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What makes you think reason would prevail? It never has.
I think it much more likely we would be ruled by power. Freedom and individuality would no longer exist. Life would only be valuable for what it could achieve for those in power.
There would come a time that someone in power would choose to destroy the world unless they were given power. It doesn't sound better to me.
"Freedom and individuality would no longer exist." Because RELIGION would have disappeared?! Religion takes away freedoms (like gay rights) and individuality. If anything there would be tonnes more freedom!
Because power would be all that mattered. You would have only as much freedom as you have power. Right now, you have freedom of choice because Christians believe God gives you that freedom of choice. If there were no Christians, no one would believe in freedom of choice. They would believe what could be proven. Only power and possessions can be proven. Therefore, only power and possessions would count. You would not be allowed to choose anything except what was allowed by those more powerful than you. Someone else would choose how you live, where you live, what you are allowed to say, what you are allowed to learn, what you eat, what you drink. There would be no gay rights. There would be no abortion rights. There would only be what you were strong enough to take. (Kind of like things were in the Old Testament)
The statement "If there were no Christians, no one would believe in freedom of choice" is false, since I'm not a Christian, and I believe in freedom of choice, and I know plenty of atheists who agree with me. I don't believe the freedom of choice was something given to me by a deity.
"Only power and possessions can be proven. Therefore, only power and possessions would count" is false, since Love and other emotions can be proven, helping other fellow beings to have a positive effect on the world can be proven, the positive effects on us as a species if you decide to raise a family can be proven, so they would all count too, and there wouldn't ONLY be power and possession.
"There would be no gay rights. There would be no abortion rights. There would only be what you were strong enough to take." False, false & false. Gay rights have repeatedly been shut down by religion and promoted by non-religious comummities over, and over, and over, and over again. The same stands for abortions, who is burning down all the clinics who practise this? Oh right, RELIGIOUS wack-jobs. And your last statement is false because we have laws in place to make sure that this world doesn't turn into a a chaotic free-for-all, and those laws won't disappear when religions do, only the 'blue laws' will disappear, and rightly so.
You have your head in the sand. You hope that people would live by reason, but they won't.
You are right to mention Gay rights. Atheists do not believe humans serve a purpose, so that purpose can not be perverted. Judeo-Christian-Muslims believe that humans Do serve a purpose and that it is at least a terrible waste of human potential to support gay rights. (Though it looks to me like one of those choices that Christians make. If you are an Atheist, I expect that you believe there are no such things as perversions.)
On Abortion, we believe that no one has a right to deprive another person of life unless they are proven too dangerous to live in society or they are killing you or yours. You believe that death is appropriate if women are inconvenienced. You just had to get the age of person hood changed. It's still evil and wrong. It's just legal.
If there was no God to tell you what is right and what is wrong, everyone would make up their own rules. You want reason to prevail. In world history, until the Judeo-Christian-Muslims appeared, there was no reasoning based on fact. There was only power. Whoever was in power made the rules. There were no individual rights. If you didn't like it, they would kill you. That's all Genocide really is; the belief that you can make up any rules you are strong enough kill for.
[0 points]2 years ago by JWBrothersReplyEdited 2 years ago by JWBrothers
On Abortion, I think that a baby with no brainwaves is just a collection of cells, so could be aborted if the women makes that choice, but the second brainwaves start (about 25 weeks into the pregnancy, although if you are getting an abortion, I'd get it a LOT sooner than then), then it's so close to being a person, that it would be a crime to abort it. Before the brainwaves, the foetus is just as lifeless as a daffodil. Although a daffodil is a living thing, it's not a crime to step on one.
"If there was no God to tell you what is right and what is wrong, everyone would make up their own rules." Not their individual laws, but we would make up laws as a community that make sense, as we have been doing for centuries. Do you think the rule "Don't put a plastic bag over your head" was a rule made by god? No, but that doesn't mean it's not worth merit, that's a pretty good rule to have.
