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Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category
Santorum’s Hypocrisy and Backwardness on Questions of Epistemic Authority
September 1st, 2011 
Daniel Fincke 
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Rights, Civil Rights, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Faith, Faith, Free Speech, Free Speech, Gay Marriage, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Law, Law, LGBTQAA, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, Teleology, Teleology, Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocrats, Theocrats, Videos 
Tags: Rick Santorum 
5 Comments »“And There Are No Christians In Med School”
August 30th, 2011 Daniel Fincke I have an idea. In the future whenever you hear someone falsely say that there are no atheists in foxholes, don’t disagree with them. Don’t point out to them that this insults the bravery of countless non-theist soldiers by implying that without belief in God and an afterlife no one would ever courageously put his [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Bible, Bible, Christianity, Christianity, Divine Intervention, Divine Intervention, Faith, Faith, God, God, Jesus, Jesus, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Prayer, Prayer, Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Skepticism, Skepticism 5 Comments »Disambiguating Faith: How Religious Beliefs Become Specifically *Faith* Beliefs
August 5th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Faith is the deliberate will to believe, in advance of all future evidence and investigation, what one perceives to be either unsupported by evidence or even outright undermined by evidence. In this way faith is essentially a matter of will and not just belief. Simply having a belief that is unsupported or undermined by evidence [...]
Posted in Disambiguating Faith, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy Of Religion, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion Tags: Cognitive Dissonance 5 Comments »Asking Richard Wade About Whether Believers Are Literally Deluded
July 8th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In seven previous posts, I have discussed with the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, the problems with forming one’s identity based on one’s beliefs (or non-beliefs), how atheists should respond to the possibly religious dimensions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the ethics of advising people to lie about [...]
Asking Richard Wade About How Atheists Should Respond to Alcoholics Anonymous, and How Personal Values Influence Professional Therapy
July 4th, 2011 Daniel Fincke In three previous posts, the Friendly Atheist’s advice columnist Richard Wade and I have discussed the origins of his “Ask Richard” column, the nature of family conflicts over atheism, and whether atheists should replace religious identities with self-consciously atheistic ones. Along the way, Richard compared religion to heroin. In what follows I take that as an opening [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Featured, God, God, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Secularism, Social Psychology, Social Psychology Tags: Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous and Religion, Alcoholism, Higher Being 22 Comments »The Best Christian Ever
May 24th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This video, from ABC’s show What Would You Do?, features an incredible gesture of altruistic human love which made me quite teary to watch. And it’s by someone inspired by Jesus. If only this was the sum of what following Jesus meant to people: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Christianity, Christianity, Jesus, Jesus, Psychology, Psychology, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Videos Tags: ABC's "What Would You Do?" 7 Comments »Questioning Forgiveness
May 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke James K. McNulty discusses the downside to forgiveness: Despite a burgeoning literature that documents numerous positive implications of forgiveness, scholars know very little about the potential negative implications of forgiveness. In particular, the tendency to express forgiveness may lead offenders to feel free to offend again by removing unwanted consequences for their behavior (e.g., anger, [...]
Lionel Tiger on the Neurochemical Incentives of Religion
March 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke Illuminating: Your Thoughts?
I Have Received An Open Letter
March 3rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke In reply to my post Why Atheists Should Not Give Up Challenging Theism And Theists (and to the subsequent overly-dramatic fallout in that post’s comments section), comes this “open letter” to me from GreenGeekGirl. I do not think I have ever received an open letter before (unless we count the one from that rabbi to the [...]
Posted in About This Blog, Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Psychology, Psychology, Videos 9 Comments »Why Bad Beliefs Don't Die
February 25th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The thoughts of Gregory W. Lester (as edited down by John W. Loftus) (okay, now I feel like calling myself Daniel W. Fincke): Because senses and beliefs are both tools for survival and have evolved to augment one another, our brain considers them to be separate but equally important purveyors of survival information….This means that [...]
The Religious Conservative's False Choice: "Big Brother" Or "Heavenly Father"
February 23rd, 2011 Daniel Fincke In an e-mail to me, Caroline proposes thought provoking reasons for non-believers to encourage (or at least to not actively discourage) religious beliefs: It would also be nice if people would carry out actions in good conscience of just being decent human beings rather than in fear of reprisal in the afterlife, but as there [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Authority, Authority, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Duty, Duty, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, George W. Bush, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Law, Law, Law & Politics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, News Discussion, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Right Wing Politics, Right Wing Politics, Secularism, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Theocrats, Theocrats, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Political Philosophy, Social Contract, Victor Frankl 4 Comments »RSA Animate Of Stephen Pinker, "Language As A Window Into Human Nature"
February 21st, 2011 Daniel Fincke Fantastic, insightful, and intuitively correct stuff about why we bother to use innuendos and other forms of indirect language where the literal meaning of what we are saying is undisguisedly clear: Thanks to Shane. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Language, Psychology, Psychology, Sex Tags: Alan Fiske, Anthropology, Awkwardness, Commands, Communality Relationships, Deniability, Dominance Relationships, Dominance vs. Communality Relationships, Emperor's New Clothes, Freedom of Assembly, Friendship, How Revolutions Happen, Indirect Communication, Individual Knowledge, Innuendos, Kin Selection, Mutual Knowledge, Mutualism, Negotiation, Overt Language, Reciprocal Altruism, Reciprocal Relationships, Speech Acts, Stephen Pinker, When Harry Met Sally, Workplace Awkwardness No Comments »"If You Believe In God, You Have To Believe In The Devil"
February 20th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Last summer there was a cheesy ad for the latest Exorcist film, and the tagline epitomized and exploited a key twist of twisted religious logic. The film’s tagline was “If you believe in God, you have to believe in the devil.” What’s the idea behind this?
