… of this season’s war on Christmas
The state is trying to avoid another holiday-season controversy by barring religious and other nongovernmental displays inside buildings at the Capitol campus in Olympia.The new rules were signed Friday by the director of the Department of General Administration. They still allow the annual state-sponsored holiday tree inside the Capitol rotunda.
Last year, a Nativity display at the capitol stirred controversy after a Wisconsin-based atheist group put up a nearby placard mocking religion. A number of other displays followed, and the state eventually declared a moratorium that froze several pending permit requests.
The fight might just move outdoors. Under the new rules, religious displays are OK outside the Capitol buildings. [...]
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, said she was pleased about the new rules but added that they don’t go far enough.
“I don’t think Nativity scenes belong on the outside of capitols either,” Gaylor said.
She pledged to put up a large sign if a Nativity is allowed this year on the Capitol campus.
“We will match whatever they do,” she said. “I don’t think the public will be any happier about it on the outside than they would be on the inside. I encourage the state to avoid the entire debacle.”
What childish narcissism. This is the kid who disrupts a birthday party because it isn’t about him. This is the surly teen who vandalizes a freshly painted fence because he feels the people who painted “think they’re better than me.” This is the “adult” who complains loudly and obnoxiously at a restaurant about the family two tables over singing happy birthday.
This is the kind of childish narcissism feted and nourished by a generation of teachers and administrators who reward everyone “equally” as “special” — from banning valedictorians to giving everyone in a class a trophy just for showing up — making a child feel entitled to any and everything any other child has or has worked for.
What kind of person is so bothered by the benign faith of another that they take any opportunity to disrupt, denigrate, dismiss or mock in public that faith, even to demanding that people of faith have no right to the public square?
What kind of person feels threatened by the mere happiness and celebration of his neighbors, demanding they shut-up?
Obviously, Annie Gaylor’s parents failed in their obligation to raise a decent human being.
Evangelical atheists, believe as you will that you are nothing but a sack of chemicals with no more moral worth or purpose than a redwood tree, but stop being so friggin’ determined – and using government as a cudgel – to make others as miserable as you.
(h/t Gabriel Manor via geoffb)
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/2 @ 10:17 am #
What kind of person feels threatened by the mere happiness and celebration of his neighbors, demanding they shut-up?
We don’t want them to catch Christian-cooties, now do we? And I daresay the mass of them believe the average redwood tree to be of infinitely more worth than the average Christian.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 10:24 am #
“Obviously, Annie Gaylor’s parents failed in their obligation to raise a decent human being.”
Who they are, says them. Looks to me as though Ms Annie Laurie Galyor’s mom, Ann Nichol Gaylor would disagree most strenuously. (getting any echo response, BJT?)
Their purpose, again, says them.
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 10:30 am #
Seriously? Evangelical abolitionists would beg to differ, sdferr. The rest is a pumping of their minuscule bona fides.
Echo response???
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 10:32 am #
I think all city, county, state and federal employees should be exempted from having to observe any religious holidays. That way they can work during Christmas.
That should make them happy.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 10:32 am #
“Echo response?”
On our discussion of ad Hominem argumentation yesterday.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 10:34 am #
“…would beg to differ, sdferr”
Don’t mistake, I’m am not advocating their position but merely presenting it as an alternative to necessitating us to go on thwacking on strawmen.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 10:48 am #
Cue Barrett Brown and his hatred of religion.
Comment by Ken Lightcap on 11/2 @ 10:59 am #
Could we stop calling these people “Evangelical Atheists,” please? The word evangel means “good news” and there is nothing good about their message or their means of its propagation (as cited so accurately above). They are simply proselytizers for their belief or lack thereof and obnoxious ones at that.
Comment by Geoffrey Britain on 11/2 @ 11:04 am #
#3,
Your historical ignorance is exceeded only by the irony of your examples.
“abolition of capital punishment” is the elevation of mercy into the denial of justice.
“death with dignity for the terminally ill” is ’suicide by any other name’.
“the ‘right’ to choose abortion” is the ‘right’ to murder someone else.
One of the first protests against the enslavement of Africans came from four Dutch Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, who sent an antislavery petition to the Monthly Meeting of Quakers in 1688.
In 1693 the Philadelphia Quaker George Keith published An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning Buying and Keeping of Negroes , in which he argued against the abuses of slavery and for the humanity of Africans.
The Puritan Judge Samuel Sewall, in his 1700 pamphlet The Selling of Joseph , also condemned slavery as “man stealing,” and hence contrary to the word of the Bible.
From the 1730s to the 1760s, three Quaker abolitionists, Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and Anthony Benezet, devoted their lives to the abolitionist effort.
The First Great Awakening (1730–1770) of evangelical Protestant sects (e.g., the Methodists, whose founder John Wesley opposed slavery, and the Baptists) and the rise of religious egalitarianism also led to a questioning of slavery. Many of these sects preached spiritual equality regardless of race. the Calvinists Nathaniel Niles and Thomas Cooper and the Methodists Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke—spoke out against slavery. Deacon Benjamin Coleman, of Newbury, Massachusetts, fought against his slave-owning minister on the slavery issue. Among the Congregationalists, New Divinity theologians such as Jonathan Edwards Jr. and Samuel Hopkins became strong abolitionists.
Following the American Revolution, a Quaker-led Anglo-American antislavery movement burgeoned during the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
Read more: http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5913/Abolition-Movement.html#ixzz0VipeZbQg
Every single prominent Founding Father is on record as opposing slavery. The great majority of which would be judged by modern standards as ‘religious’ men
You sir, are a perfect example of an opinion in search of a rectal orifice from which to emerge.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 11:07 am #
Ain’t much of an alternative sdferr.
“The religious right is campaigning to raid the public till and advance religion at taxpayer expense, attacking our secular public schools, the rights of nonbelievers, and the Establishment Clause.”
Christians are raiding the public till? Oh shut up (not you sdferr, I mean them). And please find me an atheist “attacked” in our “secular” schools. Cuz I can drum up more than a few Christian kids who have been admonished or suspended for quietly giving thanks over their friggin school lunch. The “rights of non-believers”? You’ve got to be kidding me. Larry David just pissed on a portrait of Christ on national television! What do they want?
I believe in the Seperation, but the above quote could easily be juxtaposed to some of the drivel CAIR puts out.
Speaking of which. It’s always the “religious right” and Christians. But them Freedom from Religion folks never pick a bone with American Muslims.
Funny that.
When does Larry David (or Freedom from Religion) piss on Muhammad?
Comment by McGehee on 11/2 @ 11:07 am #
Geoffrey, you might want to re-read the comment you’re attacking. Notice which part of the comment is quoting someone else, and which is not.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 11:08 am #
Ken – The manner in which you speak to my friend(s) suggests you are a jackass.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:09 am #
Mr Britian, if you are addressing BJTexs you are sorely mistaken as to his stance on those questions (and in addition, you demonstrate a serious defect in your ability to read). If you are addressing the authors of the FFRF’s “purposes” page, then that’s another thing altogether, though one you will wish to take up with them.
Comment by Snowcone on 11/2 @ 11:10 am #
The atheist seems as sincere in her protest as the teabaggers.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:11 am #
“Ain’t much of an alternative sdferr.”
Oh, right, blame the messenger (evangel) LYBT! Ha! :-)
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 11:12 am #
Geoffrey Britain…
Dude.
You’re firing on friendlies.
BJT was arguing WITH you.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 11:12 am #
Oops, not Ken. That Britain person is who I should have directed that comment towards. He is the jackass one.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 11:14 am #
Snotnose likes having hairy ballsax across its nose.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:17 am #
A cursory (only) read of this summary of the decision in Hein v FFRF (2007) looks like they’ve been losing in court. And losing riles people up to re-double their efforts mayhap.
Comment by Stephen Macklin on 11/2 @ 11:20 am #
As a strict live and let live atheist, there is nothing I can’t stand more than a God Fearing Atheist.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 11:24 am #
No new Boeing assembly plant for you, snowcone.
Now, back to the plantation with you, before your masters get angry and take 100% of your wages.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 11:25 am #
We need more people like Senor Macklin, and less like those douchenozzles represented by BB.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 11:27 am #
LOL sdferr.
Righteous indignation to a fabricated, non-existent threat tends to give me the red ass.
Latino cultures occasionally see images of Mary or Jesus in a tortilla and get excited. While we think “weird manufacturing anomaly” or just “conditioned perception”, we don’t care. If it makes them feel better or boosts their faith, good for them. Whatever.
Freedom from Religion will file a multi-million dollar law suit against Mission Tortillas.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:30 am #
“Latino cultures occasionally see images of Mary or Jesus in a tortilla and get excited.”
Whereas I, the goofy gringo, merely see a tortilla and get excited. In fact, I’m eating a fresh one right now. Think I’ll have another.
Comment by Darrell on 11/2 @ 11:33 am #
> As a strict live and let live atheist, there is nothing I can’t stand more than a God Fearing Atheist.
Well said. I have a friend who belongs to a local atheist organization, and he’s always trying to get me to sign up. Really, there’s not that much to choose from between him and any other religious or ideological fanatic.
Having said that I really get annoyed with people of any religion/ideology who think that one who doesn’t share their view of morality is not capable of morality at all.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 11:35 am #
The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion.
(1) I disagree that you can be free from religion. Any answer to a religious question is a religious belief, e.g., to the question “Is there a God?” you can answer one of three ways: yes, no, dunno. Each of these answers constitutes a religious belief. Also falling into the realm of religious questions is “What is ethical?” “What is the purpose of life?” “Is there life after death?”
The only way you can be free from religion is to be unable to formulate religious questions. My cats cannot contemplate religious questions (as far as I know). My houseplants cannot. The finches at my feeder and the mouse living behind the fridge are similarly religion free. Only adult humans are religious. Homo credens.
(2) Being “religion free,” according to most atheists, means not believing in a supernatural deity or anything transcendent. (Buddhism is deity-free, but it does posit transcendence.) That they put their own genius, evolution, or the state in the place of a deity makes them no less religious. (See Homo credens.)
(3) In the history of Western Civilization, who have been these deity-free people? I can think of Fascists (Italy, Germany) and Marxists (USSR, China, SE Asia, Cuba) and other Marxist derivatives. I cannot think of what social or moral progress they introduced to humanity.
(4) Geoffrey Britain in #9 does a good job elucidating the social and moral progress that some religious people and groups have brought forth. You can also argue that the scientific method, universities, modern democracy, and many other social goods germinated in the fertile bed of Judeo-Christian thought.
(5) A common mistake made by atheists who argue against religion is to confuse Christianity (the philosophical/moral system) with Christendom (countries whose official religion was Christianity). To the degree that Christendom did not uphold the precepts of Christianity (which is most of the time), they were not a net benefit to the human condition.
(6) I don’t give a rip if you believe in God or not. Really. Come live in my neighborhood, next door to me. I just care whether you’re a first-class jerk or a decent person. If you complain about my Christmas lights, you’re a first-class jerk. If you let me and mine worship in peace, you’re a decent person.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 11:37 am #
Well said.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:42 am #
“You can also argue that the scientific method, universities, modern democracy, and many other social goods germinated in the fertile bed of Judeo-Christian thought.”
That leaves out too much dicentra. Way too much.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 11:43 am #
The atheist seems as sincere in her protest as the teabaggers.
Uh, please forgive the crudity of the following quote, but it seems apropos.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 11:45 am #
That leaves out too much dicentra. Way too much.
Yeah, I know. But this is just a comment section, not a dissertation.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:49 am #
Simple recognition of the streams of Western thought deriving from ancient pagans doesn’t require a dissertation, just a hat-tip to the dudes. They count, and they are not members of our Judeo-Christian traditions but may have contributed to it ex-post-facto.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 11:52 am #
ancient pagans
Greeks? Hindus? Yeah, there’s a lot that went into the mixture of Western Thought. I subscribe to the notion that “TRVTH is TRVTH where ere it’s found, whether on Christian or heathen ground.”
