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According to you- "truth" is whatever your opinion happens to be!
Can you quote me saying that? I certainly do not think that, and I certainly do not recall saying it, and I recall multiple times saying the EXACT opposite of it.
But nice of you to put words in my mouth instead of actually replying to a thing I really wrote. It is you and you alone offering opinions without basis here. Not me.
Wow, are you really that set against Christianity that you think a hotel staff spending 15 seconds of their time to place a Bible in a drawer is a use of tax payer money? This example just shows the extreme lengths that atheists are using the Constitution to establish freedom from religion. You know, maybe some people appreciate that they always have the option of the Bible in the drawer. But no, the majority must be denied to appease atheists.
15 seconds, Jeff?
Say the hotel has 100 rooms. Say it takes 15 seconds, per room. Then you add in the amount of time it took to load the Bibles on a cart or something, plus the amount of time it takes to unlock the door, and walk between rooms, and take elevators between floors, and it is much more than 15 seconds. It doesn't really matter either way though. They are employees paid by the state, and state tax dollars, and should not be using tax money to spread Bibles around.
To be fair, Mystic, if "In God we Trust was ruled to be a genuine acknowledgement of God, the 9th Circuit would have ruled against it. The reasoning they gave to keep it is that it is religiously meaningless, and is only a ceremonial or patriotic gesture. It is not acceptable because the government is allowed to endorse belief over non-belief, it is acceptable because the court found it to be religiously meaningless.
This is a critical point that needs to be underscored. While atheists may bristle at "In God We Trust" and theists support it as the nation's motto, if our society was a much more literal-thinking society the opposite would be true: Atheists would be sanguine about the fact that the national motto effectively trivializes God, and theists would be incensed that something they value has been effectively co-opted by secular society and thereby reduced to insignificance. If it were not for the confidence Christians, specifically, in our society have that they can play fast and loose with the rules, they'd be as upset about "In God We Trust" as they are about the use of "Xmas" instead of "Christmas" and how society has taught their children that all that matters about their religious holiday is getting gifts and seeing blockbuster movies.
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Originally Posted by NoCapo
And to be fair, I think it made the wrong ruling.
Perhaps, but the nature of our national laws is such that whatever the source of their error is rectified by their decision: In other words, in the United States of America, "God" is religiously meaningless, even if theists don't like it. The word is now, for all intents and purposes, owned by secular society in the United States, and religious folks have no more standing to specify what it means than atheists. Be careful what you wish for.
The presumption that the existence of one thing precludes the existence of something else is a logical fallacy. People can protest the insinuation of Christianity into state operations with regard to state-run lodgings supporting Christianity and not all other religions, while not "missing" any of the more important issues. You sound like you think that it is smart to go after the head of the monster exclusively and ignore the tentacles. That's myopic.
Turn it around: When the local mosque begins using loudspeakers for the call to prayer at morning twilight, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset and after dark, every day, how will Dominionists feel about that? I don't have a bias in this regard: I can accept either of two answers but the only two options are either all religions are permitted to project sound associated with their religious rituals beyond the boundaries of their property as per their traditional religious practices or no religions are allowed to. Which?
I could have worded it better. We can certainly protest every little thing but I worry that we run the risk of diluting our much larger arguments. Yes, Gideon bibles in a state-run facility is a technical transgression but making a big deal out of that might make our more important protests less likely to be heard. I'll leave the Gideons to others and focus my energy on Kim Davis and Ken Ham and their kind.
The bible is an option by the owners of motels and hotels so what with that issue? If it is obnoxious just
take it to the desk and rid yourself of that horrible thang!!!!
I could have worded it better. We can certainly protest every little thing but I worry that we run the risk of diluting our much larger arguments.
That's fair, but I still think you're minimizing the impact. People are affected by such subtle reminders of dominance and marginalization. It is a bit like minimizing the casual way a boss refers to women working for him as "girls".
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Originally Posted by 1insider
I'll leave the Gideons to others and focus my energy on Kim Davis and Ken Ham and their kind.
The question is whether you can make much headway against the likes of Kim Davis when she's so strongly supported by rationalizations endorsed by tyranny of the majority, which in turn is fostered by the casual marginalization of religious minorities in our nation and the deference to the demands of the dominant religion. Things didn't change in the workplace until enough societal power was held by people who felt that gender inequities were wrong. Here we are almost forty years since a majority of women were employed in our workforce, and there are still glass ceilings and wage injustice. Kim Davis may not have even thought about violating the constitutional rights of LGBTQ if she lived in a society where homophobic behavior was more generally unacceptable.
I'll go with my Faith in God- you can go with the scientists and intellectuals. Now, the only thing left is to get your insulting response.
This proves exactly what mordant was saying...
"A charge made on the basis of your own projections. It is actually YOU who declares by fiat that truth is whatever you think it is, with no other authority than that you follow a religious text that you claim is handed down from an invisible man in the sky"
Furthermore, the question remains whether people really mean what they say: If someone says, "I believe in God and you can believe in science," are they really extending themselves to acknowledge and accept that other people living in accordance with those's other people's beliefs and values is every bit as valid and worthy of protection and respect as they feel toward their own living in accordance with their own beliefs and values? Or are they really trying to evade accountability for saying what they truly mean, that they feel that others in society should be subjected to the impact of the beliefs and values of the speaker, but the speaker unaffected by the beliefs and values of those to whom they're speaking?
Say the hotel has 100 rooms. Say it takes 15 seconds, per room. Then you add in the amount of time it took to load the Bibles on a cart or something, plus the amount of time it takes to unlock the door, and walk between rooms, and take elevators between floors, and it is much more than 15 seconds. It doesn't really matter either way though. They are employees paid by the state, and state tax dollars, and should not be using tax money to spread Bibles around.
I'm sure they could load up the Bibles on the same cart as towels. We are still talking about an extremely small time and energy amount here.
What's next, campaigning against government building putting up Christmas decorations? The nit pickyness serves no good for society.
I'm sure they could load up the Bibles on the same cart as towels. We are still talking about an extremely small time and energy amount here.
What's next, campaigning against government building putting up Christmas decorations? The nit pickyness serves no good for society.
As I said, that isn't really the point. It is still tax money being spent on a favored religion.
Well, considering Christmas has turned into a holiday that is not religious for the majority of people, it really isn't the same thing. If they are putting up religious symbols as Christmas decorations, then yes, someone will campaign against it.
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