"I think it comes down to a defense mechanism. Basically, the suggestion that they might be wrong, no matter where it comes from, imparts a degree of cognitive dissonance that must be resolved. Resolving that cognitive dissonance rationally is a very…"

"Well, it was a British company that owned the well. So it's not quite a matter of the US oil industry, but rather of the lack of government oversight."

"1) Deep water oil drilling doesn't provide a remotely significant quantity of oil. But it does make some companies rich. 2) There were a number of regulations in place that, were they enforced, would have prevented this particular disaster.…"

"On some level, yes, accidents are inevitable. But they are also a side effect of political corruption and brain-dead economic policy. The fundamental problem is that you have individual actors, by pursuing their own selfish interests, making the…"

"While I agree that civilization is better than not, the fact remains that there are a heck of a lot of things that we most definitely could have and should have done but have not, or things that we should not have done but done anyway. The Gulf oil…"

"The antidote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0"

"Yes, absolutely. Theists tend to believe that they can know certain things absolutely, because they believe that God told them so. And since God is infallible, they can be absolutely certain he's telling the truth."

"While this is ostensibly true, the difficulty is that such unconstitutional laws can and often are used to curb the rights of people. The basic way this works is that while these laws won't hold up in court, a person can file suit anyway and…"

"@Fred, I don't understand what the point of your post is. As an argument for a god, prayer being a placebo effect is about as much a non-argument as you can get. If you're arguing in favor of using a placebo as a treatment, that's a…"

"I'd have to agree with you there, Ava. My basic argument is as follows: People don't have a unified concept of what "god" even means, so to argue against this concept, I tend to separate it into three categories: 1. Logically…"

"I don't know if I'd be okay with the guy fixing my roof saying that god will take care of the leaks..."

"Well, if it were used to buy stocks, it would go into circulation. The problem is that right now, due to the economic uncertainty, it tends to go into savings accounts. But since the banks aren't lending, it just sits there in the banks. And…"

"Don't forget the right to push gay people to suicide!"

"I would say all Americans are screwed because the Republican party has gained significantly increased power to block legislation and push their economically-damaging agenda. I don't expect much of any change on any sort of rights issues. But…"

"Don't really agree on the characterization of Democrats. Rather they believe that all people should be afforded certain basic rights, like the right to not starve to death. Or the right to not have your house taken away because you got cancer."

"That view isn't consistent with the fact that different observers observe different "nows"."