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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 [...]
Archive for the ‘Pope Benedict XVI’ Category
A Debate About The Wisdom of Trying To Deconvert People
October 20th, 2011 
Daniel Fincke 
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 »About Those Germans Trying To Get The Pope Charged With Crimes Against Humanity…
February 27th, 2011 Daniel Fincke Sendai Anonymous has the scoop on how the enemy of our enemy may not be our friend. Your Thoughts?
The Pope’s Weaselly Excuses For Church Child Abuse In The ’70s
January 11th, 2011 Daniel Fincke On Christmas, the Pope Benedict XVI tried, pathetically, to minimize the Church’s responsibility for the pedophilia scandals: Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict’s claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s. In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, [...]
Posted in Authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, Christianity, Christianity, Featured, Feminism, Feminism, Politics, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Rape, Religion, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church Tags: Child Abuse, Feminism, Jason Thibeault, Pedophilia, Pedophilia in The Church, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Revolution 19 Comments »Blaming The Victims Of Anti-Gay Violence
October 11th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Andrew Sullivan quotes Joseph Cardinal Ratzinberger’s 1986 “Letter On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons”: The proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced [...]
Calling The Conservative Catholic’s Bluff On Gay Suffering
October 10th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Michael Voris, who explicitly and unapologetically argued that our democracy should be replaced by a benevolent dictatorship in the form of a Catholic theocracy, recently made another video, advancing a familiar line of reasoning from conservative Catholic theology that homosexuals have been specially chosen by God for their suffering and that they can be a [...]
What Does It Mean To Be “Pro-Catholic”?
September 25th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Johann Hari makes the case that the most pro-Catholic thing to do is to arrest the pope:
Richard Dawkins’s Case Against The Pope
September 19th, 2010 Daniel Fincke This brilliant, efficient, and so very importantly true speech needs to go viral, do your part to make it happen. Your Thoughts?
Hitler’s Remarks About Religion (And, Specifically, Christianity)
September 17th, 2010 Daniel Fincke In Engalnd, the pope is trying to terrify people into avoiding atheism by once again blaming Nazism on godlessness. The first simple fact is that even were Hitler an atheist (which he manifestly wasn’t) it would not mean either that atheism was false or that his views on morality were at all necessarily entailed by [...]
Jesuit Priest Criticizes Church Demands For Lock Step Agreement
July 10th, 2010 Daniel Fincke James Martin, a Jesuit priest and Colbert Show regular turns to the Huffington Post to criticize the Roman Catholic Church’s top down approach to thinking and the culture of fear it engenders: Today in the Catholic Church almost any disagreement to almost any degree with almost any church leader on almost any topic is seen [...]
On God As The Source Of Being But Not Of Evil
July 9th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Introduction This post is a long one but an important one for understanding what sophisticated Roman Catholic philosophers have traditionally meant when they have said that “God is good” and that the existence of evil is not to be taken as counter-evidence to their belief in God’s goodness. Very often we atheists are dismissed as [...]
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, Christianity, Christianity, Ethics, Featured, God, God, Historical Philosophy, Historical Philosophy, Metaethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Problem of Evil, Problem of Evil, Religion, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Teleology, Teleology, Virtues, Virtues Tags: Thomas Aquinas No Comments »A Dictatorship Of Relativism?
July 3rd, 2010 Daniel Fincke BBC Radio 4 analyzes the pope’s catchphrase, “a dictatorship of relativism”, used for describing the secular West. Here’s the program description: The idea that no one has a monopoly on the truth seems to be fixed in the modern Western psyche. But it’s an idea that is under attack. Pope Benedict claims that we are [...]
Posted in Authority, Authority, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Culture, Cutural Criticism, Cutural Criticism, Ethics, Ethics, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Islam, Islam, Metaethics, Metaethics, Morality, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Political Secularism, Political Secularism, Politics, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Separation of Church and State, World Affairs, World Affairs Tags: Ann Widdecombe, Europe, Leslie Green, Marcello Pera, Moral Aboslutism, Moral Relativism, Rowan Williams, Ruzwan Mohammed, Simon Blackburn, Stephen Wang, United Kingdom No Comments »Daily Hilarity: A New Pope In A Galaxy Far, Far Away
June 21st, 2010 Daniel Fincke The absurdity of religious ceremonial pretensions are clarified a bit: Thanks to Heather for the link. Your Thoughts?
U.S. Bishops Argue Employers Should Be Allowed To Consider Being Gay A Fireable Offense
June 3rd, 2010 Daniel Fincke The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote a letter addressed to the United States Congress people opposing ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act For the sake of clarity, permit us first to state two basic tenets of Catholic Church teaching on this issue. First, persons with a homosexual inclination “must be accepted with respect, compassion, [...]