Let's look at Flim Piracy, as far as I know, god didn't comment on weather or not it was good or not to pirate films, and we (humans) developed our own rules on it, and kept to them. Is there something wrong with that?
You have your head in the sand. You hope that people would live by reason, but they won't." I agree, most likely for different reasons. Scroll down a few. I commented saying that reason probably won't prevail for three reasons.
The people in bibical times were savages, people didn't know a lot then, logic and reason didn't go far then either. But as long as we've venturing history, you know that period of time when Religion ruled over eveyone and everything and everyone who didn't like was torured and killed in a most vile manner? It's called The Dark Ages.
In fairness, you did mention that you didn't believe in abortion on demand. Never the less, it is legal in the US.
In the United States, a baby is effectively recognized by law as a human being only when the head leaves the mother's body. While there may be some inability to delineate this point on the basis of science and medicine, this legal definition is not grounded in science or medicine.
An immediate consequence of this legal definition is in allowing so-called partial birth abortions to be performed. More generally, the definition fails to acknowledge medical realities including viability and even what is the definition of human.
Fair enough, I'll use another example: Stalking laws. As far as I know, god didn't comment on stalking people, but we humans made laws on that. Like you could get restraining orders against them, and so fourth...
I had to think about that one a little longer. The ONLY certain result of stalking is to produce fear of assault. Assault is against religious law. (and secular law) Under both kinds of laws, you have the right to self-defense. The laws against stalking are a specified way of self defense.
Re: But as long as we've venturing history, you know that period of time when Religion ruled over everyone and everything and everyone who didn't like was tortured and killed in a most vile manner? It's called The Dark Ages.
In False conflict: Christianity is not only compatible with Science--it created it Stark writes in relation to atheism the following:
“Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a "Dark Ages" after the "fall" of Rome. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called "Scientific Revolution" of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century. In my own academic research I have asked why these religious scholastics were interested in science at all. Why did science develop in Europe at this time? Why did it not develop anywhere else? I find answers to those questions in unique features of Christian theology.
Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the leading scientific figures were overwhelmingly devout Christians who believed it their duty to comprehend God's handiwork. My studies show that the "Enlightenment" was conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists attempting to claim credit for the rise of science. The falsehood that science required the defeat of religion was proclaimed by self-appointed cheerleaders like Voltaire, Diderot, and Gibbon, who themselves played no part in the scientific enterprise......
If you are going to use pages for cutting and pasting, may I suggest you use a neutral source like "wikipedia" rather then a biased source like "conservapedia"
There is ample evidence that even today many Christians are anti science. (For instance oppose the teaching of evolution and wish to teach creationism instead) That does not mean that religion itself is anti science, just that the vocal minority and the church leaders are. And before you think I am persecuting Christians let me add that the same is true for the fanatic followers of other religions, like Islam. Another example Palin as major of Wasilla asked a librarian to resign because the librarian had stated she would refuse to resist any attempt of censorship by Palin (or any one else). This attempt of censorship is not restricted to deist or Christians either. For instance China and Iran are openly (trying to) censoring the internet, The U.S. under Bush started to monitor what books people checked out of the libraries and monitored the internet (And this is still happening under Obama) Other countries (like Australia) have tried to block certain sites under the pretense of blocking "child porn" but not all those sites that made it to the lists actually contain child porn. (Those lists are the dumbest idea yet, as they give those interested in child porn, a set of bookmarks)
On this subject, wikipedia is as biased as conservapedia. I actually looked in wiki first and couldn't find the reference I was looking for. They were too busy "disproving" the Bible.
Censorship is not a feature of religion. It is a feature of power. In America, censorship is approved by most for protection and thought of as corruption for everything else. Palin was engaging in the protection of youth. Libertarians don't believe youth need protection. China and Iran are protecting their political systems from the openness that would bring their downfall. Bush was trying to protect the US from predators despite the Bush haters spin. Australia is trying to protect children from predators.
