If God disappeared

[IMA-G-RIDER]

Originally Posted by RPL

You're totally missing the point of the video.

its not the first time that happens with him ..

[booger]

Originally Posted by RPL

You're totally missing the point of the video.

No i am not . Im using PART of the video to show how stupid it is . That it shows how sick and closed minded the video maker is . The athiest in this country seem to think they dont have to see , hear , or feel anyone elses religion . That they dont have to be tolerant of anyone elses ideas and the rest of this country should change the way they live and breath to fit into an athiests life . So in turn they think all religion should be removed from the Gov. and everything else so they dont have to deal with it .

[slaytan213]

Originally Posted by booger

No i am not . Im using PART of the video to show how stupid it is . That it shows how sick and closed minded the video maker is . The athiest in this country seem to think they dont have to see , hear , or feel anyone elses religion . That they dont have to be tolerant of anyone elses ideas and the rest of this country should change the way they live and breath to fit into an athiests life . So in turn they think all religion should be removed from the Gov. and everything else so they dont have to deal with it .

It is a common misconception among religious people that atheists have no morals because they don't have religion as a base to show them what morals to have. The video maker was poking fun of that. You missed the point entirely.

Atheists are very tolerant of other people's religions; however it seems like religious people don't tolerate an atheists non-belief. Christians seem to think they have to "save" an Atheist.

There is such a thing as separation of church and state. Besides, with all the religions represented in this great country of ours, it would not be constitutional to treat one above another.

[RPL]

Originally Posted by booger

No i am not . Im using PART of the video to show how stupid it is . That it shows how sick and closed minded the video maker is . The athiest in this country seem to think they dont have to see , hear , or feel anyone elses religion . That they dont have to be tolerant of anyone elses ideas and the rest of this country should change the way they live and breath to fit into an athiests life . So in turn they think all religion should be removed from the Gov. and everything else so they dont have to deal with it .

Thanks for proving my point.

[Drowe303]

http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah's_ark.htm

Somebody explain this

[koop12]

Originally Posted by Drowe303

http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah's_ark.htm

Somebody explain this

You do know this was a hoax perpetrated by George Jammal using old railway tie? He admitted to it.

http://surge.ods.org/idle_religion/hoax2.htm

[RPL]

Originally Posted by Drowe303

http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah's_ark.htm

Somebody explain this

and this!

[Drowe303]

Originally Posted by koop12

You do know this was a hoax perpetrated by George Jammal using old railway tie? He admitted to it.

http://surge.ods.org/idle_religion/hoax2.htm

I did not know that. How in the world did he do that? To all the exact measurement and everything? If you watch the video its pretty cool.

[slaytan213]

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vUTPhZmkIDI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vUTPhZmkIDI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

THIS is what I'm rallying against. THIS is why I'm against the theological takeover of the US government. Holier-Than-Thou Twatwaffles like this bishop are trying to strong arm their way into government and it must be stopped.

[IMA-G-RIDER]

i would like to see them seperate govt from religion entirely ..

it does no good to inject your religious views into your politics ..

especially whene it has to do with dealing with muslim terrorists ...

we dont need a religious war .. Ooops...

[2slo2bfurious]

Originally Posted by AARONHL

God created Dinosaurs 220 MILLION YEARS ago. Hahaha

NO! He created them like 6000 years ago, and then one day was constipated and laid a really hard one which turned into an asteroid, when it hit everything caught on fire, and then took a really loooooooooong piss causing the great flood to put the fire out, DUH!

But seriously, why do people associate moral character with religion? Do you really need the commandments to tell you that it is wrong to kill someone?

[slaytan213]

<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GgH4BnXo0KM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GgH4BnXo0KM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

[slaytan213]

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...oogle+Rea der

Clemmons was the Jesus-loving lunatic who murdered four police officers in Tacoma, and was shot and killed by the police. He was also the recipient of a pardon from Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas, egotistical god-walloping incompetent.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm all for mercy, I reject the abuse of our penal system as a vehicle for vengeance, and I oppose the death penalty without reservation. A governor's clemency can be a good thing, as when it should be used to correct miscarriages of justice (isn't it odd, though, how the most Christian of governors avoid using it for that purpose?). But there are also cases where justice and mercy are best served by incarceration or mental care, not by turning killers and dangerous psychos loose on the streets.

Clemmons was a monster. He murdered people and he raped children. He was insane. He believed he was Jesus Christ. Yet Mike Huckabee pardoned him. Why? Because Huckabee did not care about the evidence. What he thought was sufficient was a profession of piety and the testimonials of religious men. Clemmons played him.

No doubt word spread among the prison population that the affable governor was vulnerable to appeals from convicts who claimed to be born again. Clemmons too was among those who benefited from Huckabee's tendency to believe such pious testimonials. "I come from a very good Christian family and I was raised much better than my actions speak," he explained in his clemency application in 2000. "I'm still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought upon my family's name ... I have never done anything good for God, but I've prayed for him to grant me in his compassion the grace to make a start. Now, I'm humbly appealing to you for a brand new start."

