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A couple of days ago I argued that New Atheism was primarily a movement interested in advancing a number of moral causes. New Atheists are, in short, very motivated by, and invested in advocating for, a range of moral judgments about the ethical rightness of people thinking both freely and scrupulously for themselves and not [...]
Archive for February, 2012
Defending The Value of The New Atheist Commitment To Truthfulness For Its Own Sake
February 29th, 2012 
Daniel Fincke A couple days ago I wrote the following: New Atheists specifically are a morally motivated group of people. Yes, there is some concern for simple advancement of science. But even accommodationists are interested in that. What characteristically distinguishes the New Atheists is that we refuse the moralcompromise with faith-based, authoritarian religions that other atheists are willing to [...]
In Defense of Appropriate Intellectual Intolerance
February 29th, 2012 Daniel Fincke In a post a couple of days ago, I examined, defended, celebrated, and gave general precautionary warnings about the various ways that New Atheists are fundamentally motivated by moral commitments and about how much of the substance of what concerns us has to do with issues of morality. In reply, Beth made the most tired [...]
Posted in Atheism 
Tags: Agnostic, Dawkins, Dawkins is an Agnostic, Intellectual Intolerance 
10 Comments »Synthetic Meat
February 29th, 2012 Daniel Fincke I find this such an exciting prospect, whether or not our current treatment of animals is as bad as is alleged. Your Thoughts?
Creating Objects That Tell Stories
February 29th, 2012 Daniel Fincke On Sunday, I saw Yves Behar on CNN’s show The Next List (segment previewed above) and was amazed by his work. Here is a TED video from a few years ago where he talks about his projects:
The Pitfalls of Postmodernism
February 28th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Tony Debono, a Camels With Hammers reader who I enjoyed getting to know after he friended me on Facebook today, wrote and sent me this, which made me smile:
Posted in Comic Strips, Comic Strips, Hilarious, Philosophy, Satire, Satire Tags: Hitler, Postmodernism, Stare Dad 25 Comments »Kids Can’t Watch Depiction of What Their Lives Are Like
February 28th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Sounds like an Onion title when put like that, no? Here’s a documentary about the bullying kids’ suffer that the MPAA rated R: The MPAA defended its judgment thusly:
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Film, Film, Film Reviews, Film Reviews, News, News Discussion, News Discussion Tags: Bully, Linda Holmes, Movie Ratings, MPAA, PG-13 Rating, R-Rating 20 Comments »Before I Deconverted: I Dabbled With Calvinism In College (Everyone Was Doing It)
February 27th, 2012 Daniel Fincke I’m writing a series of posts about my Christian upbringing and the philosophical and personal road to my deconversion. Often it is easy for atheists, especially for those who never were serious religious believers, to not understand how religious thinking works from the inside. What counts as evidence for or against theological propositions when you [...]
Anti-Accommodationism Is Pro-Philosophy
February 27th, 2012 Daniel Fincke “Accommodationist” atheists are those who do not want atheists to vigorously publicly attack religious beliefs and institutions, lest they risk alienating open-minded liberal and moderate religious people and turn them off to belief in evolution, climate change, science-based education and medicine, separation of church and state, or other crucial matters of public policy. Accommodationists fear, [...]
New Atheism Is A Moral Movement
February 27th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Last night I argued that when fundamentalist religious people, out of an inflated sense of privilege, demand that no one never offend them, that atheists should challenge the moral rightness of the fundamentlists’ specific, hypersensitive, unwarranted feelings of offense. I argued we should do this rather than indiscriminately defend the right to morally offend people [...]
I’m a Muppet of a Man, I’m a Very Manly Muppet
February 26th, 2012 Daniel Fincke In honor of the most justly deserved Oscar win for “Man or Muppet” just now, I am reposting my personal meditation/film review which was inspired by the song and written (and lost in the barrage of so many posts) during my January blogathon. Enjoy!
Posted in Film, Film, Film Reviews, Film Reviews, Music, Music, Personal Tags: "Man or Muppet", Academy Awards 2012, Am I A Man or Am I a Muppet, Fame, Jason Segal, Kermit the Frog, Man or Muppet Academy Award Win, Man or Muppet Academy Award Winning Song, Man or Muppet Music Video, Oscars, The Muppet Movie, The Muppets 2011 1 Comment »Moral Offense Is Not Morally Neutral
February 26th, 2012 Daniel Fincke A couple weeks ago I challenged the notion that everyone has the moral right to be offended by whatever they happen to feel offended by. I acknowledged, of course, that we do (and should) have the legal right to feel whatever feelings we do. But morally, I argued, we are not justified to take offense unless [...]
