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I for one am ecstatic that the Americans are taking this bold step. We have suffered under the threat of extraterrestial communication interference far too long. As a godless Canadian, a citizen nonetheless of the pan-American empire, I will proudly point my cell phone toward the heavens in the direction of least reception, and prostrate myself in the name of his divine governance, whoever-it-is-who's-running-the-military-down-ther e, Jr.

The thing is, people who are non-religious are more than happy to be tolerant of people who are religious, provided they MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS.

But they don't seem to be able to do that.So if they are going to express their opinion that we are godless evil people who are going to hell, we are going to express our opinion that they are brain-dead whack jobs that believe in mystical all-powerful beings absent any physical proof.

Then we are labeled as intolerant, when we didn't start the argument in the first place.

"Kerry's got more guts than that incompetent you backed and he's a better man. And, for the record, you can take your points and stick 'em right up your godless, corrupt Republican ass."

My point is that McCain is a *real* war hero. So if you want to cite that (war hero) as a great quality for a candidate, then you should be lamenting that McCain failed to receive the nomination for the 2000 campaign.

Kerry went into that "war" so that he could make a name for himself and run against it. Kinda like how he voted against the Kyoto Treaty when it was in the Senate and then later criticized Bush for not supporting that very same treaty. Yep, that makes him quite a man now doesn't it?

And continuing, I don't think it was Bush who married a billionnaire to get access to easy campaign money to further his political career. But I might be wrong. Oh wait, he (Bush) married a school teacher. My bad.

No, I meant John Kerry. He had the same silver spoon ticket out and took his chances in the shit. That means more to me than some gutless poser who had "other priorities" at the time.

Kerry's got more guts than that incompetent you backed and he's a better man. And, for the record, you can take your points and stick 'em right up your godless, corrupt Republican ass.

I want all you moozlim ayrab terrists who don't pray to Jesus like we do here in 'Marika and godless commie russkies and chinks to know one thing: We are perfectly willin' to use our nookyooler weapons first! God Bless 'Marika, and God bless our Nookyooler arsenal!

You pulled that "1%" out of your ass. Find or do some rigorous research before asserting your personal prejudices. In any event, the issue is not whether "all" X "are" Y, but whether that is a more valid statistical inference than the null hypothesis based upon the available evidence. This may be true even if only 1% of X are Y in the case where only 0.01% of members of the general population are Y. Look up Bayes' Theorem for more precise expression of this.

Another problem with the way you have expressed your idea is the notion that sets are delineated rather than attributes which lie along a spectrum. For example: the more militantly feminist a woman is, the more lesbian she is likely to be; the more lesbian a woman is, the less anti-feminist she is likely to be. If she spells "women" "womyn", she's nearly certain to have a muff-munching streak - and to be a viciously boring ideologue. Another example: the more literally a person believes the Bible, the less likely he is to believe in the theory of evolution. If he refers to non-Xtians as "godless", he's virtually certain to think that a supreme being in a bathrobe and a beard created the universe in seven days. (Everyone here knows that should be "GNU/universe" and it was actually several years.)

Think about it. Scientists spend decades figuring out how the universe works, Engineers (and Doctors, and other folks at the application end of things) spend decades figuring out how to apply those rules to create things that do something we could not do before. Lifetimes of research to create... a cell phone a complete moron can use. A pill derived from examining thousands of fly generations with genes knocked out to figure out which ones are crucial in the evolution of a disease... so a moron can live to teach others about Intellegent Design and how Darwin was a godless heathen. Hell, farmers must be pretty irritated at how they are looked at as hayseeds when they produce more food per acre than at any point in history - and I don't know a whole lot about how they do it (and I don't think too many other /.ers do, either - but feel free to enlighten me)

So the problem may boil down to the fact that our science and technology is so advanced that you don't have to have the slightest clue how or why it operates in order to use it. Thus, you can pretty safely ignore why or how it works, and substitue your own suspicions about how the world really works - i.e. human drama stories for many journalists, despite the fact they routinely USE such technological marvels such as cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, helicopters, etc. Such tactics would not work well in a endeavor more closely tied to reality, like launching a space shuttle or flying an aircraft. But a journalist only has to keep an editor happy and circulation up.

I believe the Quakers and Amish are both pacifist, yet both are obviously religious. There are lots of pacifist religions in Asia.

Jehovah's Witnesses have got in trouble around the world for refusing to join or even support the military (won't even work in military hospitals) and are wholly politically neutral.

