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Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President
gerrysteele writes to point out a recent post to the Dilbert blog, in which Scott Adams discusses the atheist ascendancy in America and rationalizes the need for an atheist leader. From the article: "Ask a deeply religious Christian if he'd rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don't seem so bad lately. I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates."
help us.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
"Your country has performed an illegal operation."
Oh, wait............ it already has. Nevermind.
My Oval Office
My Little Puppy British Prime Minister
My Electronic Voting Machine - press the button, the screen changes, but nothing else does.
UN.dll has caused a fatal error.
Foreign Country Explorer - where do you want to invade today?
Anyone interested in the possibilities of a world without faith could so worse than read the book "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. This book puts forward a powerful argument against all religions whilst putting forward insightful ideas for an alternative way to add value to our lives. It also has interesting views on radicalism within religion, primarily that the only true believers of any religion are the fanatics as they take the entire bible/koran/whatever at face value and live it whereas more moderates cherry pick the bits they like and ignore the bits they don't (stoning the neighbour for eating fish on a tuesday, nah, ignore that one. Hate gays? yup, tick) resulting in the vast majority of any given religions followers as basically failing that religons requirements.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
On the child molestor odds:
Have you heard the stories about some Catholic priests? Or the activities of some cults? Or Michael Jackson? Hardly a scientific study, but arguably in the public mind child abuse is more likely with those who have a strong belief (however bizarre in Jackson's case...).
Irrespective of whether Adams is right or not:
Suggesting that the US electorate is more willing to vote for an atheist than a member of a religion that is (however unfairly) associated with the current war in Iraq, 9/11, etc, seems to me an entirely reasonable thing to suggest.
Why is suggesting an atheist president so stupid? Have I missed something? It seems to me Adams is simply hopeful that there might be a president who bases his decisions on facts and thinking, rather than an unaccountable belief system within a framework no one can quite agree on anyway. And again, it seems a reasonable proposition for a debate that the electorate might go for a well respected (outside of the tech community!), successful, famously philanthropic atheist before a Muslim, even if it is only for all the wrong reasons.
It is interesting to me that the USA is one of the worlds most influential christian nations, and one of the few countries on earth with a constitutional separation between church and state.
By comparison my own country (Australia) is almost athiestic, yet our constitution bars anybody who is not a member of the church of england becoming head of state.
Is it possible that this is a passing phase for the USA? Is the religious right being supported by people who will be dead in 10 years? Or does this run right down through the younger generations?
I get the impression that religion, like support for guns, is just one of the symbolic markers which politicians use to stake their territory. Perhaps because the language of economics is too complex for most people so they have to base their campaigns on simple things.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I can see this happening.
- Finland added to list of rogue states.
- Bin laden looses first place to Torvalds
- US army invades China in the War Against Piracy.
- European parliament get accidentaly carpet bombed. Suriving senator drops MS fines.
- Microsoft tax becomes official and mandatory for everyone.
- Making MS jokes becomes capital crime. Death sentence reintroduced in all states.
- Gate-ology becomes state religion. Defines witches as people who use different OS.
- enviromentalists complain on enviromental effects of witch burnings.
- Enviromentalists proven to be very flameble.
You don't read Scott Adam's blog a lot, do you? Scott Adams is all about parodies and is always laughing about something, specially about the people who takes seriously what he says. His proposal of Bill Gates as president is just yet another funny post of crazy ways to be president of the united states. Just a small example:
"As a political candidate, I would advocate some sort of tax rebate to subsidize Internet porn and Kleenex for single men between the ages of 18 and 35. That way all the potential rapists can more easily afford to exhaust themselves at home. I'd have graphs and charts to make my argument that no other policy would be as effective. My slogan would be "Deal with the root cause." I would call it my Yankee Doodle plan.
>the US has enough land to sustain only about 1/10 of it's population
Maybe they should eat less.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intel ligence#Religiosity_and_education_in_the_United_St ates
pandnotpian.org. The untruth will set you free!
What does religion have anything to do with setting up a wireless network?!
I am a Christian. I work with a Muslim and a Hindu. Any of the three of us will help you set up your wireless network. None of us are planning on blowing anything up, save maybe lightbulbs in our microwave ovens.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Good luck with that. There is no such thing as news that is not biased. If you think you know of any, then it just proves that they are either good at hiding their bias, or they happen to have precisely the same bias you already have.
Yes, don't you just love it!
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
Considering that I've been told by more than one Christian (true story here) that atheists do not have the capacity for morality
I've heard that one too. Always really creeped me out.
Why? Because you can infer from that statement that the only reason they are moral is because they believe there is an invisible man watching their every move who will drop them in a boiling lake of sulfur if they misbehave. So the other side of that coin is that they would be completely amoral if The Big Guy wasn't watching them. If religion suddenly went away today, first thing these people would do is go berserk and give in to their every urge - since there would be no reason not to.
Maybe religion isn't such a bad idea after all.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The definitions of "agnostic" and "atheist" are hotly debated. The common definition of atheism being the denial of the existence of gods is inadequate for most people who call themselves atheists. Basically "atheist" should mean the person is a non-theist. In that sense there is no middle ground. Since Gates doesn't have a belief in a particular deity, by that definition he is an atheist. (It's like being pregnant, you either are or you aren't). "Agnosticism" is about knowledge, not belief, so Gates could be both an agnostic and an atheist, just like you could be an agnostic and a theist. What most people think "atheist" means is actually the definition of "strong atheism." I think most people who call themselves "agnostics" by the common definition, are actually "weak atheists". Wikipedia has plenty of information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
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And PZ Myers had a good discussion on the issue in a recent blog post: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/11/freeth