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“They called me a rebel. For years, I wore that name with shame until I realized that confronted with the god of my father, rebellion is the only moral option.”–Nate Phelps Nate Phelps is famous for being the atheist son of the infamous Fred Phelps, whose family was protesting the Reason Rally. I found Nate’s [...]
Archive for the ‘Atheism’ Category
Nate Phelps’s Sadness
March 26th, 2012 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Atheism 
Tags: Nate Phelps, Nate Phelps Reason Rally Speech, Reason Rally, Washington Mall 
15 Comments »My Impressions of Richard Wade
March 25th, 2012 Daniel Fincke I’m in Washington, D.C. at Union Station waiting for my Amtrak train back to New York after a pretty incredible weekend. I’m going to write a few posts to jot down my impressions and experiences from my weekend at the Reason Rally and the American Atheists’ annual convention. In this post, I’ll start by describing [...]
It’s “A” Week on Facebook!
March 17th, 2012 Daniel Fincke All this upcoming week (March 18-24), it’s time to sport this beautiful “A” for Atheist (or another of your own or another’s devising). in celebration of “A” Week! “A” Week is a chance for atheists to proudly make our non-belief known to our friends and families. I have a special fondness for “A” Week (as [...]
Posted in Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism Tags: "A" Week, "A" Week 2012, Atheism 6 Comments »Should We Love Abortion?
March 16th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Jessica DelBalzo argues yes and goes so far as to say women should “venerate it wholeheartedly”: Suggesting that abortion be “safe, legal, and rare,” and crowing that “no one likes abortion,” accomplishes nothing for women’s rights. Pandering to the anti-choice movement by implying that we allfind termination distasteful only fuels the fire against it. What good is [...]
My Interview With “Whatever Whatever Amen”
March 15th, 2012 Daniel Fincke A week and a half ago I had a blast being interviewed by Amy Childs (pictured above) for her podcast Whatever Whatever Amen. You can listen to our conversation here. Below is her description of our conversation topics: Freethought blogger and philosophy professor Dan Fincke talks with me today about all kinds of stuff, like…How attending a [...]
Posted in About This Blog, Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Personal No Comments »You Glance Out Your Window and See a Shackled Black Slave and a Slavery-Justifying Bible Verse. What Do You Think?
March 12th, 2012 Daniel Fincke I am surprised that even having read Sikivu Hutchinson’s detailed and eloquent denunciation of the American Atheists’ billboard featuring a vividly depicted bound African American slave beneath a Bible verse endorsing slavery, a fair amount of people still don’t seem to understand quite what was so wrong with it. So, below the offending picture, I’m [...]
Contra de Botton: Religions Are NOT To Credit With Universalistic Humanistic Values
March 12th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Alain de Botton’s chapter on community in his book Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion is filled with half-baked thinking. After one-sidedly disparaging modern social life from numerous selective (and sometimes specious) angles, he goes on to model really effectively how not to try to learn from religion (Kindle Location 189):
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, Jesus, Jesus, Judaism, Judaism, Koran, Koran, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Religion, Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights, Women's Rights 6 Comments »Against American Atheists’ Slavery Billboard
March 12th, 2012 Daniel Fincke In a superb new post, Sikivu Hutchinson, at Black Skeptics (on Freethought Blogs), explains in illuminating detail so much of what is wrong with the incredibly irresponsible and offensive ad the American Atheists put up in Pennsylvania using the picture of a bound slave and a Bible verse supporting slavery (Colossians 3:22), which was aimed [...]
Alain de Botton on Meeting Strangers
March 11th, 2012 Daniel Fincke I am reading through Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion one chapter at a time and blogging my responses as I go. In the beginning of his chapter on Community (specifically the subsection “Meeting Strangers”) de Botton paints with pretty prose a picture of profound alienation between people in the [...]
