Would one extreme even be noticeable without the other?

 

??

I'm not quite sure what you are asking

 

The problem is not the atheists, the problem is the Christians who use those symbols as a mark of their superiority over the rest of society. God was not added to the pledge or the money until the 1950's as an attempt to one-up the communists. The pledge was written in the late 1800s by a minister and did not include any reference to god. The constitution is secular and the money is at odds with that doctrine. Your entire position is a fallacy. God does not guarantee a civil society. On the contrary, the more religious a society is, the more barbarous it becomes. In contrast, the more secular a society is, the more civil and stable it becomes.

It does not foster an appreciation of our heritage, it's used as a club to beat people who don't conform. That the U.S. is a nation of predominately Christian adherents is not the same as saying we are a Christian nation. We are a nation that, at least on paper, favors no one religion over another. Christians use their advantage of numbers to force smaller religions or the non-religious to accept their beliefs. Public places like schools, parks, and government offices are not meant to proselytize to individuals. They are to remain neutral, showing no favor to one or the other. Those places are there to serve and represent all the people, not just the Christians.

When such displays are there alone, they serve to give the impression that the government endorses that faith. It becomes a form of government speech and government has no business endorsing Christianity or any other religion. Christians use that advantage to bully their faith-based views on others.

What you accuse the atheists of doing is exactly what the Christians do with their actions. Atheists don't want atheism preached, they simply want the government to stop preaching. Christians have every right to have their symbols in their homes and churches and on any private property they own. They do not have the right to occupy public places to the exclusion of all others. When they seek to claim that right, they are forcing their views, beliefs and traditions on everyone.

The government saying nothing one way or another with regards to religion is not an endorsement of atheism. However, the government showing preference towards religion is an endorsement of religion. And that's not the government's job. The government's job is to represent all the people, not just the Christians. And there are 10's of millions of atheists, non-beleivers and non-Christians in the U.S.

Christians have occupied the seat of power for so long that any whisper of dissent sounds to them a shout. But they're losing their grip on society and we will be the better for it. No one is saying they have to be less than other groups, what we're saying is that they are not more than any of us. To them, that is persecution. To the rest of us, that is equality. Which is something so many Christians can't tolerate.

-S-

 

Also called The Enlightenment, and has to do with slavery and the forms of torture they used. Dehumanization, Less Than Human, Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. If you turn people into objects it makes it easy to kill them.

 

Awww, how cute. Yeah, I got that email, too. The atheist professor and the good Christian student. Too bad it's total bullshit.

-S-

 

The evangelicals that I wrote about in my comment #98 can be friendly and loving people. They usually make good neighbors. I have never known one who tried to force his or her variety of Christianity onto me. I have had interesting theological discussions with them. They respect my knowledge of the Bible.

Once a taxi driver told me that he had been an alcoholic, a chain smoker, and a methamphetamine addict. Converting to an Evangelical Protestant denomination enabled him to quit all three of those habits cold turkey at the same time.

Unfortunately, Evangelicals often think that what works for them should work for everyone, and that those for whom it does not work lack faith, which is to say that they are morally inferior.

In one of the comments to the column I excerpted from a man said that when he was twelve he was depressed and suicidal. When they told his parents they took him to church, and had a woman pray over him. He remained depressed and suicidal, and tried to take his life. He said that it was not until he left home and receive psychological help that he was able to deal with his depression.

It must really be difficult to be a homosexual born into a family like that.

Nevertheless, it works for a lot of people. Since at least the 1960's the evangelical denominations have been growing, while the mainline Protestant sects have been losing members.

 

As an atheist, I have many atheist friends. Believe me, I have heard these arguments in several guises, many times before.

It serves no purpose to get into a spitting match over fine points. Suffice it to say that I disagree categorically with just about everything you have written here, and I have rebutted the essential thrust of your arguments so many times (on other occasions) that it has become wearisome for me.

Your basic premises are oversimplistic, disingenuous, and slanted toward your biases. Just one for-instance: the notion that "In God We Trust" first appeared on money in the 1950s. This is flat-out nonsense.

Your point about the money does contain a kernel of truth: it is true that it originates in conjunction (and is largely attributable to) an upswelling of pro-Christian sentiment. However that sentiment cannot be judged by contemporary standards, and indeed you have twisted the circumstances of it by omitting a pivotal fact: that upswelling of sentiment occurred at the height of the Civil War, a time of unparalleled carnage, a time when the schism of the nation appeared to be irreparable. It was not so much a case of Christianity forcing itself on secularists, as a visceral appeal to faith, a near-universal appeal experienced by the people of this country in response to horrors that we can scarcely imagine in this time of mechanized, antiseptic war-at-a-distance.

Similar rebuttals can be made on your other points. I won't belabor them.

Frankly, here you have illustrated exactly the mindset that I am talking about: the twisting and subversion of our traditions and heritage, at the service of objectives that are no better than the acts of the very same religious fanatics that false atheists claim to despise.

 

Because Christians are scared does not give them any additional rights. Christians can appeal to their faith as individuals all they like, they do not have the right to force the government to follow suit. You can appeal to tradition and your bandwagon all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a bullshit argument.

-S-

 

Being Wicca, its not do I believe in God, but which one LOL. I honor all gods as faces of the one light behind them all. I think we see the face we can relate to. He/she/it has manifested to different cultures in ways they can understand. My credo is "an ye harm none, do as you will" Basically because there are no loopholes. It covers sins of both commission and omission (not acting when you should have), harm to self and other and environment. Its a hard one to get around. I take ultimate responsibility for my actions. Jesus isn't going to bail me out. If I mess it up, I clean it up or make amends as best I can. Balance is everything.

