To paraphrase Voltiare, if religion didn't exist, man would find a need to invent is. It is not anything external like a god or a belief system that defines all religion, it is about the human needs it address. The need for meaning, for value, for inner peace, for transcendance etc. these are what religion is about.

Is the conclusion here that crime is a good thing if it has some pleasant result? Yes, I am sure most people would like it if someone planted some flowers where there was only some bare earth, but where does this stop? Is it ok to just plant anything anywhere on anyone's property? Or do we just to "trust" these people because the subscibe to leftist politics?

So much talk this year about telling our children yes a woman can be president, or yes a black many can be president. Wouldn't a more important lesson be that you can't get away with a crime? Or do we prefer, in the name of stability teach our children to look up to the perpetrators of evil as our nation's respected leaders? Will we tell them because these people believed they had the good of the country in mind their law-breaking and inhumane acts are ok? Are these the ideals America believes in?

I guess what is offensive about that is something most men, including myself, don't understand. Now if a woman said her husband looks hot with his shirt off and most women would love to get in his pants, I think the guy would be flattered.

For all the pollution the average person creates in a lifetime, I hardly think what happens to their body when they die is anything significant. And let me say, aside from using up land, cemeteries preserve our culture and history and are very meaningful for families of the deceased. Besides that they are a nice place to take a walk.

There are no heroes here and no villians. It is what it is and above all it has nothing to do with us. So let's leave it to the people involved and mind out own damn business.

The first few (or rare) times you experience a public bath, along with the nudity and spa treatment it is liberating, relaxing and can make you less judgemental, but the novelty quickly wears off. Lets remember the ancient Greeks and

Romans, as well as modern Scandiavians, Russians and Japanese (and many others) experience this regularly. It doesn't seem to affect their attitudes a whole lot.

The Internet not only spreads errors at the speed of light, it also spreads corrections. Any serious site that might have had this type quickly corrected it, thanks to the hundreds of sites that thought they had a scoop, Salon included. Thanks for ruining a good thing.

The obvious answer here is that Americans who want a solution to the Israel-Palistinian problem should be supporting Israeli politicians who endorse their agenda. (Or is that the whole point of this article?) I don't like the idea of sending money to Israeli politicians, but let's face it, the prospects for world peace rest heavily on finding peace in the Middle East which will never happen until this issue is resolved. Besides, our government has a long tradition in meddling in the international politics of other coutries, so why can't we citizens, especially the ones who are seeking peace and justice do it?

"wounded dear"? ... Surely not as funny as the Democratic prick for Vice-President, but your can't snicker at the APs copy editors if you own didn't catch this error.

People can name their children what they want, but I do not like the idea of naming a child (of any race) because you like the way the name sounds. It is a source of pride to to be able to say you are named for an ancestor or that your name has a special meaning. All my male cousins, for example, have my gradfather's name as first or middle name. It seems to me a people who have been torn from their roots might want to preserve family tradition or might want to use authentic African names, rather than made up ones that sound African.

Praising Palin? This has to be the stupidest bit of ivy tower feminism since Mary Daly lauded the Catholic Church's Marian doctorines as feminist.

Such scientific research is not going to ultimately promote better attitudes towards gays and lesbians. The fact is that there are many innate predispostions people have that are socially unacceptable, so having a genetic basis doesn't mean something is accepted. The attitude you need to promote is that homosexuality is acceptable, in fact a good thing for those so inclined. I think of it much like handedness. Some people are born with an innate tendency to use the left hand. They can learn to function with the right hand, but we know this can have negative consequences. Sexuality is a much more powerful trait than handedness and not letting someone accept and practice the thing that comes naturally to them can have much worse consequences.

And by the way, I am always suprised when scientists equate gay brians with those of the opposite sex. I find in every way the difference between male and female is far more pervasive in the human psyche than gay vs. straight.

So you see this as a classic confrontation between good and evil? Isn't that how we got into this whole mess in the first place? Seems all you have to do is switch Sarah Palin for Barack Obama and you'd have the kind of article that appears in the right wing press.