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faith in honest doubt

faith in honest doubt

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I blog on whatever angries up the blood or otherwise inspires commentary -- often politics and religion, but also culture, music, books, poetry, science, beauty, truth, these internets, and the most dangerous topic of all .... man.

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Recent Posts Tagged With 'philosophy'

  • A Very Nietzschean Christmas

    Posted on Thursday December 17th, 2009 at 22:49 in books, philosophy, god stuff, conceits

    This cartoon from Big Fat Whale has something for all us war-on-Christmas foot soldiers* -- I particularly like the Richard Dawkins snow man, the wreath design, and the Nietzsche sweater, though I think Nietzsche was an agonized sort of atheist rathe...

  • Nietzsche, Man of Straw

    Posted on Tuesday November 3rd, 2009 at 22:38 in philosophy, god stuff

    TBWBoSRaDH* nicely captures what makes Nietzsche so many Christians' favorite atheist: Friedrich Nietzsche was the product of a line of Lutherans pastors, so it should not surprise that his atheism engages so directly, and inverts so forcefully, th...

  • Truth Matters?

    Posted on Saturday October 10th, 2009 at 11:27 in philosophy, god stuff

    Responding to more brazen intellectual dishonesty from Chris Mooney, Ophelia Benson issues a reminder of what is and is not eligible for compromise: [W]hat's at stake with this disagreement - atheism v vague woolly whateverism - is basically epistemo...

  • Thomas Aquinas: No Shoulder-Shrugger

    Posted on Thursday September 24th, 2009 at 21:53 in books, philosophy, god stuff

    Karen Armstrong said the following in an interview with NPR's Terry Gross:Thomas Aquinas in his great work the "Summa Theologica," he says yes, now here are some proofs to show that something brought something into existence when there could have bee...

  • Shorter Makarios

    Posted on Thursday September 17th, 2009 at 07:03 in philosophy, people-watching, meta-, conceits

    Makarios on the Objectivity of Moral Values:Morals are objective, not subject to people's reactions. Here's proof: when something wrong is done to you, you have a negative reaction in which you say the thing done to you was wrong.The insights shorter...

  • What Works and Sentiment

    Posted on Thursday September 17th, 2009 at 07:01 in philosophy, god stuff

    A few years back, Taner Edis reviewed Michael Martin's Atheism, Morality, and Meaning, and came to some rather odd conclusions for an avowed non-believer:For all its intellectual defects, religion does appear to help many of us cope with such [existe...

  • Two Ambivalent Tastes that Taste Great Together: The Nietzsche Family Circus

    Posted on Friday September 4th, 2009 at 23:44 in philosophy, conceits, computer machines

    Having decided earlier today that I shall no longer be surprised at anything, ever*, I now present my new favorite thing, and disavow, deny, denounce, and reject any surprise that it should result from the combination of two things for which I have a...

  • Sunday Unhelpful Elisions Blogging: Religion and Morality

    Posted on Sunday August 23rd, 2009 at 11:47 in politics, books, philosophy, god stuff

    It's bad enough that religious believers routinely equate god-belief with morality, a confusion that goes back at least as far as the Decalogue, which elevates brand loyalty to Jehovah to the first rank of moral demands. It's arguably worse when non-...

  • What Happens If Gays Marry?

    Posted on Saturday August 22nd, 2009 at 22:33 in politics, philosophy, god stuff

    Rod Dreher has interviewed Maggie Ghallager, who wants everyone to know that there are terrible, horrible, no good, very bad social consequences to legalizing same-sex marriage. Curiously, despite the open-mic, open-ended nature of the interview, Gha...

  • Public Policy and "Trust"

    Posted on Saturday August 15th, 2009 at 17:47 in politics, philosophy, people-watching

    A peculiar exchange comes at roughly the 1:10 mark of this video of Senator McCaskill's meeting with constituents: "We don't trust you!" shouts at least one of the far-right screamers, to which McCaskill responds with a slightly plaintive repetition,...