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>> Why are they forced to pay for something that doesn't benefit them.
>Because they in turn benefit from other things that they didn't pay for. How do you fulfil this obligation? Is my invention of a better paper shredder equal your invention of the cure for cancer?

That's a self-fulfilling justification. We keep doing something because, well that's the way it's always been done?

>> There are people that never send email, and never want to, but the government took their money and spent it on something that they wouldn't have spent it on themselves.
>But they do use DVD players etc that were made possible because of research done well before their time. Research that they did not pay for.

These are technologies, most of which were developed by companies to make the company money, that these people payed for when they spent their money on the DVD player, etc. The companies that developed these technolgies got payed for their investment in research, when people went out and bought the DVD players, etc. The people that labored to develop them got paid for their effort by the companies.

>> That is not freedom, that is the government telling you that they know better than you do how to spend your money.
>They do know 'better than you' on how to spend your money. That's why we live in a society, rather than living as nomads. Money goes into research and development. Big science projects often take 10 to 20 >years just to build, then many years later to work out the results. Of course most people who paid for it aren't going to benefit from it.

If you honestly believe that the federal government has a better idea how to spend your money than you do, then I don't know what to say. Do you give all your money to the government? If they know better I would give them all my money and ask them to chose everything for me. Why not? It would be better for you, right? Does President Bush know best how to spend your money? Do you support the war? Why not? Government knows better than you? If you had lived in Nazi Germany, would you have supported Hitler's government? He knew better than you right?
I live in a society so that I have people to trade my goods or services with(I can program a pretty mean page of C# code, but can't farm to save my soul) and so that my rights and the rights of every citizen around me are protected. That's why I live in a society. That and because I enjoy the company of other people(A selfish goal; my body enjoys the dopamine release I get from conversation with others) How far does this go? Should the governemt take the fruit of all your labor and spend it how the majority sees fit? A 2004 Newsweek Poll of 1,009 U.S. adults, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, found that 82% of those surveyed believed that Jesus was God or the Son of God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Unite d_States Should that 82% spend your money putting a Bible in every home? A 2007 Gallup Poll found that 49%(that was the winning majority view point) of Americans don't believe in Evolution. http://www.galluppoll.com/videoArchive/?CI=27838&V AP=0&VASRCH= Does a government elected by that 49% have the right to spend your money researching Intelligent Design?

>> I think that each individual person should be free to spend their money on things that benefit them.

>So I guess in your idea world, we scrap all government research, scrap NASA and all it's space research, scrap the majority (all?) of university research, scrap the large hadron collider and all the other >accelerators, and so on? We'd also have no research papers, and much much fewer PhD students. And certainly no post-docs etc.

I'm lost? Why no research papers? Are all research papers funded by the federal government? If yo

For those of you who thought that creationism was a fringe movement, here's the Gallup Poll headline "Majority of Republicans doubt theory of Evolution". Church attendance is the primary predictor of this belief. http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27847

Imagine if an atheist ran for president.

He/she would not get elected.

Huge being a relative term in all but when 6% thought the moon landing was faked, and 5% had no opinion that's huge to me, that's 33,125,394 people who either think it's fake, or don't have an opinion that something really happened.

Of course you could argue the poll is goofy or whatever, but still that's the data you have to go on.

I think it's safe to say that they are truly a minority group, and this is their chance to have a moment in the sun.

The latest Gallup poll showed that creationism is accepted by a sweeping 41% of the US population.

Well, that and in this country we value freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech refers to state censorship, not laughing at stupid opinions or protesting against indoctrinating children into them.

His approval rating is down to the hardcore loyalists that would eat glass before they spoke ill of any Republican from Texas.

And even more telling, the approval rating for Congress is even lower. The new, Democrat controlled Congress.

The entire government sucks.

Exactly.
There is nothing mysterious about this. Demonstrating faith in the deities that the boss and his priests approve of has always been required for advancement in society.

For example, a recent Gallup poll http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=26611/ showed that most Americans would be more likely to support an African-American lesbian for president (are you listening, Condi?) than an atheist of any description.

This is true even in nominally atheistic societies: witness the worship of Stalin in the USSR, Mao in China and Kim Il-Sung in Korea.

Fat people get it the worst. No other group of people are so easily attacked and mocked.