On the contrary, my friend, the devout would have a god on their side! Surely, that gives them an advantage over us, no? How could they possibly lose? Hmm I'd say if you want to be respectful to them that you d at least offer something that you d take if you were them. I do not think you would take such an offer if you were in their shoes.
"We can all hang together, or we can all hang seperately" -Thomas Jefferson I believe that this is a Ben Franklin quote. Yep it is and it goes "We all must hang together, or assuredly we shall hang seperately" The "cans" just ruins the flavor of the quote. Though mayhaps Jefferson was misquoting Franklin.
"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color." --Dan Hirschberg I d say Atheism is more like losing the pigmentation of the hair, and we call that color gray! Listen to songs like "Imagine" and you see just how religious they become.
yes; i think my point was to say that your beliefs (or what i can make of them, anyway) weren't any more secular in their origin than mine. i'm not raising that point to suggest you should feel distressed about this; we're just conversing, right? No distress here the south went to war to keep their slaves (at least on many levels); were they 'right'? ...i suppose the point of the war was to fi
beliefs: abolish private propety and inheritance, I would make war over this! no vote need just straight war. I am not trying to offend just saying what would happen if this was possible. end group identity based on ethinicity or nationality or religion, socially evolve to a point where we can govern ourselves... i can't deny it, these are cetainly beleifs. deep down, i'm a good little marxist.
not to presume you're Christian or anything in particular for that matter; this is just as an example, but: isn't heaven a pretty utopic idea, too? also, i just wanted to say, it's always nice to have a civil exchange that doesn't resort to name calling. nope I don t believe in a "happy hunting ground". The other world that I believe in is like this world too. I am a brother to the wolf and a son of the bear!
i'm 25, and i have less of a chance of seeing any social security. but it's a myth that social security is "breaking down" in the U.S.; yes, it requires a higher budget every year, but there's also a higher tax base every year to compensate (increasing population + a growing economy most of the time). the myth that it's going to crash is perpetuated indirectly by private investment firms who'll profit by skimming a bit of the interestment returns from you. <
i'd be willing to agree to that, but only as long as i can opt out of paying your social security, your children's college educations, and all the other public works the government does. "the Left" (we're not all one monolithic entity) cannot do this because it lacks the monopoly of power to do so. as i just said, "the Left" can also try to raise public awareness and lobby congress to change laws. it's democracy in action, and if it threatens you, i'd recommen
you will, and so will i. with less than 1% of this country's gross income reserved for such endeavors, we could see an end to extreme poverty, AIDS, and a laundry list of other global problems within our lifetimes or our children's (depends on how old you are). of course, in a democracy you're free to vote against such actions. but if the rest of us decide some of your taxes should go towards such noble goals, your only options will be doing it or prison. <br
why are so many ppl so against any sort of social health I m against it cause who will pay for it!
We should have a tournament -- Atheists vs. Devout. Best average score wins. If the atheists win, all the religios have to deny the existence of god, and if the religios win, well, we atheists will, err, say the Lord's Prayer aloud or something. mm I think this is a bit one sided! You Atheists get the final victory, but all the poor christians get is a Lord's Prayer! Funny!
The circumstances that led to the creation of the universe could have happened any number of times - theoretically infite, infact. Any number of these attempts could have resulted in failure, but throw some dice enough times and eventually you'll get all 6's, no matter how many you use. What is fun about dice is that you can acually control the out come of a roll! If you know where you start from how the air will effect the throw...
some self-defined Satanists, such as Crowley, Mr. Crowley is the founder of Thelema, he is his own savior! Thelema draws on lots of diffrent religions. You should use Anton Lavey, or Lord Byron, or even Ben Franklin (he prolly wasnt a beleiver but he liked the parties!)
If after that you then find an excuse to bleat about how hard it is in your western sanctuary. No bleating here! I prefer to Howl how good it is here. But it is no sanctuary... even our "good" life here can crumble. I d rather find ways to work WITH people who have less than I do. If I always just give them things most of them will just come to expect it.
hahaha, the bible doesn't even have the fun gods. Dionysian cult, anyone? or perhaps some worship of Soma, Vedic god of the hallucinogen bearing the same name. The Caanite gods share a lot in common with the Babalyon deities. Procreation ran rampent in the streets! The Phoenicians are the direct decendents of the Caanites. If you look up their dieties you ll get to see what the Caanites were up to!
Sorry man but if I had to choose a god from the bible I d prolly worship one of the Ba'al's. The Caanites were just more my type of peeps!
Now you sound like a preacher. Just repeating what your religion has implanted in your mind. I and many others have a very healthy mind, but faith played no part in it. Gravity can be proven to exist, we experience it in every step. It was discovered by an apple, and Mr Newton, it requires no trust. But Mr Newton's apple is something on the mythological side... It was most likely a analogy and not what actually made him think about gravity. You may just
In the beginning of time, man had no understanding of simple science, so he created a god of the sun , one for the moon one for water and so on and so on. As man's understanding increased he shed most of his gods in favor of one God, although different clans still could not agree on the name of this god. Today we have many religions all claiming to be the master religion. To some he is God, Alla or Jesus. Regardless, we still have a God fugure, because we still need pr
Well religion is a pretty strightfoward social institution which developed as a coping/explanatory mechanism. I also think that this is a large part of why religion came about... but it will always be debatable. It has pretty much outlived its usefullness (as we learned more about how the world actually works and didn't need to make up stories about ti anymore), Another debatable subject, it just is
Also, the belief of many people might be Truth but it certainly isn't truth. If truth were a democracy based on belief then, as had been believed for millennia, the earth would be flat and the sun would revolve around the earth. It is good thing that science set that issue straight, and it is too bad the church crispy fried a few deviants to prove their Truth was right. Hydro You have it half right. Yes the Papelcy did kill a few people f
[quot]"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color." --Dan Hirschberg [/quote] But that can be said of many religions too. If one religion believes its gods are killable does it mean its different than one which does not? Nor do all religions have what one can call a god in them. Even the beliefs that Confucius started is often called a religion yet its a closer to philosophy. The thing is Atheist usually believe in science and science can be p
are we, the U. S. of A., the poor bullied child? not by the way we talk about ourselves bringing democracy to poor, oppressed peoples of the world. no, in this metaphor we set ourselves up as the school authorities, settling others' disputes. a school authority doesn't beat up the offending bully. ideally, he or she tries to counsel him, investigates potential problems at home, etc. even if the bully blows up the authority's office, the authority reacts through bureauc
[quote]yes, it is like a game: it's composed of skill and chance. you're not "playing" a lotto because the probability aspect of it happened before you were born. now you're just doing what you need to do to collect your winnings. you might work hard for what you have, but if you take a 1,000-person cross section of people who're all working equally as hard (especially if you include people outside of industrialized countries), most of them won't have nearly as much to show for their work.[quote
so the rest of the company's stockholder secretly worry about which CEO candidate you vote for? you're a "big player" in a fortune 500 company? well, good for you. how many votes to you have, out of how many in the compnay? That is not what I said... I said it counts... thats it... if you want to say a vote only counts if it can control the whole thing that is ok. Its not how I think. I have a say and if I don t like what they do I can take my money els
fair enough; how about 'atavistic'? That might work for you to discribe me. But "pagan" might work better and not one of those cute pagans either. I am a decentant head hunters! Nor do I think the practice is wrong. Even if I wouldn t want to try to make it legal again! But I wouldn't call myself a throw back no. A throw back prolly would be to
