.png){kind=logo}
A reader of Andrew Sullivan’s blog brilliantly connects the dots: Part of Sarah Palin’s irresistible appeal to her fundamentalist base is her ability to look at the camera with utter conviction and declare black to be white. The ability to lie well is a valuable part of the fundamentalist psychology. My son isn’t gay, he [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Epistemology’
Palin As Paradigmatic Fundamentalist and Why I Turned Against Faith
July 1st, 2009 
Daniel Fincke Not Everything Is Scientifically Explicable, But
July 1st, 2009 Daniel Fincke in the interview I rather specifically said there were phenomena for which science is not the best tool for examination (although I would also say that there are no phenomena which require something beyond natural mechanisms). Well put, Professor Myers. Click here for the atheist biologist and blogger extraordinaire’s visit to debate religious scientist Dennis [...]
Posted in Atheism, Creationism, Epistemology, Evolution, Metaphysics, PZ Myers, Religion 
Tags: Biology, Dennis Alexander, Epistemology, Religion, Science, Scientism 
No Comments »If Faith Isn’t Publicly Justifiable, How Can It Provide Justification At All?
July 1st, 2009 Daniel Fincke Chris’s reply to part 2 of my series of objections to religious moderates and intellectuals: For the purposes of this post, I will identify two claims which many Christians accept (and which I understand you do not): (1) that the central claims of Christianity are true, and (2) that faith, properly understood, is a justified [...]
Posted in Atheism, Epistemology, Faith, Religion, Uncategorized Tags: Epistemology, Justification, Religion, Uncategorized No Comments »Our Caveman Brains
June 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke No one is immune—the question is whether we cultivate or counteract our natural cognitive fallacies. A professor at the University of Guelph, Prof. Davis has spent the past 20 years paying attention to the use of such seemingly benign phrases: “It was a sign,” “Thank God” and even “Good luck.” To him, such phrases reflect [...]
Posted in Epistemology, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion Tags: Epistemology, Philosophy, Religion No Comments »Rainfall Caused By Frogs Marrying
June 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke If they want rain so much, they should just move to New York! Thanks to Atheist Nexus for the link to this video and this summation of the story: “More than 250 people in northern Bangladesh have attended a wedding ceremony between two frogs as part of a ritual to bring rain to the parched [...]
Posted in Epistemology, Religion Tags: Epistemology, Frogs, India, Religion, Superstition No Comments »How Faith Is Not Like Other (Revisable) Reflexive Assumptions
June 29th, 2009 Daniel Fincke (It should not be necessary for understanding this post, but for the full backstory to this debate see my series on Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals, parts 1, 2, 3, & 4 and my post “On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues and Vices”) Shane writes in reply to my post “On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues [...]
Posted in Atheism, Authoritarianism, Epistemology, Ethics, Faith, Historical Ethics, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Miracles, Naturalism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Teleology Tags: A Priori Moral Knowledge, Aesthetic Knowledge, Assumptions, Cultural Relativism, Emotivism, Epistemology, Hermeneutics, Humean Skepticism, Mathematical Knowledge, Metaethics, Mythology, Nietzsche on Objective Values, Perceptual Knowledge, Philosophy, Prejudices, Religion, Supernaturalism No Comments »Christian Belief as a Natural Phenomenon
June 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Since May, Valerie Tarico has been writing a six part series of articles called “Christina Belief as a Natural Phenomenon.” Part 5 was just released last night. I highly suggest reading through all the articles and would love your feedback in our comments section. Your ideas from there might lead to future blog posts. So [...]
Taking The Unity of Truth Notion Seriously
June 28th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss on the incompatibility of God and science. The whole piece is worth your time. This succinct statement summing up the article, however, hits the nail on the head: My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel [...]
Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Epistemology, Faith, Naturalism, News Discussion, Philosophy, Religion, Theocracy Tags: Democracy, Epistemology, Iran, Philosophy, Politics, Reason, Religion, Roman Catholics, Scientists, Virgin Birth No Comments »PZ Myers on the Incompatibility of Christian Faith and Science
June 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Related to the issues in my recent posts objecting to religious moderates and intellectuals, here are a few remarks from an excellent piece worth reading in its whole about why science and religion are not compatible from PZ Myers. I encourage you to click the link and read the whole thing, but here are a [...]
On Teleology and Intellectual Virtues and Vices
June 27th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Below I quote Shane’s reply to part 4 of my series, “Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals” (for further background to this debate, check out parts 1, 2 & 3) and reply to him. The topic has evolved into questions of teleology and the “point” of life, so little background in previous installments should be [...]
Posted in Atheism, Epistemology, Ethics, Evolution, God, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Metaethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Prejudice, Religion, Teleology, Uncategorized, Virtues Tags: Epistemology, Metaethics, Philosophy, Purpose, Religion, Religious Justification, Uncategorized No Comments »No More Theology Departments?
June 26th, 2009 Daniel Fincke I still have to get to replying to a few outstanding comments but in the meantime, I figured I’d quickly address this question from Evangelos: would you contend that theology departments should not exist at the academic level, even if they were challenging traditional beliefs (I’m thinking of this fellow who appeared on Colbert a [...]
Objections To Religious Moderates and Intellectuals (part 3)
June 25th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Shane’s reply to this post addressing him (and you can find part 1 which initiated the conversation here): An excellent response! Much more in-depth than my teasing comment probably warranted. Sorry, but my response is a bit rambling. That comes with the blog commenting genre, I think. My earlier point wasn’t about intellectual virtues or [...]
Posted in Atheism, Authority, Education, Epistemology, Intellectual Vices, Intellectual Virtues, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Religious Moderates, Uncategorized, Virtues Tags: Artists, Bultmann, Epistemology, Myth, Philosophy, Religion, Religious Education, Religious Intellectuals, Standards of Evidence, Uncategorized No Comments »Objections to Religious Moderates and Intellectuals (part 2)
June 24th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Shane writes in reply to this post, Hi Dan, long time reader first time commenter. Do you have any /empirical/ evidence that religious people are more credulous, more stupid on average than non-religious people of comparable education and similar sociology? If you do, I’d love to see it. But if you don’t have such empirical [...]
Posted in Atheism, Education, Epistemology, Ethics, Psychology, Religion Tags: Epistemology, Religion No Comments »Objections To Religious Moderates and Intellectuals
June 24th, 2009 Daniel Fincke Marcus Brigstocke has a rant (which I used to have in this post in video form before it was taken down from YouTube. The end of the rant goes like this: Now I know that most religious folks are moderates and nice and reasonable and wear tidy jumpers and eat cheese like real people. And [...]
Posted in Atheism, Epistemology, Ethics, Hilarious, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion Tags: Epistemology, Philosophy, Religion No Comments »Fiery Furnaces
May 12th, 2008 Daniel Fincke In Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, section 4 (Parkes translation, Oxford 2006)), we read: Zealously and with much shouting they drove their herd over their bridge: as if to the future there were but one bridge! Verily, these herdsmen thesmelves still belonged among the sheep! Little minds and capacious souls these shepherds had: but, my [...]
Posted in Atheism, Nietzsche, Philosophy Tags: Epistemology, Free Spirits, Martyrs, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Zarathustra No Comments »
Recent Comments