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/2 @ 11:55 am #
Evangelical atheists…That’s a hilarious juxtaposition of terms…The decision in Washington state? Not so funny…
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 11:56 am #
Truth is truth, sure, but do you seriously want to end up maintaining the democracy was thought up by people in the holy land? Or that the university system wasn’t suggested in the works of Aristotle and not by people in the holy land? Come on.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 12:04 pm #
Appeasing deranged bitter cunts like Annie Laurie Gaylor is very much reflective of the values of a little country what put dirty socialist Chicago street trash in their White House I think.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 12:13 pm #
Truth is truth, sure, but do you seriously want to end up maintaining that democracy was thought up by people in the holy land? Or that the university system wasn’t suggested in the works of Aristotle and not by people in the holy land?
My understanding of the origins of Western Civ has many, many holes in it, so I will gladly defer to those whose knowledge exceeds mine. I was thinking about medieval universities and English/Scottish law, which had much of their modern development in Christendom.
I would never imagine that the ancient pagans did not contribute, especially given that during the Renaissance, scholars fairly worshiped the ancient Greeks and Romans through their writings and art, and they believed that civilization would best be served by emulating those Golden Ages.
Even to the point that English grammarians and style mongers thought the best way to speak English is to make it emulate Latin structures, e.g., not ending sentences with prepositions, not splitting infinitives, etc.
I guess I’m not sure what argument you think I’m making, here. The closest thing to Western governance I find in the Bible is the system of judges in ancient Israel. It’s a type of rule of law, even though he law was handed down from above and could not be altered except by new revelation.
OTOH, European Christendom did not object to the scientific method (by learning about the physical world, we can see the Mind of God), self rule, rule of law, and other Enlightenment principles.
I don’t idealize Christendom. i believe that the Church went apostate in the first century A.D., so I have no problem pointing out the flaws and outrages.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 12:14 pm #
How did Thor get back in here?
Darleen! Patch the dike!
Comment by RIP Ford on 11/2 @ 12:18 pm #
Heh, the little attention whore is back.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 12:20 pm #
Awww…
I’ve missed thor speaking for the “smart people.”
Comment by cranky-d on 11/2 @ 12:26 pm #
Please don’t encourage him.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 12:28 pm #
“decorated trees have pagan origins”
So do crosses.
Not to mention nature symbols.
Keep your Emo Wiccan shit off my courthouse…and US Fish & Wildlife emblems…and out of my gov’mt!!
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 12:29 pm #
“Please don’t encourage him.”
Sorry.
Comment by LTC John on 11/2 @ 12:29 pm #
Fumigation squad…report!
Comment by Kresh on 11/2 @ 12:29 pm #
The irony is so thick and rich I could sweeten my coffee for years off this statement alone.
Replace “jesus fag shit” with anything and it works for everybody. Not surprised to see that Thor’s game hasn’t improved. Still bitter about being in the minors, eh Thor?
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/2 @ 12:30 pm #
Snowcone: The atheist seems as sincere in her protest as the
teabaggerstea partiers.The joke’s over now, okay?
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 12:34 pm #
I am agnostic, so why is it that thor and the other God Fearing Atheists are the ones who always give me the headaches?
You won’t see any of them pissing on a picture of Allah.
Smart people, sure thor. The same “smart” people who have bankrupted the country. That word does not mean what you think it does.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 12:35 pm #
Thor, are you helping Valerie Jarrett speak TRVTH to
powerGlenn Beck?‘Cuz that you can put on a resume.
Comment by cranky-d on 11/2 @ 12:37 pm #
Never mind, LYBD. Carry on.
Comment by geoffb on 11/2 @ 12:38 pm #
They are when they come from the community organizing Left. The Obama and Val Jarrett seal of approval they have.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 12:39 pm #
@34, cont.
On the other hand, we can contrast certain strains of Islam, which holds that only Allah is sovereign and that self-rule is heresy.
Or the eastern religions that tend towards fatalism and rarely never dream of making the world better.
Slightly OT: I was pondering this question last night:
Why are we the first culture to produce the periodic table of elements? The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Maya, Chinese, etc. all were pretty into the acquisition of knowledge, and yet they never came up with something comparable or even sorta there but incomplete because they didn’t know about hydrogen or helium.
Yeah, I know. We have microscopes and other advanced detection equipment. Why didn’t they?
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/2 @ 12:40 pm #
thor: This is not about ‘the public square’ … it is about gov’t property.
When did “the public square” become gov’t–hence, atheist–property? Whatever happened to “[n]or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/2 @ 12:45 pm #
dicentra:
“There are therefore Agents in Nature able to make the Particles of Bodies stick together by very strong Attractions. And it is the Business of experimental Philosophy to find them out.”
– Isaac Newton
The finding out of underlying principles by objective trial and error is one of the things that was lacking in other cultures.
Comment by DarthRove on 11/2 @ 12:47 pm #
I would seriously love to get an answer from one of these aggrieved folks explaining how a creche “offends” them. In what way is such a display be “offensive”, specifically to the poor put-upon offendee? Doesn’t “offense” require intent on the part of the one offending, and if so how does a hunk of wood and fiberglass “offend”?
Not that I’m a proponent of nativity/holiday/other displays on the Courthouse lawn, but neither am I seriously opposed. Honestly, I’d rather they reduce my city tax rate by 5% and not pay for all the Festivus stuff they put on.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 12:52 pm #
“…Nature…Philosophy…”
Yes, that.
Though the actual events involved in the discovery of elements are well worth pursuing, in the sense of historical study. Who did what and why sort of stuff.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 12:53 pm #
Geekstuff! Make sure you look at the big version.
But I need someone to explain Primer to me. I don’t get it. Not geeky enough.
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 12:54 pm #
Just to confirm to Mr. Britain #9: My quote in #3 was taken from the atheist website. Thanks to all for defending my honor but thanks also to Mr. Britain for fleshing out the argument.
Nice to see thor is as big a dick as ever. Not!
If we are to be forced to accept a concept that any display of religion by a government institution constitutes some form of “government establishment” of a religion then religious holidays are out, as are prayers in the legislature, “In God We Trust” and “under God” in the pledge. That is certainly the stated goal of the chattering atheists who would like us to accept a concept that the mere existence of religion is odious and oppressive to them.
I went through this near my home when the existence of a plaque of the 10 Commandments on a courthouse wall, a placing that took place in 1923, became a sudden bone of contention. The woman who spearheaded the attempt (which eventually failed) said that its very presence on the wall was “an affront” due to the fact that she had been treated badly as a child by a Baptist church because she was of mixed race heritage.
My brother is a self proclaimed atheist and none of the above circumstances bother him in the least because he doesn’t see any of it impacting him in a personal way. For the screechy atheists like Anne Gaylor, narcissism is as good a word as any to describe their personalized faux rage that 90% of the rest of the world isn’t as enlightened or as insightful as them.
A better term would be “Crusading Atheists.”
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:02 pm #
I would seriously love to get an answer from one of these aggrieved folks explaining how a creche “offends” them.
First, you have to understand that in Leftspeak, “to offend” does not mean “to hurt feelings” but “to put something I totally disagree with within my range of perception.”
Second, they don’t like that government-owned property is being used to display religious symbols because they believe it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Although you and I don’t see it that way, remember that whatever legal space is permitted to Christianity must also be permitted to Islam. And don’t think they wouldn’t take advantage of all those loopholes to establish the supremacy of Islam.
There’s a good Cox & Forkum cartoon to that end but I can’t find it right now.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:05 pm #
In other words, we might be in for some serious irony in that the ACLU prohibitions that we hate might keep Islam at bay.
(Yes, I know that the intelligentsia violates this in the schools like crazy, but eventually it can be stopped using the laws that are used against us.)
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:05 pm #
What these nativity displays lack is an element of humour. How about a nativity display where Mary flips up her skirt to receive Joseph in her ass, while the 3 wise men roast the baby jesus on a stick over hot coals. Now that would bring about some fun holiday spirit, wouldn’t it?Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 1:07 pm #
Primer, though I only did the search and know nothing about it beyond this return.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 1:10 pm #
I have that movie at home I never watched it though. Here is a trailer.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 1:11 pm #
“Never mind, LYBD. Carry on.”
I know, right?
I pictured you sighing while you typed that.
Made me laugh for a good five minutes.
I agree, but whateryagonnado? People just can’t help but line up to punch thor in the face.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 1:13 pm #
that trailer helps me understand why I never saw that movie yet
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 1:21 pm #
Ive never watched the movie either, feets, but that is a hechuva trailer.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 1:22 pm #
#58
Yawn.
Give us some good ‘ol hate filled Ramadan jokes thor. Or something bout Arab rubes humping camels on their way to mecca?
Here ya go:
Muhammad raped and married (or do I have that backwards) a 9 year old. That’s right up your alley thor.
Bring us the funny.
Whats’amatter pussy?
Afraid?
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 1:22 pm #
Somebody left the cellar door unlocked …
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 1:32 pm #
Primer was good in a (real life) Office Space meets HG Wells kinda thing. No funny, just smart, highly educated, poorly paid, cubicle guys (modern day Einsteins’ as patent clerks) who work out time travel and proceed to fuck everything up.
Still think 12 Monkeys is the best time travel flick made to date.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:34 pm #
What these nativity displays lack is an element of humour. How about a nativity display where Mary flips up her skirt to receive Joseph in her ass, while the 3 wise men roast the baby jesus on a stick over hot coals. Now that would bring about some fun holiday spirit, wouldn’t it?What? You don’t understand the beautiful christian symbolism? I’ll explain: Mary demonstrates she is still a virgin by taking it in the ass from her husband (I learned that from Catholic girls), and the baby jesus gives up his body to feed the 3 wisemen. (Hey, they gotta eat, they’re cold ‘n hungry). It’s so beautiful.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 1:34 pm #
George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights (adopted June 12, 1776), generally acclaimed as the principle source of the U.S. Bill of Rights, wherein he says:
Those activist atheists lean awful hard on Jefferson’s 1802 letter, don’t they?
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:36 pm #
Agggggghhh!
Pelosi’s bill creates 111 new bureaucracies!
h/t @mkhammer
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 1:36 pm #
Seeing that the religious communities contribute far more to the well being (not just from a monetary aspect)of the country than their atheist detractors, I will side with the church folk every time.
The crusading atheists have no convincing argument against the charity of religion, they can only denigrate religious symbols in an effort to what end?
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:39 pm #
<academia>
Silly sdferr, privileging a ratified document over personal correspondence. Don’t you know that we can create any pastiche we want from any extant documents and still sleep nights?
</academia>
Though the actual events involved in the discovery of elements are well worth pursuing, in the sense of historical study.
Someone has undoubtedly written a book to that end, but blamed if I know what it is.
Comment by RD on 11/2 @ 1:41 pm #
Isn’t it a bit early in the season for the annual War on Xmas shtick?
For X sakes, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
Comment by DarthRove on 11/2 @ 1:43 pm #
Isn’t it a bit early in the day for meya to transgender into RD?
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 1:46 pm #
To raise themselves up, as all good narcissists are wont to do. They would like to see themselves have some kind of nebulous legitimacy that the very existence of religion blocks, in their own minds.
I have to mention this:
Isn’t Paganism a religion too?
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 1:48 pm #
“Someone has undoubtedly written a book to that end…”
Though there are many sources, not least the experimenters themselves, for sheer fun and good writing Oliver Sachs’ Uncle Tungsten hits quite a few highlights along the way.
Comment by cranky-d on 11/2 @ 1:52 pm #
Trollhammer expired for me today, so I’ve been kept busy swatting the flies as they appear. Same old crap, different day.
Then again, I brought some laughter to LYBD, so I did something positive today.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 1:56 pm #
“Isn’t it a bit early in the season for the annual War on Xmas shtick?”
