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Nazi Germany.

Informative my ass. Nazi Germany was explicitly and militantly Christian.

The holocaust was, in fact, the culmination of the dreams of Martin Luther. Here's a brief description
Kristalnacht was carried out on his birthday.

It is certainly a popular mythology that the Nazis were godless heathens, but it doesn't stand up to reality at all in any way. One of the most primary aspects of fascism is a merger of the church and the state. Please try to have at least some knowledge of the subject no matter how tiny before you comment on it. Spreading ignorant lies doesn't help anything.

Stop hating on the military.

If it wasn't for those mother fucking godless terrorist heathens from the Middle (B)East the Word Trade Center would still be standing.

The military protects pussies like you from motherfuckers like them.

Of course, you probably believe September 11th was "understandable" due to the "oppression" of the Arab peoples.

Abu Ghraib? Kiss my fucking ass! WTC, Flight 93, Pentagon, and an attempt on the Capitol is my response to those pissing and moaning "Abu Ghraib".

And we didn't desicrate a Koran - that was a liberal lie.

Meanwhile Christians get beheaded in Sharia ruled countries. You like that - that's fucking diversity and tolerance - only tolerate the enemy.
Dhimmi go feel thyself subdued! Pay the jizra and submit to you Islamofascist overlords!

Back to "oppression":

I'm fucking oppressed by $3/gal gas price and fear the terrorists are going to strike again and knowing my city of birth was attacked worse than Pearl Harbor.

They getting rich, those terrorists and their supporters while we get poor. Those high gas prices hurt US and help Them. We get poor and we get bombed with our own gas money.

Please Bush, turn on the Texas wells. And keep up the good fight.

Let's be real clear about what's going on in the U.S.

The folks in the White House are mostly not religious at all. They are interested in wealth and power. Period. They want to rule the world. (Yes, be very afraid.) But for them, religion is mostly a diversion, a way to distract the masses. It's also a great way to enforce discipline. They will use religion as it suits their needs.

Don't forget that Hitler did the very same thing. He claimed to be fighting a Christian war against the godless Soviets; and making the Jews pay for persecuting Christ. Hitler gave many an impassioned speech praising the great Christian fatherland.

The rank-and-file American religious nut cases, on the other hand, do want a theocracy (even if most of them can't spell it). But their aims and the aims of the Bush White House are not the same thing. The end result -- the decline and fall of the U.S. -- will, however, be the same. Let us hope that this latest period of American insanity (we've had many) doesn't bring the whole planet down with it.

I'm sorta answering things in general here that I've spied throughout this thread:

Quaint are these arguments pinning all the woes of the Western world on religion, on Christianity. Typically, Christianity is blamed for any and all murders, genocides, etc. I find that systems void of any deity are quite effective at slaughtering people too, thus we had millions killed, murdered, exterminated under fascism/communism (and whatever "ism" Pol Pot ran).

In the Abolition of Man Lewis argues that there has always been a string of truth throughout civilization (citing there is only one civilization). He calls this the Tao and argues that it has always existed and keeps cropping up no matter what in whatever religious form. Kant's paradox points this out as he compares the mystery of the starry heavens to the mystery of the moral law within. We just can't escape it -- this need to do and be right, so, call it what you will, but Christianity is simply another form of it (no one ever said it was perfect).

Lewis goes on to note that, for the first time ever, the Tao is actually under attack and in jeopardy of being done away with -- that this is a unique event in history. This is exactly what happened the last century in Germany, the USSR and Cambodia -- Taoless (The Tao being a general concept of a supernatural force we must answer to) systems took over the minds of humanity (yes, even in Cambodia -- oddly). Now, people died, and, sure, people died under religions too, but the fact remains that, for the first time ever, people were killed, en mass, not for land, not for belief, not for any reason other than the fact that they no longer should exist on the planet. The Jewish Holocaust is the best example of this. It was killing, for the first time ever, with the goal of entirely eliminating a certain people from the planet. Say what you will, but all other wars and conflicts had another, primary, goal.

