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Please shut the fuck up. I'm really sick of this kind of thing. SHUT UP!!!! It's not funny and it's not cute and it's not helping to solve the problem.

First the United Nations, then Darwinism, then Galileo. If they force us to use litres, we'll all be living in the USSR before the decade ends.

We are not exactly Socialist (with a capital S) up here in Canada - we have some government controlled elements to our system (the health care system in part, some Crown Corporations etc) but we are primarily capitalist in nature.
I know that in the US the general opinion seems to be that a society is either completely Capitalist (with a capital C), OR it is "Godless Communism"(tm) and threatening the existence of Democracy) but that's utter bullshit. There are plenty of countries where some elements are socialist and others are not that are proving quite successful (look to most of the northern European countries like Norway, Sweden or Denmark for instance).
It works up here in Canada, although our current Conservative government (read very radical right-wing), are doing their best to ruin things as much as possible before they lose control.

Former MOS 55G here; a few times I thought, "If I do my job, I'm partially responsible for the death of thousands". Most of the time it just didn't bother me, since they were "godless communists". You're right about the discharge. The Army didn't give a rat's ass about me after I told them I wasn't going to re-enlist. My last day of active duty the clerk said, "Here's your DD214, now get off post."

Neither are bears. They're godless killing machines.

Seriously. I think it is high time that we started proselytizing bears. It is the disappearance of God from those pagan woodland surroundings (what's left of them) that is responsible for atrocities by bears.

And while we are on the topic, there are no laws prohibiting a bear from buying an automatic gun! They don't even have a mandatory background checks. Won't someone think of the children?

bees are not cute and cuddly, so no.

Neither are bears. They're godless killing machines.

In response to the top of this thread we find that Switzerland is one of the most godless places going.

The assertion that increasing religion will make things better has so much counter-evidence it's unbelievable!

His parents should be in prison. They are directly responsible because they didn't get their son the help that he needed.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for people to get serious and effective mental health treatment? Half the medical insurance companies don't pay it or charge rediculous copays. For the government to do anything he would have to have been arrested and that usually leads to prison, not quality mental health care. His access to guns and games can be debated until everyone is blue in the face. It is still likely he would have performed some kind of violent act. I dont blame his parents alone, I blame the country. If we spent half the time we waste raging against god, guns, games, and godlessness on developing a social concience. We might actually solve a few problems in this country, if not the world. I weep for all the souls lost in this tragedy, even the shooters.

Yeah exactly. Or look at Sweden. No mass shootings EVER. And to those who say we need to put religion back in the schools, most of Europe (or at least the northern part) is full of 'godless heathens'. Yet people over there seem to have higher moral standards. How is that?

If I look at the cross section of my friends who are NRA members, most are Republicans. Of those, most are for limiting all government programs, but especially those which treat "fake" illnesses like mental instability. They post about how the government shouldn't be providing social services because it raises the taxes which chip away at the money they work for every day in their jobs.

Nobody in the NRA ever seems to be asking Congress to fund programs to evaluate and assist the mentally unstable. Quite the opposite, they're more likely to call them weirdos or outcasts or cheats, living off the government dole and asking for service after service for nothing. These are the same people who made fun of the little kid in high school, or hurled epithets from their truck window at the way they dress or called them godless fags as they walked by in the street.

Nice anecdote you've got there. +5 Objective if you ask me. I support the NRA yet also support social health programmes. I also believe these shootings are merely a symptom of a larger, more complex societal problem. I am not, nor ever was, a bully. I am not alone.

If I look at the cross section of my friends who are NRA members, most are Republicans. Of those, most are for limiting all government programs, but especially those which treat "fake" illnesses like mental instability. They post about how the government shouldn't be providing social services because it raises the taxes which chip away at the money they work for every day in their jobs.

Nobody in the NRA ever seems to be asking Congress to fund programs to evaluate and assist the mentally unstable. Quite the opposite, they're more likely to call them weirdos or outcasts or cheats, living off the government dole and asking for service after service for nothing. These are the same people who made fun of the little kid in high school, or hurled epithets from their truck window at the way they dress or called them godless fags as they walked by on the street.

And, for the record, a crazy fucker walking into a gym with a pipe bomb would be better. (1) the total death toll would have been lower and (2) the chance of the person going through with it would have been lower, as it's hard to light your own death fuse. It's why most suicide bombers don't actually activate their own explosives - they're remotely detonated by handlers.

Way to manufacture a .. whatever this is going to be. Take a bizarre idea, such as "the Earth is flat" as your premise, and ask a question that stems from it.

