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I think it is a group of idealists merely trying to persuade people away from the irrational and towards the more rational.

But they are doing it VIA irrationality, which makes them look stupid.

Proselytizing atheism is certainly more rational than religious evangelists trying to convert non-Christians to their cause with government subsidies.

Which is illegal in this country, so irrelevant to the discussion.

This is less of a stunt than, for example, the Southern Baptists trying to Save Jews by conversion (Ref: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcon.htm, http://www.jewsonfirst.org/07c/baptist_messianic.html, et al).

You're not making any sense. The act of trying to convert Jews to Christianity is not, in itself, a stunt at all.

No one is talking about this because the atheists are trying to convert people; it's the fact that they are doing a silly stunt that is at issue. Almost every group -- religious and otherwise -- proselytizes. Simply noting that a group proselytizes doesn't have a bearing on whether or not they engage in stunts to any degree.

the [atheist bigots] up here don't get any government funding or tax subsidies like the religious bigots do.

There, I fixed it for you.

And again, in the U.S., they get no subsidies or funding either, not for proselytizing. They can get tax-exempt status if they agree to not do certain things, but so can an atheist group. Far from being a subsidy, it's an expression of the First Amendment: it's difficult to reconcile that a church should be free from government involvement while taxing it. Now, you could, of course, tax the churches just as you would tax anyone else ... but if you do THAT, then you have no justification for giving government money to a non-religious charity, but NOT giving it to a religious one.

Long ago it was decided it's easier just to keep them separate.

The thing is that religious EVANGELISM IS BIGOTRY.

False.

It is people saying that you are not "saved" or good because of your beliefs or lack of beliefs.

So when Martin Luther King Jr. tried to convince people to NOT be bigots, he was being a bigot?

Sorry, you're not making sense. Bigotry is more than just saying "you're wrong."

Atheism is highly rational in the sense that it rejects this religious bigotry.

No, it doesn't. By your own definition: atheists OFTEN tell people they are not good because of their beliefs.

People like me get pretty god-damned pissed off at hypocrites and zealots telling us how immoral we are.

While I agree this sort of evangelism is wrong, frankly, this is more YOUR problem than theirs. You live in a pluralistic society, where people are free to express their opinions, and you just need to get over it.

just about the one thing most religious people have in common is their (outward) disdain for sex and sexuality

Nonsense. There is a disdain for extramarital sex, and for graphic public displays of sex, but that's not the same thing. As to the public displays of sex, just like you think I should keep my religion in your home or church, I think you should keep your sexuality in your home or ... club or whatever. As to the extramarital sex, well, ask any spouse of any famous person who's got in trouble for having an affair, and ask them if they are just expressing a sense of "sexual oppression."

Ironic, since that's the thing that usually gets these religious nuts in (legal) trouble. The people who protest too much are usually the ones to watch out for.

Nonsense. People said that afte

As a former Christian, I think it is a group of idealists merely trying to persuade people away from the irrational and towards the more rational.

Proselytizing atheism is certainly more rational than religious evangelists trying to convert non-Christians to their cause with government subsidies. This is less of a stunt than, for example, the Southern Baptists trying to Save Jews by conversion (Ref: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcon.htm, http://www.jewsonfirst.org/07c/baptist_messianic.html, et al).

The Mormons are certainly a nuisance where I live (Canada btw, they travel great lengths to build their flock), and the Scientologists as well (I've had a psychological test done by them at their office in down-town Toronto... I gave them a fake name and took off when they told me I needed to pay for "courses"). Etc, and so on. We have Hare Christna's up here too. And yeah, the Jehovah's Witnesses went canvasing to my house as well.. It's a real circus. Atheists are the pariah, and are generally looked down upon. And the Atheists up here don't get any government funding or tax subsidies like the religious bigots do.

I've also been approached by Muslims with literature on how great and tolerant their religion is. The thing is that religious EVANGELISM IS BIGOTRY. It is people saying that you are not "saved" or good because of your beliefs or lack of beliefs. Atheism is highly rational in the sense that it rejects this religious bigotry. People like me get pretty god-damned pissed off at hypocrites and zealots telling us how immoral we are. And yeah, just about the one thing most religious people have in common is their (outward) disdain for sex and sexuality. Ironic, since that's the thing that usually gets these religious nuts in (legal) trouble. The people who protest too much are usually the ones to watch out for.

Yeah, I've heard that complaint too.

What that argument ignores is that she's a singer. That's what she does, that's the only reason she even had a platform to tell anyone anything in the first place. Do you think SNL would have given her national air time to do anything BUT perform? Of course not. Look at Bono - he's got all kinds of causes that he raises money for by "going through channels" - do you know even one of them?

And as for your giving the pope a pass, bullshit. The policy of the church was that molested kids faced excommunication unless they kept their mouths shut. It doesn't matter HOW many kids were molested by priests - the fact that church policy straight out of the vatican was so massively wrong-headed is what made an enemy out of him and organization that he lead.

Personally, I'll take the Pope's message any time over the sorrowful moaning of O'Connor because it was he and not her who stood by us and gave us hope at a time where everyone else turned their back on us.

Funny, I'm pretty sure that the tens of thousands of people who were abused as children by the clergy would disagree with you.

Rubbish.

Attendance at church in Europe is the lowest ever, historically speaking, a mere fraction of what it was even twenty years ago.

The US, being founded by religious nut-jobs, is still more religious, and the extremely religious are very vocal. But still the attendance at church is at a all-time low. To quote from the links below;

"From 1992 to 2003, average attendance at a typical church service has dropped by 13% whereas the population of America has increased by 9%!"

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tren.htm

And at current trends the majority of people in the US will not be religious in 2035;

Amusingly, a lot of religious people lie when asked about church attendence;

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

For well over half of the world, religion is less relevent and belief vauger and more general than evet before. In the remainder (for example, India) it is the same as it ever was, outside of small pockets.

And globally the 150 million extremely religious people in the US are a pocket, albeit one with deep pockets and nuclear weapons.

You are mistaking the volume of panicked squeaks from reactionary religionists fighting a rear-guard action for a real volume of belief that could over-turn secularism.

And don't forget that popular religions in developing countries (Islam, Hinduism) will hit the self-sanme wall as religons did in the West as those countries reach similar levels of development.

You want evidence? Open your eyes;

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17164.htm

The National Church Life Survey showed that in 1960 41% of the Australian population attended church at least monthly, but by 1980 this figure had declined to 25% and was heading down to 20% by 2000. (Kaldor, Peter et. al. Build My Church: Trends and Possibilities for Australian Churches. Sydney: Openbook, 1999, p.22)

http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php

The decline for attendance forecasts a 55% fall from the 1980 level by 2020. From 1990 the decline in Church attendance is significantly higher than membership, and that for ministers is about the same that for Churches. This tells us that even amongst the membership the Church in general struggles to attract people to services. The rate of decline in buildings is significantly less than that for membership, suggesting that congregations are on average getting much smaller with many more nearing the point when they will cease to be financially viable.

Rubbish.

Attendance at church in Europe is the lowest ever, historically speaking, a mere fraction of what it was even twenty years ago.

The US, being founded by religious nut-jobs, is still more religious, and the extremely religious are very vocal. But still the attendance at church is at a all-time low. To quote from the links below;

"From 1992 to 2003, average attendance at a typical church service has dropped by 13% whereas the population of America has increased by 9%!"

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tren.htm

And at current trends the majority of people in the US will not be religious in 2035;

Amusingly, a lot of religious people lie when asked about church attendence;

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

For well over half of the world, religion is less relevent and belief vauger and more general than evet before. In the remainder (for example, India) it is the same as it ever was, outside of small pockets.

And globally the 150 million extremely religious people in the US are a pocket, albeit one with deep pockets and nuclear weapons.

You are mistaking the volume of panicked squeaks from reactionary religionists fighting a rear-guard action for a real volume of belief that could over-turn secularism.

And don't forget that popular religions in developing countries (Islam, Hinduism) will hit the self-sanme wall as religons did in the West as those countries reach similar levels of development.

You want evidence? Open your eyes;

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/17164.htm

The National Church Life Survey showed that in 1960 41% of the Australian population attended church at least monthly, but by 1980 this figure had declined to 25% and was heading down to 20% by 2000. (Kaldor, Peter et. al. Build My Church: Trends and Possibilities for Australian Churches. Sydney: Openbook, 1999, p.22)

http://www.whychurch.org.uk/trends.php

The decline for attendance forecasts a 55% fall from the 1980 level by 2020. From 1990 the decline in Church attendance is significantly higher than membership, and that for ministers is about the same that for Churches. This tells us that even amongst the membership the Church in general struggles to attract people to services. The rate of decline in buildings is significantly less than that for membership, suggesting that congregations are on average getting much smaller with many more nearing the point when they will cease to be financially viable.

What does showing up in a church say about someone's core beliefs or actions? Lots of people show up in Church for social networking reasons. Still, it is true that many people consider economic social Darwinism to be justified by the Bible, just like many people used the Bible to justify slavery.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav1.htm

Still, there remains often a divide between science/technology and religion. Albert Einstein had a lot of good things to say about reconciling the two, and I like to interpret Gatto's comments about religion and values in that context (maybe incorrectly, I don't know):
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"""
For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capabIe, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.
But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
"""

That is a deeper reason about the conflict between many conservatives and public education, as regards to values. Of course, where to draw the line between labelling some things positive values and other things harmful dogma is part of the gradually enlightened human condition. But Einstein has some comments on that at the link above, too.

Of course, compulsory schooling trending towards a police state has now become a secular religion in the USA, as evidenced by these cameras (if true). Even if these allegations on how the cameras are use are false, an environment where children are taught for more than a dozen years that they have no right to privacy at school, they have no right to have private school lockers (requiring a

Really?

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_hat3.htm

I love this theory of constitutional protection. Please let me know when legislators start following it.

If you are wrongfully accused of murdering (insert ethnic group), and the FBI goes onto slashdot and sees you posting some rant about how much you hate (ethnic group)s, or even some jokes that could be misconstrued as your hating (ethnic group), that's going to appear in your trial.

Just look at the writings which were rejected by the Council of Nicaea.

You mean the Council of Trent.

Here's a quick summary of Horus, stolen from the movie Religulous:

Right. As you so eloquently put it: citation, please. That story, which you have taken from a propaganda film, apparently comes from a single book. I found some sort of a writeup. There's some disagreement at the same site, and not much mention anywhere else.

Just look at the writings which were rejected by the Council of Nicaea.

You mean the Council of Trent.

Here's a quick summary of Horus, stolen from the movie Religulous:

Right. As you so eloquently put it: citation, please. That story, which you have taken from a propaganda film, apparently comes from a single book. I found some sort of a writeup. There's some disagreement at the same site, and not much mention anywhere else.

What ethnic cleansing? There's no evidence of that whatsoever.

tell that to those who had their homes destroyed by Bulldozer Sharon. An American protester protecting a home was bulldozed years ago.

What land have they stolen? Gaza strip? West bank? Those are spoils of war. In case you don't remember, Israel was attacked by the combined armies of all their neighbors back in the 60s.

Oh, Palestinians attacked Israelis without provocation? Palestinians not Syrians, Egyptians, or Jordanians?

It's not Israel's fault that the Palestinians don't live in a single, contiguous piece of land. That's just the result of history.

Oh so the lines just appeared on a map of the Middle East as if by magic? No Jews drew them. Ask those British who served in the British Mandate of Palestine during the 1920, '30s, and '40s who the terrorists were. Ask about the Lehi or Stern Gang and others. Members of Lehi were even trained by NAZIs.

All monotheistic religions are bloodthirsty and intolerant. The question is of degree. The Christians haven't as a group been very violent towards "unbelievers" for a few hundred years now.

The Holocaust didn't happen less than 100 years ago? Christians didn't persecute American Indians? If there are any survivor left ask those Indians who were forcibly removed from their parents and sent to Carlisle Indian Industrial School and other boarding schools where they were beaten for speaking their own languages and forced to attend Christian churches.

I don't see any examples of extremely bad group behavior on their part since they had Jesus crucified (regardless of whether he was who he claimed he was, he hadn't really done anything criminal, but they all cried for crucifixion)

Not all Jews cried for Jesus's crucifixion (if such a person lived), it was mainly the Pharisees.

I'm not too worried about Jews or Christians murdering me, but I would have to worry about being murdered by a Muslim today if I were to go to the wrong places.

There are just as radical Christians as there are Muslims. They come under various headings or titles such as Dominionists, Christian Reconstructionists, and others. When Rev. Jerry Falwell wrote an article criticizing Christian Reconstructionism many got upset because he said they "support for laws 'mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards.'" The leader Rev. Rushdoony wrote back they didn't intend to "put drunkards to death."

Fact is is there are fundamentalist Christians in the US as bad as the worst Taliban. I even suggest googling Christian Taliban and reading some of the results.

And since the dawn of time, marriage was considered to be for a lifetime, yet anti-gay conservative after anti-gay conservative cheats on his wife and/or gets a divorce. If you were railing against divorce and philandering in defense of the sanctity of marriage, I would have a much easier time listening to your anti-gay rhetoric, but since the only time the "sanctity" of marriage comes up is with regards to homosexuality, I have a hard time respecting that argument. (Here's looking at you, Rush, the three time divorcee, for single handedly making this argument for me.)

Also, as to your procreation argument, many gay couples often want to adopt children but are forbidden from doing so because of state laws that use bogus logic in order to discriminate. There have been plenty of children who have grown up with gay parents, yet there is still no evidence that this harms the children, whereas there is plenty of evidence that these children are better off than kids in single-parent families and foster homes. Yet people feel that these children should be put in less advantageous positions in foster homes rather than be raised by loving same sex parents.

Finally, marriage IS a right. If a white man and a white woman were denied their right to marry, there would be holy hell to pay. There’s even a considerable backlash (as there should be), when an interracial couple is prevented from marrying, as was recently the case in Louisiana. Yet when two men decide to marry, many people feel the law should be used to prevent this from happening. This even happens even though there are progressive churches that bless same sex unions.

Personally, because of all this mess, I think the government should just back off. Marriage should be a religious choice rather than a legal one. Allow anyone to get a civil union and the legal protections afforded by it, and get out of the way when it comes to marriage.

It isn't an either/or choice! Legally, marriage SHOULD be a contract administered by the state; the legal and economic benefits of being a couple should extend to all couples. From a religious standpoint, any given church has a God-given right not to recognize the union; however, their only practical recourse is to deny membership in the church to the participants.

It's absolutely different from Buddhism in every way. Do try to learn something about it. They teach that interracial children are the result of moral degeneration, that homosexuality is degenerate behavior, that illnesses are caused by possession of interdimensional beings, that you can heal yourself with some sort of mystical Qi energy, that you can walk through solid walls with proper training, and that there are numerous aliens living on Earth in human disguises.

I'm sorry, but you are thinking logically. don't worry, it happens all the time to those of us with IT experience. You see, you are walking the steps from a-z and seeing that logically it would make no sense.

The problem is we are talking Child porn here, a subject where common sense and logical thinking will NOT save you from PMITA prison. Just see Little Rascals Daycare and mcMartin preschool for examples. In McMartin you had kids claiming Chuck Norris was doing ritual slaughter of Elephants in a dungeon. Logically you or I would go "WTF?" but in the McMartin case they actually bulldozed it to the ground looking for the dungeon! And last I heard there were still two being held in PMITA prison over Little Rascals, where the prosecution actually had the brass balls to tell the defense if they actually did their job and defended their clients that THEY would be arrested for aiding child molestation!

So you see, while logic and common sense would tell you that having a Freenet node, where you don't actually have the keys to what is on your HDD would protect you. Sadly in reality they would throw you in PMITA prison until you produced the keys (which you don't have) or send you to prison for aiding and abetting child abuse because you have IT experience that should have given you the ability to know what was in those encrypted files. Believe me, as somebody who has had dealing with the cops asking for help in IT matters, logic rarely comes into play. I even had a state trooper get pissy with me because I couldn't/wouldn't attempt to hack a federal server at the building where his wife worked so he could read his wife's emails and let him see if she was cheating.

Sadly most cops and many prosecutors believe that hacker crap that they see on TV, like we all have little magic black boxes that let us blow through crypto and hack into any database. See? Reality doesn't matter if all the people after you believe is what they saw on Hackers.

The problem with what you are saying is you are thinking like an IT guy, that is to say you are logically walking through the steps from point A to Z. Not your fault really, it is pretty much the way most of us do it.

The problem with using logic is that Child Porn has become the new red scare and sadly logic often don't have shit to do with whether you will be spending years in PMITA prison or not. See McMartin preschool and Little Rascals Daycare for examples.

Now see, if they had actually used logic they would have said something like "Chuck Norris killing elephants in dungeons? WTF?" but instead they bulldozed the place to the ground actually looking for the fricking dungeon! So sadly until we get rid of scaremongers like Nancy Grace and start actually using logic in the courtrooms again you would have to be batshit crazy to have an open Wifi. Because your logic doesn't really help you when everyone is treating you like a monster, the state has confiscated all your possessions and leaves you to rot in some cell.

Sad that we have fallen this far down the rabbit hole, especially when the vast majority of sexual abuse cases involves a family member or family friend and not some Internet bogeyman, but you simply can't deny reality. If the cops kick down your door and scream "Child molester!" while pointing at you nowadays you are guilty, and whether you can prove your innocence later it will often still cost you years of your life, your friends, maybe even your family. It just isn't worth it.

You might note how just about every religion[...]

I wish I had mod points, as this long and bizarre invention of history has to be one of the funniest posts I've read on Slashdot in ages. Whether it's a skilled troll or a "selectively informed" and passionate individual, the gaping omissions, obvious contradictions, and glaring historical inaccuracies contrast the serious and informative tone quite well.

For the tl;dr crowd, some highlights:

- Christianity is the ONLY religion to oppose slavery from the start, however citations about religion and slavery conveniently omit those in the New Testament.

- American Civil War lead to the Barbary Wars through some sort of time vortex, and 19th Century piracy is now referred to as "terrorism"

- Through a super time vortex, Thomas Jefferson was around in this Civil War period, and "created" the American Marines after having purchased and read a Koran

- Iran is "just about the most open Muslim nation"

- There is only one existing secular Muslim country

- Christianity is known for it's non-violent approach to non-believers (from it's inception to present day, I assume)

Interesting. So you're an atheist where Poseidon is concerned, but an agnostic where Yahweh (or whomever) is concerned?

Yeap.

So is it fair to say that you're monotheistically agnostic, but polytheistic-ally atheistic?

Nope, I'm monotheistically and polytheistically agnostic. It's interesting you bring up polytheism, being agnostic myself I don't believe it but I had friends who are Wiccans or Pagans which are polytheistic

.

Falcon

I am not going to argue tautologies with you because I find people who argue in such a manner usually irrational. The statement I made that you refer to does have some shades of gray and if I had time I would attempt to source some material to back up my hypothesis but unfortunately there has not been enough data collected on differing rates of STDs, drug overdoses and the like in the gay community before and after marriage laws yet. My hypothesis stands though and I will not proffer a new one because of your objections. However, there is a number of well-established studies showing that the more conservative one is the more likely they will get divorced. So the question is should we legislate against Evangelical Christians getting married because they have the highest divorce rates in the country? It would better protect the sanctity of marriage than preventing two random homosexual folk from marrying.

Yeah, see the problem with bigotry isn't the lone bigot, it is the culture out there that facilitates bigotry in the first place. I paraphrase; as I remember it, Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil said that altruism is a disease of the ego and that those who would be allowed to feign altruistic motives to serve their own ends are the ultimate abominations a society can create. All this talk of protecting the "sanctity of marriage" when they typically have the highest divorce rates, is laughable. Don't even get me started comparing conservative heterosexual christian household's sexual abuse rates with those raised in any type of homosexual household. One significant problem with theists as I see it is they believe too much in divine explanations for things that at some point they lose the ability to see the effect of their wills on themselves and others. They are malformed individuals with god complexes who rightfully should be shamed in public for their views that harm others through the veneration of ignorance and the catastrophes that such confused ideology causes. Inexcusably they were allowed to prop up GWB and get him elected without a major news outlet questioning the sanity and judgment of a man who claims to speak to a divine being. Anyone who claims such nonsense is mentally ill.

I can guarantee you that the votes would have been reversed had Obama lost the primary contest and Hillary been the nominee.

Probably. Like I said here, I wasn't upset about it because I thought Hillary was any better. It was just extra salt in the wound after Obama's reversal and my own efforts to assist his campaign during the primaries.

His campaign didn't want to be painted as soft on terra or hamstringing intelligence efforts by the Repubs in the general.

So you betray your supporters and reverse an explicit pledge you made because of political considerations? To quote Senator McCain, "That's not change we can believe in"

but I have to believe that he KNOWS that immunity for the teclos is wrong

Then why did he vote for it?

But just you know know, I contributed probably a couple hundred dollars to the Obama campaign - until the FISA vote.

I contributed around $500 and got every single penny of it back.

ACLU's site and saw the headline "Senate passes telco immunity: ACLU sues", and I became a member

I wanted to join the ACLU until I realized they are hypocrites. Civil liberties union my ass.

I voted Barr in the general

I couldn't forgive him for the witch burning episode back in the 90s. I did a write-in for Ron Paul.

My response to all this, and the snivelling about how their rights were being trampled upon was that I'm unsympathetic to their plight primarily because the Muslim community has brought this upon themselves. I stand by that statement. We never hear the Muslim community being up in arms about a Muslim suicide bomber smearing the good (?) name of Islam

Does the fact that you haven't heard about Muslims condemning suicide bombers mean it doesn't happen?

I think this is the crucial flaw in your position that the Muslim community has brought this on themselves. I've seen some condemnations, but I've also seen complaints that the media doesn't give the same coverage to moderate Muslim statements against radical Islamists as they do to the actions of terrorists. Think about the nature of media coverage, and I'm sure you'll see the bind that both reporters and moderate Muslims are in. "If it bleeds it leads" is the saying in the news business, and a moment's reflection tells you that fearmongering coverage will almost always trump reassuring statements about how not all Muslims are trying to blow you up.

Here's some of the results from a quick google search for "muslims condemn suicide bombings". The first link is a list of public condemnations by Muslim leaders and groups.

Muslims Condemn Terrorist Attacks
Landmark Islamic Ruling Unequivocally Condemns Suicide Bombings
Minister: Muslim decree to condemn suicide bombings
U.K. Sunnis condemn London suicide attacks
Grand Sheikh condemns suicide bombings
Suicide Bombing
INDONESIA: Muslim leaders condemn suicide bombing
A sampling of fatwas and other statements by Muslim individuals and groups condemning terrorist attacks
Muslim Scholars Condemn Terror U.S. Islamic Leaders Issue Edict Against Attacks On Civilians

They get some coverage, but no stories get multiple days/outlets to repeat the message the way an event like a bombing does. The problem isn't that Muslims don't condemn suicide attacks, it's that their condemnations don't get enough play, so people like you think that the Muslim community silently condones the actions of the extremists.

FYI: Officially Festivus is on the 23rd of December.

We know more about Palan's daughter's sex life then we know about Obama and his past.

Yeah, you're right, it's not like he wrote a book where he admitted to drug use as a young man or anything.

And I think the bit about Palin's daughter has little or nothing to do with Palin's daughter, but more the incredible epic failure of abstinence only education. Being a religious wackjob shouldn't automatically ensure you have a shot at the presidency in this country, but we were founded by religious intolerance; you know, it's only okay if it's what you believe ....

> only dozens of Christians are involved in clinic bombings (and those haven't happened in many years)

Huh? Here's one from last year: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/26/clinic.bomb/index.html

And it's hardly an isolated incident: http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm

...I'm voting for him because a vote for someone who wants to put me in prison for smoking pot and hiring hookers is WORSE than a wasted vote.

You do know that Bob Barr was one of the most committed supporters of the War on Drugs in the congress, right?

http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=1416835

And, similar to Baldwin, he is no friend of religious freedom. He was responsible for trying to ban the practice of the Wiccan faith from US military bases:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/burn_aw2.htm

Such a record qualifies him to run on the Libertarian Party ticket?

I can now no more question the existance of God than you can question the existance of anything you have experienced in life.

Actually, you can question pretty much anything you experience. I have had experiences what I thought to be "conversing with God" that in retrospect were probably no more than dialog between different parts of my own consciousness. Consider this survey in which people were asked to assess the will of God: http://www.religioustolerance.org/god_pra2.htm. If people were truly able to "meet God face to face" and hear what he/she/it has to say, don't you think there would be a *bit* more consensus?

Hell is more a Jewish and Muslim concept, from the Torah (Old Testament).

Sorry, but eternal torment of the damned in a lake of unquenchable flame is only ever mentioned in the NT, and mostly by Jesus himself and the author of Revelation. Even Paul, essentially the author of modern Christianity, barely touches the concept.

Every time a word is rendered "Hell" in English translations of the OT, it is a mistranslation. Most conservative and liberal scholars agree that the OT authors only had a very vague concept of afterlife as some sort of mysterious dwelling place where dead spirits go, righteous and unrighteous alike.

And saying that the OT has to be interpreted in light of the NT is like saying the Bible has to be interpreted in light of the Book of Mormon or the Qur'an.

Everybody knows that Duke will be released on December 21, 2012, to coinside with the end of the world! :)

PS to lameness filter:

just let me post this, will you?!

I am human darn'it!

What, I fail the turing test now?

And I thought women were hard to please!

1 2 3 what am I suppose to say to make you love me?

Oh, fsck it...

Other arguments opposing the use of CE/BCE include: [...]

* The use of identifiers which have common spellings is more ambiguous than the use of identifiers with divergent spellings. Both C.E. and B.C.E. have in common the letters "C.E.", which is more likely to cause confusion than identifiers with clearly different spelling.[61]

61. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ceintro.htm ^ a b c "Comments on the use of CE and BCE to identify dates in history". ReligiousTolerance.com. Retrieved on 2008-07-11.

It's high time we the people just say no to the corrupt two party system. It's time we got off our lazy asses and learn about the alternatives available outside the corporate-approved "choice" spoon-fed to us by Big Media. Oh sure, probably we'll get either McCain or Obama this time, but if enough people vote outside the box it will encourage others to do the same.

Just three weeks ago I would have argued with you about this. Then Obama flip-flopped on FISA and voted for a bill containing telecom immunity. In so doing he lost my vote and my support. The only thing I would dispute is that the third parties really offer a better alternative. Consider:

Bob Barr: Witch-burning religious lunatic that led the impeachment of Bill Clinton and somehow gets to masquerade as a libertarian. Could they really do no better than this guy?
Ralph Nader: Left-wing crazy that thinks we should nationalize the energy industries (even I don't lean this far to the left) and expand the nanny state.
McKinney: Don't know a lot about her yet but the initial reading is not very promising. Seems to have a huge chip on her shoulder and is probably at least as far to the left as Nader is.

I won't be voting for Obama or McCain but I don't see how I can support any of these crazies either. I'll sign their petitions for ballot access if asked but I fear that my vote for POTUS may wind up being blank this year :( I'd love the chance to meet Bob Barr and ask him directly if he's changed his tune on wiccans/neo-pagans -- a satisfactory answer might get him my vote. The others don't stand a chance though.

As he's a pseudo-Libertarian I'm sure he's against FISA.

He's also against neo-pagans and wiccans too. Just thought you'd like to know that if you didn't already.

Yesterday's discussion was about one of the two corporate parties' candidates, Obama, voting for FISA

FWIW sm, I've joined your ranks of complete disgust and disillusionment with both major parties. There's no way in hell I can bring myself to vote for Bob Barr but I'm not going to be voting for Obama (or McCain) either.

Christianity and Islam are fundamentally different religions.

Would you like to prop up your unfounded declaration, or should I just knock it down now?

The same laws apply to Muslims, but that doesn't stop them from doing whatever the hell they feel like doing."

Has the US Supreme Court declared Muslims unprosecutable, and the whole internet (bar you, of course) missed it? Or are you implying an entire religion, with 20% of the world's population as members, have no conscience?
Or have I completely misunderstood you? Possibly, I'm not at my sharpest at the moment. So apologies if I've slandered you. I hope I have, I really do.

In his book "Beyond Dogma," he has written that "homosexuality, whether it is between men or between women, is not improper in itself. What is improper is the use of organs already defined as inappropriate for sexual contact." Tibetan Buddhism prohibits oral, manual and anal sex for everyone - both homosexuals and heterosexuals. However, these restrictions refer only to members of the Buddhist faith. 4 From "society's viewpoint," same-sex relations can be "of mutual benefit, enjoyable and harmless." He supports human rights "regardless of sexual orientation." At a subsequent meeting with gay and lesbian representatives, he expressed the "willingness to consider the possibility that some of the teachings may be specific to a particular cultural and historic context."

(source)

You mean, like the USA?

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_mcmar.htm

Keep in mind this was cira 1985.

But American evangelicals have bombed and killed people who disagree. Here's a list of crimes against abortion clinics:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm

And here are some hate crime statistics from the FBI:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/hate_crime/index.html

Many of the crazier high-profile evangelicals have called people with different political views (read: anything remotely left-leaning) traitors, with the implication that they should receive a traitor's punishment.

It's also worth noting that while Islam is over a thousand years old, modern suicide bombing didn't appears until the 1980s, and it was just as popular with the secular Tamil Tigers as it was with Islamic groups in the Middle East. According to Wikipedia, the first suicide attack against Israel was by a Japanese communist group. So I don't think it's fair to say that suicide bombing is an inherently Muslim idea. It may be that the lack of American suicide bombers is more due to the lack of region-based internal conflict than anything else -- the population is so distributed now that there isn't as much of a base for terrorist operations as there was during, say, the pre-Civil War period, which saw things like cross-border raids between pro- and anti-slavery forces in Missouri and Kansas. Americans are perfectly happy to do all sorts of nasty things up close and personal, there just has to be something more important than the price of gas on the line.

Your link is to a Christian Apologetics site. I am sure they have an ax to grind. I would believe this site over the other:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5.htm

It seems more nuanced than the video for sure. Still there are many other similarities to other past gods such as Mithras as well. Horus is by no means the only data point.

Unsupported, eh? You're an idiot. These are very, very well-known.

If you don't believe it, do some research. A quick google search reveals these links to be informative:
http://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Other-Essays-Freethought-Library/dp/0879758333
http://web.archive.org/web/20000520040242/http://www.wels.net/sab/text/qa/qa15.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20021019195356/http://www.worldmissions.org/Clipper/Holidays/EasterAndAsherah.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jckr1.htm

Were you referring to Slashdot? If so, then maybe, who knows? these things aren't collected. In the wider world, atheists (or those who describe themselves as neither spiritual or religious) occupy only about two percent of the population.[1] It varies by region; in the USA it's about ten percent.[2] (Those were brief googlings)

Of those who are nonbelievers, I don't think more than half are "hostile to religion in general." I would describe myself as such, and I'm not too bothered about most of it.

Whether militant atheism (or anti-theism or whatever) is more predominant in geekdom than in the wider world is probably the subject of many awful blog posts somewhere, but would be an interesting study to undertake. I've no idea how to go about it. It would seem a very thorny task from the ten seconds of thought I've put into it, but I wouldn't mind seeing the results.

[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Worldwide_percentage_of_Adherents_by_Religion.png
[2] http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm

It's consistent with every other poll on the subject. You can talk about different kinds of creationism, but the classic evolution denying kind is clearly no tiny minority: it's a majority. I mean, around 44% of Americans believe that the world is only a matter of 10,000 years old or less, right off the bat. That's not subtlety speaking. And really, the only types of creationism that are scientifically sensible are the range from theistic evolution to deism, which virtually no one means to include when they talk about "creationism" (they often don't even mean to include ID, which is fiercely opposed to theistic evolution), and is a very small number of people (mostly practicing scientists who are religious and philosophers).

And again, we see Christians acting like anybody daring to challenge their beliefs is "intolerant" and then playing the victim. When they argue against other beliefs, that's not intolerance - that's just them excerising their right of speech.

In the USA they like to behave like the 76.5% majority of them, who dictate the entire context of our culture, are so persecuted. Nobody can get elected President unless they are willing to mouth the right platitudes that say, "I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ." Even the barely-different Romney (who believes in some silly stuff in addition to the standard Christian silly stuff) is having a hard time.

Here's a hint: you can't hold the reigns of power and complain about being a persecuted minority.

A lot of your ideas are interesting, and many of them are going to piss a lot of people off, but this particular one stands out as problematic:

17. Voting districts are now drawn by computer based on population and area. No more rigging that. You can't do it by race. You can't do it by party affiliation. If the seat isn't completive, then we change the district to make it more competitive.

I will use my home state of Kansas as a good example of "Gerrymandering." Here is a map of our congressional districts. As you can see, the third district is, by area, the smallest, but it contains an equal amount of people when compared to the other districts, as the Kansas City/Overland Park area is the most populated. It also houses almost all the Kansas Democrats. How would you redistribute the voting districts? If you did it by horizontal or vertical stripes of population distribution, the Democrats would not get a say in many votes, as they would be overpowered by the Republicans populating the rest of the state. In fact, the current solution is the only way Democrats get any say. Should the Democrats get a vote? Kansas has been a red state for a very long time. What I'm saying is there isn't really a good solution to the voting district problem (based on how we currently elect officials, anyway).

20. You can't get divorced without 6 months of good marriage counseling, preferable faith-based (you choose the faith, obviously). The one exception is abuse. If there is abuse, you can leave today. We'll help. But if you accuse abuse and it is proven that you lied, you're locked up.
21. Also on the marriage front, you can't get married without at least a few sessions of marriage counseling. Talk about kids, values, in-laws, sex, where you want to live, religion, and everything else. The divorce rate is too high, and I see it as causing too many problems. These last two are designed to help lower that and improve things.

Another solution to this "problem" would be to abolish marriage altogether. There simply would be no more divorcing if you couldn't get married in the first place. Unfortunately, there are way too many things that revolve around the institution of marriage (taxes, insurance, banking, etc.) to completely get rid of it. Personally, I don't think the state should be interfering with the lives of people by forcing them to live in a situation that they don't want to be in. I don't know anybody that actually wants to get a divorce, but rather, sees divorce as the lesser of two evils.

And forcing people to talk to a third party before they get a "marriage certification" isn't going to fix anything either. The Catholic church requires a "marriage training" thing if you want to have a Catholic wedding (I forget the official name), but the divorce rate for Catholics is not any different from Aetheists and Agnostics (granted, they are slightly lower than the national average, but this may have to do with the fact that Roman Catholics don't recognize divorce).

Divorce happens for a reason, but there really isn't much we can do about it. Instead of trying to "fix" everything at once, why not try to knock out the actual reasons people get divorce. Here's a start: Many "bad" marriages come from unwanted pregnancy. How about we try to lower unwanted pregnancies? There are tons of ways to chip away at the perceived "problem" without forcing people to go through expensive councelling.

22. There is a lot I don't like about the education system. We can try many different things to fix that. But if you cause too many problems schools should be able to kick you out. If you are that problematic your parents can educate you (or find someone else to). Stop ruining it for everyone else.

Ouch, guilty as charged, I should have kept reading rather than hastily posted the first link google gave me.

The majority of the muslim world still believes that suicide, either as bombers or otherwise, taking innocent lives etc are forbidden in Islam.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/reac_ter14.htm

I wasn't trolling in my earlier response :/

There have been sexual predators for as long as there have been people. Attacks have always been relatively rare, and most people will never be victimized.

While I agree with your point, but I disagree with the "attacks have always been relatively rare." By some accounts, one in four* women in the United States will be raped at some point in her life, to say nothing of men who are raped or what goes on in prisons. While that still leaves "most people" unvictimized, I wouldn't it "relatively rare."

Your use of the word "always" is also problematic. During wartime, raping your enemy's women is always a favorite pass time.

* Admittedly that statistic is disputed in that a lot of the women did not identify their experiences as rape, although they answered yes to questions like, "Have you ever had sex because you were threatened with physical violence?" and other actions the researchers felt constituted rape. Others feel that if the victim does not identify it as rape, it was not, although a detailed discussion of what constitutes rape is really beyond the scope of this comment.

Oh, the british think evolution is the answer. Here are some statistics for you: Comparing U.S. religious beliefs with other "christian" countries

Please see http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm for one discussion of the issue. The person to whom you are replying is correct (in my view), in that atheism is the absence of belief, NOT an active, positive disbelief in god(s). However, as the article to which I've linked suggests, both terms have been disputed since their inception.

[rant]

I thought that I would NEVER see a subject like this. How dare ANYONE even think of questioning the cultural norms of money-grabbing and dream-chasing!

[/rant]

'Socially retarded' is defined as one whose interactions with others have been contaminated by disgusting concepts such as right and wrong. Remember, home schooling is a sign of extremeism.

Whoops, my bad. Still, Religious Tolerance is a Co$ front site? Since when?

According to the folks at Religious Tolerance, the grandparent is correct. AFAIK, they're a credible, independent source on these things.

Here's a full list of religious groups considered "cults" by the Belgian government. It includes Quakers (I am one), the Amish, 7th Day Adventists, Hasidic Jews, and others. Before you cheer their attitude to the Scientologists, consider the collateral damage.