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As a counterpoint to the infamous posts on atheists who believe in God, I offer Dennett and LaScola’s work on preachers who don’t believe in God. Here is a Dennett and LaScola paper and here is their forthcoming website called The Clergy Project. But wait! Surely no atheist would believe in God! And surely no [...]
Archive for the ‘Daniel Dennett’ Category
Dennett Debating Plantinga At The 2009 Central APA
December 30th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke This morning PZ is drooling over the book Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (Point/Counterpoint) because it features a debate between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett, and because he is seriously jonesing to see Plantinga get pwned. Well, thanks to YouTube, one can hear it instead! Below is an audio recording of their debate at [...]
Dennett: Darwin Had The Single Greatest Idea Anyone Ever Had
February 12th, 2011 Daniel Fincke This is a terrific video in which Dennett and Dawkins get further into the weeds discussing the dynamics of evolution, responsibility, how you can make living things out of dead stuff and conscious ones out of unconscious ones, the wonder of natural processes, the idea that we have souls—but they’re made of neurons, and many [...]
Posted in Atheist Videos, Atheist Videos, Biology, Biology, Daniel Dennett, Daniel Dennett, Evolution, Evolution, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Science, Science, Videos 
Tags: Charles Darwin, Complexity, Daniel Dennett, Meaning, Purpose, Richard Dawkins, Teleology 
2 Comments »Typical Mind Fallacy: The Limits Of Generalizing From One Example
July 8th, 2010 Daniel Fincke “Everyone generalizes from one example. At least, I do.” – Vlad Taltos (Issola, Steven Brust) My old professor, David Berman, liked to talk about what he called the “typical mind fallacy”, which he illustrated through the following example: There was a debate, in the late 1800s, about whether “imagination” was simply a turn of phrase [...]
Posted in Daniel Dennett, Daniel Dennett, Epistemic Justification, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology, Epistemology, Evidence, Evidence, Historical Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind Tags: Behaviorists, Berkeley, David Berman, Generalization, Gilbert Ryle, Less Wrong, Typical Mind Fallacy No Comments »Deepity
October 13th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Last week I highlighted both a portion of Jerry Coyne’s report from AAI and independently Andrew Sullivan’s nasty retort to another portion of that same post. But I never quoted the really fun and on target coinage of Daniel Dennett which got so far under Sullivan’s skin: Dan Dennett talked about interviews with active priests [...]
Posted in Atheism, Daniel Dennett, Religion Tags: Apophatic, Deepity, Jerry Coyne, Karen Armstrong, Religious Language No Comments »Smug Atheists?
October 8th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Andrew Sullivan, whose blogging I usually admire and emulate a great deal as he’s really my blogging hero, had an astoundingly nasty post about the fact that atheists dared to meet up together to listen to Daniel Dennett mock the emptiness of apophatic theological gobbledygook last weekend. They’re really charming, aren’t they? It is as [...]
Daniel Dennett Reminisces About Gilbert Ryle, JZ Young, and AJ Ayer
September 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In Philosophy Now, Daniel Dennett engagingly tells his life story—or at least part one of it. It’s a fascinating read and for me the most interesting parts are these on Gilbert Ryle and AJ Ayer. In particular, the account of Ryle’s method of mentoring and influencing is remarkable an inspiring. Or maybe just evidence that [...]
On The Possible God Of Philosophy And Cosmology Vs. The Personal, Historical God Of Faith
September 5th, 2009 Daniel Fincke This post is inspired by some excellent remarks from Daniel Dennett in reply to William Lane Craig’s vigorous cosmological arguments for the existence of God (which you can see him make in a separate debate here). Here is the Dennett video, below it you’ll find a rough transcript I have produced of it, and then [...]
Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Cosmology, Daniel Dennett, Faith, Featured, God, Philosophy, Religion, Videos, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Deism, Ground of all being, Literal Interpretations of Religion, Metaphorical Interpretations of Religion, Myth, Religious Anthropomorphism, Superstition, William Lane Craig 6 Comments »Vote For The Best Philosophy Blog Post Of The Year (And Take A Moment To Consider Peter Mandik’s Entry)
September 4th, 2009 Daniel Fincke 3 Quarks Daily is offering a relatively sizable prize ($1,000) for the best philosophy blog post of the year. You can read the nominees (a great many of which were self-nominated) here and vote for your favorite here. The finalists will be submitted to Daniel Dennett who will decide the winner. Peter Mandik, who is [...]
Dennett On Evolution
September 2nd, 2009 Daniel Fincke This is a terrific video in which Dennett and Dawkins get further into the weeds discussing the dynamics of evolution, responsibility, how you can make living things out of dead stuff and conscious ones out of unconscious ones, the wonder of natural processes, the idea that we have souls—but they’re made of neurons, and many [...]
