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The unabridged Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, delayed by Twain’s request for a century, is coming this fall. The New York Times describes choice passages: Twain excoriates “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and Gen. Leonard Wood’s “mephitic record” as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, [...]
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Twain Uncensored
July 10th, 2010 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Arts, Arts, Culture, History 
Tags: Cuban-Spanish War, Frances Cleveland, General Leonard Wood, Literature, Mark Twain 
1 Comment »The Treaty Of Tripoli
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Article 11: Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [...]
George Washington’s Letter To Touro Synagogue
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke The first president of our secular republic writes: To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island. Gentlemen, While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in [...]
“It Can’t Happen Here”
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke PZ Myers calls our attention to Sinclair Lewis’s 75 year old words to warn us about how precious and precarious our freedom from theocracy and all other forms of tyranny really is: In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel called “It Can’t Happen Here,” about an America taken over by a populist dictator. His hero [...]
Conscientious Objector
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Edna St. Vincent Millay: Conscientious Objector I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor. He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning. [...]
Coates, With An Appeal To Hitchens, On The Confederate Flag
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke What to make of those in the south who claim the Confederate flag as part of a properly American southern heritage? Ta-Nehisi Coates is eloquent: But people can fly the Confederate Flag and have a serious, evidently credible argument, about its “precise meaning,” mostly because of a long historical fight to make the Civil War, [...]
“Testimony: He Or His Apparition”
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke From Three Poems by Nicole Cooley: Testimony: He or His Apparition About noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was press’d to death for standing Mute. — Samuel Sewall, Diary, September 19, 1692 The girls’ testimony is gravel scattered on the grass. Ann Putnam: Giles Corey or his Apperance has most greviously afflected me by beating pinching and almost [...]
Posted in History, Virtues Tags: Conscience, Courage, Nicole Cooley, Poems, Poetry, Salem Witch Trials, Testimony: He Or His Apparition, The Afflicted Girls No Comments »America – Fuck Yeah!
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
Posted in Comedy, Comedy, Hilarious, History, Music Videos, Music Videos, Satire, Satire, Videos Tags: America, Team America 6 Comments »Jefferson And Mason: From Toleration To Freedom
July 4th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Happy Independence Day! Your Thoughts?
Steven Pinker: “Today We Are Probably Living In The Most Peaceful Time In Our Existence”
June 28th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Pinker argues for this pro-modern thesis in his 2007 TED video: Your Thoughts?
How The Texas Textbook Standards Got Corrupted
June 18th, 2010 Daniel Fincke People For The American Way have an analysis of the process by which Texas’s textbook standards became tools for rewriting history according to a contemporary right wing religious political viewpoint. Here are just a few glimpses of the changes, both those merely proposed and those actually accepted by the school board, which I had not [...]
Jennifer Michael Hecht On The History Of Doubt And Atheism
June 18th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Here is Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson at Hampshire College in 2007 discussing the the wrote the complicated history of doubt and atheism: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Atheism, Atheist Videos, History, Secularism, Skepticism, Videos Tags: Doubt, History of Atheism, History of Doubt, Jennifer Michael Hecht No Comments »How Apologetic Goals Compromise Christian Apologists’ Historical Research
June 8th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Appealing to insights of the great theologian Paul Tillich, Robert M. Price takes on the corruption of research when it has a defensive agenda. (Sadly, this video was taken down from YouTube) via Your Thoughts?
Posted in Christianity, History, Jesus, Religion Tags: Apologetics, Paul Tillich, Religious Apologetics, Resurrection of Jesus, Robert M. Price No Comments »Sarah Palin And Her Naked Theocratic Intentions
May 8th, 2010 Daniel Fincke I keep wanting to give a thorough response to every bit of ignorance, revisionism, corruption, self-contradiction, condescension, unfounded persecution complex, hypocrisy, and philosophical crudity in this video, coming not only from Sarah Palin but also from Bill O’Reilly, but each line from both of them is so packed with them, that I keep getting overwhelmed [...]
The Story Of Human Rights
April 30th, 2010 Daniel Fincke A really well made video: The website. Your Thoughts?
