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Tag Archives: morality
Is God Necessary for Morality?
In a recent article, Dennis Prager claims that God is necessary for objective morality, writing the following: If there is no God, the labels “good” and “evil” are merely opinions. They are substitutes for “I like it” and “I don’t like … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, critical thinking, faith, God, morality, philosophy, reason, religion
12 Comments
Blogging a Great Debate: Sam Harris vs. William Lane Craig at Notre Dame (Accompanied by the Ghost of Nietzsche)
Sam Harris recently debated William Lane Craig at Notre Dame, and here it is. The first eight minutes are devoted to the moderator’s introduction, then Craig goes first. The topic is moral reasoning: __________ Here are the highlights that I took … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, God, love, morality, Nietzsche, philosophy, Sam Harris, the problem of evil, william lane craig
7 Comments
Nightline’s Recent Sam Harris Segment
Pretty interesting:
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Tagged atheism, atheist, gnu atheism, God, morality, religion, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris
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The Source of the Moral Life
Love. A righteous outrage at encountering something ugly and unjust or a response to something beautiful that captures the heart. An epiphany. Like this:
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Tagged atheism, atheist, God, life, love, morality, religion
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Is Atheist Morality an Oxymoron? Philosopher Joel Marks Gives Up on Right and Wrong
I find philosopher Joel Marks’s recent flat-out rejection of morality disarming in its honesty. Here’s Joel Marks: The long and the short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, atheism, atheist, beatrice, Charles Darwin, dante, Friedrich Nietzsche, God, joel marks, morality, philosophy
12 Comments
Joel Marks’s Desirism vs. John Hart’s Commanderism
Atheist philosopher, and former Kantian, Joel Marks has given up on grounding morality absent God. So what now? Here’s Joel Marks’s default idea: base your choices—perhaps compassion today, perhaps hedonism tomorrow—on desire. He calls his position desirism. At the Catholic First Things … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, beatrice, consciousness, dante, God, Jesus, mind, morality, philosophy
2 Comments
Why Read Literature or Watch Good Films? Martha Nussbaum on the Role of the Imagination in the Cultivation of Empathy
Here’s a great quote from Martha Nussbaum’s new book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (Oxford 2010, xvii): That ‘terrified’ gay teenager needs, and deserves, equal respect, and a sphere of liberty equal to that enjoyed by … Continue reading
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Tagged college, creative writing, democracy, education, ethics, film, literature, martha nussbaum, morality, poetry, teachers
4 Comments
Agnostic and Atheist Values: How I Ground Morality Absent Religion
I am not responsible for bringing consciousness, happiness, or the sense of freedom into the universe, but now that they are here—and however they got here—I appraise them as very good things, and want them for myself and, by imaginative sympathy, for others. … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Ayn Rand, God, Jesus, morality, philosophy, the Bible, values
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Sam Harris cuts through the fog of Nietzsche’s fact-value distinction
In a powerful attack on Nietzsche’s fact-value distinction and the oft-repeated canard that it is dangerous to derive an “ought” from an “is,” in the video below Sam Harris argues that, in fact, we know perfectly well what things make for human flourishing, … Continue reading
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Tagged anti-essentialism, atheism, atheist, biology, God, humanism, morality, Nietzsche, philosophy, postmodernism, science, values
11 Comments
How Does Philosopher AC Grayling Ground Atheist Morality?
I thought this was an excellent answer. It came from a recent interview at The Freethinker: It is actually very easy to identify and to act upon the moral baselines. Moral baselines derive from our understanding of what it is … Continue reading
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Tagged AC Grayling, atheism, atheist, ethics, freedom, human rights, john stewart mill, morality, philosophy, Politics, universal declaration of human rights
1 Comment
What Did Friedrich Nietzsche Take from Charles Darwin?
Answer: A lot. Most specifically, contingency (chance), and the implications of contingency upon meaning. Prior to Charles Darwin there were a lot of 19th century people who believed that evolution must have occurred in some form, but they thought about … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, Christianity, Darwin, evolution, fascism, God, Jesus, morality, Nietzsche, philosophy, thomas nagel
21 Comments
The Moral Animal(s)
Humans are not the lone moral animal? So the Daily Mail reports: Professor Marc Bekoff, from the University of Colorado, Boulder, believes that morals are ‘hard-wired’ into the brains of all mammals. They also provide the ‘social glue’ that allow … Continue reading
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Tagged animals, biology, chimpanzees, evolution, humans, life, morality, morals, psychology
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