What Can An Atheist Love In People’s Religiosity?

February 15, 2011 By 13 Comments

Earlier today, I argued that atheists can vigorously and outspokenly oppose bad faith-based ideas, values, and behaviors, but still love other aspects of the religiosity of their religious friends (and of religious people in general). I argued that religion can be as central to personal identity formation as sexuality is and that to indiscriminately hate [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Prejudice, Religion, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues 13 Comments

Can You Really Love Religious People If You Hate Their Religion?

February 15, 2011 By 15 Comments

Atheists do not exactly claim to “love sinners but hate sins” (if for no other reason than that most, if not all, of us reject the category of “sin” as a meaningful or valuable way to talk about ethical failure). Also, atheists may be more realistic than to think that we really do, or feasibly [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Homosexuality, Homosexuality, LGBTQAA, Love, Love, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Prejudice, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Religious Secularism, Religious Secularism, Secularism, Virtues, Virtues 15 Comments

You Might Be An Atheist Even If You Hate The New Atheists

February 13, 2011 By 6 Comments

There are a lot of people who dislike Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, PZ Myers, and other prominent “New Atheists” (or, as some prefer “Gnu Atheists”) so much that they do not want to be called atheists.  John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts had a post (and many remarks in the comments section [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Featured, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, PZ Myers, PZ Myers, Secularism Tagged With: , , , 6 Comments

PZ Myers Shouldn’t Sound Like Sarah Palin

February 13, 2011 By 1 Comment

Alright, before I get into my possibly anal critique of an off-hand remark from the good Dr. Myers of Pharyngula fame, let me preface what follows with the disclaimer that I really love PZ Myers. I think he’s great. There are few bloggers I read who make both my brain happy and butter up my [...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Featured, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, PZ Myers, PZ Myers, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin 1 Comment

Sex And Apostasy

February 9, 2011 By 8 Comments

Drew Dyck has written a book called Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith. . .and How to Bring Them Back. I want to focus on just a few passages from his interesting five page article from last fall in last November’s Christianity Today. Unlike many Christians who, despite living in a culture [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheism, Atheism, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Christianity, Christianity, Cultural Secularism, Cultural Secularism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Fundamentalism, Fundamentalism, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Prejudice, Psychology, Psychology, Religion, Religion, Secularism, Sex, Social Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Sociology, Why I Am Not A Christian, Why I Am Not A Christian Tagged With: , , , , , , 8 Comments

The “A” Word

February 8, 2011 By 20 Comments

Yesterday, Eric Steinhart pointed out that “Much entails atheism but atheism entails little”, which inspired F.O. to write to me, Now I just think about how much it took me to really admit to myself that I was an atheist, using that word and not any other alternative, and I found that funny somehow. Why [...]

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What Does It Mean For Pleasure And Pain To Be “Intrinsically Instrumental” Goods?

January 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

In reply to my post, Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods, James objects: You are defining pleasure as intrinsic instrumental good. This is obviously not intrinsic goodness as I define it at all. Instrumental goodness is not intrinsic goodness. A successful pleasure instance is an intrinsically good instance of pleasure in-itself and for-itself, just for being [...]

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Against Moral Intuitionism

January 27, 2011 By 2 Comments

In the series of posts I began on Sunday and which has continued through this morning, I have developed and defended my naturalistic approach to understanding value as a realist.  James Gray, despite being a moral realist, has balked at much in my attempts to do this and it has become increasingly clear that the [...]

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Pleasure And Pain As Intrinsic Instrumental Goods

January 27, 2011 By 2 Comments

In recent posts I have been arguing that there is one sense of the word “good” which can be analyzed in terms of facts and that this is the kind of “goodness” which we can consider a real part of the world.  This real, intrinsic, factual sense of goodness is its meaning as “effectiveness”. We [...]

Filed Under: Applied Ethics, Applied Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Autonomy, Autonomy, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethics, Ethics, Examining Conceptions of God's Attributes, Goodness, Knowability, and Existence, Featured, Historical Ethics, Historical Ethics, Metaethics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Problem of Evil, Teleology, Teleology, Torture, Torture, Virtues, Virtues Tagged With: , , , , , 2 Comments

Non-Reductionistic Analysis Of Values Into Facts

January 27, 2011 By 1 Comment

I have recently been arguing that the term good: must be cashed out in fact terms lest it just be a projection of our preferences and nothing more.  [And] if it means anything objective, it means effectiveness. In reply, James Gray accuses me of reductionism: One, “good” does not have be defined in non-good terms. [...]

Filed Under: Atheistic Ethics, Atheistic Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Contemporary Ethics, Ethical Pluralism, Ethical Pluralism, Ethics, Ethics, Featured, Metaethics, Metaphysics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Moral Psychology, Morality, Morality, My Theory of Morality's Rational Foundations and Nature, Naturalistic Fallacy, Naturalistic Fallacy, Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophical Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Teleology, Teleology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment