dark Knight, The Joker 
4 Comments »Atheistic Holidays
December 12th, 2011 Eric Steinhart As Christianity came to dominate older pagan religions, it Christianized their holidays. The holidays were not abandoned, they were modified. And as Christianity fades away, the holidays are becoming de-Christianized. The main Western religious holidays were pagan before Christianity and they are becoming pagan again after Christianity. If atheism is ever to become a successful [...]
Nine Theses on Wicca and Atheism
December 11th, 2011 Eric Steinhart I’m planning a pretty long series of posts here. Mainly, I’m going to be arguing for several theses. I won’t do posts that present them one by one; each post will typically deal with many theses. Here they are: The first thesis is that as Christianity declines in America, two communities will be growing: an [...]
Posted in Atheism, Culture, Naturalism, Paganism, Philosophy, Religion, Religion and Science, Wicca 33 Comments »Thoughts and Questions About Obama
December 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Before Obama, America had not elected as president a legislator, either a congressperson or a senator, for decades. We have consistently preferred governors, vice presidents, and generals. Now in electing Obama we have a legislator, law professor, and grass roots organizer. We have someone whose skills are building consensus, managing intricate relationships with allies and enemies, [...]
Christian Children: The True Victims of the War on Christmas
December 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is so well done: War On Christmas PSA Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Hilarious, Homophobia, Homophobia, Parody, Parody, Political Satire, Political Satire, Religulous, Religulous, Satire, Satire Tags: "War on Christmas" PSA, Rick Perry 6 Comments »On Atheistic Religion
December 10th, 2011 Eric Steinhart We’re rational animals. Which means that we’re rational. And that we’re animals. Many biological and neurological necessities are satisfied by religion. Your neocortex has to live with your limbic system. And as long as we humans have limbic systems in our brains, we’re going to be religious (more on that later). Atheists tend to downplay [...]
The Wiccan Deity: Related Concepts in Philosophy
December 9th, 2011 Eric Steinhart Eric Steinhart here. On my analysis of several key Wiccan texts, I’ve said that the Wiccan deity is the ultimate immanent creative power of being. This is a non-theistic and non-Christian concept of the divine. Please try to avoid projecting theistic or Christian concepts into Wicca. The Wiccan deity is not a thing; on the [...]
Posted in Atheism, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Nietzsche, Paganism, Philosophy, Religion, Religion and Science, Wicca 41 Comments »An Atheist’s Reply To Rick Perry
December 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke James Kotecki responds to this. Friendly Atheist has a reply of their own up too. Your Thoughts?
The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis
December 8th, 2011 Eric Steinhart More from Eric Steinhart on the Wiccan ultimate deity (which I’ll just refer to as the Wiccan deity). This deity is not the Wiccan god or the goddess, but is ontologically prior to them. My purpose in this post is to talk about some of the features of this deity and its relation to some [...]
Posted in Atheism, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Paganism, Philosophy, Religion and Science, Wicca 17 Comments »The Theistic Deity and Atheism Defined
December 7th, 2011 Eric Steinhart Eric Steinhart here. I’ve been asked to clarify my terms, and it’s good to do so. As a philosopher, I always try to use terms in their most precise and specific senses. The Theistic Deity. The theistic deity is a transcendental person who acts in the universe. The theistic deity is a being (it is [...]
The Wiccan Deity
December 7th, 2011 Eric Steinhart It’s Eric Steinhart here again. I’m going to begin my critical philosophical posts on Wicca by dealing with the Wiccan ultimate deity. First, I’ll present some quotes from Wiccans describing this deity. Next (in a separate post), I’ll do some analysis and compare and contrast this deity with some other deities in the Western religious [...]
Atheism and Wicca
December 5th, 2011 Eric Steinhart Hi there! I’m Eric Steinhart, helping out here at Camels With Hammers. I’m always interested in new religious movements, especially the emergence of new types of Western religion. So I’ve been interested in watching the emergence of neo-paganism in America. America is supposed to be a Christian nation; yet, as every atheist surely knows, Christianity [...]
Welcome Eric Steinhart Back To Camels With Hammers
December 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Eric Steinhart, has not posted yet since Camels With Hammers moved to Freethought Blogs and for a while we did not have the archives of his articles available. I am excited to announce that Eric will be coming back this week to fill for me while I am sick. And you can now read his [...]
Sick. Please Catch Up On Previous Posts While I Take A Short Hiatus
December 4th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Well, it was bound to happen. I’m finally sick. For over 3 months now I’ve been working 6 days a week teaching 9 sections of philosophy at 5 schools which are spread over 4 land masses in 3 states, all while devoting Sundays and late nights and early mornings to writing near daily philosophical essays [...]
Dan Barker Makes Sense of the Gospel Message
December 3rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke I know Dan Barker claims to be only a former Christian minister but he still has a gift for bringing the Gospel message alive in a fresh, new way that makes powerful sense of it. It’s weird it would take an atheist’s description to make me see angles in the story of salvation which I [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Christianity, Christianity, God, God, Hilarious, Jesus, Jesus, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Religulous, Religulous, Satire, Satire 3 Comments »Podcast Series Covering The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
December 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Earlier today, I posted a link to an exceptional, accessible podcast introduction to the philosophies of the ancient cynics. The whole series that that podcast comes from is a marvelous idea and the few I’ve listened to are just great. It’s called “The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps” and it’s a must listen, basically a [...]
Posted in Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Plato, Plato, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Anaximines, Ancient Atomists, Aristotle, Aristotle on Biology, Aristotle on Four Causes, Aristotle on God, Aristotle on Logic, Aristotle on Mind, Aristotle on Physics, Aristotle on Soul, Aristotle's Life and Works, Aristotle's Politics, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Atomists, Charmides, Cratylus, Cynics, Cyrenaics, Empedocles, Epicurus, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Hellenistic Philosophy, Heraclitus, Hippocrates, Melissus, Parmenides, Plato, Plato's Cratylus, Plato's Erotic Dialogues, Plato's Gorgias, Plato's Parmenides, Plato's Republic, Platonic Love, Presocratics, Pythagoras, Socrates, Sophists, Sorabji on Aristotle, Thales, The Republic, The Sophist, Zeno 8 Comments »If You Love South Park, Learn About the Originals–The Ancient Cynics
December 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke What kinds of philosophers choose the name for their school of philosophy from the word for dogs? The cynics, who were basically social-convention flouting performance artists and proto-south park scatalogical/philosophical satirists of their time. Learn plenty about them in a very accessible 22 minutes, filled with charming anecdotes. An ancient philosophy specialist and friend of mine recommended [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Comedy, Comedy, Ethics, Ethics, Hilarious, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Plato, Plato, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Antisthenes, Demetrius, Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes of Synope, Pleasure, Socrates 3 Comments »Do We Need To Write Off Debts To Stave Off Two-Decade Long Depression?
December 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Okay, I have no competence to discuss economics with any significant level of expertise. I found this video with economist Steve Keen interesting and I would be interested to see those of you who know something about economics discuss it: Your Thoughts?
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