It seems to me that the censorship is only a problem when it it misused to protect something false. Since you are Liberal, you must believe Conservatives as false. Therefore, anyone seeking to protect Conservative ideals must, by your definition be engaged in corrupt censorship. Although you would not be so harsh, that's exactly why you believe in protection from Conservapedia.
As you can tell, I don't believe corrupt censorship has anything to do with Theism or Atheism. It has to do with how power is too easily corrupted or what our beliefs are. That brings me back to my original point that; That Atheism would lead to corrupting power because there would be no belief system to stop it.
[0 points]2 years ago by JWBrothersReplyEdited 2 years ago by JWBrothers
Did you even bother to read the wikipedia article? (they are NOT bible bashing whatsoever) They try to be point of view neutral, that means they do not promote the bible, like conservapedia sets out to do.
I think we both agree that censorship is not limited to Christians, I don't understand why you have to go on about it as I was quite clear. But the difference is that I oppose ALL censorship, while you favour one that suits your point of view. In mine censorship is ALWAYS a problem and with potential access to 6 billion sources of (mostly useless) information, censorship is just a dumb idea. It will just give rise to conspiracy theories and it is way too easy to circumvent anyway. This will just drive the information out of the authorities eyes and therefor it will be harder to deal with, even more so in the long term... If the authorities are known to censor, they will not be able to effectively debunk any rumours, no matter if those rumours are false or not. Education (based on accurate information) is the way to go, even when we might not like the truth. As for your personal attack, I will ignore it as I suspect you are in a bad mood.
Youth do need protection, they need decent education in order to deal with whatever they might come across. Censorship is security through obscurity and just ludicrous. I do not want to protect any one from conservapedia, we both know it is biased and they don't even try to be neutral. This makes them essentially useless as a source of information. I will check the wikipedia entries for other sources of information as I have found a couple of problems in the past, but it is usually a good place to start.
As for Bush, he was trying to protect corporate America, the decision to invade Afghanistan was made the day BEFORE the planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon! Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and did NOT have WOMD either! I do not hate the guy, I don't hate any one, but that guy needs to be tried for treason and war crimes.
RE: Did you even bother to read the wikipedia article?
Yep. There was no information about the rise in Protestantism and scientific research. Nor about medical knowledge being driven by Christians and Jews in religious hospitals. It had no mention of modern historical research having debunked the old wives tales you and I heard in school.
None of this was intended to be a personal attack.
I expect you to hold Liberal positions because you believe them to be right. I hold Conservative positions because I believe them to be right. Conversely, I believe Liberal positions are wrong, and if followed to their logical conclusions could destroy our great countries and limit freedoms. I expect you to believe the same thing about Conservative Ideals.
Given my views, I'd like to protect people from Al Gore and Ted Kennedy, but like you, I believe censorship is too dangerous to use.
Too bad you seem incapable of holding opinions that are solely your own, rather than "liberal" or "conservative" ones. The tendency to only follow party lines is very much what is wrong with America today.
Your comments about Bush are typical Liberal lines. I could tell you the mistakes Bush made that the Liberals used to ferment hate, but that doesn't matter because Liberals don't want new information if they have already made up their minds.
You said, "As for Bush, he was trying to protect corporate America," (simply not a rational statement. It's a Socialist statement of faith) "the decision to invade Afghanistan was made the day BEFORE the planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon!" (absolutely untrue. There were outlines of possible reactions if we were attacked by Middle Eastern Terrorists. Spoken strictly to demonize Bush.) "Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11" (Again untrue. Iraq was a staging point and provided training camps) "and did NOT have WOMD either!" (The UN said they did. The UK said they did. The US CIA said they did. Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, India and others thought they might and demanded that they be able to check. Iraq thumbed it nose at the World's concerns. So it's Bushes fault that he joined with our allies and acted on the World's consensuses? That makes sense only to a Bush hater.) "I do not hate the guy," (You talk like you do) "I don't hate any one, but that guy needs to be tried for treason and war crimes." (What do you call someone that irrationally wants to jail someone they disagree with?)