You might ask that of your people in Washington St. You know…the fucking article linked in the post. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t link you to the Baptist National Convention.
Moron.
As far as when “Xmas” starts, all us boomstick owners and God botherers just go by the start of the GMAC Christmas sale.
That sale is 100% obama/ pelosi owned…and started back in fucking August.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 1:57 pm #
Isn’t Paganism a religion too?
Ayup. It’s just not filthy Christianity, so that’s why.
Comment by KarenW on 11/2 @ 2:02 pm #
A Nativity scene is a religious representation and has no place in a government building. Period. Separation of church and state and all. Put the nativity scene on the lawn of your house or church and we have no problem. I’ll bet none of your would argue the right for Muslims to have some sort or religious symbol in a public place, or is that right just for the majority?
Comment by Snowcone on 11/2 @ 2:06 pm #
Speaking of Primer (lower right):
http://xkcd.com/657/large/
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 2:08 pm #
Well then there is the First Amendment to the Constitution, which so far as I can see doesn’t contain the words “Separation of Church and State” but does contain:
Comment by DarthRove on 11/2 @ 2:09 pm #
Do religious people have any place in a government building? Can people who profess a faith hold government positions, either elected or as employees? What does “separation of Church and State” mean, and how did you arrive at your interpretation?
Share your thoughts with us, KarenW.
Comment by geoffb on 11/2 @ 2:11 pm #
#61 & #71
proof that thor needs a good editor.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:14 pm #
Perhaps we should go through all the place names in the country that are of religious origin and change them, like Constantinople to Istanbul and St. Petersburg to Leningrad.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Corpus Christi… I could go on all day.
That would make the country better, wouldn’t it?
Especially if we changed San Francisco to [insert joke here].
Comment by DarthRove on 11/2 @ 2:16 pm #
Oooh! Oooh! Mistah Kottah! I know! I know!
We can change San Francisco to Atheist Shithole By The Bay!
What, too blunt?
Comment by McGehee on 11/2 @ 2:18 pm #
The way I see it, as long as my taxes are not used to fund the display, and as long as those who believe as I do have the option of also posting a display (both of which are necessary components of the true meaning of “establishment,” as all too many people seem not to realize), the sight on publicly-owned property of a religious symbol that I don’t believe in poses no threat to me whatsoever.
But then, being a conservative during my college years, I learned early on the intrinsic power of other people’s opinions: zero.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:18 pm #
What, too blunt?
Too long! Think of the cartographers, wontcha!
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 2:19 pm #
Church and State are permanently intertwined – Federal religious holidays, God on our currency and in the Capital building in Washington.
It helps prevent the Government from turning us into Stalin’s Russia.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:20 pm #
the sight on publicly-owned property of a religious symbol that I don’t believe in poses no threat to me whatsoever
And yet we ended up with the foul mess described above because people couldn’t stop behaving like spoiled, narcissistic adolescents.
It’s always the actions of the few that spoil it for everyone else.
Any guesses on how long before putting up Christmas lights becomes a political statement?
Comment by McGehee on 11/2 @ 2:21 pm #
Urgh. To clarify my comment: taxes used directly to fund a religious display or activity, and requirement that everyone profess the state-sponsored belief, are necessary components of “establishment.”
In the absence of those, the application of the Establishment Clause is a miscarriage of jurisprudence.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 2:21 pm #
dicentra beat me to it.
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 2:21 pm #
So, KarenW, I guess that all governments should end all holidays based upon religion as well. Buh bye Easetr! Hello bunnies day! How about the Pledge of allegiance? “In God We Trust?” Should governments (both State and Federal) be allowed to acknowledge their origins as well as the origins of the said holidays? Perhaps Christmas should just be “Winter’s Gift Giving Consumer Pimping Day!”
Methinks, Karen, that you are not so much on a slippery slope as on an ice encrusted cliff.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:22 pm #
Church and State are permanently intertwined
Don’t confuse “church” with religion. A “church” is a formal framework; a “religion” is a belief system.
Also, if you want to see “intwinement,” study medieval Catholicism or Islamic states. “In God We Trust” is such small potatoes one could weep at the stupidity of calling it a violation of 1st Amendment.
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 2:23 pm #
Easetr? Must be a pagan holiday or some such….
Comment by McGehee on 11/2 @ 2:25 pm #
To be fair, if it weren’t for people like that, there wouldn’t have been a need for TrollHammer, that most elegant and delightful of tools.
Which is not to say it can’t benefit from SBP’s continuing efforts to improve it, of course.
Comment by RIP Ford on 11/2 @ 2:27 pm #
Look at him flail about. It’s kinda funny actually.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 2:27 pm #
“I’ll bet none of your would argue the right for Muslims to have some sort or religious symbol in a public place, or is that right just for the majority?”
But that’s crap. Come on, Karen. You have to know your argument’s crap. Muslim religious symbols in public places are all over. No more than Christian ones I guess, but the Muslim ones are sacrosanct, where the Christian ones are relentlessly persecuted.
Hijabs in “secular” schools. Federally funded colleges with Muslim only dorms, bathrooms and student centers. On and on.
But a “Nativity” scene offends.
I’ll give you this Karen, at least you don’t stray from the narrative.
There’s that.
Comment by RD on 11/2 @ 2:31 pm #
Yup, mainly because most of our founding fathers were Deists who had it up to here with dogma and super-naturalism.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 2:34 pm #
Los Angeles.
Some serious irony right there.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/2 @ 2:36 pm #
“Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 12:14 pm #
How did Thor get back in here?”
He escaped from the insane asylum.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/2 @ 2:37 pm #
Comment by thor on 11/2 @ 1:01 pm #
See what I mean?
Comment by LTC John on 11/2 @ 2:40 pm #
I guess Darleen will have to delete the unwanted’s comments again – since he seems to getting the attenetion he wants from the rest of you.
Comment by KarenW on 11/2 @ 2:43 pm #
“But that’s crap. Come on, Karen. You have to know your argument’s crap. Muslim religious symbols in public places are all over. No more than Christian ones I guess, but the Muslim ones are sacrosanct, where the Christian ones are relentlessly persecuted.”
Possibly the dumbest thing ever posted here. Care to give an example of Mulism religious symbols “all over the place?” If this were the case-and of course it isn’t-I wouldn’t tolerate it.
Personally, I am not offended by a nativity scene althoug I think it is highly inappropriate in a government building. I am just asking myselfif there is anything of substance that conservatives and liberals can agree upon so as to work for a solution. How about public education? I think we need to better educate our citizens and I think that universal public education for all was the best American idea in our history. Ifwe can’t agree on one thing then there is no hope for this country and we should just split the thing in two like Pakistan and India.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 11/2 @ 2:43 pm #
“Comment by RD on 11/2 @ 2:31 pm #
Church and State are permanently intertwined
Yup, mainly because most of our founding fathers were Deists who had it up to here with dogma and super-naturalism.”
No, moron, most of them were active and believing Christians.
Try learning some history before posting again, ‘mkay?
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:48 pm #
if there is anything of substance that conservatives and liberals can agree upon so as to work for a solution
Not lately. Public education is no longer something we can agree on because the gubmint schools are dominated by leftists and leftist assumptions. We CAN agree that an educated populace is necessary for the functioning of our republic; however, what children ought to learn about America is hotly disputed.
If we can’t agree on one thing then there is no hope for this country and we should just split the thing in two like Pakistan and India.
And we see how well that worked out. ::cough:Kashmir:cough::
Comment by McGehee on 11/2 @ 2:49 pm #
Maybe you should go back and read the rest of his comment.
Comment by McGehee on 11/2 @ 2:50 pm #
Oh, and I like “Mulism” as a Freudian coinage. I’m going to refer to them all as Mulists and their religion as Mulism from now on. Thanks, KarenW.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:50 pm #
If this were the case — and of course it isn’t — I wouldn’t tolerate it.
Dunno about Muslim symbols all over the place, but I do know that Muslim organizations have developed a curriculum for public schools to learn about Islam, that many schools have adopted it, that there are no corresponding curricula for Christianity and Judaism, and that if there were, the ACLU would pitch an almighty fit.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 2:50 pm #
No RD,
They got sick and tired of being persecuted, and taxed to death by the Monarchy.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 2:52 pm #
“Yup, mainly because most of our founding fathers were Deists who had it up to here with dogma and super-naturalism.”
Horse. Shit.
It was about freedom of, not freedom from.
They’d seen what Catholicism had done to Europe (not for God, but in pursuit of the self interest of Kings, Queens & the Catholic power hierarchy, and all the bloodshed that entailed) and wanted none of it.
Congrats thor, you can Google.
So can I.
How did Thomas J and the rest of the Foundersfeel about the Muslims?
We await your denunciation of the ummah.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 2:58 pm #
Not to mention the fact that many of the colonies already had official religions, and it was just better to keep the fed OUT of it.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/2 @ 3:00 pm #
We’re doing “An Obama Christmas at Landstuhl” on our lawn this year. It’s a touching scene of Obama himself serving our brave wounded soldiers roasted goose and figgy pudding…….what?……there were no cameras allowed?……….he didn’t even go in and say ‘Hi’?
A Very Dover Christmas it is then.
Comment by BJTexs on 11/2 @ 3:02 pm #
RD/Meya also misses the whole “Divine Right of Kings” concept that was rampant through monarchies all across Europe. The Founders, most of whom were believing Christians, were determined to create a government by the people, not handed down through genetics and buttressed in its worse excesses by a misinterpreted bible verse granting divine status to monarchs.
But you keep swinging there, RD/meya, the draft is quite pleasant.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 3:05 pm #
McGehee’s comment at 91 and 96 make good sense I think and point toward a kind of sensible solution to the problem, perhaps embodied in the questions “Who puts the display and who, by right or in right, ought to be able to put the display?”
So for instance, if workers in a government building in their capacity as citizens and believers or celebrants, and not in their capacity as government officials or acting in the name of the government, put a display funded from their own pockets in a personal private capacity and not from state monies, then good, more power to them, for we can recognize the act as of their right to do. Non-workers there or outsiders to the place need not apply. And likewise, if some of their co-workers taking exception, chose in their capacity as citizens and disbelievers put a counter-display in answer, funded from their own pockets and not state monies, again, good and more power to them as well, for we can recognize that as their right. Once again, non-residents of the building needn’t hope to be included. Are there awful exceptions to such a scheme that would render it unworkable (or have already)? That whole National Christmas Tree ceremonially lit by the President on the Ellipse is going to have to be underwritten by Park Service employees, for instance?
Bugger.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 3:14 pm #
Note how the ones that are afraid of God are far more aggressive in their theology than the god-botherers.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 3:15 pm #
“Possibly the dumbest thing ever posted here.”
Guess you haven’t met snowcone.
Or been here longer than five minutes.
Anyway.
Thanks Karen!
Do I get a cookie or something?
I appreciate you moving the goal posts two fields over and asking, “why can’t we all just get along” or whatever, but I’m not ready to hold hands and sing We Are the World just yet.
Oh, and I gave several examples. At least three were taxpayer funded. But I’m not detecting the anti-religious outrage on your end.
Oh! I know. Maybe if I convince a Muslim student to put up a Nativity scene in the Muslim only, male only, foot bath bathroom at the U Michigan student center (which is technically a “government” building), you’ll jump on board.
Or maybe not.
BTW, Sec. State Clinton has already managed to separate Pakistan and India this week. Separated Pakistan from us too.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:18 pm #
Even if I were Muslim which I’m not cause of I’m Lutheran I wouldn’t stick my feet in a public foot bath. That’s disgusting. Especially with just guys. Who does that? Fungusy homos.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/2 @ 3:21 pm #
Lutheran here too. Or as I like to call it: Gregorian Free Form Jazz
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 3:21 pm #
KarenW’s standards are …. odd.
Comment by RD on 11/2 @ 3:23 pm #
Nope. Most of them were Deists inspired by Enlightenment principles.
