camelswithhammers

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Study Philosophy With Me In Fall 2017!

Study Philosophy With Me In Fall 2017!

Year round, I enroll new students in my live, interactive, private, personalized online philosophy classes but I typically launch the most new classes in September when the most people feel like getting started. This year is no exception. Below is the full roster of classes I have tentatively scheduled to run starting in September 2017, and information on a limited time deal. *Try out my classes…

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Have I Considered Catholicism Sufficiently?

Have I Considered Catholicism Sufficiently?

Dave Armstrong at Biblical Evidence for Catholicism has written a very genial open letter to me, which he seems to hope might serve as the first volley in an exchange of posts. To start out he’s written a reply to one of my emotionally hotter and polemically colorful posts entitled, “After My Deconversion: I Refuse To Let Christians Judge Me”. I’ll admit, with distance it’s a little hard for me…

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A Personal Reflection on Camels With Hammers' 8th Anniversary

A Personal Reflection on Camels With Hammers’ 8th Anniversary

When someone asks me what I do, it feels weird to tell them that I’m a blogger. It feels like a category error. It feels like I’ve been asked, “What do you do for a living?” and I’ve answered “I post on Facebook.” Like, who doesn’t have a blog? That’s not a profession. And it’s not like being officially published, right? It’s basically just keeping one unedited public journal among the countless…

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Yearly Quote Round up

Yearly Quote Round up

Every year on this day, I present quotable sayings that I came across in the previous twelve months. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” ~ A.A. Milne “The first job of a teacher is to make the student fall in love with the subject. That doesn’t have to be done by waving your arms and prancing around the classroom; there’s all sorts of ways to go at it, but no…

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The Time To Protest Trump Is Now.

The Time To Protest Trump Is Now.

The response to anti-Trump protestors that goes, “Why didn’t they vote?” is bullshit. First of all, any number of them did vote. Secondly, democracy doesn’t only happen on election day. It happens year round. Thirdly, though I find proud non-voters and third party voters infuriating, I would rather encourage them when they do what I agree with (e.g., use the other channels of democratic…

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Don't Assume Trump Will Be A One Term President.

Don’t Assume Trump Will Be A One Term President.

During their first terms, I never understood people who scoffed at the idea that W or Obama could possibly win a second term. To me they were always odds on favorites. Incumbents always are. In the last one hundred years going back to the election of 1916 a sitting president has lost only four times. They’ve won thirteen times. One of those losses was of a president (Ford) who’d never been…

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Daily Hilarity: The Amazing Atheist Drubs Revenge Of The Sith

Daily Hilarity: The Amazing Atheist Drubs Revenge Of The Sith

For those of you who find it cathartic to have my beloved Star Wars prequels dragged through the mud cleverly and didn’t think Mr. Plinkett’s two hour evisceration of Revenge of the Sith was thorough enough, here is The Amazing Atheist’s review of it: http://blip.tv/play/hLJNgeX1fAI http://blip.tv/play/hLJNgea6dgI http://blip.tv/play/hLJNgeeCSAI You can also find his takedowns of the previous…

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My Thoughts on Social Justice Activists on Campuses and Why Philosophy Matters

My Thoughts on Social Justice Activists on Campuses and Why Philosophy Matters

I’m delighted that I just got the chance to go on Trav Mamone’s Bi Any Means podcast! The first half is about who I am and how I got where I am and why I named my blog what I did. In the latter half of the issue Trav asked for my thoughts on social justice activists on college campuses and my thoughts on why philosophy matters. I had a blast, check it out!…

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On Steelmanning Arguments and Personally Customizing Them

On Steelmanning Arguments and Personally Customizing Them

When you straw man someone’s argument you present an easy-to-refute misrepresentation of their reasoning rather than countering what they actually think or the actual reasons that they have for thinking it. Rob Talisse coined the term “weak man” to refer to a related but distinguishable tactic of focusing on someone’s weakest arguments for their position while avoiding their strongest ones.…

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After Orlando: An Open Letter To Conservative Christians About Loving Gay People

After Orlando: An Open Letter To Conservative Christians About Loving Gay People

I am writing this to Christians who are sincere in holding three beliefs. 1. Homosexuality does not deserve recognition as legally, morally, or socially equal to heterosexuality. 2. Christ commands you to love gays as fellow sinners in need of redemption. 3. Loving gays requires repudiating homosexuality legally, morally, and/or socially. On account of this you may believe some number of the…

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The Year in Quotable Finds

The Year in Quotable Finds

“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.” ~ Maya Angelou “Ethics is basically the study of Nazis in convoluted, improbable scenarios.” ~ Paul Keith “My rule of thumb: if at first you don’t succeed, try again until your failure is statistically significant.” ~ Melissa Chen “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is…

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Help For Academics Thinking Beyond The Professoriate

Help For Academics Thinking Beyond The Professoriate

Jennifer Polk, photo by Shawn Jurek Dr. Jennifer Polk, PhD is an academic, career, and life coach who specializes in helping people who are transitioning out of academia or who are contemplating doing so. Her transitioning clients include everyone from graduate students to tenured professors. She runs the website PhD to Life and is running a conference the next two Saturdays (May 7, 2016 and May…

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My Podcast Tour--Rationally Speaking, Life After God, Secular Sexuality, Naked Diner, and The Phil Ferguson Show

My Podcast Tour–Rationally Speaking, Life After God, Secular Sexuality, Naked Diner, and The Phil Ferguson Show

I hope (as always) to get in the blogging groove again here soon. I have only had one day off from what’s recently been a 7-day-a-week teaching and philosophically advising schedule. I am shuffling things around right now though so that I will teach more on particular days and have some more days I can devote to my research and writing so that I can return to blogging soon. In the meantime, I…

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Virtues, Values, and Meaning In Life (New Class)

Virtues, Values, and Meaning In Life (New Class)

I am delighted in this post to announce and explain my new classes, “Virtues, Values, and Meaning in Life” and a revamped and relaunched version of my Philosophy for Atheists class. Both will start as soon as students are ready in March 2016 and run year round as students are able to continue or join midstream. Contact me at camelswithhammers@gmail.com or, preferably, on Facebook to express your…

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Massimo Pigliucci and Me Talking Stoicism on MeaningofLife.TV

I got to have a fantastic chat with Massimo Pigliucci about stoicism. Check it out below: https://meaningoflife.tv/embed-fallback.php/33422/00:00/97:53 If you want to watch selected segments, here are direct links to portions of the video where we discussed different distinct topics. For those interested in debates about the legitimacy of a lot of social justice activism, the segment about…

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Ethics of War, Stoic Ethics, History of Philosophy--February 2016 Class Times!

Ethics of War, Stoic Ethics, History of Philosophy–February 2016 Class Times!

Earlier this month I announced two new classes I’m launching. One on the Ethics of War and the other on Stoic Ethics. Now, based on interested prospective students’ feedback on convenient times to run the classes, I have scheduled them for the following times. You will be able to study Ethics of War on Thursdays at either 2pm-4pm Eastern or 8:30pm-1o:30pm Eastern, or 11pm-1am Eastern. Class…

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Which Motive Worsens A Bad Action More: Desire or Anger?

Which Motive Worsens A Bad Action More: Desire or Anger?

This is the latest of a series of posts wherein I will be critically reading Stoic writings that have bearing on ethics. In February 2016 I will also teach a one month long course on Stoic Ethics. Get more information here and write me at camelswithhammers@gmail.com if you want to sign up so that I can schedule the class’s time around your availability. Also I will be teaching a regular length…