And another one on his economic skills "After paying the bills, my plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire. That would be a good worry to have." -- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/02/24/national/main274334.shtml
The U.N. did not say Iraq had WOMD, they were asking NOT to invade. The head of the U.N. even went as far as calling it "Illegal" -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3661134.stm
I've been very ill the last few days and have not been able to explain my views adequately. I don't mean to leave you all hanging, but I need excused from all but the most trivial matters.
Since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973, reproductive health clinics and health care providers across the United States and Canada have become the targets of violence by anti-abortion extremists, and in this might end up in some clinics being burned down. When I say "all the clinics", I didn't literally mean ALL the clinics.
It's simply not going to happen, for several reasons:
1) There will always be a significant undereducated population somewhere.
2) There will always be people who really, really want there to be an afterlife.
3) It's just not human nature, unfortunately. Humans are designed to see patterns even when there aren't any, and they're designed to anthropomorphize unexplained events. Put those two things together, combine with a lack of critical thinking education, and you get religion.
Having said that, I believe that if someone were to wave a magic wand and make religion go away completely, the world would be a better place. Far from perfect, of course, but better. People would appreciate life much more.
I fear your pesimism is justified Super. But maybe, just maybe, we can look forward to a world where the religious will have less influence on our laws.
Btw have you noticed that our new President, van Rumpouy, is an ultra Catholic?
Chile
A much better world. Maybe one governed by reason instead of superstition.
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What makes you think reason would prevail? It never has.
I think it much more likely we would be ruled by power. Freedom and individuality would no longer exist. Life would only be valuable for what it could achieve for those in power.
There would come a time that someone in power would choose to destroy the world unless they were given power. It doesn't sound better to me.
"Freedom and individuality would no longer exist." Because RELIGION would have disappeared?! Religion takes away freedoms (like gay rights) and individuality. If anything there would be tonnes more freedom!
Because power would be all that mattered. You would have only as much freedom as you have power. Right now, you have freedom of choice because Christians believe God gives you that freedom of choice. If there were no Christians, no one would believe in freedom of choice. They would believe what could be proven. Only power and possessions can be proven. Therefore, only power and possessions would count. You would not be allowed to choose anything except what was allowed by those more powerful than you. Someone else would choose how you live, where you live, what you are allowed to say, what you are allowed to learn, what you eat, what you drink. There would be no gay rights. There would be no abortion rights. There would only be what you were strong enough to take. (Kind of like things were in the Old Testament)
Completely wrong.
The statement "If there were no Christians, no one would believe in freedom of choice" is false, since I'm not a Christian, and I believe in freedom of choice, and I know plenty of atheists who agree with me. I don't believe the freedom of choice was something given to me by a deity.
"Only power and possessions can be proven. Therefore, only power and possessions would count" is false, since Love and other emotions can be proven, helping other fellow beings to have a positive effect on the world can be proven, the positive effects on us as a species if you decide to raise a family can be proven, so they would all count too, and there wouldn't ONLY be power and possession.
"There would be no gay rights. There would be no abortion rights. There would only be what you were strong enough to take." False, false & false. Gay rights have repeatedly been shut down by religion and promoted by non-religious comummities over, and over, and over, and over again. The same stands for abortions, who is burning down all the clinics who practise this? Oh right, RELIGIOUS wack-jobs. And your last statement is false because we have laws in place to make sure that this world doesn't turn into a a chaotic free-for-all, and those laws won't disappear when religions do, only the 'blue laws' will disappear, and rightly so.
You have your head in the sand. You hope that people would live by reason, but they won't.
You are right to mention Gay rights. Atheists do not believe humans serve a purpose, so that purpose can not be perverted. Judeo-Christian-Muslims believe that humans Do serve a purpose and that it is at least a terrible waste of human potential to support gay rights. (Though it looks to me like one of those choices that Christians make. If you are an Atheist, I expect that you believe there are no such things as perversions.)
