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religious nutbars

darlets

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these are two comments in response to this article
Obama says religion has place in politics

Ron Clark wrote on Jun 23, 2007 9:57 PM:
" Obama has it wrong when he says that the right hijacked faith. The right is where Christians have always been it is the left that walked away from faith and what is right when they allowed divorce, abortion on demand,and have protected premarital copulation and unwed mothers. Promotes the use of drugs and alcohol. And now wants to legalize marriage between people of the same gender. Next will be marriage between multiple partners or even animals. Tolerance can only go so far and we here some in the west and east talking in terms of understanding pedophilia and bestiality as a life style. Now the faithful have hijacked nothing they are just circling the wagons. "

Leonard wrote on Jun 23, 2007 6:21 PM:
" He claims to be a Christian and taught Constitutional Law at a law school, but he is a lightweight and a populist. His interpretation of the Bible and the Constitution are for convenience only. One principal remains paramount: Our Liberties are Derived from a Supreme Power . . . not Mao's personal moral creeds, Barack's personal history, or an Islamic sect . . . but the God our Founders were free to acknowledge . . . that of the Hebrews of Israel . . . of the Protestant Reformation. If we do not realize this, the United States will be stolen out from under us, and there will be no return or recourse. "

Did I miss something?????
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;"
From the The Treaty of Tripoli
Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.


"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
 

rivercrow

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I'm going to derail this immediately and ask you a question. Why are you fascinated by the American religion/politics mash-up? :thinking:

I think it's interesting myself--and something to be closely watched--but then, I live in the States.
 

darlets

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I'm going to derail this immediately and ask you a question. Why are you fascinated by the American religion/politics mash-up? :thinking:

I think it's interesting myself--and something to be closely watched--but then, I live in the States.

There's a pentecostal church in my home town and they see the right wing properganda and are quite delighted by it. I'm concerned they might get inspired. Actually it was quite shocking to chat to someone who honestly believe it was a good idea, for "The Church" (meaning their Church) to run the country. Up until that point I could rattle of the mantra "only in america"

Unfortunately Australia tends to follow American trends.

We also had a brief Intelligent Design debate but it got turfed pretty quickly.

On top of all this, if America becomes a Theocracy it will affect me/ the planet.

Atheist make up a far whack of the scientific community in America and I doubt they're going to continue to work there if it becomes a Christian state. The brain drain alone will cause America to lose it's tech edge over everyone else.
 

Totenkindly

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Ron Clark wrote on Jun 23, 2007 9:57 PM:

Obama has it wrong when he says that the right hijacked faith.
{slippery slope approach, beware!}
__The right is where Christians have always been
____it is the left that walked away from faith and what is right
_______when they allowed divorce, abortion on demand,and have protected premarital copulation and unwed mothers.
___________Promotes the use of drugs and alcohol.
______________And now wants to legalize marriage between people of the same gender.
___________________Next will be marriage between multiple partners or even animals.
_________________________Tolerance can only go so far and we here some in the west and east talking in terms of understanding pedophilia and bestiality as a life style.
______________________________ Now the faithful have hijacked nothing they are just c
i
r
.c
...li............<-- falling off cliff, waaaaaaa!
......n
....g
. t
.h.
....e
..wagons. "

I hate it when people talk like this. Sloppy generalizations, sloppy logic, slippery-slope scenarios, vilification of opposing viewpoints....

"Ron Clark, This is (whack!) what you get (whack!) for screwing around (whack!) with American politics (whack whack whack)!

"Now go home to your mother!!"


" He claims to be a Christian and taught Constitutional Law at a law school, but he is a lightweight and a populist. His interpretation of the Bible and the Constitution are for convenience only. One principal remains paramount: Our Liberties are Derived from a Supreme Power . . . not Mao's personal moral creeds, Barack's personal history, or an Islamic sect . . . but the God our Founders were free to acknowledge . . . that of the Hebrews of Israel . . . of the Protestant Reformation. If we do not realize this, the United States will be stolen out from under us, and there will be no return or recourse. "

I hate these things too.

