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Re: Six Reasons to Believe This Author is Speakng Out of Her Not much to add other than your summary of her 6th argument is spot on.

Usually when you ask Christians to clarify what they mean by life being meaningless they say it lacks "objective meaning." This is a nonsense term, it's the same as saying dry water, since meaning is by definition subjective. Pardon the redundancy but the word meaning has no meaning apart from...

The general rule of thumb when it comes to restricting freedoms is whether or not the act/speech in question presents a danger to the community (the classic example is always yelling fire in a crowded theater). Now, in most cases, wearing a burqa is not going to damage the community. However...

I'm guessing if she pulled a Constantine, then just like the Roman Emperor she has an unspoken ulterior motive for her conversion. It might be a search for community, or validation, or some feeling of acceptance. You might want to read this book yourself to get a clue what. In any case, it's...

And yet Randians and Objectivists are among the most dogmatic people I have ever encountered. Just like the religious, they cling to silly ideas, just like the religious they're quick to yell heretic at those who point out their silliness (except they usually say, "statist" or "parasite)...

How about, "Oh NOW you want to show yourself."

Both of these graphs use true data, but leave it to Heritage to prevaricate nonetheless. It's absolutely true that spending is growing faster than median income, but that has more to do with the fact that income has been stagnant for the last 12 years while inflation and costs have continued to...

I've got to take a moment to rant about something that annoys me. Whenever people point out the multiple inconsistencies, and outright contradictions of the Bible, I've noticed that Christian apologists have been resorting more and more to a historicity defense. They argue, championed as usual...

There's nothing particularly new about Republican politicians spouting this nonsense. Glenn Beck basically spent his entire tenure on Fox saying exactly the same thing. From Martin Dies and HUAC to Joe McCarthy to the John Birch Society, to today, there is an unbroken chain of red baiting on...

Let's not forget that Islam's religious power owes so much to its military and political power. Mohammed was just a "me-too" guy who wanted to give the Arabs their own monotheistic revelation. The fact that his Bedouin allies won so many battles and then established a political empire is the...

Marx's argument regarding religion being the opiate of the people was in regards to the fact that Marx saw religion as part of the superstructure overlying class conflict. The proletariat hung onto religion as a way of expressing a desire for justice from their hopeless situation. He believed...

Glad to hear it. Let me know what you find.

No idea what you're talking about They are held to the same level of accountability. Members of the Justice Department and the Congress are both subject to penalties under the criminal and civil laws of the country. Both can be held accountable for ethics violations. Neither of those are...

The Constitution does two basic things. First, it broadly lays out the structure and function of the federal government (each state has their own constitutions for state governments). It tells us, for instance that we have two houses in Congress, what each house's basic function is, how old...

No, because the Constitution doesn't deal in criminal law. You can be incarcerated for violating the Constitution, you can be recalled, or censured, or impeached, but that's that doesn't fall under the purview of criminal punishment. Laws or actions that violate the Constitution come under...

It was a slow process that lasted into my adulthood. The first step along the way was being tricked, then learning how I got tricked, learning how to question, and finally questioning everything. Once I realized that religion had exactly the same merit as fairy tales or psychics or ghost...

They have already effectively been prevented, and we didn't need Paul's squalid racism, or gold bug fanaticism to do it, all it took was public pressure. Also, SOPA and PIPA are acts of Congress. Presidents can limit but not fully restrain Legislators, if SOPA and PIPA were passed over his...

I think Hitchens probably said it best. The single best way to move a society forward is the emancipation of women. This means political emancipation, the right to vote, educational emancipation, the right to receive decent schooling, economic emancipation, and biological emancipation. Once...

Re: why is there in america the republican presidential deba Third Parties don't win because our entire election structure has been built around the two party system. The primary system which we are currently enduring is entirely Party dominated. The outdated electoral college persists...

In general, I would say the idea that a political leaning correlates with lower intelligence is so laughably broad as to be not worth the statistical study. However, it is certainly true that accepting certain ideas forces you to become stupid. When you, for instance, base your worldview on...