1. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213862 by RationalOlive on July 19, 2008 at 5:56 am

RE comment #81 --

Sorry, Lucas. Evidently I missed the Obama religion discussion. Thanks for the quick update.I fervently hope that you're right about his beliefs.
I will be voting for him in any case. Hopefully my state of Ohio will go in his direction. As I see it, the supreme court nominations to come are very important. A couple more conservatives on the court and I WILL be at the bottom of that pool.

2. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213328 by RationalOlive on July 18, 2008 at 11:44 am

75. Comment #213273 by PristinePanda

I'm fairly confident that he is. I'm less confident, but it wouldn't surpize me if McCain is as well.

But what about all of this nonsense Obama spouts about his "faith" and his proposal to continue with "faith-based initiatives" and about how he is a christian, not a muslim.....

I am a reformed ex-conservative who desperately wants to vote for an intelligent, free-thinking candidate. When I hear this pap from Obama it makes me just want to dive to the bottom of my pool and breathe deeply of the waters.....

3. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #154825 by RationalOlive on April 3, 2008 at 7:10 pm

I have to agree with Richard Morgan. I know we sometimes find ourselves viewing the faithful with contempt, but not everyone is strong enough to break the brainwashing. I was 57 years old before I finally dared to acknowledge to myself what I suspected for so many years...after being fed years of religious "education" from the age of one. Dr. Dawkins addresses this in The God Delusion. These people have been swimming in a sea of faith for years, and now some find themselves flopping like fish washed up on the beach. It's sad, not funny.

4. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124459 by RationalOlive on February 9, 2008 at 2:45 pm

So tell me...what is the big deal about this thing we call "life?" (as in...how did life get started..)

Many of us speak about "life" as if it is something special...almost like the theists. Dawkins has spoken about the way our brains run "simulation programs"...and we act as if what we perceive is real. I think my perception of reality is just a product of my brain's interpretation of incoming stimuli. I will never know how well my perception agrees with reality. I "think" I am self aware...but I have no evidence that other things are not also self aware. This thing I refer to as "life" may not exist at all. There may be nothing about it which distinguishes it from other systems of molecules in the Cosmos.

5. Canadian fossil makes waves in Huckabee's presidential run

Comment #112002 by RationalOlive on January 16, 2008 at 7:30 am

Annabanana,

They reject the evidence because to accept it is hard, very hard -- if one has been programmed from infancy to believe in gods and an afterlife wherein we swing happily through the stars with all of our loved ones. It is a major life-shattering event to come to the realization that it's all a lie and Mom, Dad, and aunt Martha are really gone forever. And, that sooner or later, I'm going to be just as gone. And, that's just for starters. Abandoning belief in god changes most other core beliefs. For years, I pushed the conflict between what I had been taught as a child and what I instinctively believed to be true onto a back burner and didn't think much about it. When I finally came to the acceptance that there is no god, I knew that this changed everything about me.