This was radical thinking at the time, and it dovetailed nicely with the relatively new concept of freedom from tyranny.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/2 @ 3:25 pm #
Ifwe can’t agree on one thing then there is no hope for this country and we should just split the thing in two like Pakistan and India.
Conservatives: I need my money
Liberals: I need your money
See? Agreement.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:26 pm #
I haven’t read any KarenW yet. I’m not feeling very inclusive today.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:27 pm #
Dare I make an off-topic comment?
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 3:29 pm #
I was raised Southern Baptist…and then became a Unitarian.
Mostly to screw with the Southern Baptists.
And the Unitarians.
Somewhere in there is “Christianity and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.
But I haven’t found it yet.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/2 @ 3:29 pm #
Do it.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/2 @ 3:30 pm #
Do it happy
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 3:32 pm #
“…just split the thing in two…”
Good point alppucchino, though they tried it already and lost –
Democrats: We need our slaves.
Republicans: No, you don’t.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:34 pm #
ok. I have to buy a car at some point so I can be a grown up again and I had thought these Ford ones in Europe looked nifty. So I heard they were bringing them to America where I live and I thought maybe I will go see them when they get here. Well it’s all a big sham. A hoax, really. Go here and click design your own. They don’t even have a coupe what you can get. This crap looks like a redesigned tempo or some nonsense like that. It’s not even remotely the same car, plus also greedy illiterate UAW perverts have gotten their UAW spooge all over them I bet. Fail.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:38 pm #
*grownup* I mean. It’s supposed to be one word google says.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:39 pm #
here is another picture of what they’re supposed to look like
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 3:39 pm #
Dare I make an off-topic comment?
We’re well past 100 comments, so I would say yes.
I had thought these Ford ones in Europe looked nifty
Oooh! Shiny! In both the gleaming and the Firefly sense. I would get that.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 3:40 pm #
It’s supposed to be one word google says.
As a noun. As a verb it’s “grow up” and as an adjective it’s “grown-up.”
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:41 pm #
oh – you’re right about the fireflyness – I hadn’t put that together
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 3:41 pm #
here is another picture of what they’re supposed to look like
Does the pond-scum green appeal to anyone? I love green but that shade makes me barf.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:42 pm #
english is hard
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 3:43 pm #
english is hard
Be glad you’re not an immigrant what has to learn this dreck. The spelling alone sends people into comas.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 3:46 pm #
I’m not big on that green either … Ford in the US has a pretty dismal palette. They still own mazda though don’t they? The new mazdas have probably one of the better selections of colors I think.
Comment by SDN on 11/2 @ 4:01 pm #
#134: so the exact issue that caused the first Civil War is going to cause the second one?
It’s not like I haven’t been saying that Copperheads are slavery’s best friends for years.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 4:04 pm #
My Mazda has a Ford engine, but I don’t know if “owns” is the right word. Owns the Mazda plants?
And my Mazda is a lovely shade of bright blue.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 4:33 pm #
That’s what wikipedia says but they’re going to have to sell cause Ford is an American brand and therefore poor because of UAW parasites what cling and cling and has no business owning technologically superior foreign automakers what make cars untouched by UAW perverts that people actually want to own and have in their driveways.
Comment by cranky-d on 11/2 @ 4:45 pm #
Too bad about Mazda. That relationship resulted in a few decent cars being made. They must need the capital.
Comment by Lamontyoubigdummy on 11/2 @ 4:58 pm #
#147
Ah, context & the Founders.
Lots of fun.
It appears thor has stumbled upon a Dan Brown book.
Masons & Illuminati in 3…2…1
Also, the world is flat.
Fuck that Pythagoras fellow!
Galileo too!!
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 5:00 pm #
LYBD, something to recommend the thought.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/2 @ 5:28 pm #
As always, context is everything…
Folks interested in scoring more than cheap political points seem to acknowledge that in his letter Jefferson is attacking man-made constructs imposed on Christianity, such as John Calvin as well as the notion of predestination.
http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/53/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_John_Adams_1.html
More excerpts:
“it is impossible for the human mind not to percieve and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it’s composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms.
[snip]
So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro’ all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to Unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe.
[snip]
The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors. ”
So, you know, need I say it? YOU LIE!
Comment by B Moe on 11/2 @ 5:31 pm #
Perhaps the biggest tragedy of Jefferson’s legacy is how he attracts simpletons like moths to a candle.
Comment by Kresh on 11/2 @ 6:03 pm #
Kinda like PW and trolls. Moths always fly to the light, but the moths don’t understand why. Instead of attempting understanding, the trolls try to shit all over it to block the light. One problem: “You can’t block the signal.”
Comment by RD on 11/2 @ 6:14 pm #
Yeah, dumbass liberal Thomas Jefferson. Too bad there weren’t enough teabaggers back then to stress that the Sermon On The Mount was the most “fragmentary teaching” of all.
___
Comment by Rusty on 11/2 @ 6:15 pm #
#154
Gotta love’Serenity’
From Karen W.
Personally, I am not offended by a nativity scene althoug I think it is highly inappropriate in a government building.
So I guess Skokie’s giant Menorah is a no go.
Expain to me how ” Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment…………………………………….” includes what states do on state peoperty. Please feel free to be as convoluted and as grasping as you wish.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/2 @ 6:30 pm #
Jefferson would consider modern Democrats to be irresponsible, intrusive in governance, and tyrannical vis-a-vis domestic policy, as well as seditious in their use of foreign policy to score cheap political points…
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 6:33 pm #
Not to mention the fact that many of the colonies already had official religions
Yes. Congregationalism wasn’t disestablished in Connecticut until 1818.
The trolls are invited to explain how this escaped the notice of the Constitutional Convention.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 6:38 pm #
Also, you were required to attend church in Connecticut and pay taxes to support it. Again, well into the 19th Century.
You could be excused, but only by showing an affidavit from another recognized church.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 6:40 pm #
From the Connecticut State Library:
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 6:45 pm #
As usual, Christians whining about atheists demanding that everyone be treated equally, instead of giving Christians “special rights.”
Comment by RD on 11/2 @ 6:46 pm #
Coming up next on FOX…JFK posthumously joins the Republican party.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/2 @ 6:53 pm #
JFK fought the commies, not fetishized them; he didn’t consider MAO to be one of the greatest modern philosophers…
Nor would he have allowed all of the unabashed Marxists in his administration…
Also, JFK was a capital gain and income tax cutter too, who believed in free enterprise-not socialism…
He too would blanche at the practices of the modern Democrats…
Of course, were he still around clowns like Obama, Biden, Dodd, and would never have become national players; not Teddy either, at least with the far left agenda he came to peddle.
It’s tough how most modern Democrats would consider the modern crop to be crooks, traitors, and poseurs.
Comment by B Moe on 11/2 @ 6:56 pm #
Absolutely stunning lack of self-awareness.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 7:02 pm #
Westley felt the need to give a shot at RD levels of stooopidity. You are going to have to try harder than that, Brian.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:05 pm #
JFK posthumously joins the Republican party
“a rising tide lifts all boats”
JFK was a supply-sider – not in the illiberal Democrat playbook anymore.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:06 pm #
Sorry, I see Christians complaining about a level playing field all the time. Everyone gets to use a public forum, not just Christians. The government can’t promote Christianity; if they allow public displays, everyone gets to put up displays, not just people whose religious views the government likes.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:08 pm #
Brian W
YAWN
do you all have little index cards mailed to your homes so you can just spout the same nonsense?
Good lord, if you’re going to troll how about some originality!!
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 7:09 pm #
if they allow public displays, everyone gets to put up displays,
The original post emphasized that the atheists were being buttheads in this case.
They were.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:12 pm #
if they allow public displays, everyone gets to put up displays
Evidence that other religions had asked for, and been refused, permission to put up public displays?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:14 pm #
“do you all have little index cards mailed to your homes so you can just spout the same nonsense?”
What part of my statements are “nonsense”? It’s standard first amendment rights that everyone gets to use a public forum. Are first amendment rights “nonsense”?
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:15 pm #
It’s standard first amendment rights that everyone gets to use a public forum.
Unless they want to put up a Christmas tree, understood.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 7:15 pm #
Westley just prefers to argue with positions not taken, and caricatures of positions. It is easier for him.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:16 pm #
Putting up a Christmas tree is like shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
Or something.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:17 pm #
“Evidence that other religions had asked for, and been refused, permission to put up public displays?”
None, but I haven’t claimed anything like that. I’ve been talking about Christians who have been whining about equal treatment.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:17 pm #
None, but I haven’t claimed anything like that.
Ah. Now the back-pedaling begins.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:18 pm #
“It’s standard first amendment rights that everyone gets to use a public forum.
Unless they want to put up a Christmas tree, understood.”
Wrong. If it’s a public forum, they can.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:19 pm #
“None, but I haven’t claimed anything like that.
Ah. Now the back-pedaling begins.”
Nope. Read what I write.
Did I ever state that anyone was refused permission? No, I didn’t.
I pointed out all the whining going on here.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:19 pm #
Wrong. If it’s a public forum, they can.
The state is trying to avoid another holiday-season controversy by barring religious and other nongovernmental displays inside buildings at the Capitol campus in Olympia.
Try harder, Brian.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:20 pm #
I pointed out all the whining going on here.
Ah. Now the weaseling begins.
You’re about one post away from getting TrollHammered, Brian.
Choose your next words wisely.
Or don’t, I don’t give a shit.
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 7:21 pm #
None, but I haven’t claimed anything like that. I’ve been talking about Christians who have been whining about equal treatment.
You’re an idiot. This is an overwhelmingly Christian country, and as an agnostic myself I find it rather obvious that what people complain about is a small but obsessively militant and intolerant atheist fringe seeking to impose their will on the larger culture.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:22 pm #
“The state is trying to avoid another holiday-season controversy by barring religious and other nongovernmental displays inside buildings at the Capitol campus in Olympia.”
Sorry, buildings at the Capitol campus are not “public forums.” That’s what they had last year, and they changed it this year. Now it’s outside. You can put up displays in the new, outside public forum(s).
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:22 pm #
Brian
Do you harass people in restaurants celebrating a birthday because it isn’t YOUR birthday?
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:23 pm #
buildings at the Capitol campus are not “public forums.”
You don’t really know what the phrase “think it through” means, do you?
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:23 pm #
Bye, Brian.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:24 pm #
“Ah. Now the weaseling begins.”
No, I just pointed out how I never claimed “that other religions had asked for, and been refused, permission to put up public displays.”
I will support arguments *I* make. I didn’t make that argument or anything slightly resembling it. That’s not weaseling, that’s pointing out that your statement had nothing to do with what I had said.
Comment by B Moe on 11/2 @ 7:25 pm #
If atheists don’t believe in anything, isn’t leaving the space empty showing favoritism to them?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:25 pm #
“You’re an idiot. This is an overwhelmingly Christian country, ”
And everyone has equal rights; Christians don’t get extra rights for being in the majority.
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 7:25 pm #
we wouldn’t have this problem if the state owned no property.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:26 pm #
small but obsessively militant and intolerant atheist fringe
Also a cowardly one.
They attack Christians because they know its safe.
If they were really the Heroes of Religious Freedom they claim, they’d be going after, say, radical Islam instead.
But keeping plastic reindeer out of the sight of kids is WAY more important than, say, preventing little girls from being sexually mutilated, or daughters being killed because they said hi to a boy at the mall.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:26 pm #
“Do you harass people in restaurants celebrating a birthday because it isn’t YOUR birthday?”
No. Do you agree that everyone gets to use public forums, including atheists?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:27 pm #
“buildings at the Capitol campus are not “public forums.”
You don’t really know what the phrase “think it through” means, do you?”
Not the way you mean it, no. I have no idea what you think a public forum is.
Comment by B Moe on 11/2 @ 7:27 pm #
Brian has leaped right past straw men and is erecting his own little terra cotta army. Impressive.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:27 pm #
Brian
what is “extra rights” when it comes to having a privately-sponsored Christmas display on Christmas in a PUBLIC forum?
