Two Opportunities (one for each side)

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:41 am By Leah Libresco

Two interesting opportunities turned up in the “Religion” folder of my RSS reader, and I’d like to pass them on to you: For Atheists: If you’re looking for a summer internship (or know some secular youngsters who are still at loose ends), the Foundation Beyond Belief is still accepting applications for their summer internship program. It looks like it’s part time and telecommuting, so anyone could apply. Foundation Beyond Belief helps atheists coordinate charitable giving and has raised over a... Read more

More Beating Up on Lazy Humanism

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:41 am By Leah Libresco

There was a link to the definition from Webster’s that the Council for Secular Humanism highlights at the top of their “What is Secular Humanism?” page (ellipses theirs): Secular. “Pertaining to the world or things not spiritual or sacred.” Humanism. “Any system of thought or action concerned with the interests or ideals of people … the intellectual and cultural movement … characterized by an emphasis on human interests rather than … religion.” Holy False Dichotomy, Batman! I would never accuse... Read more

Atheist vs Humanist

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:39 am By Leah Libresco

As you’ve noticed, Patheos has rolled out a site-wide redesign, and the best changes have come to the new ‘Channel‘ pages (previously ‘Portals’) for the different religious groups on the site. The old portal was kind of a placeholder, and they were holding off on major updates til the redesign. One question that came up in consultations with bloggers before the rollout was whether our section should be under the heading “Atheist” or “Humanist.” It used to be “Humanist” and... Read more

Should Atheism Be A ‘Comfortable’ Belief?

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:29 am By Leah Libresco

Greta Christina put up a really thought-provoking post today at FreeThought Blogs (“Will Atheism Become Easier?“). Greta’s not talking about the boring question (will atheists be less stigmatized in the future — pretty clearly yes), she’s wondering whether it will be more comfortable, personally and socially, to subscribe to a godless philosophy. Here’s the conversation that got her thinking (I’m jumping around a little bit in my blockquoting, so do try and read the whole thing in context): Tim was... Read more

When Do You Reject Your Intuitions?

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:28 am By Leah Libresco

A while ago, a commenter emailed me to ask if I could recommend any books to read on human cognitive bias, and now that I’ve finished Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, I can, with great enthusiasm. When we study flaws in human reasoning, we usually start with glaring ones, and find out that they’re just the most obvious examples of a broader problem (and the subtler errors are the more pernicious ones). In the book, Kahneman has a... Read more

Is it Maps All the Way Down?

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:25 am By Leah Libresco

Yesterday, I went to the Dominican House of Studies for a symposium on Creation and Modern Science, and one of the speakers was Edward Feser, author of The Last Superstition (the book that got me started exploring Aquinas and hanging out with the DC Dominicans). His lecture was on the immaterial nature of thought, and there’s one facet of it I’d like to highlight here. Feser was talking about the distinction between concepts and phantasms. As briefly as possible (i.e. blame... Read more

7 Quick Takes (4/13/12)

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:24 am By Leah Libresco

— 1 — I realize I started experimenting with cooking and giving up gnosticism just in time (or possibly too late!). You see, I went out with friends to see Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado and when Katisha opened a song with: Alone, and yet alive! Oh, sepulchre! My soul is still my body’s prisoner! My friends leaned across the seats to nudge me and say, “Look, she’s a dualist, like you!” Oh dear. — 2 — Our discussion of... Read more

Morality in Multiple Dimensions

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:27 am By Leah Libresco

In college, I got into a lot of debates about moral relativism, cultural imperialism, and epistemological modesty. When we were picking fights, it was useful to be able to get a quick sense of your sparring partner’s positions, and my friends and I had an easy way to do triage: During the British occupation of India, were the British imperialists right to condemn sati (the practise of burning widows alive on their husbands pyres)? Were they right to want to eliminate it? Were the... Read more

We Go Together / Like Essence and Telos / Doo-bop a doo-bee doo

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:18 am By Leah Libresco

Here’s Adam of Daylight Atheism’s reply to the questions I asked him yesterday about the difference between moral and mathematical laws, and whether either is human-independent. (He also pointed out that we’ve sparred on this point before, and you may want to refer back to the map-territory post). I believe that mathematics and logic are discovered, rather than invented, although those terms are apt to get us bogged down in deep semantic waters. I think it sheds more light on... Read more

Human-Independent Morality

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:16 am By Leah Libresco

Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism recently reran an essay he wrote in response to Peter Hitchens (“Atheists Don’t Just Want Sex and Drugs”). Specifically, he was taking issue with Peter Hitchens’s claim that a moral system that lacked God must lack authority. Hitchens wrote: For a moral code to be effective, it must be attributed to, and vested in, a nonhuman source. It must be beyond the power of humanity to change it to suit itself. I’ve gone back and forth on... Read more