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Damn Right I?m Angry: Part One
2008-02-13 23:47:00
Kelly O'Connor 02/13/08 I don't find it surprising that the two writers I will be addressing here find atheists to be angry, selfish, and in one case, diseased. The patronizing attitudes of these men would drive the most timid among us into a fit. So, obviously, I nearly convulsed while reading these two articles-both full of condescension; spewing venomous rhetoric that does nothing more than add up to one giant attack on the character of everybody without a belief in their mythological friend. Marty Fields, a pastor at a Presbyterian Church, and Jacob Stein, an orthodox Jew who has mistaken his skill in fallacious argumentation for philosophy: You two are winning the award for "Arrogant Deluded Fatuous Pricks of the Year." It's a coveted prize, and you were nearly overtaken by Dinesh D'Souza, but even he isn't this moronic. Marty Fields, who will not be addressed as "Reverend" here as I have no reverence for him or his ilk, wrote an o...
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The Things That Keep Us Going in the Face of Adversity
2008-02-13 01:23:00
There is a quote from Dr. Albert Ellis in which I find some solace: "By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed." For some reason, it makes me feel less alone in this quest to expose religion for the fraudulent and dangerous idealogy that it is. The fact is, though, that without our community of people behind us, we would never be able to continue doing this. We've grown pretty thick skins over the past two years, but an endless stream of criticism and insults gets to you no matter who you are. In the end, our controversial approach has acheived exactly what we intended and more. We've had a ton of publicity: We've been in periodicals, tv shows, respectable radio shows, and magazines. Our website is currently the number one atheist website in the world according to Alexa, and has been number one in the US for quite some time. Of course, some of that traffic...
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How to Respond to a Supercilious Christian
2008-02-07 23:23:00
Kelly O'Connor Feb. 7, 2008 Not all Christian s are supercilious, of course. Many are content to live and let live, and some even grant that science (despite its lack of supernatural entities) does some good. But Christianity as an organized, evangelizing movement has been on the offensive lately. Witness the new wave of evangelicals and their leaders such as Rick Warren, Lee Strobel, and William Lane Craig with their aggressive stance against scientific materialism and their bestselling books attempting to refute science. So, assuming you're an atheist, what do you say to the theist who asks, "You don't (chuckle) believe in a god (snicker)?" Anybody familiar with the original article will see that the preceding paragraph is the same paragraph as the opening to "How to Respond to a Supercilious Atheist" by Alan Roebuck. By changing a few words, the same attack can be launched right back at him, and the rest of the article isn't much better....

Blog Updates and Miscellaneous Info
2008-02-04 18:40:00
02/04/08 Well, despite the gazillion articles that I could be responding to right now, I've decided to update everybody on some general info and address some of the feedback I've gotten. First of all, the focus on "print" media has shifted slightly, and I have been addressing a lot more of the online publications than not. I guess there's not that much difference these days anyway, since the majority of people get their news and information online. Obviously, D'Souza keeps popping up. I swear that guy is either just republishing excerpts from his book in his blog, or he's glued to his keyboard. Some of my most popular posts, though, were ones that didn't address a single target, but instead an issue or a compilation of similar stories. The most popular post on my blog so far has been "Still Don't Think Theism is a Mental Disorder." Behind that would be the "News Story from Belgium..." story on the Islamic man who wouldn...
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Pot?Meet Kettle
2008-01-31 17:23:00
*I just discovered that this post must have gotten lost in one of our server crashes, so I'm reposting it.*     Response to Bruce Walker's "The Godless Delusion" Kelly O'Connor   Bruce Walker's anti-atheist diatribe, printed in a magazine that touts itself as The American Thinker, is the ultimate in irony. This story is the clear byproduct of one who appears to be incapable of rational thought and instead chooses to regurgitate rhetoric that was likely force-fed to him in those weekly indoctrination camps known as churches. Mr. Walker starts out his vitriolic falsehoods with the contention that all people instinctively know right from wrong and that people choose evil. If that is so, then why the heavy Christian emphasis on child-rearing? If we are all born instinctively knowing right from wrong, then any kind of instruction or discipline would be completely unnecessary. This is a shining example of Christian compartmentalization. It is clea...
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WARNING! Religion may cause?