Posted in Biology, Daniel Dennett, Evolution, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Teleology, Teleology Tags: Charles Darwin, Meaning, Mind, Richard Dawkins No Comments »Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Corruption Of Children’s Intellectual Judgment
August 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Earlier today, I challenged Rod Dreher’s recent post wherein he lamented the difficulties we have in overcoming our minds’ propensities for rationalizations. In that same post he had argued from the experience of his own loss of Catholic faith that the intellect was an insufficient ground for religious beliefs and that the will needed to [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Daniel Dennett, Disambiguating Faith, Faith, Featured, Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, Religion, Secularism, Why I Am Not A Christian Tags: Affective Value Perception, Atheist Alliance, Crunchy Con, Dale McGowan, Emotional Reasoning, Laci Green, Parenting, Parenting Beyond Belief, Rationalization, Reason and Emotions, Rod Dreher, The Heart, Value Perception 12 Comments »Disambiguating Faith: Heart Over Reason
August 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke In reply to Rod Dreher’s recent post explaining his decision to train his children’s wills to be faithful since the intellect was not a firm foundation of faith, I critically characterized his position as essentially boiling down to the following: So, the solution is not to train your children to be intellectually scrupulous but to [...]
Posted in Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Cultural Secularism, Daniel Dennett, Disambiguating Faith, Epistemology, Faith, Featured, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Religion, Religious Secularism, Secularism Tags: Affective Value Perception, Authority, Belief Proportionate To Evidence, Emotional Reasoning, Reason and Emotions, Value Perception, Will To Believe 6 Comments »Daniel Dennett On Showing “How Religions Do Their Tricks”
August 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke According to Dennett, it’s just like showing how magicians and musicians do theirs: Your Thoughts?
On Meeting People Where They Are
August 24th, 2009 Daniel Fincke While he was hospitalized a couple years ago, Daniel Dennett got irritated when people offered to pray for him and insisted that they thank doctors rather than offer their ineffectual prayers. The Wittenburg Door was appalled and inferred (quite unjustifiably) that Dennett did not understand that all many people mean to say when they say [...]
Not “I’ll Pray For You” But “I Love You”
August 21st, 2009 Daniel Fincke Joe Bob Briggs from The Wittenburg Door visited a convention of atheists last year. The Wittenburg Door is primarily a satire magazine written by Evangelicals with a sense of humor and perspective which I remember fondly from my teen years. So, writing for a “with it” sort of Evangelical publication, Briggs’s barbs at the atheists [...]
10 Recommended Philosophy Of Mind Articles
August 1st, 2009 Daniel Fincke Anderson Brown gives a really interesting list of 10 classic articles in the philosophy of mind which cover (a couple more than) 10 pivotal arguments. I’ve heard of almost all of them and all the philosophers on the list are extremely famous, major contributors to the field. I especially love this one article’s point: [...]
When (And How) Should We Bother To Push The Issues?
July 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Njustus offers a probing challenge to my recent post in which I defend Daniel Dennett’s argument that atheists should stand up for atheism rather than take the attitude that the religious beliefs that they do not share are good for their neighbors and should be encouraged. I argued that Dennett’s position is not “ideologically narrow” [...]
How Atheists Can Avoid Other Fundamentalisms: By Focusing On Rationalism First And Foremost
July 26th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I agree with this a whole lot (I most recommend the last link to PZ Myers’s assessment of Hitchens on war): The real-world implications of the “New Atheists” ideas are not insulated from the same dogmatism and intolerance that they decry. To get back to my original point about rationalism, the religious aspect is only [...]
Posted in Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, New Atheism, Rationalism, Secularism Tags: al-Dawinia brigades, Aryanism, Cognitive Errors, Denmark, Hitler, Kim Jung Il, Lamarckian Lysenkoism, Mao, North Korea, Osama bin Laden, Richard Dawkins, Robert Wright, Soviet Union, Stalin, Tim Garton Ash, Unwarranted Certainty, Weaver Santaniello No Comments »Anti-Theism or Pro-Atheism?
July 26th, 2009 Daniel Fincke A reader of The Daily Dish writes the following in reply to remarks by Andrew Sullivan’s under-blogger and temporary fill-in lead blogger, Patrick Appel: Almost every conversation about atheism on the Daily Dish seems to be confusing two very different sets of views — largely because both groups self-identify as atheists. I’m an atheist, and [...]
“Just Leave Us Our Fictions”
July 26th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Patrick Appel objected to Dan Dennett’s recent piece in The Guardian countering those faitheists who do not actually have religious beliefs themselves but believe in the necessity of religious beliefs for others to achieve various social goods. In reply, a reader wrote the following to him: Ironically, I don’t see any support in the quote [...]
Against The Faitheists’ Belief In Belief
July 26th, 2009 Daniel Fincke During Andrew Sullivan’s absence, this last week at The Daily Dish, there has been a flurry of discussion around issues related to Daniel Dennett’s recent attack on “belief in belief”. In a series of posts, I want to go through a number of these interesting lines of thoughts that have been raised and possibly bring [...]
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