On Abortion, we believe that no one has a right to deprive another person of life unless they are proven too dangerous to live in society or they are killing you or yours. You believe that death is appropriate if women are inconvenienced. You just had to get the age of person hood changed. It's still evil and wrong. It's just legal.
If there was no God to tell you what is right and what is wrong, everyone would make up their own rules. You want reason to prevail. In world history, until the Judeo-Christian-Muslims appeared, there was no reasoning based on fact. There was only power. Whoever was in power made the rules. There were no individual rights. If you didn't like it, they would kill you. That's all Genocide really is; the belief that you can make up any rules you are strong enough kill for.
On Abortion, I think that a baby with no brainwaves is just a collection of cells, so could be aborted if the women makes that choice, but the second brainwaves start (about 25 weeks into the pregnancy, although if you are getting an abortion, I'd get it a LOT sooner than then), then it's so close to being a person, that it would be a crime to abort it. Before the brainwaves, the foetus is just as lifeless as a daffodil. Although a daffodil is a living thing, it's not a crime to step on one.
"If there was no God to tell you what is right and what is wrong, everyone would make up their own rules." Not their individual laws, but we would make up laws as a community that make sense, as we have been doing for centuries. Do you think the rule "Don't put a plastic bag over your head" was a rule made by god? No, but that doesn't mean it's not worth merit, that's a pretty good rule to have.
Let's look at Flim Piracy, as far as I know, god didn't comment on weather or not it was good or not to pirate films, and we (humans) developed our own rules on it, and kept to them. Is there something wrong with that?
You have your head in the sand. You hope that people would live by reason, but they won't." I agree, most likely for different reasons. Scroll down a few. I commented saying that reason probably won't prevail for three reasons.
The people in bibical times were savages, people didn't know a lot then, logic and reason didn't go far then either. But as long as we've venturing history, you know that period of time when Religion ruled over eveyone and everything and everyone who didn't like was torured and killed in a most vile manner? It's called The Dark Ages.
In fairness, you did mention that you didn't believe in abortion on demand. Never the less, it is legal in the US.
In the United States, a baby is effectively recognized by law as a human being only when the head leaves the mother's body. While there may be some inability to delineate this point on the basis of science and medicine, this legal definition is not grounded in science or medicine.
An immediate consequence of this legal definition is in allowing so-called partial birth abortions to be performed. More generally, the definition fails to acknowledge medical realities including viability and even what is the definition of human.
Re: Film Piracy
Film Piracy is stealing. God covered that subject pretty well. (He's against it.)
Fair enough, I'll use another example: Stalking laws. As far as I know, god didn't comment on stalking people, but we humans made laws on that. Like you could get restraining orders against them, and so fourth...
I had to think about that one a little longer. The ONLY certain result of stalking is to produce fear of assault. Assault is against religious law. (and secular law) Under both kinds of laws, you have the right to self-defense. The laws against stalking are a specified way of self defense.
Re: But as long as we've venturing history, you know that period of time when Religion ruled over everyone and everything and everyone who didn't like was tortured and killed in a most vile manner? It's called The Dark Ages.
In False conflict: Christianity is not only compatible with Science--it created it Stark writes in relation to atheism the following:
“Recent historical research has debunked the idea of a "Dark Ages" after the "fall" of Rome. In fact, this was an era of profound and rapid technological progress, by the end of which Europe had surpassed the rest of the world. Moreover, the so-called "Scientific Revolution" of the sixteenth century was a result of developments begun by religious scholars starting in the eleventh century. In my own academic research I have asked why these religious scholastics were interested in science at all. Why did science develop in Europe at this time? Why did it not develop anywhere else? I find answers to those questions in unique features of Christian theology.
Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the leading scientific figures were overwhelmingly devout Christians who believed it their duty to comprehend God's handiwork. My studies show that the "Enlightenment" was conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists attempting to claim credit for the rise of science. The falsehood that science required the defeat of religion was proclaimed by self-appointed cheerleaders like Voltaire, Diderot, and Gibbon, who themselves played no part in the scientific enterprise......
If you are going to use pages for cutting and pasting, may I suggest you use a neutral source like "wikipedia" rather then a biased source like "conservapedia"
There is ample evidence that even today many Christians are anti science. (For instance oppose the teaching of evolution and wish to teach creationism instead) That does not mean that religion itself is anti science, just that the vocal minority and the church leaders are. And before you think I am persecuting Christians let me add that the same is true for the fanatic followers of other religions, like Islam. Another example Palin as major of Wasilla asked a librarian to resign because the librarian had stated she would refuse to resist any attempt of censorship by Palin (or any one else). This attempt of censorship is not restricted to deist or Christians either. For instance China and Iran are openly (trying to) censoring the internet, The U.S. under Bush started to monitor what books people checked out of the libraries and monitored the internet (And this is still happening under Obama) Other countries (like Australia) have tried to block certain sites under the pretense of blocking "child porn" but not all those sites that made it to the lists actually contain child porn. (Those lists are the dumbest idea yet, as they give those interested in child porn, a set of bookmarks)
On this subject, wikipedia is as biased as conservapedia. I actually looked in wiki first and couldn't find the reference I was looking for. They were too busy "disproving" the Bible.
Censorship is not a feature of religion. It is a feature of power. In America, censorship is approved by most for protection and thought of as corruption for everything else. Palin was engaging in the protection of youth. Libertarians don't believe youth need protection. China and Iran are protecting their political systems from the openness that would bring their downfall. Bush was trying to protect the US from predators despite the Bush haters spin. Australia is trying to protect children from predators.
It seems to me that the censorship is only a problem when it it misused to protect something false. Since you are Liberal, you must believe Conservatives as false. Therefore, anyone seeking to protect Conservative ideals must, by your definition be engaged in corrupt censorship. Although you would not be so harsh, that's exactly why you believe in protection from Conservapedia.
As you can tell, I don't believe corrupt censorship has anything to do with Theism or Atheism. It has to do with how power is too easily corrupted or what our beliefs are. That brings me back to my original point that; That Atheism would lead to corrupting power because there would be no belief system to stop it.
Did you even bother to read the wikipedia article? (they are NOT bible bashing whatsoever) They try to be point of view neutral, that means they do not promote the bible, like conservapedia sets out to do.
I think we both agree that censorship is not limited to Christians, I don't understand why you have to go on about it as I was quite clear. But the difference is that I oppose ALL censorship, while you favour one that suits your point of view. In mine censorship is ALWAYS a problem and with potential access to 6 billion sources of (mostly useless) information, censorship is just a dumb idea. It will just give rise to conspiracy theories and it is way too easy to circumvent anyway. This will just drive the information out of the authorities eyes and therefor it will be harder to deal with, even more so in the long term... If the authorities are known to censor, they will not be able to effectively debunk any rumours, no matter if those rumours are false or not. Education (based on accurate information) is the way to go, even when we might not like the truth. As for your personal attack, I will ignore it as I suspect you are in a bad mood.
Youth do need protection, they need decent education in order to deal with whatever they might come across. Censorship is security through obscurity and just ludicrous. I do not want to protect any one from conservapedia, we both know it is biased and they don't even try to be neutral. This makes them essentially useless as a source of information. I will check the wikipedia entries for other sources of information as I have found a couple of problems in the past, but it is usually a good place to start.
As for Bush, he was trying to protect corporate America, the decision to invade Afghanistan was made the day BEFORE the planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon! Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and did NOT have WOMD either! I do not hate the guy, I don't hate any one, but that guy needs to be tried for treason and war crimes.
RE: Did you even bother to read the wikipedia article?