What Is Matter?
February 26th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Learn in a couple minutes: I ran this by a padawan physicist (i.e., a physics graduate student) and here was his verdict on the accuracy:
What Rick Santorum Sounds Like To Me
February 26th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Bad Lip Reading nails it. Your Thoughts?
Rick Santorum’s Phony Theology
February 26th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Chris Matthews nails Rick Santorum and identifies just which phony theology Rick Santorum actually has: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Your Thoughts?
Posted in Politics, Politics Tags: Catholic Church on Climate Change, Catholic Church on Environment, Catholic Environmentalism, Climate Change, Dominionists, Environmentalism, Pope Benedict XVI, Rick Santorum More Evangelical Than Catholic, Rick Santorum Theocrat, Rick Santorum vs. Pope on Climate Change, Roman Catholicism, The Pope's View of Climate Change 6 Comments »They Have Gay People At Bob Jones University Too
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Did you know they have gay people at Bob Jones University too? Libby Anne has the scoop. My own über-fundamentalist alma mater, Grove City College, has gay people too. They even started a rainbow alliance group, one even named after our campus’s iconic “Rainbow Bridge”. I interviewed the brave founder of the group, Jesy Littlejohn, last [...]
Thunderf00t: YouTube Has Started Banning Religiously Offensive Videos
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Spread it before it gets removed by YouTube. YouTube needs to learn that not everyone has a moral right to be offended by just anything and make their policies accordingly. H/T: Al Stefanelli Your Thoughts? ___________________ In the comments, TomeWyrm offers helpful advice: If you’d like to download it, you can use the bookmarklet and [...]
Posted in Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Free Speech, Free Speech Tags: Censorship, Dawah Films, Mohammed, Thunderf00t, Youtube 31 Comments »Santorum: Obama Is A “Snob” For Wanting All To Go To College And Be “Made In His Image”
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Santorum’s courageous crusade against college continues. The Republican presidential primary has turned into the longest, most amazing game of limbo in human history. The bar just keeps getting lower and lower and lower and the candidates keep worming their way under it in hitherto unfathomable ways. Your Thoughts?
The Truth About The Help
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Melissa Harris-Perry hated the film The Help. You can see her memorably scathing, outraged review here. This morning, ahead of the Oscar’s, she had a really illuminating segment on the real history of African American women domestic workers, the economic and sexual exploitation they have suffered, their role in the Civil Rights Movement, and the disservices [...]
Posted in Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Film, Film, Film Reviews, Film Reviews, History Tags: Barbara Young, Civil Rights Movement, Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century America, Elon James White, Jim Crow, Melissa Harris-Perry, Micki McElya, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Rosa Parks, The Help 9 Comments »Some Proposed Phantom Menace Rewrites
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke I’ve heard and read volumes’ worth of Star Wars criticism in my day. While this is neither the best nor the worst, these ideas are somewhat novel and interesting steps in good directions that all manage to keep in tact the basic structure of episode I. I think the reimagining could be way more ambitious [...]
Teens Are Having Sex?? Blame Planned Parenthood!!
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke An incendiary NSFW propaganda video from some folks who think that ignorance, abstinence, homophobia, and transphobia are the panaceas to all that ails our youth. (They also think that Planned Parenthood gives out contraception to increase STDs and abortions!) Your Thoughts?
Oh, Homophobes
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Will they ever learn?
Posted in Hilarious, Homophobia, Homophobia, LGBTQAA Tags: Facebook, Funny Facebook Screengrabs, Homophobia, Hypocrisy 11 Comments »The History of Sleep
February 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Relaying the discoveries of Roger Ekirch (author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past) and Craig Koslofsky (author of Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe), Stephanie Hegarty writes a long and fascinating article about how in past eras people who lived with long, dark nights tended to sleep in two segments [...]
Why Don’t All Theists Uncertain of God’s Existence Call Themselves Agnostics?
February 24th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Richard Dawkins was debating the Archbishop of Canterbury when this happened: There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator. The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered [...]
Posted in Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Richard Dawkins 21 Comments »Documenting the Nones
February 24th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Richard Dawkins explains the reasoning behinds his recent efforts to find out just how seriously British citizens who identify as Christian take their faith: Some years ago, a colleague was admitted to hospital and a nurse came over to her bedside to fill in her personal form. “Religion?” “None.” Later, my colleague overheard a pair [...]
Posted in Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Politics, Politics, Richard Dawkins 2 Comments »
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