Posted in History, Videos Tags: Human Rights, United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights No Comments »Thomas Jefferson vs. Sarah Palin
April 21st, 2010 Daniel Fincke Keith Olbermann compares the two great American leaders’ views of God and state: Your Thoughts?
What Motivated Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot?
October 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Non-Stamp Collector is back again with a brand new video: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Atheism, Atheist Videos, History, Secularism, Videos Tags: Hitler, Non Stamp Collector, Pol Pot, Stalin 1 Comment »Biblical Slavery, In Context
September 24th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Does the Bible REALLY endorse slavery, when read in CONTEXT??? Yes, yes it does. Leviticus 25:44-46: ‘As for your male and female slaves whom you may have– you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live [...]
Posted in Atheism, Bible, Featured, God, History, Judaism, Religion, Videos Tags: 1 Timothy 2:9, 1 Timothy 6:1, American Slavery, An Atheist Reads The Bible, Biblical Atrocities, biblical denial of human rights, Exodus 21:20-21, Leviticus 25:44-46, Old Testament, ProfMTH, Slavery, Slavery in the Bible, The Brick Testament, Titus 2:9 No Comments »As It Happened 8 Years Ago Yesterday
September 12th, 2009 Daniel Fincke The live footage of the second plane hitting the south tower on September 11, 2001 as broadcast on numerous New York television stations and national news outlets and as it looked and sounded in real time footage which was broadcast only later. It goes without saying that the footage is disturbing. Here is the official [...]
Posted in Faith, Fundamentalism, History, Religious Extremism, Videos Tags: 9/11, Terrorism, Twin Towers, World Trade Center No Comments »The Imperial History Of The Middle East In 90 Seconds
August 31st, 2009 Daniel Fincke A neat interactive map. Your Thoughts?
Christianity And Lithuania
August 21st, 2009 Daniel Fincke ABC News reported on the discovery of another CIA secret prison that was being used for some period of time between 2001-2005. This one in Lithuania. Red explores its long bloody history and one of its recurring themes: Vilnius has a long and bloody history. There are mass graves there containing the remains of tens [...]
Posted in Christianity, George W. Bush, History, Hypocrisy, Law, Politics, Religious Extremism, Roman Catholic Church Tags: CIA Black Sites, Gediminas, Lithuania, Mikhail Muravyov, Napolean, Nazis, Perkunas No Comments »Daily Hilarity: Mr. Deity’s Creative Gift For His Chosen People
August 19th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Brand new Mr. Deity! Your Thoughts?
Posted in Atheism, Comedy, Hilarious, History, Mr. Deity, Parody, Religious Satire, Satire, Videos No Comments »Dispelling The Myth That Nazism Was An Outgrowth Of Darwinian Atheism
August 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In April of last year, Richard Dawkins wrote this letter (which should be read in full) to someone duped by the slander that Darwinian atheism led to Hitler’s ideals and goals: His horrible bidding was done by millions of ordinary German footsoldiers, and the great majority of them were Christians. Many were Lutheran, and many [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Ethics, History, Metaethics, Politics, PZ Myers, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism Tags: Adolph Hitler, Artificial Selection, Ben Stein, Christian Anti-Semitism, Darwinism, European Anti-Semitism, Expelled, Herbert Spencer, Hitler and Atheism, Hitler and Catholocism, John D Rockefeller, Mein Kampf, Michael Shermer, Natural Selection, Political Ethics, Richard Dawkins, Science and Ethics, Social Darwinism, World War II No Comments »The Meaning Of The Parthenon
August 16th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Camels With Hammers regular (and my former student at Fordham), Evangelos has revived his blog and has a fascinating post which weaves together all the various things that Greece has stood for, both to Greeks and to the rest of the West at various times and places, and which explains how the competing attempts to [...]
Posted in Arts, Culture, History, Religion, World Affairs Tags: Architecture, Byzantines, Classicism, Classics, Elgin Marbles, Enlightenment, Enlightenment Appropriation of Greek Symbols, Evangelos Vekios, Greece, Greek Orthodox Church, Greeks, Hagia Sophia, Humanism, Parthenon, Symbols No Comments »
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