Religion isn't necessary for war (see radical godless Communism), its just that both are seemingly ubiquitous forces in human nature, and its difficult to unravel connections between the two.

America's war in Iraq is hardly motivated by religiousness, even if the right wing is fermenting support for war to gain political power for itself. Bush is there for money, political power and control of resources.

The mega-suburban churches are whipping up support for the war so they can get in with the administration and start demanding favors: invoke an American state religion that banishes freedom of belief, freedom of expression (particularly if boobs are involved), and civil rights for anybody who falls outside the state moral code.

Religion? Do you think these people really even believe in a god, or is it just more politics as usual?

You're right! I would rather die than live under a damned godless communist sun!

So you say that for anyone to have a discussion of evolution they must use your conventions of naming? I say bullshit.

If you decide to make up your own definition for a word and then claim that scientists must also using your definition when they use the same word... I can think of a better place to put your "bullshit" label.

Theory already has a specific meaning when used by scientists. In this case, the various theories of evolution provide our current best explanations for the many-times-over observed fact of evolution (the fact that the frequency of alleles in a population changes over time).

You will learn more about evolution in the Bible than any PH.D. granting institution can teach you. And you will live a better life.

The first statement is patently false. Charitably, the Bible discusses the who and why of creation, but is woefully lacking any substantive discussion of how or when (which is what the theories and facts of evolution are all about). The second statement is irrelevant, since most graduate institutions don't explicitly attempt to improve how people live their lives (there is hope that by improving the quality/quantity of what people know, lives will improve, but it's implicit).

You should read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Edwards.

Not a month ago, another Christian was yelling at me for saying that Christianity still use fear-based arguments to spread the word (and Christian morality). He said that I was ignorant and that those type of people were just a part of the ugly history of Christianity. Where were you to defend my assertion then?

I always get a chuckle when I think that according to the worldview of people like you, all us godless heathens must be just wallowing in sin and misery because we don't have a man in the sky to tell us what's right and what's wrong. A really useful ethics will be a lot more useful than any "list of rules" morality like you're going to find in your books. Some Christians will understand and agree with what I'm saying, but I don't expect it to make any sense to you (you may also say they weren't really Christians anyway :)

How do you explain miricles?

Which miracles?

How do you explain the works of Mother Theresa?

As the personal effort of a well-intentioned but poorly informed woman. (perhaps not so poorly informed, since she came to the West for her own medical treatments rather than be treated in the hospitals that she created... hmmm...).

How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?

In the real world, we should often discuss probabilities instead of certainties, but if, based on a doctor's experience, a patient has a vanishingly small chance of survival, he'll conclude the patient is a goner and move on to the next guy. But vanishingly small probabilities are still non-zero and some people will pull through by sheer force of will (a.k.a. placebo effect, which is not a brush-off, but a really important set of biophysical effects that your body can do to itself).

Have a great day!
Ross

Not to belabour the point but ...

Your accusations remain vague. Please provide an example of something I've said that makes me a "freedom hater", or withdrawl the accusation.

Let's start with.

>> If you ever accept the fact that someone who opposes homosexual marraige ...

People who oppose equal protection under the law for homosexuals, or for any minority group, are bigots, suffering from either fundamental flaws in ethical values or in reasoning, and I'll make absolutely no apology for saying so.

See, this is precisely what I'm on about. Opposing marraige becomes opposing equal protection under the law becomes evil or stupid. You can't seem to accept that reasoning like this exits. Gary Becker is no idiot (at least, the Nobel Committee didn't think so), and his very well reasoned argument simply proceeds from basic assumptions and values that I doubt you share (I find them a bit of a reach, myself). Note that his first point is that many conservatives oppose the word "marriage" while supporting equal protection under the law. (You might find Posner's comments surprising as well, for a conservative take from a federal circuit court judge, who is also neither stupid nor evil). Plenty of good, caring, smart people oppose homosexual marraige - shocking, isn't it?

You are fine with people who are factually mistaken, or show fallacies in reasoning, but when someone is from a different culture, for example one that accepts as an axiom that homosexuality is "just wrong", there is no tolerance to be found - straight to "evil". This is exactly how a bigot thinks. Can you even claim that "some of my best friends are Bush supporters"? Would you let your daughter marry an SUV-driving evangelical Christian?

Yes, that means I'm saying that a depressingly large percentage of Americans are suffering from irrational beliefs or flawed ethics.

OK, from an intolerant paleo-conservative point of veiw, dividing the world into "right-thinking people" and "heathens and godless communists" is at least consistant. But how do you do this while embracing diversity? You seem to be an ardent supporter of the freedom to hold beliefs that you agree with.

Driving an SUV as a commuter vechicle or voting for Bush are more issues of mere ignorance - dangerous and deadly ignorance, in the later case

Because a different cultural perspective must be incorrect? Do people have the right to drive whatever car they choose, or to decide that the private sector can better manage most things, or to decide that economics aren't a zero sum game and impose a system where growth is more important than fairness, or to decide that foriegn policy decisions like invading Iraq are great? Or does that freedom end where a democracy would choose laws you find ignorant? You certainly give the impression of supporting the latter. I don't see you admitting that good, caring, smart, well-informed people disagree with you on these issues, but Hell, you might surprise me.

Perhaps they'll start outputting highly intelligent and well-thought out content in high volume, so that the cynical users of the godless Internet will see the light and gravitate towards it like flies.

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor. Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university. Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

200 years ago, most of the USA was filled with people who could not read or write. Yet, they formed a country with great prosperity. And they believed in GOD. They thanked him for what they had.

There's a common misconception that the founding fathers wanted us to have a Christian Nation. A lot of people even use the fact that we have "In God We Trust" our national motto - but they don't realize this is a modern vision, not one of our founding forefathers. The word "GOD" doesn't appear once in the original "The Constitution of the United States" or "The Bill of Rights" (the first ten amendments to the constitution) as written by our founding fathers. As a matter of fact, the only mention of "religion" in either of these documents is in the first amendment:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The statement "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" serves to disavow Congress (or the Federal Government) from favoring or establishing or regulating religions. In otherwords, a separation of church and state -- No preference for God or Allah or Vishnu or even Xenu.

That's right -- search for yourself. "GOD" isn't there. As a matter of fact, the constitution still remains free of the word "GOD" despite every amendment that's been passed to this date.

Furthermore, the original Pledge of Allegiance appeared in 1892. The phrase "under God" was not added until 62 years later 1954 at the height of the McCarthy era and in the midst of his "Red Scare" as a way to distinguish the US from our "Godless" enemies.

There is a further misconception on the words "In God We Trust" on money. For nearly 100 years, the US mint did not print those words on coins or bills. There are two theories on how this wording was added to our money. The first involves records of letters from 1861 from a minister to the Sec. of the Treasury suggesting a single coin with the motto which was eventually minted in 1864. The second commonly held theory is that the idea "In God We Trust" came when the US was switching from a gold and silver standard to purely "virtual" (unbacked) monetary standard and the removal precious metals from coins. One senator asked, "Who can you trust if my paper bill isn't worth gold?" and another answered, "We can only trust in God". Anyhow, the motto "In God We Trust" was added to ALL coins in 1908. It wasn't mandatory on bills at all though until 1955.

The motto "In God We Trust" wasn't actually made our national motto until 1955 as well. Again, it was seen as a way of distinguishing ourselves at that time from our godless enemies, the communists.

Many individual politicians, presidents, and judges have seen fit to express their belief in God. I believe it is their right to express those beliefs as long as they don't force them upon others. However, NOTHING written into LAW by our founding fathers suggested that we, as a nation, be guided by "GOD". The only acts and laws passed have been much more recent and possibly less enlightened than our founding fathers. All of these laws and acts are subject to being found in violation of the Constitution (Amend 1 - separation of church and state) since they are mere laws and not amendments to the Constitution. Any could be overturned if the Supreme Court so ruled.

Maybe "In God We Trust" is a great motto, but we have the 1950's congress to thank for that as a motto and the Congress of 1908 to thank for adding it to our coins (bills were again in 1955), not our founding fathers.

Here's a nice article with lots of facts for you to ignore on our godless consitution. It wasn't accidental it was intentional.

"In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:

As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musselmen--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history"

Not just any tab - that's been patented by some godless son-of-a-whore. I mean the specifics of an implementation for tabs at the top of a row of virtual document "panes". Tabs that contain a control for managing the tab state, and an iconic representation of the tab content and context.

But, I will just say that I'm not really contesting ID is not science, in that no experimentation has really been done (to anyone's satisfaction, at least).

Do I think ID should be taught in a science class. Absolutely not! Such initiatives are religion in disguise. If I choose to teach my child religious beliefs, I don't want some teacher imposing their differing beliefs. (To ID supporters, they believe evolution is the differing belief, but I'll not go there.)