Given the well-established fact that the Earth is flat, are we at risk of losing the oceans due to them draining off the edge faster than they're being filled?

Then throw in an acknowledgement from the editor, that the flat earth hypothesis isn't quite unanimous, implying that if one were to turn over enough rocks, they might find a handful of godless irreverant curmudgeons, who cite obscure observations which cast an ambiguous shadow of minor doubt upon it. Then sit back and watch as people slowly get over how shocked they are, as they try to stammer out explanation of which earth-geometry hypothesis is really the prevailing one and which one is viewed as .. not even antique but naive to the point of dumb. I suppose the conversation will then transform into questions about whether or not anyone ever really held the fringe hypothesis in the first place.

"It makes a lot of sense that in a country where so many religious enthusiasts live"

Finland is about as godless a country as they get, but we have a law against the disturbance of religious peace. It's analogous to laws against inciting hatred toward ethnic (and other) groups. Special "emergency" laws are in place to check problems like English soccer hooliganism (temporary intra-EU border controls during soccer matches).

You don't want to wake up the mobs.

The Republican party was started by religious people who had MORAL reasons for objecting to Democrats owning black people and did not want that EVIL to spread to any newly admitted states. There WAS a not-Democrat party back then (the Whigs) that only cared about money and national security but refused to get into the "icky" moral/religious fight over slavery. The Whigs went away because the nation only needs one godless evil party and the Democrats have that pretty much covered.

The Republican party of today has the same positions on "gay marriage", abortion, slavery, etc (all the moral stuff) that it had when Lincoln was president. The Democrats of today, however, have moved far away from what they were even under JFK (who never publicly advocated for "gay marriage", or abortion, or gays in the military, etc). Oh, Democrats today DO still have one of their old beliefs: they still think they own black people and they hate any black person who escapes the plantation...

Evolution is a theory, and the aspect of evolution relating to small changes between generations in observably valid.

One unprovable hypothesis that can be drawn from evolution theory is that everything evolved from a single organism.

Another unprovable hypothesis that can be drawn from evolution theory coupled with creationist theory is that God created evolution between generations as a way to create variety between generations rather than exact clones.

If you look at the actual mechanisms in DNA and RNA replication where it's pretty much guaranteed to produce some occasional copying errors but rejects large errors, one could very easily argue that the process was designed to produce evolution.

Ultimatelty, it all comes down to fact versus belief. Just as religious education is taught in most UK schools as "some people believe this, some other people believe this other thing, some other people believe none of this", so should things like evolution as an explanation of the origin of all species, the big bang theory or anything else which is an unprovable hypothesis. The children should be allowed to assess for themselves which is the most credible option.

As someone who grew up through school years as an atheist studying a lot of science, I actually found deep flaws in a lot of things presented as "scientific fact" when I dug into them further and many years later became a Christian in part due to contemplating these things. Science is only science when you create theories that can be tested. If you accept untestable theories as fact, you're just turning them into religion, albeit a godless religion, because it is just predicated on belief.

TLDR: Evolution should be taught but in the correct context - as a theory that explains some of the things we can see around us. However, as soon as the government starts mandating that theories should be taught as fact, we have a problem, because by removing the requirement to actually test the theory, it no longer represents science.

So if I say "All people that drink alcohol should be put in jail", I am not pushing an agenda of making alcohol illegal? I may not come right out and say "Drinking alcohol should be illegal", but the assumption is painfully obvious to anyone looking that cares to make the connection. Change alcohol to any other habit you may have that could be on an agenda, like fast food or pizza (hell there are lobbyists for and against both of those things in government).

How does that example differ from an atheist telling us "if you teach Religion you should lose your children"? Am I not pushing an agenda on a godless society?

Come on now, are you really so biased, ignorant, and or gullible that you can't see the point I originally made? If the poster matches your belief system, it's still a belief.

Yeah, I also don't trust those so-called gubmint scientists whenever they disagree with what I personally believe, which is why I joined the Tea Party and say we should have an immediate end to evolutionism and climate warming.

You should join us too. After all, the scientific evidence that pot is dangerous has all just been fabricated by pseudoscientists, like NORML say. In fact, if you think about it, it's just like what the gubmint did to the tobacco industry. Everyone knows that smoking is good for you. There's decades of evidence, man, decades... they're just trying to take away our freedom, the godless commies.

You don't have to be an atheist. Just keep your God to yourself, the way I usually keep my godlessness to myself.