Yep. There was no information about the rise in Protestantism and scientific research. Nor about medical knowledge being driven by Christians and Jews in religious hospitals. It had no mention of modern historical research having debunked the old wives tales you and I heard in school.
None of this was intended to be a personal attack.
I expect you to hold Liberal positions because you believe them to be right. I hold Conservative positions because I believe them to be right. Conversely, I believe Liberal positions are wrong, and if followed to their logical conclusions could destroy our great countries and limit freedoms. I expect you to believe the same thing about Conservative Ideals.
Given my views, I'd like to protect people from Al Gore and Ted Kennedy, but like you, I believe censorship is too dangerous to use.
Too bad you seem incapable of holding opinions that are solely your own, rather than "liberal" or "conservative" ones. The tendency to only follow party lines is very much what is wrong with America today.
Your comments about Bush are typical Liberal lines. I could tell you the mistakes Bush made that the Liberals used to ferment hate, but that doesn't matter because Liberals don't want new information if they have already made up their minds.
You said, "As for Bush, he was trying to protect corporate America," (simply not a rational statement. It's a Socialist statement of faith) "the decision to invade Afghanistan was made the day BEFORE the planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon!" (absolutely untrue. There were outlines of possible reactions if we were attacked by Middle Eastern Terrorists. Spoken strictly to demonize Bush.) "Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11" (Again untrue. Iraq was a staging point and provided training camps) "and did NOT have WOMD either!" (The UN said they did. The UK said they did. The US CIA said they did. Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, India and others thought they might and demanded that they be able to check. Iraq thumbed it nose at the World's concerns. So it's Bushes fault that he joined with our allies and acted on the World's consensuses? That makes sense only to a Bush hater.) "I do not hate the guy," (You talk like you do) "I don't hate any one, but that guy needs to be tried for treason and war crimes." (What do you call someone that irrationally wants to jail someone they disagree with?)
I always back up what I say, so let me quote Bush; "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores, Some people call you the elites; I call you my base." -- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/18/politics/main242210.shtml
And another one on his economic skills "After paying the bills, my plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire. That would be a good worry to have." -- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/02/24/national/main274334.shtml
And on getting elected "It was amazing I won. I was running against peace and prosperity and incumbency." -- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/16/world/president-europe-president-plain-talking-bush-using-his-charm-european-stage.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
The U.N. did not say Iraq had WOMD, they were asking NOT to invade. The head of the U.N. even went as far as calling it "Illegal" -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3661134.stm
http://www.worldpress.org/specials/iraq/ has a report on the controversy that fairly stated to positions of all side.
I've been very ill the last few days and have not been able to explain my views adequately. I don't mean to leave you all hanging, but I need excused from all but the most trivial matters.
Re: burning down all the clinics.
Are you really that deluded? There were at least 26 million legal, induced abortions in 2003. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/index.html#SU
Since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973, reproductive health clinics and health care providers across the United States and Canada have become the targets of violence by anti-abortion extremists, and in this might end up in some clinics being burned down. When I say "all the clinics", I didn't literally mean ALL the clinics.
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I see the Brown Shirts have been by.
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I see the Brown Shirts have been by... again.
It's simply not going to happen, for several reasons:
1) There will always be a significant undereducated population somewhere.
2) There will always be people who really, really want there to be an afterlife.
3) It's just not human nature, unfortunately. Humans are designed to see patterns even when there aren't any, and they're designed to anthropomorphize unexplained events. Put those two things together, combine with a lack of critical thinking education, and you get religion.
Having said that, I believe that if someone were to wave a magic wand and make religion go away completely, the world would be a better place. Far from perfect, of course, but better. People would appreciate life much more.
I fear your pesimism is justified Super. But maybe, just maybe, we can look forward to a world where the religious will have less influence on our laws.
Btw have you noticed that our new President, van Rumpouy, is an ultra Catholic?
Yeah, too bad. +
Think of all the culture we would lose?