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 7:28 pm #
“I pointed out all the whining going on here.”
Maybe if you were to quote what you take as a whining statement and argue against it us onlookers would have a better sense of what you mean.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:31 pm #
“what is “extra rights” when it comes to having a privately-sponsored Christmas display on Christmas in a PUBLIC forum?”
If everyone gets to use the public forum, that’s fine.
You still haven’t answered if you think everyone gets to use a public forum, including atheists.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:31 pm #
Brian
Do government employees have – in your world – the right to have a Christmas tree on their desk? In your world, should government employees be barred from church membership? I mean they might HORRORS donate some of their paycheck (taxpayer money) to that church? How about social security recepients? How about hospitals that take medicare or medicaid patients? Are they allowed to have Christmas trees? In your world, do you ban carolers from public streets/sidewalks?
I mean…all those awful Christianists and their SPECIAL RIGHTS!
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 7:32 pm #
atheists would be more believable if they didn’t worship the state so much
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:33 pm #
Brian
Where have I asserted that radical atheists are not free to be to be obnoxious narcissists?
Don’t argue with assertions NOT made.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:33 pm #
“Maybe if you were to quote what you take as a whining statement and argue against it us onlookers would have a better sense of what you mean.”
OK, sure.
From Darleen’s original screed:
“What kind of person is so bothered by the benign faith of another that they take any opportunity to disrupt, denigrate, dismiss or mock in public that faith, even to demanding that people of faith have no right to the public square?”
That statment is not just whining, she’s lying. FFRF is not stating that “people of faith have no right to the public square.”
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:35 pm #
“Where have I asserted that radical atheists are not free to be to be obnoxious narcissists?”
You haven’t. But again, I NEVER SAID THAT.
What I’ve been asking you a few times, and what you have still not yet answered, is whether you agree that everyone gets to use a public forum, including atheists.
“Don’t argue with assertions NOT made.”
I don’t. But people keep trying to put assertions in my mouth.
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 7:36 pm #
And everyone has equal rights; Christians don’t get extra rights for being in the majority.
It is more than a mere majority, sparky. You can fairly be characterized as a small fringe element of society. A fringe which seeks to impose its will. Your rights are not infringed upon, just your delicate sensibilities.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:37 pm #
FFRF is not stating that “people of faith have no right to the public square.”
From the original post:
“I don’t think Nativity scenes belong on the outside of capitols either,”
You’re not even trying, are you, Brian?
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 7:38 pm #
“is whether you agree that everyone gets to use a public forum, including atheists.”
so you’re ok with the christians using the public forum the week prior to dec 25th and the atheists the week following.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:39 pm #
Brian
Let me make this very simple for you… if the WA government poobahs had any cajones, they would allow Christmas displays at Christmas, Hanukkah displays at Hanukkah, Rammadan displays at Rammadan and when the atheists have a special holiday let them display it then.
But allowing harassment of one group by another until they just become cowards and ban everyone is rewarding the harassers.
It’s like the cowardice of school administrators that suspend both the assaulting bully and the victim as “co-combatants”.
We are a sorrier culture for rewarding bullies.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:39 pm #
BTW, here is the FFRF’s FAQ.
I leave it to the reader to determine who is actually lying here.
Hint: it isn’t Darleen.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:39 pm #
“Do government employees have – in your world – the right to have a Christmas tree on their desk?”
Some government employers allows such things, some don’t. However, since you phrased it as a “right,” which has a specific legal meaning, the answer is obviously “no.” Government employers CAN forbid employees from having such items on their desk.
” In your world, should government employees be barred from church membership?”
Of course not. That’s a first amendment right. Atheists have first amendment rights, too, agreed?
“I mean they might HORRORS donate some of their paycheck (taxpayer money) to that church?”
So? It’s their money. They can also donate it to an atheist organization.
“How about social security recepients? How about hospitals that take medicare or medicaid patients? Are they allowed to have Christmas trees? In your world, do you ban carolers from public streets/sidewalks?”
No.
Are you done fighting off straw men now?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:40 pm #
“It is more than a mere majority, sparky. You can fairly be characterized as a small fringe element of society.”
Irrelevant as far as rights go.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:41 pm #
““I don’t think Nativity scenes belong on the outside of capitols either,”
You’re not even trying, are you, Brian?”
Read the whole thing. Gaylor doesn’t want a public forum outside the capitol. That would exclude nativity scenes AND any sign from FFRF.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:42 pm #
Are you done fighting off straw men now?
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:42 pm #
Irrelevant as far as rights go.
Until the majority (overwhelming, as has already been pointed out) gets fed up with your childish temper tantrums and gets rid of that pesky First Amendment altogether.
Hint: there’s a reason it’s called an “Amendment”.
Hint #2: you wouldn’t like the result (nor would I).
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:42 pm #
“so you’re ok with the christians using the public forum the week prior to dec 25th and the atheists the week following.”
Nope. A public forum is open to everyone.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:43 pm #
A public forum is open to everyone.
Really? All the time? To everyone?
As I’ve already noted, you’re not even trying.
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 7:44 pm #
Irrelevant as far as rights go.
I guess you missed the second sentence where I wrote that your rights are not being infringed upon, just your delicate sensibilities. Argue better, Maybe people will have more respect for you.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:45 pm #
“Let me make this very simple for you… if the WA government poobahs had any cajones, they would allow Christmas displays at Christmas, Hanukkah displays at Hanukkah, Rammadan displays at Rammadan and when the atheists have a special holiday let them display it then.”
Make it even simpler.
Does everyone get to use a public forum, including atheists?
A forum where the government gets to decide when and what holidays are celebrated isn’t a public forum. That’s a goverment-controlled forum.
“But allowing harassment of one group by another until they just become cowards and ban everyone is rewarding the harassers.”
Does everyone get to use a public forum, including atheists?
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:45 pm #
A public forum is open to everyone
and a public street is open to all cars BUT it still has traffic signals and rules of the road.
No where is it said that a Christmas display demands an anti-Christmas display at the same time.
Or maybe during Black History month, displays in government buildings should include equal time for KKK displays?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:48 pm #
“Irrelevant as far as rights go.
Until the majority (overwhelming, as has already been pointed out) gets fed up with your childish temper tantrums and gets rid of that pesky First Amendment altogether.”
You’d like that?
Sorry, atheists have rights too, and we will continue to use them and fight for them.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:48 pm #
government gets to decide when and what holidays are celebrated
Funny, I thought Christmas/Hanukkah/Rammadan had been decided by their respective religions.
When is the atheist holiday?
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:50 pm #
So, let’s see….
According to Brian’s idiosyncratic definition, a public forum must be open at all times to everyone.
The public university where I work rents presentation space to community organizations, conferences, and the like. It’s available to all comers, as far as I can tell.
Therefore, according to Brian, it’s perfectly okay if I barge into a conference room reserved by another group and begin giving my own presentation.
“Public forum”, right?
Moron.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:50 pm #
“A public forum is open to everyone
and a public street is open to all cars BUT it still has traffic signals and rules of the road.”
Yep. And the rules are applied equally to everyone. Christians and atheists alike.
Does everyone get to use a public forum, including atheists?
“No where is it said that a Christmas display demands an anti-Christmas display at the same time.”
Nope, but with a public forum, people can do that. Free speech and all that.
You keep avoiding an answer with a simple yes or no, so I’ll ask yet again:
Does everyone get to use a public forum, including atheists?
Yes or no?
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:51 pm #
No one is denying your right to your radical atheism. But being a bully and harasser of people who don’t buy it isn’t about rights.
Just because your miserable doesn’t give you a right to make everyone else miserable, too.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:51 pm #
You’d like that?
No, I wouldn’t, Brian.
As I said in the very next sentence.
Hint: lying about what people said doesn’t work very well when the original post (#206 in this case) is still there for everyone to read.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:52 pm #
Brian
Yes, atheists have rights to the public square, under the same conditions as Christians, Jews and other faiths.
When you decide on a holiday, I will support your right to a display unmolested by anti-atheist counter displays.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:52 pm #
Does everyone get to use a public forum, including atheists?
Since people have already answered this several times, it’s clear that you’re not actually interested in an answer.
‘Hammered.
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 7:52 pm #
Sorry, atheists have rights too, and we will continue to use them and fight for them.
You don’t believe in anything, and that is the extent of your rights.
Comment by mcgruder on 11/2 @ 7:54 pm #
I never really took the nativity and creche bit as a state endorsement of a religion—”Use Lutheranism on Sunday’s, It’s he better brand of theology for us in Minnesota!”–but rather an acknowledgment of the relevance of Christianity as perhaps the sole thing that ties together the overwhelming majority of Americans across cultural, ethnic, social, racial and regional lines.
If it was what some were proposing it is, a mandatory sanctioning of a specific religious interpretation, to the exclusion of all others, we would teach and reinforce that specific religious interpretation the way we do grammar and arithmetic.
But we dont. I argue that the opponents of nativity/creche(s) in public space take an intentionally narrow and exclusionary view–that this equals a public endorsement when in reality the public space in most towns is full of a variety of goods and services that are take it/leave it or offered as options for highly limited and defined social or cultural groups. Everything from AA meetings to offerings of rubbers/lube and political organizing go on in the public sphere without my consent but with my funding (taxes) regardless.
I suspect I am a minority opinion though.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:54 pm #
“Funny, I thought Christmas/Hanukkah/Rammadan had been decided by their respective religions.”
Christians don’t celebrate Christmas all on the same day; some of them still use the Julian calendar and due to the difference between Julian and Gregorian dates, celebrate it in January.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:55 pm #
SBP, keep moving those goalposts.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:56 pm #
Brian is starting to sound an awful lot like Barrett, isn’t he?
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 7:56 pm #
Brian is a classic example of the atheist as religious nut. No pious bible thumper has ever made my skin crawl the way his ilk do.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:57 pm #
SBP
Brian is a bully arguing for the “right” to bully people that don’t share his anti-faith.
Comment by mcgruder on 11/2 @ 7:57 pm #
my second graf there should have, at the end, “….the way we do grammar and arithmetic, in publicly funded schools.”
preview is my (oft-ignored) friend.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:57 pm #
“Brian
Yes, atheists have rights to the public square, under the same conditions as Christians, Jews and other faiths.”
Finally. It took you long enough to answer.
“When you decide on a holiday, I will support your right to a display unmolested by anti-atheist counter displays.”
Sorry, that’s not a public forum.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 7:58 pm #
Brian #222
Non-answer, bully boy.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 7:58 pm #
“Christians don’t celebrate Christmas all on the same day; some of them still use the Julian calendar and due to the difference between Julian and Gregorian dates, celebrate it in January.”
I like it when atheists teach Christianity to the Christians. Makes for lively discussions, it does.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 7:59 pm #
I would bet money that Brian is the product of some flatheaded snake-handling group. He’s rejected the faith of his (putative) fathers, but has opted to simply switch his narrow-minded bigotry to a new target.
Again, Mr. Hoffer has some excellent insights into the character and psychology of these people.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 7:59 pm #
“Brian is a bully arguing for the “right” to bully people that don’t share his anti-faith.”
Nope, I’m just pointing out that equal first amendment rights really means “equal”, even for viewpoints you don’t like.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:00 pm #
Someone let me know if Brian ever offers a substantive response to my conference room hypothetical.
I won’t hold my breath, though.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:00 pm #
“I like it when atheists teach Christianity to the Christians. Makes for lively discussions, it does.”
I’m just pointing out the obvious. Not all Christians use the same calendar.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 8:01 pm #
“I’m just pointing out the obvious.”
And I wasn’t?
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 8:02 pm #
I pegged this douchebag from his first comment.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:04 pm #
“Someone let me know if Brian ever offers a substantive response to my conference room hypothetical.”
With public forums that are limited resources like rooms, then you can have a reservation system, assuming there’s no favoritism.
