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Mother Jones reports: The Marine Corps is reportedly investigating the origins of a YouTube video posted early Wednesday that appears to show four Marines urinating on the heads of Afghans they’d just killed in a firefight. “Have a great day, buddy,” one of the alleged Marines can be heard saying on the footage. The video [...]
Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Openly Bisexual and Non-theist Woman (Who Rejected Parents’ Mormonism) Runs For U.S. Congress
January 7th, 2012 
Daniel Fincke Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat from Phoenix who has resigned her seat in the Arizona state senate to run for the state’s new 9th Congressional District. She is a bisexual with a history of advocacy for gay rights. She is also a non-theist of some variety who openly participated in a 2010 event marking the creation [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, News, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State 
Tags: Kyrsten Sinema, Kyrsten Sinema atheist, Kyrsten Sinema non-theist 
24 Comments »Marshmallow Man Thinks Michelle Obama Is Fat
December 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke UPDATE: The second quote below (with references to swimsuit models and Alex Rodriguez) is not from the Congressman, as I first reported, but from Rush Limbaugh. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (pictured above) was reportedly overheard saying of Michelle Obama: She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself And Rush Limbaugh put [...]
Did NYU Fire a Professor for Giving James Franco a D?
December 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke The Guardian: A professor who was fired by New York University has filed a lawsuit claiming he was dismissed for giving celebrity student James Franco a D grade for poor attendance. Dr José Angel Santana, who taught as an assistant arts professor on the actor’s graduate film course, says that Franco – who supplements his acting career [...]
In Memory of Christopher Hitchens, A Nietzschean Lion
December 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Christopher Hitchens was not fond of Nietzsche. When I picked up his Portable Atheist I flipped to the table of contents to see what Nietzsche selections he’d included. And saw none. None?? Possibly the most famous, unabashed, and irreverent atheist of all time was not worthy of inclusion in Hitchens’s compendium? A brief remark found [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Personal, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: and Child, Camel, Christopher Hitchens, Hitchens and Nietzsche, Lion, lost a lion, Nietzsche, Three Metamorphoses of the Soul, Three Transformations of the Soul, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Tribute to Christopher Hitchens, Truthfulness 11 Comments »Kentucky Church Excludes Interracial Couples
December 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Is there any evil at all that the alleged Christian God, who is allegedly love itself, can prevent those who worship him from committing? He cannot even make it so that in 2011, all his American churches have caught up with repudiating racism? Before stepping down as pastor in August, Thompson told Harville that her fiance [...]
On Not-Pologies, Forgiveness, and Gelato
November 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Kinds of Forgiveness Let’s start with the theoretical. How should we characterize forgiveness, and when and why should we forgive people? Full forgiveness involves three things: 1. Waiving all just moral and/or legal penalties, including all forms of restitution and compensation, that we would normally demand for wrongdoing. 2. Restoring amicable emotional, social, and/or professional [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Virtues, Virtues 39 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
“Shit On Their Graves”–An “Honor” Murderer Speaks About The Daughters And First Wife He Murdered
November 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is beyond revolting and enraging: “I say to myself, ‘You did well.’ Would they come back to life a hundred times for you to do the same again?” Mohammad Shafia was recorded as saying to Yahya after she appeared to express some remorse about the deaths of the two younger girls a few days [...]
Bullying or Debating? Religious Privilege or Freedom of Speech?
November 13th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: Did you see the Republicans just endorsed the right to bully in schools as long as it’s done in the name of religion. Kelly: They did not. Jaime: Yes. They did. They perversely added to anti-bullying bill the right to bully as long as such bullying was based on “sincerely held religious or moral convictions.” [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Free Speech, Free Speech, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Law, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Racism, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocrats, Theocrats Tags: John Rawls, Libertarianism, Tolerance 33 Comments »Occupy Philosophy
November 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke A new blog, Occupy Philosophy, describes itself thusly: Occupy Philosophy is meant for serious (and if necessary, technical) discussion addressing the moral and political questions that have risen in light of the rotten situation we’re in. Philosophers are uniquely suited to this work. We created this website because we’ve been inspired and at times perplexed [...]
