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As immanent, being-itself is just the ultimate nature of every natural thing. So, how does this immanent being-itself manifest itself? It manifests itself in all the categories of nature. These are the categories of naturalistic ontology. To use some language from Nicholas of Cusa, these categories are derived from the self-unfolding of being-itself. This unfolding [...]
Archive for the ‘Rationalism’ Category
Pure Objective Reason
December 23rd, 2011 
Eric Steinhart 
Posted in Atheism, Featured, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Paganism, Philosophy, Rationalism, Religion and Science 
15 Comments »Atheism and the Sacred: Being-Itself
December 22nd, 2011 Eric Steinhart Paul Tillich defined God as being-itself. He argued that being-itself is not any being; it is not a thing, and it does not even exist. For Tillich, being-itself transcends existence. It cannot be identified with any being (neither with any particular nor with any universal). It cannot be located within the categories of any ontology [...]
Atheism and Possibility
December 20th, 2011 Eric Steinhart The concept of natural creative power (natura naturans) is found in both Wicca (where it is the ultimate deity) and in atheistic philosophers (who do not deify it). Natural creative power is the ultimate immanent power of being; it is being-itself. Unfortunately, being-itself, as the deepest and most abstract of all universals, also seems to [...]
Atheism and the Sacred: Natural Creative Power
December 18th, 2011 Eric Steinhart The concept of natura naturans has a long history in philosophy, and especially in atheistic metaphysics. Natura naturans is natural creative power, and from now on I’ll use that phrase. Natural creative power is a universal; as such, it is an abstract object. Nominalists deny the existence of abstract objects. So, nominalists are likely to [...]
Posted in Atheism, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Paganism, Philosophy, Rationalism, Religion and Science, Wicca 31 Comments »Criticizing Wicca: Levels
December 17th, 2011 Eric Steinhart Some statements are based on evidence, while others are not. And there is evidence for the existence of some entity if and only if the existence of that entity is asserted in a statement that is based on evidence. To say that a statement is based on evidence is to say that it is empirically [...]
Some Naturalistic Ontology
December 16th, 2011 Eric Steinhart Over the next few posts, I’m going to do some heavy metaphysics. So a bit of background is necessary. An ontology is a taxonomy of categories (usually at a very high level of generality). To avoid misunderstanding, the ontology I’m working with is outlined below. This ontology is naturalistic in exactly the sense that objects [...]
Posted in Atheism, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Rationalism, Science 26 Comments »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 – [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Why Bother Blaming People At All? Isn’t That Just Judgmental?
November 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Before moving on to addressing the question of when it is right or wrong to get offended, let me quickly address a certain attitude that arises a lot in response to my posts on morality. I sense in the tone of a lot of comments I get in general that there is a fear of [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Jesus, Jesus, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Rationalism, Virtues, Virtues 
Tags: Blame, Blame and Determinism, Determinism, Free Will, Immoralism, Judgmentalism, Moralism 33 Comments »Atheist Fundamentalism?
October 28th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Kelly: You are an atheist fundamentalist, Jaime. Jaime: That’s impossible, there can be no such thing. Atheism itself is just “a lack of belief”. There is no holy book or other source of “fundamental” positions any atheist must hold. Not every atheist even needs to be an atheist in the same way. Some can only [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Creationism, Creationism, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Intelligent Design, Intelligent Design, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Rationalism, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates 38 Comments »“Not Everything In Life Is Logical”
October 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke When we rationalists, naturalists, and other assorted atheists insist that no one should form beliefs that disregard logic and evidence, the defenders of faith often tell us that “Not everything in life is logical”, or use some variant of this phrase. What might they mean by this? Where is their confusion exactly and how best [...]
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, Astronomy, Astronomy, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Biology, Biology, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Evolution, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Intelligent Design, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Physics, Physics, Rationalism, Religion, Religion and Science, Science, Science, Secularism, Technology, Technology Tags: "Not Everything In Life Is Logical", Logic, Naturalism 17 Comments »Addressing Skepticism About Atheism’s Value To Skepticism
August 31st, 2011 Daniel Fincke In reply to my post last week about why atheism is important to advancing proper skepticism, Armchair Skeptic writes: You touch on some good points here. It would help, I think, if you start by defining what you consider to be “proper” skepticism; I didn’t really get a clear understanding of that from this post. [...]
