In God We Must - Why won’t the U.S. accept its atheists?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I need not agree with someone in order to enjoy their friendship or extend them courtesy. I expect the same in return. When I'm not accorded the same treatment, I don't have a problem speaking up.

What I have little use for is evangelism, from any point on the compass, because a self-evident truth needs no salesman.

[apophenia]

I figured out what I am while I was out. I'm bloodcurdlingly philosophical.

FACT.

[Poto]

Aren't you atheists kind of autistic anyway? You don't love babies, fetuses and puppies!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Aren't you atheists kind of autistic anyway? You don't love babies, fetuses and puppies!

Hey, babies are great, properly prepared. Fetuses are only good for soup.

I like dogs.

[Svartalf]

properly marinated and seasoned

[Gawdzilla Sama]

properly marinated and seasoned

You can speed the marination by slicing the meat in long thin strips, putting that and the marinade into a baggie, and putting the baggie under pressure, say a large book.

[Tero]

Thought: Maybe it's just our presence. We must go back to our closet. (Where is it? Who is bringing babies and grill?)

Anyway:
-gays ruin their monogamish marriages
-atheists ruin their Jesus

Scandal-ridden anti-gay Minnesota politician Amy Koch has had a rough few days. First, news of her extramarital affair with her married staffer broke. Then, she was forced to resign from her position as state Senate Majority Leader. Now, it seems that the gays of the land of 10,000 lakes have seen the error of their marriage ruining ways, and one of them has written an apology letter so cold, it will you give your nipples frostbite.

Koch's genital missteps have raised the irony flag of the gay and lesbian community of Minnesota because her recent political career has been characterized by her fervent defense of the "traditional" definition of marriage involving penis/vagina sex rather than icky othersex.

On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an "illicit affair" with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife.

http://jezebel.com/5870561/minnesota-ga ... s-marriage

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

The thing that I like about Harris is that he has taken dead aim at answering that question - Without religion, where do we get morality? That is the last column propping up religion and once it topples we can make real progress toward a secular humanist approach to co-habitating on this spec of rock.

I'm no philosifer but I rather expect the answer to where morality comes from isn't to be found from within the written rantings of Bronze Age Woo peddlers - that in turn were based on oral stories passed down (and embellished) since the stone age.

I personally think that is an evolutionary thing based around pragmastism - those human societies who beleived that it was OK to eat one's own children and tickle their neighbours ass simply did not survice in competition with those whose societies were more cooperative with each other. The 10 commandments are mostly (apart from the odd ones!) still not bad rules for running a society - but not killing your neighbour is not exactly rocket science if you want your society to progress. Morals have nothing to do with it.

Never heard of that fella Harris but he does seem to be touching upon one of my pet peeves about Atheism / Humanism is that they seem to concentrate on simply removing Woo from Society (often coupled with being puzzled over why that simplistic approach has always failed. and always will)......what actually needs to happen is to replace what religion does within a Society (and to do that have first to acknowledge that it does serve a real purpose and provides benefits - being nonsense based is irrelevant).......my answer on how is to wrap things like "morals" around the Rule of Law (laws made for men, by men - and acknowledge that they are therefore fallible and to delight in the fact that where society deems that to be the case they simply change the laws (or the outcome)......and in a democratic society those decisions are made by all of us and that even if the process is imperfect it's still better than the alternative of relying on the arbitary decisions of Priests, no matter how well meaning or whether they think the decisions are inspired by the supernatural. Plenty of historical evidence to demonstrate the downside of that approach!

Society does not care if you have "morals" it cares whether you stick by the rules of the society - and over time these rules become the morals of an individual. Look around the world and you will see that different societies do have different Morals - and that ain't come from having different gods, even if supported by imaginary freinds.

Seemples

[FBM]

Profit bumped God from top spot decades ago.

[Tero]

Pesky atheists
http://teroreport.blogspot.com/2012/02/ ... eists.html