2008-01-31 10:33:00
Kelly O'Connor Jan 30, 2008     ...hypocrisy; cognitive dissonance; higher rates of STD infection, teen pregnancy, abortion, and poverty; mass societal dysfunction; early mortality; homicide; and, in rare cases, delusions and psychosis. Is Living Under the Influence (of religion) less dangerous than Driving Under the Influence?   In the news this week, we have the case of Eunice Spry, a British woman who systematically tortured her adopted and foster children because of her religious convictions. She did pleasant things like forcing the children to eat their own vomit for being greedy, and making a child with nighttime enuresis (bed-wetting) at the age of 4 wear a sign reminding everybody that she was an evil attention-seeker. It doesn't stop there, either. She also prevented a teenaged girl who was injured in a car accident and temporarily confined to a wheelchair from walking in order to collect more compensation money, despite the fact that the prognosis w...
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Presuppositions, Faith, and Reason: Which One is Out of Place Here?
2008-01-29 15:59:00
Atheists and others who buck the established religious systems have suffered from a bit of a PR problem since the beginning of recorded history. There are countless stories of the heretics, the blasphemers, and the impious being imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Atheism wasn't even a prerequisite; Socrates was sentenced to death for only believing in one of the gods in the Greek Pantheon. The official charge: impiety. Why is it that this stigma has taken root so firmly within the minds of human beings? Why has this trend persisted for millennia? The answer is faith. Faith is the cause of this discrimination against the religiously atypical. The situation is as true today as it ever was, although in most civilized lands the punishment is much less severe. Perhaps one will only be ostracized by their family, classmates, or colleagues after revealing their lack of religious affiliation. The Islamic countries appear to be the main protagonists of violence in the name of religion th...
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RRS Supportive President? What are your thoughts on Mike Gravel for Pres?
2008-01-28 18:00:00
The Rational Response Squad has just received an interesting email. Adam Abeles, Chief Biological Science Advisor for Mike Gravel (former Senator running for President ) has written us and vocalized respect for our efforts, along with the request of some exposure due to the congruence of his goals with ours. This includes not only intensified promotion of science in all realms, particularly education, but the elimination of creation science in any classroom, and an open dialogue about the dangers of religion. We are reluctant to throw public support in for any particular candidate as it makes a potential conversion to a 501c3 much more difficult. We are able to convey the facts to you and present you with an area in which to discuss them. We want to know what you think of Mike Gravel. For one minute focus on your ideal candidate, and not the person you have to pick because you can't stand the other leading candidate. Let?s not focus on the chances of victory, but rather the poten...
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Humans Do Not Need to Comfort Themselves With Fairy Tales
2008-01-24 10:14:00
A response to Peter Bowden?s ?God, Atheism, and Human Needs? Kelly O?Connor Jan. 24, 2008 The idea that human beings universally need some form of mythological belief has been one of the mainstays of the defenders of faith for centuries. They claim that even if god doesn?t exist or religion causes violence and hatred, it?s acceptable because it makes some people feel better about the harsh realities of life. This is a multi-pronged deceptive ploy used to abdicate themselves from any responsibility for those actions and to keep people thinking that their assertion is correct. READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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OMGZ!!1! Internet Addiction Is Not Listed In the DSM-IV!!
2008-01-22 06:34:00
Can you believe that these people actually have rehab centers set up for this so-called disorder? It's not supported by any evidence, and lots of doctors oppose it as a diagnosis. Besides, all of the supporters of this "disorder" are probably just pissed off that they grew up with Atari instead of XBox. So what if a person never leaves their home or allows their relationships to fail because they need to get to the next skill level in WoW? I won't believe that this a problem until there is REAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE--like inclusion in the DSM. If it's not there tomorrow--I'll just tell everybody that you are a liar for pretending that such a thing exists.Here's a quote that shows that somebody just made this up all on his own, and now they even have people convinced that you need rehab for internet addiction! READ MORE »Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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So...religion is harmless, huh?
2008-01-21 08:32:00
Why don't we ask this young lady who was terrorized by the "loving Christians" at a crisis pregnancy center--placed inconspicuously right next door to a Planned Parenthood, which is where this woman had an appointment when she mistakenly entered the wrong place. I realize this story is a little bit old, but I just saw it today and wanted to alert others to the dangers of these "crisis pregnancy centers" and the fanatical beliefs that will be forced upon an unsuspecting woman who ventures through their doors looking for help. I know because it actually happened to me. I got pregnant one month after getting married. I was 20, and my husband was leaving for Japan in three days. I was going a month later to stay for three years. I was petrified to have my first child in a foreign country with no family or friends. I went to one of the "crisis pregnancy centers" expecting sound advice and just somebody to talk to, but instead what I got was guilt and li...
