For AR in response to the anti-feminism post.

1.) Deleting comments is not good practice - they're our opinions and I don't understand why you would want to censor us, even if we disagree with you. I'm sorry that you are overwhelmed by the "retardedness of people" like myself, but if you didn't want feedback, you shouldn't have made the post in the first place. You should have known you were going to get some response, especially when you make a comment like "put me back in the kitchen where I belong!"
2.) Here is a list of things that could happen if we reverted to traditional roles as you suggest; Spousal abuse would be legal and approved of; rape of women would be legal, and even in cases where it was deemed illegal, it would never be prosecuted; STDs would run rampant; radiation therapy as we know it today would not exist; most women would die before age 40 due to over reproduction; and single mothers would be forced to marry any man she could find.
3.) Human beings are human beings regardless of gender, age, race, or sexuality. As such, each deserves to be treated with the same degree of respect and freedom that we allow everyone else. To deny any human of said freedom and respect is to deny them of that which makes them human, and in the act of denying that, we lower ourselves to the level of animals.
4.) It sounds like you are suggesting that women are inferior in some way to men. In some cases it is the women who is more able to make creative decisions and has desires other than rearing children, and is able to support her children, take care of them, be a good wife, AND work, make important decisions, and live a life outside of motherhood.
5.) Just because we may have a disposition towards an activity doesn't mean that we were MEANT to do it. Also, for thousands of years before we "discovered" America, Native Americans were here, and most Native American tribes were matriarchal.
6.) In regards to your comment of, "I think a woman should revere a man as a king." - Viewing your husband, or anyone viewing the dominant party in a relationship as a "king" is the leading and most predominant sign of an emotionally abusive relationship. These relationships often escalate into suicide, substance abuse, physical abuse, and neglect, as the dominant party begins to take the submissive party for granted.

WHAT SCIENCE HAS TO SAY ABOUT LOVE

Contemporary neuroscience research has revealed that when people affirm to sensing love a steady number of chemicals are present in the brain including testosterone, oestrogen, norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin. Specifically, both testosterone and oestrogen are present in the “lustful” stage of a relationship while norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine are frequently found during the “attraction” stage. Oxytocin and vasopressin are associated more closely with long term attachment, affection, and strong connections. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and author of the book Why We Love – the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, characterizes four personality types and links each with a bodily chemical. In other words, testosterone and director, estrogen and negotiator, dopamine and explorer, and serotonin and builder. Also interesting is that a protein molecule identified as the “nerve growth factor,” or NGF, was discovered to have high levels when people first fall in love by Italian scientists at Pavia University in 2005. They found that these levels go back to normal levels after one year.

Santa Clause: Why the Lies Must Stop

A bit of history: the Christmas character known as Santa Clause is loosely based upon St. Nicholas, a bishop from Myra who devoted his inheritance to assist the needy, sick, and suffering. St. Nicholas was well known for his generosity, his love of children, and his concern for sailors and ships (he was named the patron saint of sailors). Santa Clause today is an extremely popular figure, especially around this time of year, however, that does not mean that we should accept the Santa Clause tradition. We, as a society, need to re-think this tradition of lying to our children. Santa Clause may forever be a symbol of Christmas in America, but it is unethical to encourage our children to believe this myth.

Parents who encourage the Santa Clause myth must perpetually lie to their children. This is not the same as a little white lie or a lie told for the good of their child; keeping up the Santa Clause myth requires a long string of lies and defenses which need to be elaborated on over time.. A good parent builds their relationship with their child on trust, not dishonesty; you know the consequences. Another repercussion of keeping the myth alive is that in order to do so a parent discourages skepticism. As they are asked more and more questions about Santa Clause, parents make up more tales about this man and his supernatural powers.

I think that the worst part of the Santa Clause myth is the lesson it teaches our children about rewards and punishment for good and bad behavior. The Santa Clause myth implies that Santa Clause is constantly watching you (mildly parallel to Big Brother of 1984) and judging you as "naughty or nice" based on your good and bad actions. Children learn that through good acts they will be rewarded with presents and through bad acts they will be punished with a piece of coal. It is not the right lesson to learn; children should be taught to be good not for the sake of reward or from fear of punishment, but because it is the better thing to do. Similarly, it is unethical to control your children through Santa Clause.

Lastly, Santa Clause is incredibly similar to Jesus and God: he has supernatural powers and he rewards or punishes children based on his own definition of good or bad deeds; his existence is implausible, yet you must be a believer to get the rewards. I hope you consider all of these thoughts before you and your children put out a plate of milk and cookies for this powerful stranger.

For Sebastian Green-Husted

I absolutely adore you! You are my teacher, my lover, my doctor, my best friend, my therapist, my partner, and, to a large degree, my happiness. I love an respect you more than anything or anyone I have ever encountered during my lifetime. Thank-you.
Love,
The Little Red Haired Girl.