 

Rights do not exist. What exists are privileges governments choose to give or deny. If you think you have the right to criticize the government, move to North Korea and see what happens when you exercise that right.

In the United States the majority of voters is sovereign. If the majority chooses for Christianity to have a place in the public sphere, they have the privilege to put it there.

 

god is not perfect, i know the bible is holy as in like a magical everchanging script. i don't believe in a christian god, but i believe of one. i also am supposed to believe in a satanic beast named satan or the fallen angel of lucifer, but don't do so well. my satanic star ring is inverted to represent the opposite of what satanism is and also to represent that i am part of lavey's flock. i don't like valo's leadership firstly because he has chosen to copy our most worst enemy to them, to me, to people i care about, the christian religion of now today has turned in to a heavily technocratic socialist movement and organised wishy-washy commercialism.

no, there are people who believe in god, many of them. we just know god to be well, god, becsuse even the athiests of us here have been already heavily indoctrinated with the word of god, or the holy bible. technology will continue to get better and so great in fact, the virtual world will overpower man and we would be so careless we would let the technology rule us.

i wish south koreans would stay in our country, but not betray themselves and where they have traditionally come from as buddhists. south koreans move here from their native south korea, christianity is not a south korean tradition but they warm to it like moths to a flame. we see young south korean, who must be only pre-teen children even, being marketed as sexual objects by the illuminati, it just boggles the mind. the illuminati are a dangerous new religion you would be better off with satanism or any of the two or three others in my book.

 

Back to the Civil War and God on the money: they did not "force" anything. In God We Trust has come and gone since then, with the vicissitudes of the times. Subsequent reappearances, I will grant you, have been strained (particularly in the 50s, as you have pointed out).

This will not be the first time we will perhaps need to agree to disagree.

I will close my side of the topic (respectfully so) by saying that I do not think I support a "bandwagon" position. First, atheists of all stripes are far outnumbered. Second, most atheists respond negatively to my argument that "god on the money" not only does no harm, but could even be of beneficial utility to our culture. I am most definitely in a very small minority on that one. Moreover, most atheists see me as a "pretender," as you seem to do, while I would argue that they are the ones who are acting in contradiction to the ideas that they profess.

 

israel should be disbanded and they all go back to their according countries in europe and perhaps elsewhere. i have a dislike for jews, then you can get in to of course zionism of which is not exactly jewish but another new religion jewish fad. orthodox jews could be okay.

the alternate theory belief is that jews are mixed in with the masons and the masons are all mixed in together with the illuminati then all the other supposedly secret cabals and syndicates involving power men who have been said to be mostly jew, elderly and either bi or homosexual.

julian assange is a man who has no quarrels proudly flaunting his celebrity status from the wikileaks scandal from his messenger-in-chief bradley manning. they are both traitors, but what happened there wasn't anything new. he also had his own television show on russia today, he got treated like royalty by ecquador. this case is pending but certainly manning could be facing the death penalty for betraying united states government intelligence or "cables".

god bless america? that is so overrated.

 

I don't see you as a pretender to atheism. As I mentioned in my first post, all one needs to do in order to be a good atheist is not believe in any god or gods. After that, there is no consensus on what one must or mustn't believe.

There were ad hoc approaches to get god on the currency at various different times, and it did appear on different bits of coinage and paper money through our history. But it was not made mandatory and universal until the 50's. During the Civil War a preacher approached Lincoln and told him that we could only expect to win if we had god on our money. Lincoln told him to get stuffed. And we won, anyway.

As a symbol, god is divisive, to say the least. It only ceases to be divisive in a homogenous society, which we do not have. And given that it's easily demonstrable that it's used as a wedge for Christians to assert their dominance over minority groups (of which our Constitution was designed to prevent) there is no secular purpose for it to exist. If there is no secular purpose for it to exist, it shouldn't be there.

In the 90's, when Michael Newdow first brought the case to the Supreme Court, the government officials told the Court that it was merely symbolic, a sign of our heritage, as you insist here. However, after the arguments were heard, those same officials gave interviews that it was a sign that this was a Christian nation, one nation under their god, etc. etc. Why did they have to lie to the Supreme Court about their intentions if you have the right of the situation?

There are far better symbols for us to rally behind, if you feel the need is so great. And ones that have not caused such death, destruction and suffering as god. God is an idea from the infancy of our species and the sooner we put it behind us, the better we will be.

 

The world is as we make it, ManBitch.

-S-

 

Disbanding Israel has been tried by others who shared your dislike for Jews. Fortunately, the results were unfortunate for those who tried it. :excited:

 

ShakeZula in Hell.

 

-S-

 

Virtually what I'm saying is this:

Without good, we'd have no concept of evil. Without evil, we'd have no concept of good. Either that or our perceptions of the two concepts would change.

Say we lived in a world of complete evil (from our current concept). "Good" would be the least evil things one does (such as petty crimes) while "evil" would be the worst things (I think genocide would fit the bill).

Say we live in a world of light. We would not really observe the light, as the light is always there. The concept of "light" is now skewed because it is a permanent state of being (just as darkness would be unobservable in a world without light).

One cannot be there without the other.

 

I'm sure an upright standing Christian man such as yourself knows that by damning Shake you are truly damning yourself. Judge not, lest ye be judged.