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Dinesh D'Souza Spreads Dishonest Propaganda?Again
2008-01-21 03:23:00
Original Article Isn't it remarkable that Christians would like to use atheists as scapegoats for every evil action throughout history instead of admitting their own complicity? After all, they are the ones who are constantly reminding us that the inhumane actions committed by their predecessors don't necessarily reflect upon them, so why can't they just admit that the christians of the past were complicit in some of these atrocities? I don't know that I need to move beyond the first sentence to prove the absurdity of his assertion. Apparently, Mr. D'Souza has forgotten about the atheists and deists who were the true impetus for ending slavery-like Abraham Lincoln! As far as we can tell from the biographies written about Lincoln, particularly those written by some of his closest friends, he was at best a deist, possibly an atheist, and definitely opposed to organized religion and christianity.1 How about other atheist abolitionists like Fanny Wright, Elizur Wrig...
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Extremist Response Squad?
2008-01-17 00:45:00
This was a post on our messageboards talking about the frequent characterization of the RRS as "extremists", "fanatics", or "militant." I found it to be a clearly elucidated argument for the reasons why we are none of the aforementioned and am reposting it here, with his permission, of course.     Tarpan wrote:  It?s not very uncommon for the Rational Response Squad to be accused by both theist and atheists alike of being equal to extremist or fundamentalist theist groups.  Their aggressive and vocal nature draws a reaction and a number of people feel this is positive, while others feel that it is negative.  I would like to take a moment to seriously consider if this is an appropriate correlation. Extremist or Fundamentalist groups are credited with taking their religious devotion to a level that would involve killing people as well as sacrificing themselves for their cause.  Killing innocent people, bombing schools, market places, hospitals, as well a...

Still Don't Think Theism is a Mind Disorder...Part Deux
2008-01-15 10:35:00
Since there have been so many things that I wanted to address in the comments, plus the fact that it got long as hell, I decided to post it here. Enjoy.   Quote: No atheism here. Submitted by Fenriz on January 13, 2008 - 2:37pm. Religion is different from illegal drugs because it is societally protected. Even if religion is destructive, it won't carry the same stigma as drugs because too many people support it. Your analogy is more effective with tobacco and alcohol, which are both traditionally accepted features of our culture despite the harms they can inflict. Because they are so ingrained in our culture, we won't get rid of them regardless the problems to which they contribute (though tobacco could be teetering on the brink of extinction). I agree that it is considered taboo to critique religion too harshly, but is that respect deserved? Would we not be better off as a society if events such as these didn't happen? Some people will find other reasons to eng...
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Muslims suppressing atheism in Turkey
2008-01-14 06:17:00
Yesterday I blogged about muslims attempting to take down pictures of their invisible friend on wikipedia via petition.  Today we got a letter from the head of the number one turkish atheist site which has been stripped from the eyes of Turk s twice.  Once under the original domain and then again under another domain.  Unfortunatly the owner is unable to fight this in court because to do so he would have to identify himself which if you're familiar will end up resulting in his head being chopped off by the peaceful and loving muslims who work for Allah.  If you speak Turkish and you are an atheist please support this site... READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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Still Don't Think that Theism is a Mental Disorder?
2008-01-13 07:45:00
Wow. A whole barrage of nonsense came at us in the past two weeks or so. First off...a man cuts off his own hand after seeing the Mark of the Beast on it. With a circular saw. And then microwaves it. And then calls the authorities. A quote from one of the sherriff's deputies states, "That kind of mental illness is just sad." I couldn't agree more. Now, I know what you guys are going to say--"It's not BECAUSE of religion." Actually, I don't think that a case could be made either way. Was he likely vulnerable to delusional behavior? Yeah, I'll concede that one. The fact that religion is unique in its ability to seep into the crevices of your mind so pervasively that this theme plays out in our society over and over again isn't addressed by that statement, though. How do the appeasers and framers answer that? Maybe it only manifests itself in those already prone to mental illness, but isn't that akin to excusing and perpetuating a belie...
