Blog Stats
- 2,676,933 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Anonymous on Genocide or Justice?: William Lane Craig, the Canaanites, the Holocaust, and Jihad
- Anonymous on Genocide or Justice?: William Lane Craig, the Canaanites, the Holocaust, and Jihad
- Top 100 Non-Fiction Book: #98 – The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776) – The Top 100 Reviews on Adam Smith and Capitalism for Beginners
- Casual But Smart on Adam Smith and Capitalism for Beginners
- Liza Minnelli on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Liza Minnelli on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Anonymous on Walt Whitman: “To be indeed a God!”
- wdawdaw on How Many People Could the Ancient Colosseum in Rome Hold?
- Marcos Borges on Judge William Adams Alludes to the Bible as He Beats His Daughter, Hallie
- Roy West on Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Stacked Corpses
- Blue Beazley on In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Gabry on Michael Jackson Pedophile Reality Check: Is It Mean to Suspect that Michael Jackson Might Have Been a Pedophile?
- Dave on Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?
- Chris on Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?
- Oliver Stark on Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible’s “Night of the Living Dead” Passage
Top Posts
- How Crazy is Dr. David Jeremiah?
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Matthew 27:51-53: The Bible's "Night of the Living Dead" Passage
- What is a Human, Really? Thinking about Definition via Aristotle
- In 1935, Were Cary Grant and Randolf Scott Sex Partners? No, But These Images Look Rather Camp
- Ludwig Wittgenstein for Beginners
- What Did Friedrich Nietzsche Take from Charles Darwin?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
-
Recent Posts
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.10: Emerson’s “Circles”
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.9: Imitation And Emulation With An Eye On Competition
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.8: Selection And Editing
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.7: Audience And Rhetorical Strategy
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.6: Moving From First Sentence To Thesis
Recent Haiku Tweets
- AOC says it well. twitter.com/CNN/status/108… 4 months ago
- nytimes.com/interactive/20… 10 months ago
- RT @mrchan: So much has changed in America, and yet so much hasn't https://t.co/x2mthUr4Kc 1 year ago
- Perfect. twitter.com/newsundayheral… 2 years ago
- RT @goldenglobes: At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. https://t.… 2 years ago
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, gnu atheism, God, morality, religion, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris
Leave a comment
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:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, atheist, God, life, love, morality, religion
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, Ayn Rand, God, Jesus, morality, philosophy, the Bible, values
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged animals, biology, chimpanzees, evolution, humans, life, morality, morals, psychology
Leave a comment