In short, Christianity may suck, religion may suck, but these have never produced the goal which a Taoless system has produced, nor has ever such a dismal concept been conceived in any religion.

Irreligious systems, Taoless systems (communism, fascism, etc.), surprisingly, have the same goals as religion. They simply don't want a god to be any part of the solution, but this causes the paradox of demanding the function of a heart without having a heart. We simply don't behave very well on our own without the thought that we will, eventually, answer to a higher force. It is the brain that feeds the stomach through the heart. We remove the organ and demand the function.... We castrate and then demand the gelding procreate -- it simply cannot happen. Or, Lewis puts it another way, "what makes a man sit in the trench through the 6th hour of bombardment for God and country?" which he answers, "what else can make a man sit through the 6th hour of bombardment but God and country?" (These quotes from memory). This leads into thought that along with religion comes concepts of country, nationhood, family, etc. One could argue that we are moving beyond these hindrances -- that the American Civil War marked the end of state-centeredness and into nationhood, or that the end of WWII marked the end of nationhood and into a global community. Indeed, perhaps we are moving beyond god, beyond the boundaries of answering to such a force, but without the heart -- without these pesky religions -- it is an ominous world looming wherein there is no great parent up there to whom we must answer, where Nietzsche's ubermensch will create his own world, in his own likeness and the final minorities who don't look like me must be removed as so much infestation.

I empathize with Voltaire who witnessed the horror of a flawed religion, a flawed Christianity. I empathize with Bultmann who attempted to save the embattled faith from itself, but at the end of the day Kant's "moral law within" cannot be escaped, nor can it be supplanted with a godless system based on what's best

Greetings,

Trades. Tell me about them. So here I begin my old man of the trades antilogy. I will not pretend to be reasonable. After all this is about my life. Bias is not a question.I need someplace to start and since I have little imagination I will use a classic.

It was a dark and rainy night. Err, scratch that one.

I was born to a family of Eurocentric imports to the Americas. Mostly peasant stock. A 150 years ago only a few of us could read and write above the functional illiterate level. After wading through this opuscule you may, quite wisely assume, that is still true today. We were not then, nor are we today, viewed as being anything to take note of.

A few settled in this or that odd country in the Caribbean but most went either to North or South America. Particularly to Brazil and the U.S. We are identified with the Christian faith. We actually have a few "true believers". But to be truth full most either needed the charity of the churches or hoped to exploit the business opportunities this group format provided. This is back in the day when a $100 loan was very difficult to get with out the letter of reference from clergy, employer, neighbors etc. People complain about the lack of privacy now. I for one would much rather have cameras in public places than a minister or priest in my home. The children are far safer this way. As you may have deduced I am a Secular man.

In other words we are quite the ordinary lot.

Started right out of High School. In the good 'ole USA that is when one is in the late teens for most. Had a in. My dad, with a partner, was a electrical contractor. Union shop. Small shop. Made a nice living shop. Homes with swimming pools, big expensive cars, (American made to be sure) private schools. The men got away with far more drunkenness then their poorer neighbors, after all they were such good providers. Much like today if you substitute other drugs for alcohol. Not wild people but after knowing bad times for so long a little indulgence was tolerated.

Don't get the impression that we were wealthy. As my family goes we were somewhere in the middle of the scale. The wealthy never experienced the bad or poor times like most. They are smart enough not to flaunt their financial wealth when things are tough.

The trades. They have traditions like any other profession. Piping trades (electrical, plumbing, pipe fitter, etc.) tend to feel they have the upper hand in most situations. Jingoism is alive and well. I personally support all trades men with the exception of bricoleurs. Fuck'em, you can't care about everything.

Here is the meat of my experience. As I noted earlier I live a secular life. Most of the time on the job this never comes up. As the old saying goes you can't tell by looking at them. One of the few times it is noticed is when holidays come along. In the beginning I would wish them happy christmas and a merry thanksgiving and leave it at that. Of course the guys looking for trouble would want to issue a loyalties test and ask "How was your holiday". Not that they cared, this was only to make sure that you are one of the faithful. That you observed the official/nonofficial holidays. Today people who have a different way of living are often grouped together as terrorists. Back then, during the Cold War, they were simply godless. You wouldn't want those other people around here, would you?

