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Author Topic:   Is America a Christian Nation?
Taz
Member (Idle past 3312 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


(1)
Message 16 of 206 (546906)
02-14-2010 8:18 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Buzsaw
02-14-2010 5:56 PM


Buzsaw, I don't bloody care if the founding fathers were christians, satan worshipers, buddhists, muslims, or whatever else have you. We've grown beyond this bullshit as a nation.
Based on your logic, we should also reapply the institution of slavery, take away women's right to vote, and a myriad other evil things that YOU seem to endorse. Why? Because based on our standards the founding fathers were bigoted slave owners who saw women as mere properties.
This argument of founding fathers being white protestant men ergo we should be a white protestant male based nation is pure bullshit. I mean, do you have some kind of sexual fantasy for other white protestant men? If so, just say it and stop bringing this bullshit of an argument to the table.

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3312 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 31 of 206 (547038)
02-15-2010 10:24 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by New Cat's Eye
02-15-2010 10:02 PM


Re: Representative Leadership
asshole-lic scientist writes:
Erm, in light of the 10th Amendment I'd have to disagree.
Or would you prefer a Federal State of America as opposed to just a bunch of united ones?
And I suppose you are all for segregation if it's popular enough?
Alabama clings to segregationist past | World news | The Guardian

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3312 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 49 of 206 (547386)
02-18-2010 9:25 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by New Cat's Eye
02-18-2010 10:21 AM


1) I don't have facebook or any other online social networking account. The only thing close to any of these are my email and EvC.
2) I don't despise religion. I do, however, think it impedes progress, both social and scientific.
Page Not Found
quote:
The recent occurrence has been in the House of Representatives in Iowa. Two Republican house pepresentatives, Jason Schultz and Matt Windschitl, are co-sponsoring a bill which would exclude LGBT students from being protected under the 2007 Safe School Law which is already on the books. The reason for this is to try and reverse the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court to have a reverse on the decision to legalize same-sex marriage.
In other words, these 2 religious nutjobs masquerading as politicians are trying to put the LGBT students in the line of fire over this fiasco.
Again, my opinion is we as a society can do a lot better without religion. People will then have to think for once in their lives why right things are right and wrong things are wrong instead of just blindly following what their pastors tell them what's right and what's wrong.
3) I don't only condone what the Unholy Trinity (Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens), I agree with them almost 100%. I don't make an effort to hide this.
4) If you haven't been paying attention, there are large numbers of atheists out there criticizing these three everyday. You can find lots of comments on this board from atheists criticizing Dawkins.
I regularly and openly criticize organizations such as greenpeace and PETA. Whenever an atheist and evolution supporter shows up who turns out to be ignorant of the subject you can bet your arse I'm there to shout him down.
5) Laws derived from theological view aren't necessarily wrong, but when they are right they are not right because of some divine reason. Your savior the late President Bush openly supported the criminalization of homosexuality. And indeed, there is little doubt that such laws in the past were theologically based.
Every just law supposedly derived from theological view can be justified using secular logic. This is a point that Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have been pointing out for years. Modern society at large don't get its morals from religion. Otherwise, we'd still be stoning adulteresses and people who eat shellfish to death.
6) Is this the best you can do? Try again.

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3312 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 56 of 206 (547715)
02-21-2010 11:08 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Taq
02-18-2010 10:00 AM


Taq writes:
I am an atheist, and I can wholeheartedly agree with you here. I have absolutely no problem with people basing their own personal decisions on their personal religious beliefs.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this.
People need to grow up and realize the difference between personal things and non-personal things.
There shouldn't even be laws restricting people's personal decisions from affecting others just like there shouldn't even be laws restricting people from stealing or murdering. These things should be common sense.
Let me give you an example. I personally believe that all rapists should be hacked to death. I really do. I also personally believe that we as a society should eliminate religion. Before you say to yourself that I don't really believe this, I can assure you that I really do believe this on a personal level.
The thing is I recognize that these are my personal beliefs and that since we are a diverse society these personal beliefs of mine will do more harm than good to society. Therefore, I have a separate set of beliefs I call non-personal beliefs. In other words, this separate set of beliefs include putting rapists away so (1) they stop harming others and (2) they can be rehabilitated and protecting people's right to personal religious beliefs. Why? Because I am mature enough to realize that MY personal beliefs aren't necessarily what's best for this country.
Let's look at the alternative. If we embrace people's personal beliefs into our social policies, then the lactose intolerant people could potentially one day ban all dairy products from our market. Hell, it's potentially possible for the Amish to one day ban all video games from our stores.
And let me repeat myself again. I think religion is evil. I sincerely hope that we as a race will one day grow out of this very childish and evil thing. But in the mean time, I will fight to the death for people's right to worship that imaginary god(s) of theirs.
That hits the nail on the head. IMHO, this is exactly what the Declaration of Independence was speaking of. America wanted to separate itself from Divine Right rule and replace it with a government based on reason. From the DoI preamble:
No offense, but I think this is an over-simplistic view of history. It is more accurate to describe it as a group of intellectuals who saw this new land as a place to experiment with new politics. The alternative was the Old World, which already had deep seated roots of the old regimes.
If they really did want to separate themselves from divine right rule, they would not have allowed the institution of slavery to persist, which was a form of divine right rule itself. They also would not have had laws in place to treat women like property because there was nothing reasonable about that.

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