Feminism, Civility, and Ron Lindsay’s Welcome to Women in Secularism

May 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

At Women in Secularism, Ron Lindsay did us defenders of civility a huge disfavor by manifoldly insulting feminists.

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The Pope Wants to Meet Atheists on the Common Ground of our Goodness

May 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I am grateful the pope has acknowledged atheists do good and seeks common ground with us based in our common goodness. I share his desire for a “culture of encounter”. Here is hoping it is a sign of theological improvements to come. In this post, I accept his offer of dialogue and do some philosophical analysis of the ways Catholics mix up God and goodness to make it so atheists who pursue the good can be seen as pursuing God (covertly).

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Announcing The Schedule For My Summer 2013 Online Interactive Classes Available To All

May 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Here are the courses I am offering this summer using Google Hangout’s interactive video conferencing technology! Click on the post for full course descriptions and more information. Write me at camelswithhammers at gmail dot com in order to get your own questions answered or to enroll immediately!

Philosophy for Atheists, Sunday nights 8-11pm EDT from June 2-September 1 (13 week course).

Nietzsche, Tuesday/Thursday nights 7-9pm EDT from June 4-August 15 (10 week course).

Foundations of Ethics, Thursday nights 9pm-12am EDT from June 6-September 5 (13 week course)

Practical Ethics, Sundays 9-11:30am EDT from June 2-September 22 (16 week course)

Historical Philosophy, Aristotle to the Present, Sundays 12-2pm EDT from June 2-October 20 (20 week course with students already taking it who are presently finishing studying Plato with me. You would join us as we start Aristotle and continue on through the rest of the history of philosophy. If you want, we can do special sessions on Plato for two or three weeks right after the normal class is over.)

Practical Ethics, Friday evenings 5:15-7:45pm EDT from July 6-October 26 (16 week course)

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How To Tangibly and Efficiently Help The Tornado Victims…

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Foundation Beyond Belief has done careful emergency research in order to identify the charities they think will most tangibly and efficiently help those whose lives are right now overturned by tornados in Oklahoma. Your donations through them not only have the likelihood of being maximally effective. They will send the message that atheists care and can mobilize disaster relief, dispelling a common slanderous assumption.

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Forward Thinking About Cruelty

May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Cruelty is a deep part of human nature. So just saying “cruelty is evil” is not enough. We need to think constructively about what good there might be in it, what purposes it might serve, and how we can best keep it from doing serious damage to people.

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The Inaugural Patheos Atheists Blog Carnival!

May 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I am so proud to blog alongside my colleagues on Patheos’s atheism channel. In this round up of highlights of my fellow bloggers’ work, you should get a sense for just how high quality their writing and insights are.

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Frank Oz’s Eulogy To Jim Henson

May 16, 2013 By 1 Comment

We lost one of the greatest creative geniuses in American history 23 years ago today. Here was the great Frank Oz’s moving and fittingly quirky memorialization of his friend and collaborator. Last year I wrote a post on how much Kermit means to me and why. Here’s part 1 of a wonderful documentary that covers [...]

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4 Kinds of Irony and Nietzsche. An Excerpt From My Dissertation

May 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

A peek inside my dissertation! I love this stuff about irony that I worked out in this section. Irony is such a generally ill-explicated subject. I wanted to blog about it today but decided I had already done it well enough in my dissertation and didn’t want to put in a ton of work to replicate what I had already come up with. Tell me what you think!

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A CWH Mother’s Day Special: Parenting, Atheism, and Religion From A Few Angles

May 12, 2013 By 3 Comments

In honor of Mother’s Day, I decided to collect a few things old and new that explore important aspects of parenting and, particularly, its intersections with atheism and religion–and their conflicts.

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Oh You Can Get Good People To Do Bad Things Without Religion Alright…

May 12, 2013 By 29 Comments

Sometimes atheists become enamored with some pretty psychologically shallow memes. In this post, I fisk one.

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