Once it was discovered that I lived a Secular life things began to change. What one would expect, cold shoulder, off color remark. Being a teenager this was not too different then high school, cliques and all. Sad thing is most of the people into cliques are still that way to this very day. I tend to view this as a wasted life. Who am I to say.

Then it became violent.

End of the day. Strange, seems eerily silent. It looks like everyone else has already left. Packed up my tools and made my way to the parking lot. Three men wearing construction clothes who I have never seen before move towards me. "We d

Ummm, FYI, both of those were done in the 1950's as an explicitly religious response to 'godless communism' (the currency thing was off-and-on for awhile beforehand, but the motto was specifically changed in the 50's). Not that the US had particularly pronounced separation of church and state back in the 1800's; in fact I'd say we're better off today than at any point in the first 150 years of nationhood. But I think the concerted attack on the Enlightenment and secularism in general by the Christian Right _is_ rather new and particularly dangerous.

Other than that, very much in agreement. Combining religion and politics makes a mockery of both. But I won't for one minute think, "It can't happen here". You need look no further than the mideast for a fantastic example of a combined church and state becoming caricatures of their former selves.

Yes, you are an anomaly.

Much of the present climate is very much anti-science. In recent times I've been almost ridiculed for "believing" in DNA. One woman sneered and called me an "academic".

I think the problem is that science is being made into a "belief system". I've heard so many times, "Science is just like religion" or "Science is just another paradigm". Clearly it's not. If I were to say that the Bible instructs the faithful to wear purple polka-dotted pantaloons on Wednesdays I'd be dismissed as a crackpot. Yet so many in the religious community can claim that science is a "belief system" and misrepresent aspects of scientific theory (evolution, the Big Bang) and get away with it. They have conned people into believing that science is something more than a process and by doing so, forced people to choose between God and science.

Sure it's noble to seek knowledge, but ultimately it's just a process. One might as well call arithmetic a belief system. "You're adding! You godless heathen!!!"

Christian-Judism has always had a strong influence on America the influence is less and les each year.

This wasn't really true up until WW2. Then with the threat of the "godless communists", for the first time the wealthy elite (Republican Party) managed to ally themselves with the religious Americans. This relationship has proven very profitable for the wealthy elite, but hasn't really done crap for the religious people since they have allied themselves with the party whose goals are the diametric opposite of their own. Here is a really nice analysis of why this is true..

It's sad, but it's hardly the first time that religious people have willingly been duped and used against their own beliefs.

Do you think the ten commandants were recently put up in court houses?

In fact, I do. Because they were. Largely as a promotional item for the movie of the same name.
Same site, different essay.

Take any shred of religion out of the government, but don't tell me our forefathers or constitution says it should be that way.

It is really quite explicit about that.
Anybody who actually believes in their religion would be far more adamant about keeping that seperation strong than somebody who merely knows it's a good idea. Their religion can *only* be corrupted by any merger between the state and religion.

For examples, please see the entirety of human history.

Every time a article about stem cells makes it into the lay press, it gets these ridiculous headlines...I mean, really, it's ridiculous. The headline should be "Scientist activates silenced somatic genes by fusing somatic cell with ES cell", but if you just read the comments, you'd think it was "Pointy-eared godless mad scientist takes time off from world domination plot to create life in a test-tube, just to piss people off."

.....the Framers of the Constitution looked to the (pagan) examples of republican Rome....

Actually, the writers of the founding documents, from the Decaration of Independence on, made many references to the Judeo-Christian God. In Europe the idea was that the rulers had divine rights and the people got whatever rights the rulers might have condescended to give them. The founding fathers had the idea that ALL people had divinely bestowed inalienable rights. They codified these rights in a document called the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your rights do not stem from a piece of paper with things written thereon, but from the Creator of the Universe.