Posted in Christianity, Christianity, Epistemology, Epistemology, Faith, Faith, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religion and Science, Religious Extremism, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates Tags: Fundamentalism and Modernity 2 Comments »Can You Really Love Religious People If You Hate Their Religion?
February 15th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Atheists do not exactly claim to “love sinners but hate sins” (if for no other reason than that most, if not all, of us reject the category of “sin” as a meaningful or valuable way to talk about ethical failure). Also, atheists may be more realistic than to think that we really do, or feasibly [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Prejudice, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues 15 Comments »Why "Loving The Sinner But Hating The Sin" Is Not An Option When Dealing With Gay People
February 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Many a homophobic religious person has infamously claimed that when it comes to gays he “loves the sinner but hates the sin” and many a defender of the full dignity and ethical lives of gay people has judged such a compromised offer of love inadequate (if not insincere). This cannot be because it is impossible [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Homophobia, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, LGBTQAA, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Prejudice, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Same Sex Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Sex Tags: Hate The Sin But Love The Sinner, Love The Sinner But Hate The Sin 15 Comments »Jonathan Glover On The Consciences Of Sociopaths
February 14th, 2011 Daniel Fincke The moral philosopher Jonathan Glover interviewed a number of anti-social people, including psychopaths, who have committed serious crimes and live in secure hospitals in order to investigate how they think about right and wrong and what sort of conscience they have. He thinks they have a conscience, but one unlike others’. They have strong feelings [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Psychology Tags: Determinism, Ethics of Punishment, Fairness, Free Will, Jonathan Glover, Moral Responsibility, Moral Sympathy, Nigel Warburton, Philosophy Bites, Psychopaths, Psychopathy, Punishment, Resentment and Morality, Respect, Responsibility, Retribution, Sociopaths, Sociopathy, Sympathy No Comments »Sex And Apostasy
February 9th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Drew Dyck has written a book called Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith. . .and How to Bring Them Back. I want to focus on just a few passages from his interesting five page article from last fall in last November’s Christianity Today. Unlike many Christians who, despite living in a culture [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Prejudice, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Secularism, Sex, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Sex and Faith, Sex and Religion, Sexual Ethics, Sexual Experimentation, Sexual Hypocrisy, Sexual Values, Young Adult Sexuality 8 Comments »When It Comes To Looks, A “7″ Is Not Just A “7″
January 17th, 2011 Daniel Fincke OKCupid’s ever-fascinating and invaluable Trends blog reasons about why the cute girl on the left gets far fewer messages than the cute girl on the right, despite having almost the same, and even a slightly higher, attractiveness rating from the men on the site. (And, while they are at it, they speculate that I am not [...]
James Fallon: Confessions of a Pro-Social Psychopath
January 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Thanks to Dunc, here is a fascinating video of James Fallon, at the World Science Festival: Below the fold is more on the history of the development of the science of psychopathy, including a long segment on Fallon himself, from a much darker toned documentary on the BBC. In the second video below, Fallon explains [...]
Near Mindedness Vs. Far Mindedness
December 30th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Robin Hanson explores the causes and nature of our double-mindedness that makes us talk a good game about long term goals and make grand long term commitments only to default to short term preferences in practice: All animals need different ways to reason about things up close vs. far away. And because humans are especially [...]
Should Gays Have Kids?
October 11th, 2010 Daniel Fincke bewarethelizards42 explains why it’s gay-okay: And her follow up replying to homophobic comments: Your Thoughts?
The “Animal” Nature Of “Spiritual” Experiences
October 10th, 2010 Daniel Fincke One of the implications of tracing “out of body experiences” and “going into the light” experiences to their neurological causes is the clarification that the sorts of amazing experiences long called “spiritual” and “transcendent” are deeply animal, and as such, likely shared with other animals: out-of-body experiences in humans are likely caused by the brain’s [...]
William Shatner As Stanley Milgram In The 1975 Film “The Tenth Level”
July 25th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Stanley Milgram was the psychologist who performed the famous obedience experiments which involved getting normal people to go through with administering (what they thought were) extraordinarily painful shocks to other people out of deference to calm but firm orders from an authority figure. Now Mind Hacks points our attention to The Tenth Level a fascinating bit [...]
Moral Psychologist Joshua D. Greene and Experimental Philosopher Joshua Knobe
July 15th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Below is a great dialogue between Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene and Yale “experimental philosopher” Joshua Knobe laying out some of the basics of moral psychology. I took notes as I watched the video, summarizing the major points for myself and for your use, dear blogreader. It will be easier to just watch the video, of [...]
Posted in Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology Tags: Metaethics, Philosophy No Comments »
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