Mercy is not a wicked thing, and there are good people in prison who could turn their lives around if given an opportunity. There are also evil, damaged people in prison who would use freedom as an opportunity to do harm. What is necessary is the rational analysis of evidence to determine who deserves freedom in those cases, and Huckabee does not and cannot do that; his religiosity short-circuits his capacity for critical evaluation, and his ego makes the pardon a tool for feeding his own delusions of christ-hood. Tristero has an excellent summary.

First of all, it is Huckabee's delusion that he is Jesus Christ, not genuine compassion, that spins the Clemmons case as a miscarriage of justice against a hapless juvenile. It is clear from the record that Clemmons was then, and continued to be, an extremely troubled person with a propensity for extreme violence. Huckabee ignored this, focusing - Christ-like - on an opportunity to show mercy towards a young sinner who showed what Huckabee misapprehended as signs of redemption. The issue is Huckabee's lack of judgment.

If you argue that it is unfair to sentence a juvenile to life in prison for an armed robbery committed when he was 16, I won't disagree with you. But that is not the issue here. The issue is Huckabee's spectacularly bad judgment and his failure to take responsibilty for his behavior. The justice system, for all its incredible faults, has numerous mechanisms, including but not limited to commuting a sentence, for dealing with mitigating circumstances, like the age of an offender, signs of redemption, and an unfairly long sentence. Flawed they surely are, imperfect and inadequate no doubt, but they exist. Huckabee, imitating Christ, chose to deal with the Clemmons case in a very particular way, showing not mercy, but simply awful judgment that set into motion further tragedy.

The incredibly cruel, incredibly unjust way that juvenile offenders are treated in the United States has nothing to do with the fact that Huckabee behaved the way he did. It simply gave him an excuse to exercise his egomania, his delusions of grandeur, and his incompetence. As a result, innocent people died.

Huckabee wants to be our president. I wouldn't trust him to be my dishwasher.

[EnerOnE]

“If God disappeared… We would be empty and hopeless and desperate inside like atheist feel today” LOL ...This guys is too much, religion should not be represented by one man.

[slaytan213]

North Carolina councilman may face lawsuit over his atheism

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religio...litician_N.htm

RALEIGH, N.C. — Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government — but he doesn't believe in God. His political opponents say that's a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they've got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.

Bothwell's detractors are threatening to take the city to court for swearing him in, even though the state's antiquated requirement that officeholders believe in God is unenforceable because it violates the U.S. Consititution.

"The question of whether or not God exists is not particularly interesting to me and it's certainly not relevant to public office," the recently elected 59-year-old said.

Bothwell ran this fall on a platform that also included limiting the height of downtown buildings and saving trees in the city's core, views that appealed to voters in the liberal-leaning community at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. When Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternative oath that doesn't require officials to swear on a Bible or reference "Almighty God."

That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina's Constitution that disqualifies officeholders "who shall deny the being of Almighty God." The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn't revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971. One foe, H.K. Edgerton, is threatening to file a lawsuit in state court against the city to challenge Bothwell's appointment.

"My father was a Baptist minister. I'm a Christian man. I have problems with people who don't believe in God," said Edgerton, a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners.

The head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials shirked their duty to uphold the state's laws by swearing in Bothwell. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he's tired of seeing his state Constitution "trashed."

Bothwell can't be forced out of office over his atheist views because the North Carolina provision is unenforceable, according to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution. Six other states, Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, have similar provisions barring atheist officeholders.

In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that federal law prohibits states from requiring any kind of religious test to serve in office when it ruled in favor of a Maryland atheist seeking appointment as a notary public.

But the federal protections don't necessarily spare atheist public officials from spending years defending themselves in court. Avowed atheist Herb Silverman won an eight-year court battle in 1997 when South Carolina's highest court granted him the right to be appointed as a notary despite the state's law.

Bothwell said a legal challenge to his appointment would be "fun," but believes his opponents' efforts have more to do with politics than religious beliefs.

"It's local political opponents seeking to change the outcome of an election they lost," said Bothwell, who's lived in Asheville nearly three decades and wrote the city's best-selling guide book.

Bothwell was raised a Presbyterian but began questioning Christian beliefs at a young age and considered himself an atheist by the time he was 20. He's an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville and he still celebrates Christmas, often hanging ornaments on his Fishhook cactus.

Bothwell said his spiritual views don't matter to most of his constituents. Bothwell is a registered Democrat but didn't run on a party ticket in the nonpartisan Council election.

Even if he can't force Bothwell out of office, Edgerton said he hopes a legal battle would ultimately force North Carolina's Legislature to determine the legality of the article of the Constitution.

"If the law is wrong, it is the obligation of the Legislature to say it's wrong," he said.

Provisions like North Carolina's tend to stay on the books because lawmakers would rather not spend time weeding out outdated laws, said Duke University Law School Professor Joseph Blocher.

"I mean there are state laws against spitting in the street," he said. "Why spend the time?"

But the battle is important to Silverman, who says there are scores of other atheist politicians afraid to "come out of the closet." He cited U.S. Rep. Pete Stark of California, the first and only congressman to publicly acknowledge he doesn't believe in God.

"We're trying to change our culture to the point where it's not political suicide," Silverman said.