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Atheist Divisiveness and Dogmatism
2008-01-10 12:19:00
Lately, I've been realizing that, despite what I had come to believe, religion is not the biggest danger to society. Poor thinking is. Adherence to mindless dogmatism is. The self-serving desire to fit everybody into a mold, likely similar to your own, is. These traits are unfortunately not limited to theists.   Obviously, being a member of the Rational Response Squad puts me in a position to be critiqued and vilified by the people who possess the aforementioned character flaws, and recently I've been seeing it almost constantly. It literally pains me to see that so many who have managed to escape religion still cling to so many other similarly irrational ideas and use such blatantly poor logic-particularly if it involves us. Have we done some controversial things? Sure. Are we brash, loud-mouthed, occasionally immature, and possibly arrogant? Sometimes, yes. Have we made mistakes? Of course-show me one person who hasn't, and I'll show you a liar. Do we have con...
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A Response to the American People...
2008-01-04 04:24:00
...represented by a small sample of letters to the editor from around the country.   Well, this will be a first with two posts in one day, but I really wanted to briefly discuss the following letters that were submitted to various papers across the US. This is certainly not a statistically significant sample, but I feel that these particular mindsets are far too common for a supposedly enlightened and egalitarian society. We'll start with my favorite one from the Salt Lake City Tribune. Quote: Blame atheists  In his Dec. 27 letter, Steven Fehr says he believes President Bush is the worst president he has seen. Whenever I hear someone complain about the president, I ask them, "Do you pray for the president of the United States daily?" Is that too much trouble? There used to be a custom of praying for our president. Perhaps too many people in the United States believe this would be mixing politics and religion. If the majority of the people ar...
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Ranting on holidays and porn...two completely unrelated topics
2008-01-03 09:29:00
"Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace. READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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The Triumph of Reason
2007-12-27 11:48:00
THIS PAGE RECOVERED FROM CACHE AFTER LOSING TWO WEEKS OF DATA  Response to Katha Pollitt's "The Atheist's Dilemma" From The Nation, Dec 3, 2007 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071203/pol litt In this issue of The Nation, Katha Pollitt posits that what people like to refer to as the "New Atheism" is destined for failure. She argues that the devout will not be persuaded by atheists, particularly those like Sam Harris, who "[think] religion is completely stupid." She goes on further to admonish us for not appreciating the so-called moderates of any faith. Ms. Pollitt is demonstrating her ignorance of the effectiveness of the atheist "movement" (although I hesitate to use that word) and the reason why even the moderate religious acolytes need to be called to account for their beliefs. READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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The Infallible Pope Benedict Releases Bigoted Encyclical Vilifying Atheism
2007-12-04 08:47:00
Kelly O?ConnorThe Catholic Church has officially ended their campaign to improve the public image of the Church with the latest papal encyclical, Spe Salvi, which means ?saved by hope? for the Latin fans out there. The Catholic Church?s history is littered with crimes against humanity, and Pope Benedict XVI seems to desire the return to pre-Vatican II Catholicism. This was a concern voiced by many at the time that the former Joseph Ratzinger* was canonized to this position. The former pope, John Paul II, had made great strides in the modernization of the Church, and many were reluctant to elect somebody who would reverse that trend. Despite John Paul?s dogmatic adherence to the sexual proscriptions of Catholicism, he at least officially accepted evolution, admitted Protestants into heaven, and eliminated limbo. (Where was that place anyway? I may have been there once?) Pope Benedict is turning out exactly as predicted.The attempt to correlate atheism with violence, hatred, and genoc...
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Trying to Collect my Scattered Thoughts
2007-12-02 05:45:00
Well, this isn't an official response to much of anything, but I wanted to at least throw a little update out there. First of all, living with twenty thousand thoughts and ideas running around my neuronal network constantly is frustrating, exhilirating, and exhausting. There are twenty articles to which I want to respond, thirty different ways to track and promote my progress, contact lists to be exported/imported, stats to assess...you get the drift. O_O An amusing development is the three (?) threads about our ads at Democratic Underground. Unfortunately, two have been archived and one is in a donors only section, so I wasn't able to invite them over here for a nice healthy debate on the definition of pornography, the objectification of women, and maintaining rational and effective marketing. No matter what our individual desires or wishes are concerning the more...primitive... parts of our brain, I feel that in order to achieve our goals as a group, it would behoove us ...
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No Faith in Science
2007-11-26 16:46:00
I have faith (pun intended) that at some point in his studies, Paul Davies has held a dictionary in his hands, and possibly even opened it. These days, it?s even less cumbersome with the advent of online dictionaries and the added benefit of providing multiple sources from which one can gain a better understanding of a particular word. In order to correct the compilation of fallacies presented in this piece, we need to start at the beginning?definitions. READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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An FYI for Feedburner subscribers...