The problem with religious charity, aka tithing, is that it is not truly charitable. It is about giving money to something that benefits the giver whereas true charity is altruistic with no expectation of benefit to the giver.

That may be true of religions that demand tithes, such as Mormonism, but is not true of most Christian religions. Most pastors encourage tithing but don't require it. And at least at my church, most of what is tithed goes to the poor. And a Christian is not only encouraged to tithe, but to "give alms"; that is, drop a few bucks in the homeless guy's jar and not let anyone know you did so. From your link:

1
: benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity
2
a : generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering; also : aid given to those in need
b : an institution engaged in relief of the poor
c : public provision for the relief of the needy
3
a : a gift for public benevolent purposes
b : an institution (as a hospital) founded by such a gift
4
: lenient judgment of others

Religious giving covers all four definitions except #3.

One such example is the way the Knights of Columbus -- a religious charity affiliated with the catholic church -- spent $1.9M between 2008 and 2009 to fight same-sex marriage laws in Washington State.

Agreed, that's not charity. But how much of what is given to the Catholic church (one of my least favorite churches) goes to stuff like this compared to feeding Kenyans?

Same thing with the way Mormons are expected to pay a 10% tithe to the Mormon Church.

Not expected; Mormons are required, unlike most Christian faiths. Calling that "charity"s like calling income taxes "charity." BTW, I like that church even less than the Catholic church.

IMO, there should be no deductions for charity; a tax dodge isn't charity.

But back to the conservative vs liberal, don't paint conservatives as Christians and liberals as Godless heathens. The fact is, Christ wasn't only a liberal but a radical liberal. Caiaphas and the other pharisees were conservatives, who executed him for his radical talk of feeding the poor, housing the homeless, giving free medical treatment to the sick, paying your taxes without bitching about them, speaking out against the rich and powerful.

Anyone who considers himself a conservative Christian has some serious mental wars with himself, if he's ever actually read his bible.

To anyone calling himself a Christian who says "God hates fags", you're wrong. God loves gays, but he hates gays' sins as much as he hates yours or mine, and the gay-basing Christian's sins may be worse; homosexual acts weren't on Moses' tablets, but adultery and covetness are. Oh yeah, Christ's main message was forgiveness and tolerance and nonjudgementalism.

People should read more.

Everyone started with a system like ours. Then, slowly, one by one, they converted over to the system.

Everyone started as godless shitbags banging rocks together in the street, but then they found religion. Some of them (a lot of them) found religion like Judaism or Islam, where we stone people to death or behead them for minor things. Alcohol wasn't islam-illegal until some time in the 1400s.

Progress: we now execute people for consuming whiskey. This is better.

Also, people weren't crazy wrong. Extreme heat was required. Edison discovered that a proper filament being heated, and in an oxygen-free environment, could provide light without catching fire. It was a brilliant evolution of thought. Much like moving to a state-run health care system.

False, we have a lot of cool lights. I have a nightlight that emits a glowing green light but no heat. LEDs emit less heat. CFLs vaporize mercury still; CRTs used phosphorus and electron beams, which involved no actual fire.

Energy was required and the lowest state of energy tends to be heat--typically when something absorbs light, movement, etc, the energy is converted to heat--so all loss makes things warm. That is not the same thing as fire.

You false-equivalate the progression to electric lights with the progression to a state-run healthcare system as both being advancements. It's doubly-wrong since gas lighting is better than electric lighting in some ways--particularly health (sleep cycle) and particularly for the production of warmth in the winter as a bi-product--and since gas lighting can be made safe just as electric lighting can.

I'm assuming that the implementation of a socialized healthcare system is better than the implementation of a privatized healthcare system, because, all other things being equal, it is.

It is impossible for all other things to be equal by definition. Obamacare is a chain of insurance regulation laws and other such shit, which relies substantially on a privatized healthcare system but gives guarantees that everyone will be covered--that means the robber barons have an easier time overcharging and nice, shiny, friendly rules to maximize their abuse of. As you fix these problems, you extend more government control out until you completely eliminate any resemblance of the two systems. And it could end up very wrong.

But that's the case under the new federal regulations. It just sets some ground rules (which you don't seem offended by, because you ignored them when I brought them up), and some goals. Each state is encouraged to "do whatever" to meet those goals.

Then in my state "Whatever" equates to "do nothing" and we rely on the same system, nobody uninsured pays the mandatory penalty for not carrying insurance, insurance companies running in Maryland don't have to follow the Federal regulations, and healthcare providers are similarly unaffected.

They cannot opt out.

Then they can't do whatever.