If you want a non-hypothetical case, an atheist group reserved the park at Mount Soledad for Easter some years back.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 8:05 pm #
Brian
I don’t “dislike” atheism. It is a faith-based belief system.
However, I do dislike bullies and bad manners. You still haven’t explained why allowing a holiday display for that holiday and be unmolested is an affront to your “rights” to piss on the display.
Do you think government officials have the right to reject a KKK display during Black History month?
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 8:06 pm #
“Christians don’t celebrate Christmas all on the same day”
some christians “cheat” and celebrate it twice snagging the after christmas sales
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:06 pm #
““I’m just pointing out the obvious.”
And I wasn’t?”
No, because I wasn’t “teaching Christianity to the Christians” Stating that some Christians still use the Julian calendar isn’t teaching Christianity.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:06 pm #
With public forums that are limited resources like rooms, then you can have a reservation system, assuming there’s no favoritism.
State Capitols, on the other hand, have infinite amounts of space.
They’re like Klein bottles that way.
I repeat: moron.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:07 pm #
“I pegged this douchebag from his first comment.”
And I really feel your Christian love.
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 8:08 pm #
“an atheist group reserved the park at Mount Soledad for Easter some years back.”
oh yea you guys worship gaia and the state. sortof like what’s his name. yo goodwin help me.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:10 pm #
“However, I do dislike bullies and bad manners.”
“Obviously, Annie Gaylor’s parents failed in their obligation to raise a decent human being” is good manners, eh?
“You still haven’t explained why allowing a holiday display for that holiday and be unmolested is an affront to your “rights” to piss on the display.”
Because for it to be “unmolested,” you are advocating that not only does one group get to speak, but other groups must not exercise their first amendment rights.
“Do you think government officials have the right to reject a KKK display during Black History month?”
Not if it’s a public forum. However, I’d say most black history month displays are government-sponsored displays, so it wouldn’t be a public forum.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 8:11 pm #
Do you think government officials have the right to reject a KKK display during Black History month?
See? Bad manners and narcissism.
How PROUD to piss on someone else’s birthday cake because the party isn’t about YOU YOU YOU!!!
What pathetic little lives such radical atheists live.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:11 pm #
“With public forums that are limited resources like rooms, then you can have a reservation system, assuming there’s no favoritism.
State Capitols, on the other hand, have infinite amounts of space.”
Nope, but you’ll notice that last year, when displays were inside, they DID stop adding displays. But don’t let facts get in your way.
Comment by sdferr on 11/2 @ 8:11 pm #
“And I really feel your Christian love.”
There you go not teaching Christianity to the — oh, wait a minute, do you actually know whether JD is a Christian or not? Hmmmm, I don’t think he has said…..
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 8:11 pm #
brian the atheist
what happens to your church/state thing when the federal gov’t proclaims dec 25 to be a holiday?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:12 pm #
“See? Bad manners and narcissism.
How PROUD to piss on someone else’s birthday cake because the party isn’t about YOU YOU YOU!!!”
And that’s your “good manners”?
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 8:13 pm #
“Do you think government officials have the right to reject a KKK display during Black History month?”
Not if it’s a public forum.
My on my but “judgment” and “responsibility” aren’t in your vocabulary either.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:13 pm #
“what happens to your church/state thing when the federal gov’t proclaims dec 25 to be a holiday?”
Well, I don’t think Dec 25 or any other religious holidays should be federal holidays.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:14 pm #
As long as we’re on motes and beams here, has Brian explained why his little koolaid cult doesn’t concentrate on radical Islam?
I mean, it IS a religion, right? And his crew wants us to be free from religion, right?
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 8:15 pm #
Brian argues exactly like the rest of the atheist zealots that get the vapors over the mere site of the nativity. Their atheist religious zeal is far greater than the religion that they so clearly are afraid of. I bet he refuses to use money because of things like “In God We Trust”. He is a freedom from religion kind of person.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:16 pm #
““Do you think government officials have the right to reject a KKK display during Black History month?”
Not if it’s a public forum.
My on my but “judgment” and “responsibility” aren’t in your vocabulary either.”
Look, a public forum is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, EVEN FOR VIEWS YOU DISAGREE WITH.
If the government can exclude “objectionable” viewpoints, it is no longer a public forum.
And yes, the ACLU defended the KKK’s right to use a public forum:
http://www.acluohio.org/about/historicacluohiolitigation.asp
Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette (1995)
In December of 1993, members of the Ku Klux Klan filled out an application to place an unattended cross in Capital Square, the statehouse plaza in Columbus. Throughout the years, private groups had been permitted to erect holiday displays, such as Christmas trees and menorahs, in the plaza. However, the Review Board denied the Klan’s request, claiming that displaying a religious symbol in a public forum would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The ACLU argued the case on behalf of Vincent J. Pinette , a leader of the Ohio KKK.
In its landmark decision, the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled that the Board must allow the Klan to put the cross up. The Court based its decision on three factors: Capital Square was a traditional public forum open to all without any policy against free-standing displays; the Klan is a private organization protected by the First Amendment; and the Board had failed to show that the display of the cross represented an endorsement of Christianity by the government. Ultimately, the Supreme Court affirmed this decision after hearing arguments by ACLU volunteer attorney Benson Wolman.
Comment by Pablo on 11/2 @ 8:16 pm #
How’s that working out for you?
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:17 pm #
. But don’t let facts get in your way.
Says the man who is so incompetently dishonest that he tries to lie about what was said in posts on this very thread.
So. You’re admitting that a “public forum” CAN be “reserved” by a particular group if there is a limited amount of space.
Thanks for admitting that you were spewing pure bullshit throughout most of this thread.
And do let us know when the FFRF takes on radical Islam.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:17 pm #
Look, a public forum is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Now we’re back to this again.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:18 pm #
“And his crew wants us to be free from religion, right?”
Wrong. I support the first amendment. That includes equal first amendment rights for everyone. That also includes not having the government promote religion.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:19 pm #
“So. You’re admitting that a “public forum” CAN be “reserved” by a particular group if there is a limited amount of space.”
Yes.
“Thanks for admitting that you were spewing pure bullshit throughout most of this thread.”
Nope. But go ahead, say “moron” again, and then lie about how atheists want everyone to be free from religion.
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:19 pm #
“And his crew wants us to be free from religion, right?”
They’re called the “Freedom from Religion Foundation” just for laughs, I guess.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 8:20 pm #
Brian
Somehow your grandma failed. See my grandparents and parents impressed upon me to have basic respect and tolerance for others even if I didn’t agree with them. Politeness and civility and the niceties to be observed — oil that allows the gears of social interaction not to grind too much.
You can’t allow people you disagree with to carry on with their own happiness – basically because you can’t stand that they are happy with their beliefs. You don’t think they should be ALLOWED their beliefs (otherwise you wouldn’t be so bothered by them). They are non-human to you so harassing them, bullying them, vandalizing their displays, Bowdlerizing their history, blocking their celebrations…that becomes your sad raison d’etre.
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:20 pm #
“Well, I don’t think Dec 25 or any other religious holidays should be federal holidays.
How’s that working out for you?”
Not well. Would you support having Eid Al-Fitr as an official federal holiday?
Comment by Pablo on 11/2 @ 8:20 pm #
Another joke that writes itself.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 8:21 pm #
then lie about how atheists want everyone to be free from religion
No, RADICAL atheists want it. Why are YOU lying?
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 8:21 pm #
there’s a world outside your window and it’s a world of dread and fear I think Mr. Brian person
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 8:21 pm #
Would you support having Eid Al-Fitr as an official federal holiday?
It is in Muslim countries. Maybe you should go talk to them about it, Brian.
Comment by Andy Stern on 11/2 @ 8:22 pm #
Hell, yeah! As long as we get paid.
Comment by Barack Obama on 11/2 @ 8:22 pm #
Andy makes a good point.
Comment by Bertha Lewis on 11/2 @ 8:23 pm #
Mr. Stern is a wise and thoughtful man, Mr. President.
Comment by Jimmy Hoffa's Reanimated Corpse on 11/2 @ 8:24 pm #
I agree wid dat. Completely.
Comment by Anthony Romero on 11/2 @ 8:24 pm #
Well, if it’s all for the good of the people, who are we to stand in the way?
Comment by Brian Westley on 11/2 @ 8:28 pm #
“Somehow your grandma failed. See my grandparents and parents impressed upon me to have basic respect and tolerance for others even if I didn’t agree with them.”
You don’t seem to have much respect for atheists.
“Politeness and civility and the niceties to be observed — oil that allows the gears of social interaction not to grind too much.”
So all of this written by you is polite?
“What childish narcissism”
“This is the surly teen who vandalizes a freshly painted fence because he feels the people who painted “think they’re better than me.””
” stop being so friggin’ determined – and using government as a cudgel – to make others as miserable as you.”
Sorry, your “politeness” plea rings very hollow.
“You don’t think they should be ALLOWED their beliefs (otherwise you wouldn’t be so bothered by them)”
Well, now you’re just lying about me. Typical.
OK, I’ve wasted enough time trying to teach pigs to sing.
Comment by Barack Obama on 11/2 @ 8:29 pm #
Shut up, meya. Really.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 8:30 pm #
Annie’s a stupid cunt. We already established that. Do keep up. Here’s a song. I think it’s about how tasty cocaine can be sometimes. French people are very, very transgressive like that. Annie aspires to be French I think.
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 8:35 pm #
OK, I’ve wasted enough time trying to teach pigs to sing.
Everyone will miss you! We just don’t get enough inarticulate zealots around here.
Comment by Darleen on 11/2 @ 8:39 pm #
Brian
again you attempt to lie about me. Atheists are just another faith-group. I respect their right to their faith. My objection is to radical atheists who bully others.
I protected too many kids from bullies when I was a kid to tolerate their behavior as an adult.
It is the indecent behavior of Annie Gaylor and the atheists that have tried to destroy the memorial at Mt. Soledad or try to Bowdlerize American history of its religious roots that make them bullies and worthy of pushback.
Who turned you into a bully, Brian? Or did you just get there all on your own?
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 8:40 pm #
then
” Annie Laurie called the first picket against Dane County (WI) Judge Archie Simonson for making his infamous 1977 statement that “Rape is a normal reaction.” The statement and others blaming rape on women and their attire, was made at the sentencing of three juveniles who gangraped a teenaged girl at their Madison high school. The victim was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved turtleneck.
Annie Laurie’s mother Anne Gaylor, on behalf of the local National Organization for Women, issued the first press release demanding Simonson’s recall. An outraged community went on to make history and successfully recall the ultra-religious judge, booting him out of office and replacing him with a woman judge. ”
now
“Here, in an Oakland Tribune story dated October 28 and updated October 30. is the first full account I’ve seen of the Richmond, California high school gang rape. On the same page are videos that must be seen. One shows a rally where two left-wing females speak in the familiar, patented tone of left-wing outrage about the injustices of America, the specific injustice being that the media present degraded images of women, and that’s why this gang rape happened. Meaning, it’s society that has done this. Meaning it’s white society that has done this. Given the ability of liberalism instantly to translate every horror produced by liberalism into a further condemnation of the oppressive white power structure and thus an argument for more liberalism, it is an open question whether any disaster can turn liberal society from its suicidal course.
Also, at least one of the suspects, Marcelles Peter, is black, as his aunt, Monica Peter, a black women, was talking about her nephew outside the Contra Costa Court House where he is being held.
The article contains no reference to the fact that this was a gang rape of a girl who all indications suggest was a white girl by a gang of Hispanics and blacks I haven’t seen the slightest hint in the MSM that this attack had a racial dimension. Has anyone? “
Comment by B Moe on 11/2 @ 8:43 pm #
I have been trying to figure out what you were doing. I am glad you finally told us, I never would have guessed.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 8:45 pm #
Because I’m not into the social gospel, I’m a defeatist. Bet you didn’t know!
