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“To the extent that a religious person believes an obvious falsehood like the world is only 6,000 years old, I’m going to have an argument with them,” Dawkins explained. “Your tea-drinking vicar who doesn’t believe that… I mean, of course those people are very different and I would have a very different kind of argument [...]
Archive for the ‘Atheism’ Category
Dawkins: “Somebody As Intelligent As Jesus Would Have Been An Atheist”
October 25th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Jesus, Jesus, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion 
Tags: Richard Dawkins 
17 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 »Documentary with Stephen Hawking about Whether God Created the Universe
October 22nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Your Thoughts?
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, Atheism, Atheism, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Physics, Physics, Religion, Religion and Science, Science, Science 2 Comments »Shelley Segal’s “Eve” (And Interview)
October 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Following PZ’s lead, last weekend I highlighted the video “Saved” by Shelley Segal. Segal’s debut album is called An Atheist Album and comes out some time in the next few weeks. Below, via Token Skeptic comes an interview and the acoustic performance of another song “Eve”. (By the way, Token Skeptic also has photographic proof of Bigfoot [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Indie Music, Indie Music, Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Music, Music, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism 1 Comment »A Debate About The Wisdom of Trying To Deconvert People
October 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Jaime: So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how best to debate the existence of God with religious believers… Kelly: Why would you do that? Jaime: Do what? Kelly: Debate the existence of God with religious believers. What’s the point in that? Jaime: What do you mean, “what’s the point?” We live in the [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, 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, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy Of Religion, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism Tags: Debate With Believers, Deconverting, Why Debate Believers? 14 Comments »Fighting The Dictionary
October 18th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Ophelia wrote an insightful, controversial paragraph: Churches don’t do education. Religion doesn’t do education. Churches and religion do religion, which is different from education. Education is what schools do. It is fundamentally secular – it is about the world, and exploring and learning about the world. Like newspapers, like forensics, like medicine, like so many human institutions, [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Education, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Language, Secularism 20 Comments »My Fundamentalist Preacher Brother, His Kids, And Me (And “What To Do About One’s Religiously Raised Nieces and Nephews”)
October 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This post wound up being really two-in-one. My personal story and details of my family’s story with religion make up the first half. If you are not that interested in me and my relationship with my brother, but rather only interested in the second half’s advice for what to say or not say to your [...]
Shelley Segal’s “Saved”
October 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The girl can sing. And push back against false ideas. The forthcoming album is called An Atheist Album. This song is available on Amazon. Via PZ. Lyrics are below the fold:
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Indie Music, Indie Music, Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Music, Music 5 Comments »Nietzsche: We Cannot “Selflessly” Investigate Morality
October 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Nietzsche writes a lot of things which attack the ideal of selflessness. Yet he does not make any blanket call for an ideal of unmitigated, small-minded selfishness. He calls for certain kinds of self-concern and in some cases certain kinds of self-denial in the pursuit of higher purposes or higher ideals of self-cultivation. Rather than [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Evidence, Evidence, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy 6 Comments »I Don’t Really Give A Fuck About Tone, Per Se
October 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In my ten posts of tips for reaching out to religious believers this past week, people have repeatedly gotten the idea that I was fretting about tone. But I wasn’t. I never used the word and it never even crossed my mind to do so. I am concerned with the truth and with the good. [...]
I Am A Rationalist, Not A Tribalist.
October 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Over the course of the last week, I published a series of ten commandments tips for atheists reaching out to religious believers. In truth most of those values are ones I could have written with minor modifications to be commandments tips for simply being a good person. Now, some people have objected in various ways [...]
Be Unapologetic, Rigorous, Patient, And Gracious With Religious Believers (Tip 9 of 10 For Reaching Out To Religious Believers)
October 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Top Ten Tips For Reaching Out To Religious Believers: 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. 3. Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe”. 4. Clarify What Kinds of Evidence Warrant What Kinds of Beliefs. 5. Help Break The Spell Of Religious Reverence. 6. Don’t Demonize Religious [...]
Both Refute The Best Counter-Arguments YOU Can Think Up And Create Gestalt Shifts (Tip 8 of 10 For Reaching Out To Religious Believers)
October 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Top Ten Tips For Reaching Out To Religious Believers 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. 3. Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe”. 4. Clarify What Kinds of Evidence Warrant What Kinds of Beliefs. 5. Help Break The Spell Of Religious Reverence. 6. Don’t Demonize Religious [...]