What I would say is that science is the pursuit of truth through repeatable/provable methods, as a layman's definition. However, my point of view is that something like ID can fully well be true, even if science doesn't even know how to answer such a question. Science is limited to the abilities of the scientists. It is my assumption that it would take total knowledge of the universe to discover beyond all recourse, that ID happened, is happening, will happen, or is even possible.

Then again, I believe there is a theory to the effect that if you could know the position and direction of all matter simultaneously, then you could know its entire past as well as its future. Unfortunately, we are limited to never knowing both position and direction.

I'm not an ID in schools advocate. Quite the opposite. However, in my mind, there is so much "religious nuts vs. godless whores" (to use the image each puts on the other) labelling. I don't believe any thoughtful resolution will come of this issue as long as that is the case. The same holds true for abortion, gay marriage, etc. etc.

I have always believed in one thing. I have my views. They are mine. They aren't to be imposed on others, but neither are theirs to be imposed on me. In a perfect world, that would work. It doesn't always, but I can at least not impose my personal views on the school boards of my local districts. However, I would find it acceptable to speak up when opposing views are trying to be imposed.

Evolution, by the way, is a major stepping stone for any student, as is all genetics. There are people that go off to college not even knowing the "eye color" chart of determining the eye color of kids depending on the genetic makeup of their parents. I thought that was something basic that everyone knew. Unfortunately, such information is left out at many religious schools that shun anything hinting of genetic change over generations.

It's like someone leaving out the Pythagorean theorem just because there was a cult of Pythagoras.

Unless God exists by Himself, without the need to be created.

If you're willing to admit that possibility, shouldn't you also be able to admit the possibility that a godless universe exists by itself, without the need to be created? As the parent poster indicated, at SOME point up the chain you must stop and concede that "it is because it is". Otherwise you're stuck with an infinite regression problem. Whether you place that point at God or at the physical universe itself is a matter of taste. But the way I see it, why place it at a level above the physical universe when there's no real evidence that such an extra level exists and when such an extra level doesn't actually help to explain things?

(Neither science nor religion will ever be able to answer the ultimate question of "why?". It's an inherently unanswerable question.)

It was all about controlling a significant fraction of the world's oil reserves

This is probably one reason why a murderous asshole like Pat Robertson wants Chavez killed

I don't believe in god. If you want to know how we think and act feel free to ask us but don't assume godless = without conscious.

Some people wonder why those without fear don't just go out and rape pillage and plunder at will. But it's much simpler if you think of 20 people stuck on an island that know nothing about each other for say 20 years. If there was only one woman then there would be a higher chance she would end up raped than if there where 15 women. Why? Well if you can separate people into you (people with most of the power) and not you (people with little power) then you can dominate them. But in a more balance situation say 10 and 10 then the women would be able to fight back better so there would be less risk that they would be harmed.

Now this is a simple case but it's easy to see that when there is risk to harming someone then there is less chance people will do that. I said nothing about god but I still demonstrated a reason why people would not go around harming others without cause.

Now take the same group of 20 people. Let's start out with them knowing little about each other but they are all starting out except one of them is stuck on the boat. Some driftwood is covering the door and one of them can't get out. So they are calling for help. Now 3 people walk by and see that person in distress. Helping him is going to be a minor risk but if you don't help him nothing would seemingly come of it. However, if one of that group walked over and let they guy out then the guy would "owe him a favor" and the rest of the group would start to think of him as a "nice guy". Well would there be any reason for the guy on the boat to try a pay back the favor? If he did not do that then people would be less likely to help him out. But the other 2 people would also be willing to help him out because he is a "nice guy" so he would probably help them out in the same situation. Now even if the helper where a neutral guy he could think about hey all these people would react and see that helping someone out could help him out more.

Now you can use god to teach your kids these two basic ideas so they will not do bad things and help others out OR you can say why doing so might be a good idea. Doing bad things might seem like FUN to the religious people but that's because they never really think of rational reason not to harm others. So it seems like a lot of them can't understand why people might do nice things without the fear that the need to do nice things.

If you want to read up on this type of stuff look into game theory. It look at how to win games but has found that the simplest method is often to start with minor gifts and work your way up. As long as the benefit from harming the other players is less than the benefit of helping them then it's a good idea to keep helping them. In the end you might end up with the classic bank robbers situation where everyone is trying to run off with the same loot but as long as there are plenty of banks to rob or cops to hide from it's often a great idea to keep helping your buddies.

On the down side this also expanse why you tend to consolidate power to smaller groups who try and dominate the whole. But overall society's can function based on logic as well as they would out of fearing god.