Let's look at what the Constitution actually says, not to whom the "founders" might have done lip service to. [Since Jefferson was deist, Franklin was agnostic/atheist, and so on...] Things change.

If they want to live under Hebrew law, then they should be digging out the OT book of law and doing everything it says, starting from page one.

Just sloppy moralizing on his part. But I know people like this... most of whom seem to live down in Crowsie's neck of the woods.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;"
From the The Treaty of Tripoli
Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.


Well, to clarify, it looks like the "Separation of Church and State" was encoded in order to protect religion from political favoritism... but other than that... yes.
 

darlets

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I have nothing constructive to add other than

:steam: :BangHead: :ng_mad: :ranting: :azdaja:

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I lied, that wasn't constructive
 

Wolf

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Atheist make up a far whack of the scientific community in America and I doubt they're going to continue to work there if it becomes a Christian state. The brain drain alone will cause America to lose it's tech edge over everyone else.
They are hardly the source of our technical edge, which is rapidly disappearing because we keep exporting technology for free to the rest of the world. The fact is that academia only provides an extremely small percentage of the technology we're known for, and most of the rest of the country is religious to some extent. Religious people are not stupid, in spite of the stereotypes. It's better to maintain religion as it gives the crazy SJs and Es something to occupy themselves with while maintaining social order.

The only reason we have any edge at all is that we're nowhere near as lazy as most of the rest of the world. BC was amazing, it makes our level of laid-back and passive look like a pressure-cooker, and we're a freakishly laid-back company as the US goes...
 

sdalek

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...It's better to maintain religion as it gives the crazy SJs and Es something to occupy themselves with...

I'm calling this what it is, an inflammatory statement. :nono:

I, myself, have not use for the religious fundamentalism and fanaticism which leads to American religious fascists seeking political power to force their own form of Clerical Fascism on an unsuspecting populace. Frankly, my mother and I were shocked by the rampant religious fanaticism we watched on TV every Sunday when we first moved to the states in the 70's. To us, it was unimaginable, inappropriate, fanatic, and questionable social worth. Unfortunately we had no choice but to settle in the south and could not relocate away from there or it.

And, while you probably think that you are evoking Marx's "Religion is the opiate of the masses" idea, taken in context, it is...
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel

I don't think that this is the sole province of "crazy SJs and Es". Back that statement with fact.
 

rivercrow

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Unfortunately Australia tends to follow American trends.
...

On top of all this, if America becomes a Theocracy it will affect me/ the planet.

Atheist make up a far whack of the scientific community in America and I doubt they're going to continue to work there if it becomes a Christian state. The brain drain alone will cause America to lose it's tech edge over everyone else.

Ah, okay. So, I guess my desire to move to Australia to escape this religious insanity is in-line with reality.
 

Totenkindly

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Atheist make up a far whack of the scientific community in America and I doubt they're going to continue to work there if it becomes a Christian state. The brain drain alone will cause America to lose it's tech edge over everyone else.

BTW, do you have any actual data (or conditions of the data) for this? It's a very generalized supposition and I was wondering where you got it from.
 

Wolf

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I'm calling this what it is, an inflammatory statement. :nono:
[insult removed]

I, myself, have not use for the religious fundamentalism and fanaticism which leads to American religious fascists seeking political power to force their own form of Clerical Fascism on an unsuspecting populace. Frankly, my mother and I were shocked by the rampant religious fanaticism we watched on TV every Sunday when we first moved to the states in the 70's. To us, it was unimaginable, inappropriate, fanatic, and questionable social worth. Unfortunately we had no choice but to settle in the south and could not relocate away from there or it.
So, where did you come from to get all the benefits of the US while hating our culture?