Penn and PZ on Libertarianism and Atheism
October 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism has had a much deserved opportunity to move his blog to the site of Big Think, which features video interviews from the most popular and cutting edge public intellectuals of our time. Adam got the chance to lob the first question asked of Penn Jillette in a new interview at the site. [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Politics, Politics, PZ Myers, PZ Myers Tags: Penn Jillette 9 Comments »Take Philosophy Seriously (Tip 7 of 10 For Reaching Out To Religious Believers)
October 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Top Ten Tips For Reaching Out To Religious Believers 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. 3. Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe”. 4. Clarify What Kinds of Evidence Warrant What Kinds of Beliefs. 5. Help Break The Spell Of Religious Reverence. 6. Don’t Demonize Religious [...]
Help Break The Spell Of Religious Reverence (Tip 5 of 10 For Reaching Out To Religious People)
October 6th, 2011 Daniel Fincke 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. 3. Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe”. 4. Clarify What Kinds of Evidence Warrant What Kinds of Beliefs. 5. Help Break The Spell Of Religious Reverence. Religious people are often on a hair-trigger to be offended. And they will [...]
Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe” (Tip 3 of 10 For Reaching Out To Christians)
October 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Top Ten Tips For Reaching Out To Religious Believers 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. 3. Don’t Tell Religious Believers What They “Really Believe”. All beliefs imply other beliefs. Some things religious believers happily assert as true have possible implications which are dark, disturbing, foolish, and/or in [...]
Make Believers Stay On Topic During Debates (Tip 2 of 10 for Reaching Out To Religious Believers)
October 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Top Ten Tips For Reaching Out To Religious Believers: 1. Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid. 2. Make Believers Stay on Topic During Debates. Religious believers debating atheists often have a machine gun style of shooting arguments our way. “How could everything just come from nothing? You really think this is all there is? How can [...]
Don’t Call Religious Believers Stupid (Tip 1 of 10 For Reaching Out To Religious Believers)
October 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Back in February, I wrote my Top 10 Tips For Reaching Out To Atheists, designed to help Christians (and other religious people) engage atheists in ways that are respectful to them and honest with them and with themselves, and therefore hopefully fruitful for both sides. In a series of posts (fully listed at the end [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Christianity, Christianity, Faith, Faith, Philosophy Of Religion, Religion, Religion 45 Comments »How Evangelicals Can Be Very Hurtful Without Being Very Hateful
October 2nd, 2011 Daniel Fincke The weekend after George W. Bush’s reelection, I attended a MoveOn.org get together at my friends’ house. The idea of the event was that people would volunteer their homes to host nationally coordinated local strategy discussions. So, it was me, my two friends, and a whole bunch of hard-left Upper West Side Manhattanites all of [...]
Ingersoll Against Blasphemy Laws
October 1st, 2011 Daniel Fincke As PZ pointed out, Rebecca Watson took the opportunity yesterday, on International Blasphemy Rights Day, to highlight some choice selections from Robert G. Ingersoll’s magnificent closing argument in defense of C.B. Reynolds, who, on May 19 and 20, 1887, was being tried for blasphemy in the state of New Jersey. You should read Ingersoll’s whole [...]
Interested In Atheist/Agnostic Knitting and Crocheting?
September 28th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Today, for the second time in the last couple of months, I have been getting an influx of traffic from the “atheist and agnostic” segment of the knitting and crocheting site Ravelry. I love that my alternatingly academic and polemical blog’s appeal is broad enough that it is getting linked to by a site with the [...]
Nietzsche: Moral Absolutism and Moral Relativism Are “Equally Childish”
September 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Recently Joel Marks, a career moral philosopher, concluded that the moral certitude he has felt and argued for his entire career was built as much on faith as many theists’ belief in God is. And in response he swung radically in the opposite direction and came to believe that there can be no rational objectivity [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Teleology, Teleology 22 Comments »What Anti-Faith Commercials Could Look Like
September 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAKzYr4-wg&feature=player_embedded (video via Hank) So, the premise, legally banning religion is of course something we should not take seriously. But these mock ups of commercials for more generally and informally discarding bad religious ideas and ending identity-based divisiveness in religion are really valuable as anti-faith messages. Maybe some day when simply saying “You Can Be Good [...]
On Rejecting Faith in Morality
September 16th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Update: Joel Marks has replied to this post and to my first follow up post. I have reedited this post to incorporate his remarks at the end. Joel Marks is at the Center for Bioethics at Yale University and is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven. Though writing on ethics throughout [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Ethics, Love, Love, Metaethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Personal, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Skepticism, Skepticism 1 Comment »
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