Posted in Andrew Sullivan, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Religious Secularism, Right Wing Politics, Roman Catholic Church, Same Sex Marriage, Separation of Church and State Tags: Anti-discrimination Laws, Discrimination, Employment Nondiscrimination Act, enda, H.R. 3017, Senate (S. 1584), United States Bishops No Comments »52% Of Americans Now Judge Gay Relationships Morally Acceptable
May 25th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Not that moral correctness requires popular approval, but moral admirableness of the populace does require morally correct opinions, and so this is a heartening development which sees America finally starting to get it right, with its first ever clear majority (52%) judging gay relationships “morally acceptable”: Andrew Sullivan analyzes the data: A large part of [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Ethics, Homosexuality, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, Morality, Philosophical Ethics, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Religious Extremism, Religious Moderates, Roman Catholic Church Tags: American views on gay relationships, Ethics of Homosexuality, Morality of Homosexuality No Comments »The Catholic Church’s Struggles With Sex Abuse Scandals Down Through The Ages
April 24th, 2010 Daniel Fincke An unusually historically informative short video, via Unreasonable Faith. On edit, back at Unreasonable Faith, PsiCop argues the video is factually challenged: This video has some factual flaws, and even in addition to that, it’s anachronistic. The “pedophilia” referred to in early documents like the Didache and at the synod of Elvira very likely alluded to a [...]
Atheist In Liverpool Sentenced To 6 Months In Jail For Blasphemy
April 24th, 2010 Daniel Fincke In late 2008 Harry Taylor was arrested for putting anti-religious leaflets in a prayer room in the John Lennon airport in Liverpool. The specific charge was an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. Here are a few of the images for which he would be going to jail for 6 months were his sentence not suspended for [...]
Posted in Christianity, Featured, Free Speech, Islam, Law, News, News Discussion, Pope Benedict XVI, Separation of Church and State Tags: "Militant Atheism", Anti-Social Behaviour Order, ASBO, Blasphemy Laws, Cartoons, Harry Taylor, John Lennon, John Lennon Airport, Liverpool, National Secular Society, Nicky Lees, Religious Harassment, Terry Sanderson 7 Comments »Arrest The Pope?
April 8th, 2010 Daniel Fincke Johann Hari argues that London should do just that. The interesting discussion in which he makes this case takes place in the entire first video and the beginning of the second video: Your Thoughts?
Posted in Law, Music Videos, Pope Benedict XVI, Roman Catholic Church, Videos Tags: BBC, Johann Hari, Laura Lynch, Marc Roche, Michael Goldfarb, Pedophilia, Priestly Celibacy No Comments »Ross Douthat Claims Arguments Against Gay Marriage Lose Because They’re Just “Too Abstract”
November 30th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Ross Douthat half admits to the intellectual bankruptcy of his opposition of to same-sex marriage and then tacitly demonstrates it with his pathetic reply when pushed to address the topic last month at the New School: “I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public.” Mr. Douthat indicated [...]
Posted in Applied Ethics, Atheism, Christianity, Civil Rights, Faith, Featured, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Law, Law & Politics, LGBTQAA, News, News Discussion, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Same Sex Marriage, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Theocracy, Theocrats Tags: New School University, Russ Douthat, The New York Times No Comments »Judge This: Hitchens On Whether Islamist Jihad Is Justifiable Response To Western Imperialism
October 3rd, 2009 Daniel Fincke The question is morally challenging but I think Hitchens’s reply is compelling and impressive. Your Thoughts? And for a bonus, to add more fuel to the fire of this topic, here is (a hilarious) Bill Maher on why our extremists are not as bad as Muslim ones: Your Thoughts?
Vatican Snubs Kennedy Over Inconsistent Fielty
August 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke One can understand cool feelings and justifiably harsh moral judgments of Ted Kennedy over his behaior at Chappiquiddick. But the Roman Catholic Church apparently takes more offense at his political independence of itself. The pope has yet to issue any statement in the wake of Kennedy’s death and when Obama hand delivered a letter [...]
Atheism’s Evil History
August 11th, 2009 Daniel Fincke via Hollie Pugliares
Richard Dawkins Interviews Jesuit Astronomer Father George Coyne
July 23rd, 2009 Daniel Fincke An utterly fascinating dialogue, Coyne throughout is a novel, deeply scientifically informed, and riveting thinker and Dawkins puts exactly the right questions and brief challenges to him. Watch all 7 parts, they’re great. Your Thoughts?
Posted in Astronomy, Cosmology, Evolution, Faith, Philosophy, Physics, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Religion and Science, Science Tags: Cosmological Arguments For Existence of God, Existence of God, George Coyne, God of the Gaps, Multiverse, Non-Overlapping Magisteria, Pope John Paul II, Prime Mover, Richard Dawkins, Roman Catholicism No Comments »Conservative Christians Coming Around On Harry Potter?
July 23rd, 2009 Daniel Fincke The contrast: Conservative Christian reviews of the new Harry Potter movie are surprisingly positive. “As ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ opens, we are once again reminded of the characteristics that make him something of a Christ figure,” Connie Neal writes for the evangelical Christianity Today. “It is more likely that at the end of [...]
Posted in Film, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion Tags: Christianity Today, Connie Neal, Focus On the Family, Harry Potter, James Dobson No Comments »How Can You Join A Conversation If You Won’t Dialogue?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Business ethicist Chris MacDonald is opting to skip the Pope’s new encylcical despite its high profile attempts to discuss the ethics of how business is done. The reason? my main reason not to bother with the Pope’s new essay — with all due respect to my friends among the several hundred million Catholics in the [...]
The Gayby Boom?
July 20th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Johann Hari on the rise of open gay parenting in the UK and the research indicating no averse effects for children: The children of gay couples are desperately and passionately wanted. They are, by definition, planned, with parents who have to go to a great deal of hassle and heart-searching before they are created. Compare [...]
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