I don't think that this is the sole province of "crazy SJs and Es". Back that statement with fact.
Nah, there are a lot of us religious nutbars out here. Even I'm a religious nutbar, but hell if I care for organized religion and weekly (or more often) meetings to deal with all those damned Es and SJs hypocrytically judging how you live your life. Beside hating to dealing with groups, being an Introvert and an NT, I'm perpetually an outsider, and as such, there really is no value in the whole meeting thing for me, which is why I don't do it and distance myself.

The fact is that if we start legislating away religion or otherwise saying things disagreed with are okay, the SJs might lose faith or maybe even revolt, then you will have a theocracy, and I expect you'll be one of the first up against the wall or burning at the stake if that happens. I highly recommend people accept things as they are, especially the vocal minority, since they are still dramatically outnumbered, even if they live in a little microcosm and have myopia so they can imagine the world different from reality.
 
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Opivy1980

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Do social conservatives seriously think they are on the winning side? Social conservatism has never won a major battle in the US that hasn't been overturned. Prohibition being the biggest socially conservative win...for a decade and then it was realized that legislating morality is a concept that is impossible and stupid. As far a the religious nut jobs that seem to think the average American wants or cares about what they say, you stay in the South and we'll continue to advance the rest of the country and throw you some scraps. When you're ready to stop your crusade, feel free to look us up.
 

sdalek

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So, where did you come from to get all the benefits of the US while hating our culture?

Well, first off, I am a US citizen; Born here. My dad is a Vietnam vet; Served with the 101st airborne. My mother is German and I was raised on German values. And we didn't come here hating the American culture, all the Americans we ever met until we moved here were GI's, black/white/hispanic, didn't make any difference, nice as hell, open-minded, and accepting and that's what we thought ALL Americans were like; Not at all like the people we met at first when we came over here. In the long run, most everyone, except alot of the kids that I met in grade- and high-school (from my perspective), was OK. There was a certain degree of culture shock, especially how openly hostile and pushy religion was at the time and to an extent it is now and how selfish and uncaring some of the people could be. Not like the GI's like I mentioned before. I still see that to a large extent today and the only thing I can relate that to is the average American's failure to be exposed to a larger view of the world, unlike that of most Europeans who have to deal with other nations and other mind-sets, and an "above the law" and elitist opinion a lot of people seem to have today. In a nutshell, it's not the culture, it's some of the people, and as they always say, it's the bad experiences with things that tend to crowd out the better experiences.
 

darlets

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BTW, do you have any actual data (or conditions of the data) for this?
:shock: Yes, yes I do. (I think I assumed, incorrectly, it was a well known fact) To be the fair the second part I bolded isn't the boarder scientific community.

"A study in today's edition of the prestigious science journal "Nature" reveals that members of the scientific community are "more likely than ever to reject God and immortality," discloses Britain's Daily Telegraph.

That claim is based on another study which repeats a historic survey first made in 1916 by Dr. James Leuba of Bryn Mawr University. It revealed that over eight decades ago, only about 40% of the scientists surveyed expressed belief in any supreme being. Leuba predicted that advances in education and technology would further erode faith in religious claims.

In 1997, Edward Larson of the University of Georgia decided to revisit Leuba's study and evaluate the prediction that religious belief was disappearing, at least in the scientific community. Author of the book "Summer for the God's" and a professor of science law and history, Larson said that Leuba's original survey raised "good questions."

"They provoke responses and give much more insight into how people think than the vague Gallup poll question, 'Do you believe in God?'" he told a writer from Research Reporter.

Larson closely followed Leuba's methodology, repeating the same questions and attempting to find a representative sample which met the original survey profile. "I had no idea how it would turn out," Larson said.

60% responded, a figure considered high for any surveys. Of those, 40% expressed belief in a deity, while nearly 45% did not. Larson's survey also discovered that physicists were less likely to have such faith, while mathematicians were significantly more likely to believe in a supreme being, as defined by Leuba.

"NATURE" SURVEY -- LESS AND LESS BELIEF

The follow-up study reported in "Nature" reveals that the rate of belief is lower than eight decades ago. The latest survey involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half replied. When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism." Belief in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%. 76.7% reject the "human immortality" tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2% claimed "doubt or agnosticism" on the question, compared with 43.7% in Leuba's original measurement. Again, though, the highest rate of belief in a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%), while the lowest was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%."
 

darlets

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Of course, it's a global conspiracy.