On Evolution
August 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart A process atheist is someone who agrees that every question that used to be answered by appealing to God can be better answered by appealing to some form of evolution. So you might wonder about the meaning of the term evolution. Since the term evolution is abstract, it’s definition will be abstract: [...]
Process Atheism
August 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart A process atheist is someone who agrees that every question that used to be answered by appealing to God can be better answered by appealing to some form of evolution. Dan Fincke gets credit for coining the phrase “process atheism”. Process atheism is one type of atheism among many. Process atheism is [...]
Posted in Atheism, Featured, Metaphysics, Naturalism, Philosophy, Rationalism, Religion and Science 4 Comments »An Atheistic Evolutionary Metaphysics
August 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Here’s an argument for an evolutionary metaphysics: (1) Our universe is very complex and congenial (it is lawful; it starts in a low entropy state; its laws are finely tuned for the planetary evolution of life, etc.). (2) Anything that is very complex and congenial requires an explanation. (3) The best explanations [...]
An Example of Atheist Faith
August 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Here’s a nice statement of atheistic faith by Carl Sagan: “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” (1980: 1). Such a statement is as faith-based as any statement in the Bible or in Christian theology. After all, it’s just a mirror-image of the statement that God [...]
Evolutionary Metaphysics is not Faith
August 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart I’ve advanced this thesis in some previous posts: every question that used to be answered by appealing to God can be answered better by appealing to some form of evolution. It’s hard for me to understand why that slogan would be a matter of faith. The fact that some thesis is speculative [...]
Why Atheists are Obligated to Hold Positive Speculative Beliefs
July 26th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Many atheists come to atheism through skepticism. And sometimes that skepticism is radical. It’s hostile to anything that doesn’t meet the alleged standards of our best science. It’s hostile to any theory that is merely speculative. Of course, to be consistent, these radical skeptics ought to apply their skepticism to themselves. If [...]
On Evolutionary Atheism
July 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Here’s a nice way to deny theism by offering a positive alternative: Every question that used to be answered by appealing to God can be answered by appealing to some form of evolution. I doubt that any theists would agree with that statement. And it’s worth stressing that biological evolution by natural [...]
On the Rapture
May 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The rapture isn’t going to happen on 21 May 2011. And that implies an ordered series of disconfirmations: (1) Harold Camping is wrong about the Bible; (2) his way of reading the Bible (that is, Biblical numerology) does not reveal anything trans-scientific about the future; (3) evangelical ways of reading the Bible reveal nothing trans-scientific [...]
Singularitarianism as Religion Entails Testable Predictions
April 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart Singularitarianism is religious. Specifically, it is a kind of millenarian movement. It will therefore develop according to millenarian patterns. Millenarian movements can develop in several ways. The first way is good: the movement turns into a positive mature religion. The second way is bad: the movement turns into a self-destructive cult. The [...]
The Singularity as Religion
April 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke by Eric Steinhart I think much of the culture and discourse around the singularity is religious. I say this based in part on my reading of David Noble’s book The Religion of Technology and my reading of Robert Geraci’s Apocalyptic AI. Both are fantastic books. And I’ve compiled a long list of articles and books [...]
On Defending True Spirituality And Taking The Word Back From Spiritually Bankrupt Fundamentalism
January 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke So Chris Mooney’s article in Playboy about the spirituality of scientists has sparked some interesting debate in the atheist blogosphere. His new post on the subject explicitly interprets his aims and themes in the piece as essentially saying what I interpreted them to be—to defend the idea that you can have completely sufficient spirituality without [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Rationalism, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Spinoza, Spinoza Tags: Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jerry Coyne 9 Comments »On The Incoherence Of Divine Command Theory And Why Even If God DID Make Things Good And Bad, Faith-Based Religions Would Still Be Irrelevant
September 29th, 2010 Daniel Fincke The claim that all value, whether moral or otherwise, requires a God is a familiar one. But what this claim either means or how it is supposed to be apparent to us is far from self-evident. The claim could mean something along the lines of a divine command theory interpretation of value according to which [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, God, God, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Rationalism, Religion, Religion, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism 15 Comments »
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