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1.) You asked: “WHY WOULD THE MAJORITY OF THE WORLD BELIEVE IN IT IF IT WEREN’T TRUE?” There are many theories on why religion is still around today. I will attempt to expand on the one mentioned in my essay above. MEME THEORY designates that religion is a compilation of ideas that have a certain temptation to aspects of human psychology. More specifically, some concepts, beliefs, thoughts, and symbols operate in ways similar to natural selection. Some are easily thought, held, or believed; others are not. Meme theory refers to these concepts, beliefs, thoughts, and symbols as memes. Hence, God, Satan, Heaven, and Hell are all examples of memes and because religion is made up of so many interrelated and mutually supportive memes it is still prevalent today, despite its illogicality. If you would like to learn more about the memetic nature of religion I would suggest looking into it yourself. In the meantime I will give you a few examples I have used in my essay. Most religions restrain their followers from exploring other options or using critical thinking with the threat of Hell. Any temptation away from their faith can be classified as the “work of the devil,” in their minds. At the same time they encourage their followers to have blind faith in their God and are ultimately successful in this task because they teach that this behavior is rewarded in Heaven. These religions are creating generations of ignorant followers who don’t want to challenge any of their religion’s teachings largely because of their irrational fear of Hell and their desire to get into Heaven. Another problem is that these fears and desires are instilled in their children at a very young age because religion includes a meme directing believers to spread the religion to their children and friends; a meme that Richard Dawkins classifies as abuse. Many religions also wish to “spread the faith” to others, taking advantage of the longing of the follower to both get into Heaven and save another from Hell.

2.) Occam’s razor implies that because of the lack of convincing reasons to believe in God, disbelief is better. This principle states that one should no make more assumptions than the minimum needed. If you would like to know more I would, again, advise looking it up for yourself; you will find that Occam’s razor is extremely important to science, philosophy, and it is also a good example of common sense.

3.) This is related to Occam’s razor: when you tell of these people who have experienced spirits it is far more likely that there is a simpler explanation for these experiences than another entire dimension of reality. I would gladly help you find it if you would give me more information on their specific experiences.

4.) At this point in our debate you have only referenced us to other people’s work. If you prefer to debate that way, then I suggest you read this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion

5.) Why do you insist that there must be a plane of supernatural existence? You have given me no concrete evidence and you consistently fail to prove this. At this point you have reiterated the same point over and over again without providing usable evidence. Subjective recollections of an experience are not viable evidence because of three reasons. 1.) Human error. 2.) Many things can go wrong with the human mind to nullify all of these subjective experiences. 3.) An alarming number of people are willing to fabricate these types of stories for the purpose of attention, to say nothing of the immense publicity and fame that can come along with it.

6.) “Innocent ‘til proven guilty” has no relevance to this situation. You would not say that fact is “true ‘til proven false.” Also, your point about the Earth not being at the center of the universe is more analogous to your argument. Your argument is archaic, increasingly unsupported, and counter indicated by a growing body of evidence.

7.) You are correct in saying that humans are not perfect, but that is exactly why we should take the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people in the scientific community who are putting their minds to a problem and working to solve it over the delusions of one person. Science attempts to find the most reasonable explanation through the use of logic and reason. Faith, on the other hand, is not based on reason or logic.

8.) You asked me to understand, respect, and not offend the people who have found “it.” A year ago I would see this as a reasonable request and I will do my best to respect these people as other human beings, but I have no respect for their disease. What they stand for is incorrect. These people often advocate intolerance, and this is not an ignorable fact. In addition, whether they belong to an organized religion or not, anyone who has “found it,” as you put it, advocates ignorance. This is what I am fighting against. It’s my attempt to leave the world in a better state that I found it.

IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT LEFT BY BENSO1PF ON "SCHIZOPHRENIA AND RELIGION"

I currently do not have enough information to answer your first question. Both are possible. Bicameralism is just a theory; again, it is one of those things where I do not have enough information to decide if it is a realistic answer or not, but I brought it up because it was an unusually interesting theory to me. Also, I would not personally define atheism as a religion, but that is because my definition of religion includes having faith in a "higher being." I understand why you would personally classify atheism as a religion, but I see it as more of the negation of religion. I do disagree with you when you imply that atheists have FAITH that there is no god. I would not use the word "faith." Faith is a belief not based on reason or logic while atheism is based on proof and evidence I have found through research, therefore the tennants of atheism do not fall under "faith."

IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT LEFT BY BENSO1PF ON "INTRODUCTION: WHY MAN CREATED GOD"

You are correct to say that my essay did not prove that God does not exist. It was meant to be my thoughts on why he was created, nothing more. However, your idea that God's existence also fits into these observations is a weaker theory and requires more assumptions.
To address your second paragraph, the goal of science is not to find absolute truth, but to provide the most reasonable explanation using logic and reason. The idea of God goes against what we have learned from science. This is evident as many religions constantly have to change their definition of God and what he does. Most Christian religions no longer use the literal interpretation of the Bible, as it is incompatible with modern science. Also, please explain to me how the "development of the understanding of the atom" was wrong. As far as I have heard there was a vague model which, over time, became more and more specific.
Meme theory indicates that religion is composed of ideas that have appeal to certain aspects of human psychology; this explains why religion is so prevalent, despite it's illogicality. You are basically correct in saying "if a meme is no good it will naturally fade into the background," because a meme that is not likely to be thought will fade because it is not prone to be thought or passed on.
I am curious, in your fourth paragraph are you referring to the open-minded protestants that burned witches? The same protestants that had a theocracy in America? The protestants that were far worse than the religious intolerance they came to America to escape? Or are you referring to the other protestants: the ones that don't exist? The schools you mention taught the Bible and I highly doubt that they encouraged students to think about the possibility that the Bible was not historically accurate. The point of these schools was to teach the Bible, not critical thinking, tolerance, or open-mindedness. I would also disagree with you that Buddhism is a religion. Buddhism is a philosophy. It encourages critical thinking, debate, and acceptance. Buddha is not their God, he is their teacher, their guide, and their role model. In addition, I hope that you are not confusing the state of enlightenment with Heaven. Enlightenment is more of a state of mind - an enlightened one is liberated from the cycle of rebirth. Further proof that Buddhism is not a religion lies in the fact that Buddhists are often Atheists. Agnosticism is also a philosophy, not a religion, as Agnostics will say that they can't know if there is a god or not.