Atheism - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

"The scientific community, above any other subgroup of the population, has become overwhelmingly atheistic. According to a 1998 report in Nature, a recent survey finds that, "among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever; almost total". Interestingly, the biologists in the National Academy of Sciences were found to possess the lowest rate of belief of all the science disciplines, with only 5.5% believing in God.[5] This decline in belief in biologists strongly indicates the nature of the cause, and the ability of the teaching of evolutionary biology to turn people away from a belief in God.

...
Education in these naturalistic philosophies, and the pervasive teaching of evolution is almost certainly the principal influence affecting the rise of atheism in our scientific community. Evolution may be better called evolutionism as it is considered a religion by many. Evolution is the champion theory of secular humanism, and a scientific community now totally under the control of an atheistic majority. Evolution is being used in an attempt to explain the origin and evolution of life on earth without a supernatural creation. These theories are being taught as a matter of fact in science classes today, and such teaching will affect the way people view the world. If they are left unchallenged, this inundation will cause belief in God as the source of life to diminish, and evolution ultimately has the power to convince people there is no God. "

and back in reality
Ken Miller On Apes and Humans

Ken Miller On Whales
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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:shock: Yes, yes I do. (I think I assumed, incorrectly, it was a well known fact) To be the fair the second part I bolded isn't the boarder scientific community.

"A study in today's edition of the prestigious science journal "Nature" reveals that members of the scientific community are "more likely than ever to reject God and immortality," discloses Britain's Daily Telegraph.

That claim is based on another study which repeats a historic survey first made in 1916 by Dr. James Leuba of Bryn Mawr University. It revealed that over eight decades ago, only about 40% of the scientists surveyed expressed belief in any supreme being. Leuba predicted that advances in education and technology would further erode faith in religious claims.

In 1997, Edward Larson of the University of Georgia decided to revisit Leuba's study and evaluate the prediction that religious belief was disappearing, at least in the scientific community. Author of the book "Summer for the God's" and a professor of science law and history, Larson said that Leuba's original survey raised "good questions."

"They provoke responses and give much more insight into how people think than the vague Gallup poll question, 'Do you believe in God?'" he told a writer from Research Reporter.

Larson closely followed Leuba's methodology, repeating the same questions and attempting to find a representative sample which met the original survey profile. "I had no idea how it would turn out," Larson said.

60% responded, a figure considered high for any surveys. Of those, 40% expressed belief in a deity, while nearly 45% did not. Larson's survey also discovered that physicists were less likely to have such faith, while mathematicians were significantly more likely to believe in a supreme being, as defined by Leuba.

"NATURE" SURVEY -- LESS AND LESS BELIEF

The follow-up study reported in "Nature" reveals that the rate of belief is lower than eight decades ago. The latest survey involved 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences; half replied. When queried about belief in "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative, while 72.2% expressed "personal disbelief," and 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism." Belief in the concept of human immortality, i.e. life after death declined from the 35.2% measured in 1914 to just 7.9%. 76.7% reject the "human immortality" tenet, compared with 25.4% in 1914, and 23.2% claimed "doubt or agnosticism" on the question, compared with 43.7% in Leuba's original measurement. Again, though, the highest rate of belief in a god was found among mathematicians (14.3%), while the lowest was found among those in the life sciences fields -- only 5.5%."

It shouldn't be surprising that scientists are unlikely to believe in God. Science is the exact opposite of faith by definition. Faith is the belief in that which cannot be directly observed. Science is the belief in that which can be directly observed. It's basically taking all of the "faith deficient" people and putting them together in one category.

Also among scientists it shouldn't be surprising that mathematicians are the most likely to believe in God. Pure mathematics is not based on the natural world, so it doesn't necessarily require that you believe what you directly observe.
 
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