2007-11-26 03:56:00
Sorry to confuse everybody, but I am not going to be using feedburner anymore, so if you subscribed through feedburner, it will automatically redirect you to this blog for three more weeks. After that, it will disappear from the blogosphere, so make sure you subscribe through this site. The links are at the bottom. Thanks, Kelly ----------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Blog Info: READERS ARE HIGHLY ENCOURAGED TO PROMOTE THIS BLOG ON THEIR SITE FOR ONE YEAR. Give Kelly a year and she'll give you major media theism debunked! Subscribe (free) to our onsite feed : http://www.rationalresponders.com/blog/42 8/feed READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust
2007-11-25 20:16:00
I received an email from Sam Harris today urging everybody to pledge money to help support Ayaan Hirsi Ali 's security detail. Due to the threat on her life, she has 24 hour a day guards and the cost is financially prohibitive. This is an important project to support in order to ensure the protection of the world's most prominent opponent of Islamic fundamentalism. If you are unaware of her work, here is a video playlist of many of her public appearances. Kudos to Sam Harris for setting this up and spreading the word about this inspiring woman. We'll be making our donation soon. The important details are below as reposted from this page of Sam's website: READ MORE »Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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Two Confused People Discuss Atheism
2007-11-23 01:54:00
First of all, to those of you who have been reading this blog regularly, I apologize for repeatedly writing about Dinesh D?Souza. This is occurring for multiple reasons: he?s the only person who?s promoting his biased agenda with actual fervency (which includes frequent articles or blog posts), and I was specifically asked by Ken Bronstein from NYC Atheists to continue deconstructing his propaganda. It?s like being stuck between a rock and a hard-head?oh, I meant hard place. I must confess that I haven?t yet watched this televised discussion, although I plan to, because I would like to get this written, at least preliminarily, before suffering the inevitable loss of neurons that will occur when I watch their mutually masturbatory misinformation session. Thankfully, it was only broadcast on The 700 Club, so they were preaching to an audience that has already been tainted by this type of nonsense. READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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Request for assistance
2007-11-22 18:53:00
Hey folks, I need some help finding articles for my massive blogathon (future book and movie) in which I'm responding to as many leading theists as I can in one year through my blog. If anybody sees anything that you think I should respond to, please submit it in this thread. Types of stories I need: Major print media (hopefully with an online link as well) Author of article should be a well known theist, or at the minimum a frequent theist writer, preferably leaders of orgs, thinktanks, or pundits. Most preferable articles are op-eds posted in papers that are likely to reprint my rebuttal. (the less conservative the publication, the better) If you read a story that is printed in the paper and it is not available online, please scan the article and send me the scan via email: Kelly aT __ rationalresponders.com Other things you can do to help: Subscribe to my blog feed. Compile a list of email addresses to major newspapers for op-ed submission. I promise to share this list wi...
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Georgia Governor Angers the One True God by Praying to Yahweh for Rain
2007-11-19 21:09:00
Rational Response Squad News Service Associated Atheist Press Staff Writer: Bizarro Kelly Sapient Mon Nov 19, 1:04 PM ET Atlanta, GA - It's completely obvious that the damage caused by rainstorms in drought-stricken Georgia was caused by their blatant blasphemous beseeching of Yahweh --another one of those false ancient deities--for rain. Witnesses at Governor Sonny Perdue's prayer service reported that he seemed completely unaware that if Yahweh did exist, his bible specifically calls those who pray in public hypocrites. (Mat 6:5-9). READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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Secular Fundamentalists: There is no such thing...and the AAI conference do
2007-11-15 07:03:00
Reddit this -- Digg this! One of the methods used by the religious to marginalize atheists and our increasing visibility is to accuse us of becoming that which we originally opposed, or in other words, just like them. It?s even better if they have the convenience of one experience with these so-called ?secular fundamentalists? from which they can draw unfounded conclusions as to the validity of this argument and, ultimately, the character of all those who have no belief in gods, goddesses, or other mythical creatures. READ MORE » Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |
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D'Souza - Nothing to Refute Here
2007-11-08 09:58:00
Kelly responds to Dinesh D'Souza and his "What atheists Kant refute" drivel. Digg Kelly's Response - Reddit Article The question of the nature of reality is one that likely will never go away. There will always be those who support the belief that this mysterious ?something? exists, and there will be those on the opposing side. We must work with the tools available to us, and those just happen to be limited to our five innate senses and the knowledge that we have gained through science and reason. READ MORE »Bookmark/Search this post with: | | | | | | |