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I think it can be traced back to a couple of things:

1) Changing the meaning of "patriot" to someone who is behind his government no matter what.
2) Changing the definition of "democracy" to "the lesser of two evils"
3) Changing the meaning of any political group to be derogatory.
4) Labeling anyone who speaks out against the government to be either a traitor or freedom hating commie bastard (this relates to #1)

Of course, I'm just a godless freedom hating commie bastard from Denmark of all places - hell, I'm even a member of the [warning for the faint of heart] Social Democrats AND I'm an atheis, so that absolutely PROVES that I'm a freedom hating godless commie bastard. Oh, and since I don't agree with your governments politics, and can really only stand Colin Powel, I hate America too.

OK. Let's stay OT for a while. The "Pledge," as recited by by parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, did not contain the words "under God." Those two words were added - at the insistence of religious fanatics - during the Eisenhower administration. The Pledge was a response to the Civil War, a reminder that we settle our differences under the law by legal means.
Did that make my ancestors any less pious? Not one whit.
We have changed from "one Nation, indivisible.." to a nation divided by God. Evidence: The blatantly religious agenda that has become part of the Republican Party's platform (the part, that is, that is not concerned with gutting civil liberties and Constitutional restraints on the executive branch, deficit spending to fund corrupt and/or tax-dodging expatriate corporations, unjust wars, and major campaign contributors, stealing from the poor to give to the rich, etc).
PS THIS AC is 1) deeply religious, 2) a veteran, and 3) an MBA - just in case you were going to call me a godless, gutless, socialist peacenik liberal.

The distribution of godless warez will be dealt with with swift bloodletting and cold retribution. We will behead all of the South Korean infidels.

Sincerely,
Hu Flung Pu (S. Korean al-Queda operative)

I call em as I see em. They are lucky I am not calling them terrorists, traitors, bedwetters, nosepickers, godless, america haters, pinkos, lefties, fags, comunists, heathens, wackos, feminazis, green nazis, and thousands of other awful things republitards call democrats.

How come you guys can dish it out but you can't take it? Be a man and stop your whining.

Now, I can tell that I am self aware, because I have a distinct concept of "self".

Why do you believe that? Just what is this concept?

Because you feel pain? Because you feel emotion? Because you reason? Because you're making a judgement call that your reasoning ability is above an arbitrary marker?

Speech helps, of course.

But not mating calls, cries of agony, yips of joy? These inhuman sounds cause change in the behavior of animals that hear them. It's conversation.

To be honest, we have such a crude definition of "self", that we'd need to figure out precisely what we mean when we talk about sentience, before we can start to think up tests for it.

I think that YOU need to figure out a definition before you start claiming who does and does not have that attribute. Apparently, it's sufficient for you to "feel" that you are self-aware, but a dog must somehow "prove" through experiment and definition that it is.

Frankly, that's the same argument used to subjugate races of humans; e.g., call blacks godless, souless animals so you don't feel guilty about making them slaves. Prove it? No, don't need to! Any good Christian can feel it in his bones!

Perhaps someone can explain to me the slight or not-so-slight bias against the French in the US I keep hearing about

France is in a power play right now and are using the UN/EU/NATO to achieve its goals. It wants to try and regain some of the its past power. The results of this have been to use their power in those orginizations to rebut much of what the US has been trying to do.

But even before that France and America haven't always gotten along. To them we're crazy gun-toting uncultured right wing Christian criminals (even though our gun related crime has been decreasing and theirs has been increasing greatly due to a huge, uncontrollable black market for guns in Europe, flooding in from Eastern Europre). To Americans the French are snobby, elitist, socialist, and godless people who are morally bankrupt.

If 'The patriot' is any accurate indication of US history

No movies coming out of America should be assumed to be anywhere near truthful or accurate. Even our "documentaries" are fictional.

My favorite quotes:

"an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism"

Damn! I knew that those Linux geeks must be Communist! Burn them!!!

"Consider the name of the company and its logo: an apple with a bite taken out of it. This is clearly a reference to the Fall, when Adam and Eve were tempted with an apple3 by the serpent."

" to open up certain locked files one has to run a program much like the DOS prompt in Microsoft Windows and type in a secret code: "chmod 666""

Damn! I knew that chmod 666 must be a secret code!

"Apple has just announced the "eMac", a Macintosh computer designed specifically to smuggle Darwinism into our schools"

If they are joking, then it's damn funny. If they aren't, then I'm really disturbed. Because we all know those godless darwinist open-source communists are inserting satanic commands like "chmod 666" into their oeprating system.

These people are dangerous. Remember, Mac OS X is used mostly by the "Athiest" and "Pegan" "computer elete". Remember, it was named "darwin" as a subliminal messege. It's those damned "long haired hippies" at it again.

These people need to lay off the LSD.

"What makes you think that would result in a recession?"

Because the last time there was a big spike in energy prices (the '73 oil shock) we had a serious bout of inflationary recession that took the best part of fifteen years to recover from?