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 8:48 pm #
“Maybe Robert Stacy McCain can get down to the bottom of this?”
so its ok for minorities to attack whites?
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 8:49 pm #
Maybe Robert Stacy McCain can get down to the bottom of this?
Of course. Because anyone who calls attention to how emotion-driven and hypocritical leftists are would have to be a racist. Nice little insular circle jerk you fascists have going.
Comment by B Moe on 11/2 @ 8:49 pm #
Damn, meya goes for the ponies early tonight.
Comment by Abe Froman on 11/2 @ 8:54 pm #
Wow. The world’s most transparent and amateurish sophist goes for the throat on someone else’s deductive powers!
Comment by Jimmy Hoffa's Reanimated Corpse on 11/2 @ 8:58 pm #
SFAG: stay on topic or STFU.
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 9:00 pm #
“Your deductive powers are unstoppable.”
i like how leftoids object to “the clothing made them do it” but embrace the “society made them do it”
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 9:01 pm #
I argue that the opponents of nativity/creche(s) in public space take an intentionally narrow and exclusionary view
Heck, I remember back in the dark ages when the ACLU hadn’t turned its gimlet eye on the public creches and when they started asserting that the displays violated the Establishment Clause, everyone was utterly nonplussed. As in WTF?
But now people accept the ACLU argument as perfectly legit, just because the ACLU has the $$$ and the persistence to bully people into silence.
That also includes not having the government promote religion.
See? Exhibit A. He utterly accepts the premise, as if it were as old as dirt.
They’re like Klein bottles that way.
Or Tardises, except inside-out.
Comment by dicentra on 11/2 @ 9:03 pm #
So all of this written by you is polite?
Sorry, your “politeness” plea rings very hollow.
Darleen, Darleen, Darleen. Don’t you remember that pointing out others’ bad behavior is as bad as the behavior itself? Have you learned nothing from this blog?
Sheez!
Comment by happyfeet on 11/2 @ 9:09 pm #
where’s buttons? I meant to say hi last night but I got distracted
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 9:25 pm #
the new deal in a NUT shell
“What’s in a name? [Mark Steyn]
Reading the complaint arising from the Dearborn mosque shootout, I was struck by the second name:
Mohammad Abdul Bassir (a.k.a. Franklin D. Roosevelt Williams)”
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 9:29 pm #
Gender-bending meya/RD has gone back and forth several times today. He/she/it must be really confuzzled.
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 9:30 pm #
“Comment by meya on 11/2 @ 9:24 pm ”
2 questions no response. you’re an agent provocateur so you suck small obama dick
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 9:30 pm #
SFAG: I think
Liar.
And quit trying to change the subject, you transparent fraud.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 9:30 pm #
I missed the knock-down, drag-out fight.
The atheists still have not convinced me.
Here is a question: If a Mosque broadcasts the call to morning (or afternoon or whatever have you) prayer on their loudspeaker system, and it interferes with your neighborhood’s expectation of peace and quiet – do you protest at the Mosque, or file a complaint with the local police? Or do neither, for fear of retaliation?
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 9:33 pm #
i like how FDR morphed into Mohammed the pedophile
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 9:42 pm #
“Here is a question: If a Mosque broadcasts the call to morning”
usually 7 am -7 pm is the time you can get loud. jack hammers et al
Comment by ghost707 on 11/2 @ 9:52 pm #
How would we know the difference between the two? *rimshot* Ba-dump-tishhh!
Seriously, I was hoping one of our enlightened atheists would favor me an opinion. *Crickets*
Comment by SBP on 11/2 @ 9:58 pm #
Has anyone EVER seen one of these atheist groups protesting at a mosque?
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 10:02 pm #
talk about bare foot, under age and prego: yo atheists go to a mosque
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 10:03 pm #
An absolute avalance of asshatttery from the Barretts, Brians, and meya/RD’s of the world.
Comment by newrouter on 11/2 @ 10:04 pm #
yo atheists: pedophile priests or pedophile prophets?
Comment by DarthRove on 11/2 @ 10:07 pm #
Apparently Brian had to leave his mom’s basement to go to some other dude’s mom’s basement for their FFRF Local 29 meeting where he could tell all four dudes there, “Yeah, the World of Warcraft servers were down today, so I had to spend a few hours tweaking some godbothering xian republicans about their stupid sky fairy. I totally pwned them. Now where’s the Doritos?”
Comment by Matt on 11/2 @ 10:19 pm #
*That also includes not having the government promote religion.*
I really don’t understand why liberals constantly misinterpret the plain language of the establishment clause. I mean, does allowing a manger scene ESTABLISH a religion ? It does not. In fact, the founders claimed our nation was founded on Christian principles BUT they made sure persons of ANY religion or no religion would have equal rights to practice said religion and/or lack of religion. I realize many hard core atheists in particular have tried to twist the establishment clause to fit their purpose, which of course is to eliminate any mention of religion anywhere.
The establishment clause and the reasons behind it are not difficult to understand.
Comment by Matt on 11/2 @ 10:21 pm #
*Yeah, the World of Warcraft servers were down today*
Hey now !!! =0
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 11:22 pm #
Someone forgot to lock the cellar door, again. Are we going to have to have a talk?
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/2 @ 11:31 pm #
“These are the central questions:”
Incorrect, you mentally disturbed Russian whore banging syphilitic fucknut.
Comment by JD on 11/2 @ 11:33 pm #
This post was like catnip for the asshats.
Comment by geoffb on 11/2 @ 11:40 pm #
These are the central questions:Are atheists trying to get their creationsit bullshit into science class? No, christians are.
Are atheists trying to subvert women and deny women abortion rights on the basis of ‘faith’? No, christians are.
Are atheists trying to demonize homosexuals and invent a ‘homosexual agenda’ to fight? No, christians are.
Are atheists claiming the moral high ground and asserting they are better than others? No, christians are.
Are atheists trying to subvert sex ed for teens that has proven to be effective in preventing stds and teen pregnancy? No, christians are.
Have atheists exercised ‘manifest destiny’ to commit genocide against Native Americans? No, christians have.
Do atheists send missionaries around the world to try and convert non-atheists? No, christians do.
We can see which perspective is more harmful to the planet.h/t dicentra
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/2 @ 11:43 pm #
At least this particular asshat can take comfort in his superior knowledge that momma ain’t watching him from heaven. All the smart people say goodbye to decomposing organic matter.
Comment by Diogenes on 11/2 @ 11:51 pm #
The facts are obvious.
ReligionSocialism is bad for a society because it is always perverted by men who are fallible.Religion isElitists are inherently divisive, always trying to subvert science, education, law, and government, while claiming the ‘moral high ground’ in an effort to subjugate non-believers.FTFY, and your quote was an out of context non-sequitor, as usual.
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/2 @ 11:51 pm #
Hitler agreed with you thor. Ditto Mussolini. Lenin. Stalin. Mao. Pol Pot. You’re in good company.
Comment by geoffb on 11/2 @ 11:59 pm #
The facts are obvious. Religion is bad for a society because it is always perverted by men who are fallible. Religion is inherently divisive, always trying to subvert science, education, law, and government, while claiming the ‘moral high ground’ in an effort to subjugate non-believers“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.” — Thomas Jefferson, to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/3 @ 12:05 am #
Shut up you mentally-imbalanced chimp. Go back to school and become a scientist instead of remaining an aimless, unemployed douchebag.
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 12:12 am #
Christianity kills, maims, subjugates and divides people.
Unlike non-Christian governments/societies, which are gentle and kind. Children grow up without hate, and there are no swords to beat into plowshares because war was never practiced.
Non-Christian governments/societies have no impediments to education and advancement, as evidenced by their towering achievements in technology and culture. At no time do people use traditional or new narratives to keep order. Never do they trouble themselves with religious questions because they have rid themselves of such superstitious claptrap. The meaning of life just isn’t interesting to them anymore.
Happily, non-Christian governments/societies are so wealthy and advanced that they can guide us to enlightenment while they share their vast stores of knowledge as well as food. Otherwise, we Christians would have starved to death or died in childhood of myriad infectious diseases.
And what do non-Christian societies/governments never, ever have? PURGES! DEATH CAMPS! GENOCIDE! SLAVERY!
It takes only simple observational skills to see how Christianity has screwed up the world. Once the rest of the world has managed to drive it into oblivion, we’ll all have a unicorn to ride.
Huzzah!
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 12:14 am #
The facts speak for themselves. Statists, Socialists, Leftists, Socipathic leaders kill, maim, subjugate and divide people. It is the fraud of the age. It is shocking that beliefs stemming from the Global Warmists have been the main cause of modern America’s public scientific illiteracy, and remain one of the biggest impediments to education and advancement. Why would you want to live in a society ruled by legends and writings of men who used slavery as a means to control others throughout ancient times? Does this make sense to you? Or are you so weak minded that you require a supernatural leader to believe in for answers to things you don’t understand? Or is it that you have a need to follow tradition and believe what everyone else does in your culture? Can you think and reason for yourself?
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/3 @ 12:18 am #
It wasn’t a straw man you freak. You aren’t welcome here. You’ve been told to get the fuck out of here a thousand times. But you’re such a pathetic, empty loser that you can’t resist the compulsion to slither back time after time.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 12:26 am #
Yes, it is however not the whole of life.
Now I am done, since you did not seem to comprehend what I said or did at all. Sad that.
Comment by Odin on 11/3 @ 12:29 am #
The facts speak for themselves. ChristianityCommunism kills, maims, subjugates and divides people. It is the fraud of the age. It is shocking that such beliefs stemming from the
Dark AgesCPUSA indoctrinations have been one of the main causes of modern America’s public illiteracy, and remains one of the biggest impediments to education and advancement. Why would you want to live in a society ruled bylegends and writings of menlimousine liberals and elitists who usedreligionrace baiting, identity politics, and the opacity and obfuscation of political correctness as a means to control othersthroughout ancient times? Does this make sense to you? Or are you soweak mindedconfident in your beliefs that yourequire something supernatural to believe inhave the one true source for answers to things you don’t understand? Or is it that you have a need to follow American traditions andbelieve what everyone else does in your cultureexercise your right to freedom of belief and expression?FTFY again, and son do you recall that you are persona non grata here? Don’t make Darleen delete your ass.
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/3 @ 12:32 am #
That last one has to be shtick. Either that or thor buried all his history books with his mother.
Comment by Odin on 11/3 @ 12:42 am #
Unlike non-Christian governments/societies, which are gentle and kind. Children grow up without hate, and there are no swords to beat into plowshares because war was never practiced. Very much so in Sweden, a nation with a high numeber atheists, they have not been in volved in a declared war for nearly 200 yrs.
Islamists and Soviets?
Non-Christian governments/societies have no impediments to education and advancement, as evidenced by their towering achievements in technology and culture. At no time do people use traditional or new narratives to keep order. Never do they trouble themselves with religious questions because they have rid themselves of such superstitious claptrap. The meaning of life just isn’t interesting to them anymore. Yes, fortunately we now have a president who reverse the absurd restrictions on stem cell research. As for education, unlike here, college is free in Sweden.
Again, Islamists and Soviets?
Happily, non-Christian governments/societies are so wealthy and advanced that they can guide us to enlightenment while they share their vast stores of knowledge as well as food. Otherwise, we Christians would have starved to death or died in childhood of myriad infectious diseases. Yes, for example 80% of US seafood is imported, largely from Asia.
Delusional. What about corn and grains we sell/give all over the world? Trading chickens and livestock to Russia for oil?
And what do non-Christian societies/governments never, ever have? PURGES! DEATH CAMPS! GENOCIDE! SLAVERY! Sometimes they do, just like like our first citizens committed genocide against Native American, enslaved Africans, interred Asians, and denied women the right to vote.
Once again, Islamists, Soviets, select sub-saharan African nations.
You must be hallucinating or willfully ignorant.Or a liar.You are banned too.Vai Via, cafone.