Take the idea of land. In some cultures, such as ancient Israel and those who lived on this continent before the Europeans came, considered the land to belong to the One who created it. In other cultures, such as in Europe, the land belongs to the king and he may or may not allow the use of it by anyone else. This system is still in use in our culture today. Nobody owns any land nor gets the use thereof unless the government allows it, usually for some kind of payment. If the king was a God fearing, good, just and generous one, those that were subject to him were well off. However if the king was ungodly, unjust, proud and greedy, the subjects were miserable.

Our culture, a mix of Roman and Judeo-Christian elements, gives all land and rights to the king still, who in the case of the USA happens to be the majority of voters. The godless secular ones who are rich and powerful have become very adept at manipulating these voters, thereby pushing and bending the rules in their favor.

Any engineer dealing with control systems knows that an EXTERNAL unchangeable reference value must be established against which all the variables of the system are measured and adjusted. If that reference value shifts the entire system gets upset and no longer operates properly.

In the same way, human societies stop funtioning well if there is no external, unchangeable reference of what is good and what is bad. A ship that has no anchor may be OK in calm seas, but when the storms come it may end up on the rocks.

Your statement 'If there can be no proof of God, there can be no proof of Godlessness' is thus false. The logically correct statement is '... there can be no disproof of God, and there can be no proof of Godlessness', or alternatively, getting rid of a couple of negations: the existence of God can be proven, not disproven, the absence of God can only be disproven, not proven.

I hope the asymmetry is clear.

I agree that Pascal's Wager is bogus. I was joking about that part. However, I wasn't joking about the notion that being certain of no God is just as religious an idea as being sure there is a God. They are perfectly symmetric beliefs, and insofar as faith is concerned, are essentially the same. If there can be no proof of God, there can be no proof of Godlessness. I know that's not logically neccesary, but I believe given the way the world is, it is nonetheless true.

people are really ignorant about why NASA got funding in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

sure the astronauts visit schools and tell all the kids to dream for the vastness and beauty of space.

nevermind that most of them were in the military before they got chosen for the space program.

the real reason the congress gave NASA money in the cold war was to put death beams on the moon before the godless commies.

unfortunately some people seem to have believed their own PR and think Nasa is a branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts or soemthing, as if its mandate is to give us cool screensavers via Hubble.

Hey, I would love that, but that is not how it got the money to go to the moon &c. America in its current state will not give money to something just because its a 'dream'. It's main purpose is warfare and violence as can be clearly seen from the national budget, the language of congress, popular entertainment, and the voting patterns of the people.

Are you a godless heathen?

Free software is a plot between godless communists and moozlim ayrab terrists who don't pray to jesus like we do here in 'marika to destroy capitalism and the entire western economy, 'specially 'marika's. That gul durn googley is in on it, so I uses Yahoo. Puh-raise Bill Gates! Puh-raise microsoft! /troll

Then why did he try to wrap his argument with the trappings of logic? Faith is faith. You either believe or you don't. Why couldn't he at least be honest about it instead of pretending to present a rational argument?

Personally, I don't care. If the US becomes a theocracy, there's plenty of other countries for my investment money to go to, countries that will kick our ass in the global marketplace. I'll hire an evangelical christian to mow my lawn in twenty years and I'll fly to Korea to get rejuved by the godless heathens.

See and this is just more propaganda so that Gw and his cronnies can shut down the net...

Correct.

What do they think we are stupid.

You should understand (not being stupid) that what you think doesn't matter in this context. This is a measure designed to enable brute force attacks (under color of Law) on those who are not stupid enough to believe the rationale provided.

"They" are not trying to influence your thought in this, they are incluencing the people (and there are a lot of them) who have always felt that there's something a bit strange about people who use the internet: That vast right-wing, fundie christian population that sucks nazi ass in an attempt to get a leg up on those that they know are smarter and more capable than themselves.

Those people don't want you to have internet access, since if you do, then you are by definition "smarter" and more capable than they are. You have quick, trivially easy access to information that can't get, don't want, and don't want you to have.

That population is the one that continues to tolerate the facist coup that has destroyed America. That is the population that will return us to the stone age to await the return of their Lord - who (they believe) will deal with all those godless, smart-ass internet information junkies once and for all by placing them in the Lake of Eternal Hellfire.

