President Obama is reportedly shifting millions of dollars to the IRS to begin enforcement of ObamaCare. This raises the obvious question: What if the Supreme Court strikes down ObamaCare, with a decision expected no later than early June? Anyone who … Continue reading
Category: Daily Dose of Reason
Is There a “God Gene”? (Part 2 of 2)
Conclusion of yesterday’s column. Religious people are understandably threatened by the idea that genetics might be determining everything. Quite logically, they reject genetic and biological determinism for the same reason that a proponent of objective reality—a non-supernaturalist—would. Religious people offer … Continue reading
Is There a “God Gene”? (Part 1 of 2)
The God gene hypothesis proposes that human beings inherit a set of genes that predisposes them towards spiritual or mystical experiences. The idea has been postulated by geneticist Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at … Continue reading
Ambulance-Chasing Opportunism
Shelby Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who is critical of the civil rights movement, and of leftism in general. In The Wall Street Journal, he recently wrote that there are two tragedies as a result … Continue reading
Obamaism, Liberalism: Big Bullies
President Barack Obama is a ‘bully’ for trying to shove his healthcare reform law down Americans’ throats and for trying to intimidate the Supreme Court into upholding the law, says staunch conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. Obama, with his inexperience, … Continue reading
“We Are Giving You a Boatload of Money”
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, on the Obama health care law: “We are giving you a boatload of money. There’s no matching funds requirement; there are no extraneous conditions attached to it. It’s just a boatload of federal money for … Continue reading
Economic Ignorance Will Kill America (Part 2 of 2)
Conclusion of yesterday’s column. ‘Give us cheap capital.’ — Chris Zane, bicycle shop owner in Branford, CT We’re told that it’s the small businesses who will save us. First of all, it’s not any particular business — small or large … Continue reading
Economic Ignorance Will Kill America (Part 1 of 2)
A recent CNN Money online article entitled, ‘Dear Mr. President’ asked a sampling of successful businesspeople to advise President Obama what to do in order to help the economy. Their answers illustrate what is both wrong and right about the … Continue reading
Falling in Love With Love
According to research reported in Scientific American Mind, about half of first marriages fail in the U.S., as do two thirds of second marriages and three quarters of third marriages. The researchers suggest that it’s because people usually ‘enter into … Continue reading
Jimmy Carter: Wrong on Abortion, Right on Consistency
Former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, recently expressed these views on abortion: “I never have believed that Jesus Christ would approve of abortions and that was one of the problems I had when I was President, having to uphold Roe … Continue reading
They Won Everything. Why Are They Still So Mad?
Here are the known facts: The shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man, took place on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida. Martin was shot and killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, a man of mixed ethnic descent (Peruvian and … Continue reading
Atheism: The Untouchable Subject
There are two types of atheists. The first is psychological, the other philosophical. The psychological atheist is simply angry. The anger might be a reaction to family members who are religious, the policies or actions of various organized religions, or … Continue reading