"Where does the money go?"

In the 70s a significant fraction of it ended up in Saudi Arabia (Saudi govt revenues went up by a factor of 10 from '73 to '74) where it paid for a massive construction boom in the Arabian peninsula (people were, literally, selling sand to Arabs), lots of flashy but ultimately useless spending (gold plated Kalashnikovs and so on) and a huge influx of foreign gastarbeiter to do all the things that Saudi citizens were unwilling or unable to do for themselves.

Drowned in a gushing torrent of cash, Saudis either gorged themselves in the fleshpots of Europe or, revolted by the debauchery, turned to the purist Wahabi-ite religion of their forefathers whose Madrassas were generously funded by a goverment desperate to ensure that any puritanical reaction to the orgiastic frenzy was directed outwards towards conveniently foreign scapegoats such as godless communists or corrupt westerners. And we all know how well that has turned out for the world don't we?

Regards
Luke

Can we get over this "greatest generation" meme already? Please?

Coming through the second world war and the great depression is an impressive feat, but we conveniently forget that the generation of Americans that included heros like FDR and Eisenhower also brought us criminals like Al Capone, made "Mafia" a household word, and revitalized the Ku Klux Klan. Compared to the rose-tinted selective memory of what some people did in the past, every generation looks like a lame imitation of the previous one's greatness.

I think the Sumerians said it best: "The youth of today are lazy, without God, and disrespecful to elders." And the youth always will be lazy, godless, and disrespectful, at least until a new generation comes along to take their place.

As the inventors of guerillia warfare (see the US revolutionary war), the US American people are the only persons who can fairly use guerilla warfare. It's our intellectual property, and those nasty enemy combatant fellows are stomping on our IP rights. It *IS* unfair for them to be profiting from the techniques we invented and clearly own outright. Only *WE* (and our licensed allies) are allowed these means!

This is just the outer-most expression of their depravity.

If they keep kicking our asses on the ground like that, we are going to send the RIAA and the MPAA after them with _LAWYERS_. We've been holding off because we don't want to breach the Genovia Convention like that unless we must. The enforced-sex dog-pile at least leaves some vestages of human dignity...

They are not only terrorists (sic), they are PIRATES! And the one thing we will not stand for as a country is a lapse in the feduciary custody of intellectual property.

All the WMDs were real you know, they had electricty and computers and could make the little metalized-plastic disks without paying a license fee. Thats right, Weapons of Media Distribution were commonplace, even to the unmitigated extent that the government operated the schools and state-run newspapers and television stations, none of which honored or taught the true doctrine of conformity!

And they still have printing presses and a spoken language. We will not rest until their ability to infringe on our god-given intellectual territory is abolished to the last sheaf of word-soaked paper and the last mumble of idea-burdened sound, and their godless freloading is wiped from their worthless, unlicensed paws!

They even know the words to songs.... heathen scum...

They should have stuck to posioning their own populace, 'cause then at least Disney wouldn't have had to become involved...

Atheism is the only religion I know of that's based around NOT believing something.

Atheists believe in reason.

I have to strongly protest here.

First of all, I do not believe anyone here, theist or otherwise, would say she does not believe in reason. For that reason alone, such an assertion is completely meaningless, leading to a pointless argument like the pro-life versus pro-choice one with interestingly enough no one being anti-life or anti-choice, fighting about semantics while confusing the meaning of words.

But that is not what is most important here. Much more importantly than being merely meaningless, the implications of the assertion "atheists believe in reason" are simply false.

Believing in reason (whatever that is supposed to mean, whether believing in the existence of reason or in the power and possibly superiority thereof, if so then over what, etc.) is by no means a necessary condition of being an atheist, nor is it a sufficient one.

I can very easily imagine a complete moron who is an atheist because the poor simpleton is just too stupid to understand the very idea of theism, which clearly shows how the stupidity itself can directly lead to atheism.

This is very important: atheist is not someone who believes in reason.

Atheist is someone who is godless (from Greek atheos), i.e. someone who does not believe in the existence of any deity, no more, no less. Reason does not necessarily have anything to do with faith. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few atheistic cretins and Mensa membership card holding theophiles, as well as godless geniuses and God-loving idiots (not even counting fundamentalists, mind you).

Now, the atheism having been slightly clarified, we now have to define God which is hardly an easy task...

Choosing pantheistic definition, we can define God as meaning the universe and the universe being God. This is a perfectly valid definition. Assuming that the universe itself exists, which is in my opinion quite a reasonable assumption, it means that therefore God must exist. Period.

So, is the question answered? Of course not, because a pantheistic God (i.e. the universe) does not have to contain any supernatural, omnipotent supreme being, which we usually mean by God, possibly being even consistent with materialism, secularism, and indeed atheism.