Dubya, Cheney, Rove, et al serve that population, and this so-called "news" story is published to let them know that Dubya is doing what they want. No one cares what you think - you are the liberal intelligentsia (you have a degree, don't you? From one of those liberal universities? You use the Internet, don't you? You're a Terrorist, obviously, and probably a Pervert, as well. What else would you be doing on the Internet?) - who cares if you have an Internet do use? You? Well, the courts and the law enforcement system are in place to deal with such anti-social behaviour. No worries there.

Terrorist have been using technology since the beginning...whats the big hub bub?

I question your premise, here. Neither the Right-wing Chrisitian Terrorists, nor the Right-wing Islamic Terrorists have made particularly good use of of technology thus far. Certainly not as effective as, say, the protests at the RNC in NYC, the indy media people, the FSTV network, etc - for instance...

Fact is Right-wingers apparenly draw on actual Conservatism for only one thing: They are Luddites. I postulate that this is because they generally have lower IQs than the average technophile and are not really capable of using technology effectively, but that would just be my observation.

In fact, I think if you examine the problem you will find that the reason they want to shut down the Internet is because they are losing the battle to control it absolutely. They hate and fear it, therefore they must kill it. And don't kid yourself that they won't; we're most of the way there already.

they are going to prob start trying to shut down email first then entire domains.

Do you have some evidence that this is not already being done? Wake up, man... It's not like the domain shut down would be allowed to tell you [see:USA PATRIOT Act] or the warrents [issued in secret - ibid] would be made public. It's not as though there is appeals proccess for decisions taken by secret tribunals [see again:the PATRIOT Act and PATRIOT Act 2]

They wanted to shutdown the gps system but I think that plan failed cuz we depend on it so much..

No, the GPS system was left up so they could accurately plot the position of your cell phone - your phone is xmitting its position while it's on - and (arguably) probably when it's not.

I think they should next start with individ

Don't you remember why the US went to war? 9/11!! Osama bin Hussein was going to kill us all! Um, I mean Saddam bin Ladin, he was going to fly a plane into the nearest shopping mall in middle town USA!! Oh my god!!!! Bush had to do it, to protect our way of life!!!! This had nothing to do with getting back for daddy, protecting Saudi/American oil interests, asserting American military power over the mideast, etc. It's for the children!!!! You must be a godless Clinton-loving abortionist, you commie fag....

Indeed. Avoid this film like a plague. It's better to go and watch something wholesome Christian edutainment like The Passion of the Christ with your kids. Sure it's rated R, but that's just because the godless Hollywood atheists don't want your kids watching a movie about God's love.

By the time 911 had rolled around, Ashcroft was no longer a dim senator from Missouri, he had been a loser to a dead guy in the "show-me" state, and subsequently appointed to be AG, by a president elected on less than a plurality, who was trying his damndest to give his base of contemporary conservatives a reason to have hope, by proving the Peter Principle untrue. Bush was successful in this goal, evidenced after his reelection with the promotions of Wolfowitz, Rice and Zoellar. People can and do get promoted past their levels of incompetence. (how's that for evil spin?)

Look, I am not saying Clinton didn't want the power; anyone who actually becomes president is someone who dangerously lusts for power. I don't even like Clinton. I am saying that the republicans are to blame for the majority of rights stripped from humans after 911. They control the executive, the legislative, and many claim the judiciary as well. What has come into being since taking control is theirs alone to shoulder the blame for. (at least until the bi-polar polity gets evened out a bit, and then renew an attack upon the dems and the reps evenly)

In politics, it's all about the spin, there is no truth to be found. The best that can be hoped for is an evenly divided by party and hamstrung government that is forced to enact legislation through a true bipartisan process.

Never trust any politician farther than you can swing a rope from the city square's old oak tree.

"I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my-opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in polities or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction, is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.
--"The Writings of Thomas Jefferson" Memorial Edition (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors) 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04.
Vol.7:pg 300 much of it online, (ascii only)

and here's a direct slap at BuShills, from a godless founder of America:

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
-- Thomas Paine

Guantanamo is Guano upon America