Why I Bother Writing About the Boring Question of Whether Religious Beliefs Are True
March 8th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Alain de Botton has caused a stir in the atheist blogosphere, and particularly here at Freethought Blogs, with his new book Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion. More specifically he caused waves with his article on CNN , which is heavy on selections from the book, and which begins as [...]
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism Tags: Alain de Botton 43 Comments »Against The Religiously Lazy Defenders of The Pious
March 4th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Religious moderates and liberals come in many stripes. In this post I want to talk about a couple of related kinds of religious moderates or liberals and why they irk me. In order to do that, I want to draw some distinctions that I do not think I see anyone else making but which it [...]
New Atheism, Morality, and Falsifiability
February 29th, 2012 Daniel Fincke 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 [...]
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 »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 [...]
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 »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 »TOP Q: What Does It Most Decisively Mean To Believe, Disbelieve, or Lack Belief?
February 23rd, 2012 Daniel Fincke Believing and not believing are not simple things. There are ways to cognitively believe, disbelieve, and refrain from believing. But functionally there are ways to effectively act as though one believed, disbelieved, or refrained from believing. There are at least two broad kinds of avowed atheists who take two distinct kinds of stances on the [...]
Posted in Atheism, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Faith, Faith, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Atheist Identity, Beliefs, Cognitive Dissonance, Explicit Beliefs, Explicit Beliefs vs. Functional Beliefs, Functional Beliefs, Implicit Beliefs, Lacking Beliefs 47 Comments »Sex and “Spirituality”
February 23rd, 2012 Daniel Fincke Casey: Sigh, Pat. It seems like there is nowhere in this culture we can escape the pernicious influence of religion. Pat: What are you thinking of in particular? Casey: I’m thinking of the way that even some of the most “sex-positive”, taboo-breaking, kink-celebrating, sexually liberated people I know still cannot enjoy the pure physicality of sex [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Paganism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Sex, Skepticism, Skepticism, Wicca Tags: Pagan Sex, Physicality of Sex, Physiological vs. Spiritual, Religious Sex, Rituals and Sex, Sex and Spirituality, Sex: Physical vs. Spiritual, Spirituality 10 Comments »Examining Some Alleged Divine Attributes
February 21st, 2012 Daniel Fincke Jaime: Okay, so why do you believe that your god is a good explanation for the universe? Robin: Because everything that exists needs an explanation and the universe is no exception. Jaime: But then why doesn’t your god need an explanation? Aren’t we just headed for an infinite regress unless you just admit that something doesn’t need [...]
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion Tags: Classical Theism, Divine Attributes, Divine Simplicity, Divine Timelessness, Eternal, God, God's Timelessness, Immutability, Temporality and Eternality, Theistic God, Timeless 23 Comments »Grief Beyond Belief, A Resource For Bereaved Atheists
February 18th, 2012 Daniel Fincke The “Grief Beyond Belief” Facebook page gets a write up in USA Today: When Rebecca Hensler’s infant son died in 2009, she received numerous condolences from friends, colleagues and even total strangers she met online. She knew their intentions were good, but their words weren’t always helpful. And in the rawness of her grief, Hensler [...]
Is It Just A Mystery Whether God Exists?
February 16th, 2012 Daniel Fincke Robin: Jaime, what bothers me about your atheism is that it’s so dogmatic. You claim to know there is no God. That’s so arrogant. Jaime: Yes, I claim to know there are no gods. But I don’t claim it dogmatically or arrogantly. I claim it based upon the fact that the evidence is overwhelmingly against [...]
Posted in Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments Against The Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Arguments for the Existence of God, Atheism, God, God, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism Tags: Agnostic Theism, Believing by Faith, Can We Know There Is No God?, Dogmatic Atheism, Faith vs. Knowledge, Gnostic Atheism, God and the Mystery Excuse, God is a Mystery, Is God Just A Mystery?, Knowing There Is No God, Metaphysics, Mystery, Mystery vs. Pseudomystery, What is a mystery? 71 Comments »
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