We could choose panentheism (in the form of pan-entheism or panen-theism) which is a little bit less extreme in that it does not define God as a synonym of universe, but as the material universe plus something or someone supernatural and transcendental. It is, however, still not very helpful, as we are reasoning about that very transcendent which is hard enough without the inclusion of the rest of the universe, upon the existence of which I hope we all can agree.

Let us find a better definition, like the deistic definition of God, for it is remarkably clear and consistent. God is an absolutely transcendent creator of the universe who made it a perfect self-regulating mechanism which he does not intervene with since then. Of course, it inevitably leads not only to apathetic agnosticism and in fact even strict, closed agnosticism, but it also means that all prayers are unanswered and there are no miracles and revelations whatsoever.

For that reason I doubt such a definition would satisfy many theists, or even many atheists for that matter, as the hypothesis of the existence of such a deity is absolutely unprovable and unfalsifiable, rendering it thus quite meaningless and irrelevant from the scientific standpoint.

But if it is not the case and there is a deity who is even remotely less transcendent than a deistic Divine Watchmaker, being somewhat immanent, then by definition there have to

I KNEW that Linux was an evil, godless OS. Just look at the people that
are behind Linux and the Open Software movement!

Linus Torvalds

Richard Stallman

Steve Wozniak (hacker, when the term "hacker" ment a good guy)

Bill Gates (everyone knows he uses Linux at home)

Asia Carrera (Adult star and computer geek (yes, for real...she kicked
my ass in UT2003 many times))

John Malkovich (he saw someone using Linux once)

I found them all on Celebatheists.
And by the way, I use Linux (Gentoo) and I'm an atheist.

Puh-lease. Bayes died in th 18th century. He was ordained a _non-conformist_ minister (Wesley) which was in itself an interesting theological issue. But regardless people of the 18th century were almost exclusively religious. Athiesm was culturally difficult if not imposssible. In todays godless pluralism (as the godly would have us describe it) people like Bayes would proably not be quite so godly.

Sigh.. OK, it's a troll, but someone has to bite.

a. Quantum crypto is invulnerable to a monkey-in-the-middle attack. Poorly implemented SSL is vulnerable to MITM during key exchange.

2. It is widely accepted lore on the Internet, and strongly suspected by respectable people, that there exist quantum computing devices capable of factoring extremely large numbers. If this is true, any form of public-key crypto goes to shit.

iii. Part of the problem with cryptography is that it does nothing to hide the source and destination of the data exchange. In theory, a secure quantum crypto system can't be tapped in the first place, so in theory, sender and reciever are anyonymous.

IV. H.323 is for godless commies.

thanks for the link homology, i scanned the site, and apparently he did a lot of research...

"That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism."

Good thing this ain't the 60s, or every /.er would be a commie by now

I'm not being at all purist here, but one shell does not a program make, except in the eyes of those confused by the neocons.

What's more important is the assasination of the leader of the Vichy Government^w^w IGC - a message to all collaborators that should, but won't, be heeded.

As a communist godless moron, I say - fuck you, you blind stupid Amerikkkan led by the nose by your Israeli masters.

WMD found in Iraq Now are you going to admit you've been wrong with all your Bush bashing you communist godless morons?

WMD found in Iraq

now are you going to admit you've been wrong with all your Bush bashing you communist godless morons?

I have not laughed that hard in a long loooong time. I would strongly recommend anyone who is in need of some humour (and can afford to risk laughing uncontrolably for extended periods) to have a quick read (http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html)

A few more excerpts

"According to one of our readers, the new MacOS X contains another Satanic holdover from the "BSD Unix" OS mentioned above; to open up certain locked files one has to run a program much like the DOS prompt in Microsoft Windows and type in a secret code: "chmod 666". What other horrors lurk in this thing?"

"This company is well known for its cult-like following. It isn't much of a stretch to say that it is a cult."

"According to their propagandistic sloganeering, the "e" in "eMac" ostensibly stands for "education", although it should be obvious to readers by now that it's really a cryptic tipping of the hat to their true agenda: "Evolutionism"."

"One additional technique that I have noticed while perusing their new literature is the common cult tactic of indoctrination through a special insider language. This technique linguistically isolates new recruits from the outside world, forcing them to become more dependent on their cult handlers6. For instance, an industry standard connection for peripherals is idiosyncratically retermed "FireWire" (or should we just be honest and call it "HellFireWire"?) while the familiar Recycle Bin is given its new cult name of "Trash Can"."

"This OS -- and its Darwin offspring -- extensively use what are called "daemons" (which is how Pagans write "demon" -- they are notoriously poor spellers: magick, vampyre, etc.) which is a program that hides in the background, doing things without the user's notice. If you are using a new Macintosh running OS X then you probably have these "daemons" on your computer, hardly something a good Christian would want! This clearly illustrates that not only is Macintosh based on Darwinism, but Darwinism is based on Satanism."

And the best:
"They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism."

"Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism."

Well the old-fashioned communist bashing-thing I sort of get, but what really cracks me up is that this christian fundie thought that the buttons looked very lickable. "Apple Computers: button licking good."