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 12:46 am #
Very much so in Sweden, a nation with a high number of atheists, they have not been involved in a declared war for nearly 200 yrs.
However, when other nations are busy exterminating Jews, they’re not averse to collaborating with the exterminators under the guise of “neutrality.”
Your admiration of Sweden is naive. Go to Malmö and see how the streets are filled with Muslim gangs who feel free to rape the filthy atheist whores who are obviously asking for it. Swedes are so immature that they fail to achieve adulthood and reproduce the way nature intended. They’re going to be extinct unless they all start being octomoms.
What good is a society that voluntarily evaporates? Sounds degenerate (literally) to me.
Sweetie, here is an example of reasoning: Imagine I have two containers of water and I set them out in the sun. To one container I add a pinch of salt. After a few days, the water has evaporated from both containers.
Does it follow that salt causes evaporation? But that’s what you’re asserting with your “Christianity ruins everything” nonsense.
Human society has always been rife with violence, cruelty, bigotry, and all manner of vile behavior. It was that way before Christianity, it was that way in Christendom, and it’s that way with the modern atheist societies.
ERGO. Christianity cannot be the cause of the ills you cite.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/3 @ 12:47 am #
Wow…This thread is epic! Kind of like last year right before the election…Maybe there’s a strong correlation there.
Polls are opening here in NY. There’s a crisp smell in the air; it might just be…Victory!
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 12:47 am #
Speaking of, have you noticed the huge profusion of Asian and Indian physicians, engineers, and artists in America? Have you noticed China’s ability to out manufacture the US? They don’t call it Maomart for nothing.
Which they all developed without our help.
Again, causality FAIL.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/3 @ 12:48 am #
Excellent analogy Dicentra…
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 12:50 am #
Excellent analogy Dicentra…
It wouldn’t work on Hitchens, though, because he indicts religion of all stripes and includes the delusional Marxists and Fascists alongside Christians.
Not sure how we’re supposed to excise our ability to posit religious issues from the population, but follow-through is never the point with these screeds.
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/3 @ 12:51 am #
Help…Help?!?
Many of our idiotic multi-national companies built those factories in China; Or Europeans or Russians…
Not because the Chinese couldn’t figure it out, but because it was easier to spend their resources owning our debt and developing what they wanted, while the greedy westerners built up industry…
Industry that folks seem to forget that they could nationalize in a moment, or regulate to a standstill…
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 12:54 am #
Peace.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 12:55 am #
Peace.
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 12:55 am #
Not because the Chinese couldn’t figure it out
That’s not the argument I’m making. I was going all reductio ad absurdum on My One True Love to point out how hard it is to argue that Christendom has kept humanity in the dark.
On the other hand Chinese culture is the oldest continual culture, and they never devised the periodic table of elements, harnessed electricity, or built an internal-combustion engine.
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 12:56 am #
I liked that first one better, geoffb.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 12:57 am #
Peace.
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/3 @ 12:57 am #
“Speaking of, have you noticed the huge profusion of Asian and Indian physicians, engineers, and artists in America? Have you noticed China’s ability to out manufacture the US? They don’t call it Maomart for nothing.”
Snicker. India provides an elite education to a tiny percentage of their population and the beneficiaries scurry over here for a better life. Asians in general have far more rigorous schooling. In fact, my hometwon is overrun with after school learning academies for all the Koreans whose parents don’t find the liberal designed American curriculum sufficiently rigorous. The funny thing, of course, is that the most noticeable change they’ve brought to the community aside from the proliferation of learning centers is the massive Evangelical Christian church they built.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 12:58 am #
Peace.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 1:01 am #
Peace.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/3 @ 1:01 am #
Hmmm,
You got us thor!
Let’s take a quick looksee…
The United States is a Judeo-Christian based society.
It has become the richest and most powerful nation on the planet.
We have a more diverse population than any other country on the planet.
We have been the world’s police force since WWII – at great cost in blood and treasure.
Organized religion is responsible for collecting and dispersing hundreds of millions of dollars in charity every year.
And you want me to believe that Christians are bad?
You got the weapons-grade, industrial strength stupid going on there.
Peddle your bullshit elsewhere, thor.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 1:01 am #
What the fuck do you know about Islam? You’ve never had tea with a Muslim your life you dumb motherfucker. Not every Muslim is Taliban. Don’t get me wrong, Islam is every bit as dangerous as christianity so don’t fool yourself into thinking your so much better than they are just because we kill kids using drones and they use roadside bombs.Religion is the most dangerous threat to humanity and your attitudes that christians are so much better than the rest are EXACTLY the proof of what I am saying.
Fuck you jesus fags. Fuck religion. Imagine how great this planet could be without all that bullshit, power struggle, subjugation, etc…
Talk about unicorns, Dicentra is an educated person yet believes the throne of god exists on the planet Kolob and when we die we’ll face Joe Smith who’ll deciude if we get into heaven. There is no excuse for believeing such gibberish except sheep-like conformity. It’s appalling.
Comment by geoffb on 11/3 @ 1:04 am #
Peace out.
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 1:07 am #
when we die we’ll face Joe Smith who’ll deciude [sic] if we get into heaven
What’s the excuse for getting your facts totally wrong?
Imagine how great this planet could be without all that bullshit, power struggle, subjugation, etc…
Which doesn’t exist where atheists reign? I’m pretty sure that’s the line the Fascists and Bolsheviks laid on the populace. “Break your chains, people of the world! Don’t let those SOBs tell you what’s what anymore! You can’t be free until you get rid of God and all those horrible superstitions surrounding him. And Church hierarchy. Especially that.”
Human nature is the problem, dearest, not religion. Humanity sucks. Those who think they can change that fact are either stupid, arrogant, or hoping to get their turn at the whip.
Comment by ice cream cone on 11/3 @ 1:16 am #
“peace to you as well.”
Religion-free leftists prefer to kill their own people for the common good, especially when they can’t fight back. But enjoy being the small-brained lunatic we know you to be.
Comment by Patrick Chester on 11/3 @ 2:53 am #
Something tells me thor will never have peace. Too many people who don’t agree with him and/or see him for the slimy mendacious douchebag he is.
Comment by B Moe on 11/3 @ 5:57 am #
You believe in evolution, thor? Name one society or culture that evolved with atheism as its core belief. Just one. The facts are indeed obvious, it would seem religion is an evolutionary requirement for a societies survival. You are blaming religion for the savagery and barbarism of a species trying to make the transition from feral to civilized, without acknowledging that religion seems to actually be a tempering agent in most cases. Let me bold that last part for you: in most cases. For such a sophisticated thinker I notice you have a tendency to get lost in large generalities if given the chance.
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:09 am #
And what do non-Christian societies/governments never, ever have? PURGES! DEATH CAMPS! GENOCIDE! SLAVERY!
You’re kidding, right?
Funny, I don’t see the Vatican, Utah, or the Bible Belt anywhere on that list.
Like most, you completely ignore the fact that virtually ALL societies had slavery, and that Christianity was one of the major factors in (nearly) driving this scourge from the planet.
It’s especially rich that you should call yourself Odin, given that Norse society was primarily focused on looting, rape, and enslavement of other peoples.
Hint: there’s a reason why the DNA of the inhabitants of Iceland indicates Scandinavian patrilineal descent and Celtic matrilineal descent.
Oh, you thought all those Irishwomen got on the boats willingly, did you?
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:14 am #
I’m pretty sure that Jen-jiss Khan and Attila were Baptists, though, so there’s that. Then there are the charming religious practices of peace-loving indigenous peoples such as the Aztecs and Maya. Then there are the Druids, a people so cruel and barbaric that the friggin’ Romans were horrified.
Comment by B Moe on 11/3 @ 6:20 am #
According to the Romans, who didn’t leave any of them around to dispute the account.
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:22 am #
Here’s a rule of thumb: if your religious rituals are so cruel that they cause the Spanish Inquisition (Aztecs) or the Romans (Druids) to say “Whoa, dude… that is FUCKED. UP.”, perhaps you should reexamine your beliefs.
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:26 am #
#358 Well, something caused the Romans to utterly stamp out the cult. Virtually all of the other indigenous religions were respected, even to the extent of building temples to the gods of conquered peoples in Rome itself. Not the Druids.
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:39 am #
There’s a new standard B Moe: victims of aggressive expansionist empires are worse than those empires!
Says the fascist/communist/”progressive”, whose beliefs have been responsible for murdering over 100 million people in the last century.
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:40 am #
Let’s say you have a choice, SFAG: Salt Lake City or North Korea. Where would you rather live?
I’m sure your answer will be both evasive and dishonest, but I could use a laugh this morning.
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:41 am #
Vatican or the Soviet Union under Stalin, SFAG?
Jerry Falwell’s hometown or Nazi Germany, SFAG?
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:42 am #
Renaissance Italy or Tenochtitlan, SFAG?
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:45 am #
The world headquarters of the Baptist church (if there is such a thing) or Riyadh, SFAG?
Israel or Maoist China, SFAG?
Bob Jones University or Cambodia under Pol Pot, SFAG?
Comment by SBP on 11/3 @ 6:54 am #
Yoo-hoo? SFAG?
Comment by Rusty on 11/3 @ 6:57 am #
So much anger over Jesus. Judging from the angry responses one would think that atheism is a religion. Perhaps it is since both Christianity and Atheism are based on faith. Existance-nonexistance. Being-nonbeing. I’ll stick with the Hebrews on this one.
Comment by JD on 11/3 @ 7:31 am #
Has meya/RD had a non-mendoucheous comment, ever?
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 11/3 @ 7:35 am #
Atheism is an anti-religion that currently is breaking its ankles to try and behave exactly like religions at their worst.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone are prophets.
And thor is back. That will do wonders for our conversastions.
Comment by Matt on 11/3 @ 7:49 am #
Why do you hate christians so much thor ? Were you touched in your no no place by a priest when you were younger ? Maybe buggered by a deacon ? You sound very much like someone who has been bent over and fubar’d by religion – maybe you’d care to share ? It would be cathartic for you and informative for us.
Is there anything spiritual you do believe in ?
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 11/3 @ 7:54 am #
“Buggered by a Deacon” would make a great punk rock album.
Comment by BJTexs on 11/3 @ 8:07 am #
The transcendent divine that is Russian whores, Matt.
Comment by B Moe on 11/3 @ 8:09 am #
Separation of Church and State.
Comment by JD on 11/3 @ 8:14 am #
Until you have snorted a line from the perfect curve of a Russian stripper’s ass, don’t go knocking it.
Comment by SPC Jack Klompus on 11/3 @ 9:18 am #
“Something tells me thor will never have peace.”
But then again, does anyone care if a sanctimonious, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, obnoxious prick like him experiences anything pleasant in his obviously shallow, pointless life? Someone obviously needed their attention prescription filled, and like a skanky crackwhore, here he comes slithering into the den to get his fix.
Comment by The Original on 11/3 @ 9:27 am #
I live in WA State. What was done in Olympia a good example of how a small minority ruins things for the majority of us. The majority of WA State are Christians. Maybe many are in name only but the anti-Christian actions offended the majority of Washingtonians. And our state will pay a price somewhere down the line.
We are microcasm of what the Obama administration is trying to do across our country. It is a mess here. Euthansia is the law here now. Today we vote on an anti-marriage legislation that got to the people for a vote.
The unionists control our state. It is a mess.
Comment by Matt on 11/3 @ 10:37 am #
*The transcendent divine that is Russian whores, Matt.*
I’m not sure about Russian whores per se but there’s plenty of good quality prospective wives from Russia (and other similarly situated eastern bloc countries) in the latest Sears Christmas catalog.
Comment by dicentra on 11/3 @ 1:20 pm #
Here’s a poem that made me think of thor (h/t The Anchoress)
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter – bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”
– Stephen Crane
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 11/3 @ 2:12 pm #
Wow, shocker. Thor’s nothing but a Godless communist. Who’da thunkit.
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