Posted in News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophy, Politics Tags: Political Philosophy 1 Comment »Paterno and the Pope
November 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jon Stewart says what needs to be said. (via Kylie) Freethought Blogs coverage of this disgrace comes from Pharyngula: What? It’s not just Catholic priests? and This is why I hate college football programs, Digital Cuttlefish: Am I Making Myself Clear?, Commradde Physioprof: Does Penn State Actively Condone The Rape Of Children?, and Almost Diamonds: Understanding Penn State. Your Thoughts?
A Critique of Noble Lies And The “Theologies” They Create
November 10th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In this long post, I begin by explaining Plato’s formulation of the concept of a noble lie for those unfamiliar with it and then I explain in detail numerous problems I see with employing noble lies and with attempts to persuade people through “theological” arguments. I think all theology is either an explicit or an [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, History, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Virtues, Virtues 34 Comments »Mississippi Voters Reject “Personhood” Amendment
November 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would’ve declared life begins at conception, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide. The so-called “personhood” initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short [...]
Campus Police Shoot Former Student Carrying Assault Rifle
November 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Elizabeth State University in North Carolina: Campus police pledged to beef up security at Elizabeth City State University after an officer shot a former student who police say was carrying an assault rifle on campus. Officers said they spotted 24-year-old Rashaad Gardner with the firearm around 2:30 a.m. Saturday near the University Towers residence hall. [...]
The Woman King
October 31st, 2011 Daniel Fincke I read the PZ’s post about the decision of Patrick Henry High School’s students to vote a lesbian couple to be homecoming king and queen. It put a big smile on my face and this awesome song started playing in my head: Listen to it as you help to Pharyngulate the poll on whether the students’ judgment made sense. [...]
Posted in LGBTQAA, News, News Discussion, News Discussion Tags: "Woman King", Iron & Wine 6 Comments »Breaking News: Yankee Fan Takes Joy In Other Team’s Victory
October 30th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Freethought Blogs’ own Gentlemanly Physiology Professor spent the late summer months giving exquisitely nuanced baseball commentary, favoring his beloved Yankees but also being gracious and good natured as he gently ribbed their rival Red Sox. And he showed a gentleman’s magnanimity towards the Red Sox fans when they ultimately lost the wild card in a historic [...]
Posted in Baseball, Mets, Mets, News Discussion, News Discussion, Personal, Yankees, Yankees 2 Comments »Taxes, Employment Rates, and Deficits Explained In Less Than 2 Minutes
October 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Update: Tony Adams, from the video has stopped by in the comments section. Go welcome him and ask him anything his remarks in the video make you think about! This keeps happening that people whose writings or video interviews I talk about on the blog show up. Thanks to Greg. Your Thoughts?
Having Trouble Figuring Out What Conservatives Really Think?
October 19th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Bret translates 10 popular phrases used by conservatives into ordinary English. Your Thoughts?
The State of the Arab World
October 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Fareed Zakaria’s depressing summation of the findings of the United Nation’s Arab Development Report, which he considers to be “the most important book of the last decade”: To what extent can we blame modern Islam for all of this? To what extent neo-colonialism? To what extent something else? I am inclined to say that the [...]
Posted in News, News Discussion, News Discussion, Politics, Politics, World Affairs, World Affairs 14 Comments »“It’s Not About Religion”
October 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Cranston High School West in Rhode Island is a public school which has a prayer affixed to a wall in the auditorium. 16 year old Jessica Ahlquist has been fighting for two years to get it removed on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state. You can read an interview with [...]
Autism Linked To Absence of a Cluster of Genes
October 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Dr Wigler suggested the missing cluster is a 27-gene grouping on chromosome 16. Most people have two sets of the cluster – individuals with autism have only one, or just fragments of the second, the researchers say. Now Dr Wigler’s colleague, Alea Mills, has found the deleted gene cluster not only plays a role in [...]
Memorializing Suicides Without Heroizing Suicide
September 28th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Gay blogger Jim Burroway believes that Lady Gaga’s advocacy for the LGBT community is genuine and passionate but worries about a backfire effect of her decision to prominently dedicate a song to one of her young fans who took his life recently: as I watch this video of her performing “Hair” and dedicating it to Jamey Rodemeyer at [...]
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