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O.K. stretch. Tht's the reason I said 90% of them knowing full well that the other 10 % are responsible for the genius that truly delivers to us the really good things in life in all areas. I deserve a little credit there. You may have made a fair characterization of the other posters here but I will leave to them to characterize themselves. If I didn't love the banter I wouldn't be putting time into this. There are many things I enjoy. But for many reasons i enjoy this. I suspect most of my personal friends would think it a waste of time. Maybe a little seed of personal desire makes me want to write and this is the lazy man's expression of his own "narcissism". (Wooooohhh, did he say that!) Not that I expect anyone to ,but if you are familiar with or have read my posts you'll find I don't take mysef too seriously. I don't take anything in life that I can't impact for the good too seriously. I do believe we all learn from each other day by day and we are the sum total of all our experiences and how they impact our own abilities to understand those experiences. I suppose I consider myself an "everyman" with a conservative bent. In a lot of posts I have tongue in cheek "engaged" a lot of folks that take themselves too seriously. I would much rather engage people with comedy than with philosophy. An old Scottish proverb you would like, "Enjoy life for you are dead a long time."
Now going to your second point. Isn't it the minority led by the ACLU that is engaging the minority in stripping the country of religious rights?
O.K. stretch. Tht's the reason I said 90% of them knowing full well that the other 10 % are responsible for the genius that truly delivers to us the really good things in life in all areas. I deserve a little credit there.
I concede the point. We could bicker over the relative atheism of university professors, and the utility of what XX% research, but we would be pointlessly bickering over the fringes. Point for Kaintuck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KAINTUCK
Now going to your second point. Isn't it the minority led by the ACLU that is engaging the minority in stripping the country of religious rights?
Well, that subject is one that tends to generate a bunch of debate, and has been discussed, in bits and pieces, on this forum over the past little while.
Let me give you my view. I do not think that the ACLU is stripping anybody of religious rights. You can pray to whom and how you want. The ACLU is trying to make sure that the state does not impose any religion, predominantly christianity, upon those who do not want it. I don't want prayer in public schools. Go ahead and pray in a parochial school if you want, but do not do so, as an enforced activity, in a public one.
I am pretty receptive to a notion of caution as to how prayer should be conducted in schools. I think it is a pathetic shame though that our secularist administrtors sanction speakers at graduation events etc. If there are three athiests in the crowd & 300 Christians in the crowd, why should the right of 300 yield to the rights of three? The only thing you are enforcing there is the denial of the inalienable rights of the three hundred. Now suppose there are also three Muslims, three Cherokee indians, and a Buddist in the audience. Should they have equal time. Doesn't bother me. They might get booed a lot, maybe not. If that's what it takes -bring it on. I went to school when simply put, these were not issues. I don't think they should be now to accomodate a minority at the expense of a majority.
If memory serves me, I think that about 80% of the country self identify as christian, with the other 20% being everything else. Certainly a solid majority, but your analogy would be better if you talked about the 240 christians in the crowd, the 12 Jews, 6 moslems, 19 atheists, 2 Hindus, 3 Pagans, and 18 others (bc I am tired of typing). If nothing else, equal time gets really, really difficult.
Besides, lets talk about graduation events. Why should this be a prayer thing? Why can't the speakers talk about the good times they had in school, the hopes for the future, and a clever anecdote or two? How is that atheistic? It is not, it is simply non-religious. Nobody is offended, nobody is excluded. If the main speaker wants to thank god for giving him/her the dedication to study, fine. That is different from the speaker saying, "everybody bow your heads. Now, thank Odin for ....."
I understand what you are saying a little bit. I sometimes have the workplace ask me to do things I do not believe in as in casting a vote that on a personal level I am opposed to. In those cases, I simply don't comply. I don't call up the CEO and say, wait a minute boss man, I decline for these reasons. I just don't comply. I know if we went to the matts the law would be on my side so I just shut up and don't comply. I'm not hurt, they are not hurt. We just agree to disagree. You see, I am in the minority and a larger good is being served because it is serving more people. No skin off my teeth, my feelings aren't hurt.
Don't bow your head. Appreciate the rights of those that do rather than insisting they appreciate your rights not to.
Now here is where you get like ole Kaintuck and become a bit scandalous in the debate. "Odin", aside from my grandfather being named after him, is a mythological character. It is insulting to compare him to Jesus Christ.
This is where I will readily go to bat for Christians. If you have ever taken the time to read it, the personification of Jesus Christ is one without fault, prince of peace, perfect in morality etc. Even if you do not believe he is the son of God, I challenge you to find fault with any word ever spoken by him, attributed to him. I don't think you can. Bottom line, even if you only see Jesus Christ as a teacher without moral fault, he deserves far more respect than a warrior such as Odin or for my part certainly Mohammed. Even if you only consider his teaching faultless as a prescription for social success, you should at least be willing to give him that. If not, I would be curious as to why not?
Stretch, if your gonna talk to me your gonna have to take a typing course. My thoughts come to me like Odins' lightning bolt and I type them at 50 words per minute which I guess is part of what makes me so vulnerable. I maybe should think things through a bit more. I have no doubt that you are along with others here, very bright people. Somehow though I see you collecting your thoughts and delivering them with two index fingers. I still have to work for a livin. I'll pick this up later. Have a great evening/morning.
Isn't it the minority led by the ACLU that is engaging the minority in stripping the country of religious rights?
Incorrect. The ACLU defends free exercise while opposing government endorsement. This protects our religious rights.
The ACLU lists its cases on its website. Anyone can find that the ACLU has defended numerous religious people, including Jerry Falwell. Sadly, right-wing propagandists are quick to falsely criticize the ACLU.
Well, I see it pointless to try and force belief or non-belief on anybody. There was a parable that a famous LDS man made up. You see, he was sitting next to a die hard athiest on a plane, the athiest was telling him there was no God, but the LDS man said, to the contrary that he knew there was a God. the athiest told him to prove it. When he could not find a logical way to prove it the athiest mocked him. The LDS man's response was something like this:
"I have a challenge for you" he said "I want you to describe for me what salt tastes like, assuming I have never tasted it." "well," said the athiest "umm... well, it's not sweet" "You are telling me what does not taste like" said the LDS man "I still don't know what it does taste like" "ok, so what's your point?" asked the athiest "My point is that I have spiritualy tasted salt, I cannot tell you what it tastes like, but I know that I have tasted it and you cannot tell me otherwise"
I like this parable, but I would like to switch the salt in this story for milk and suppose that some people are lactose intolerant and that we can say "gee, I sure like milk and highly recommend it to anybody who is looking for a good, and healthy drink" and that leaves it open for anybody who wants to try it to try it, and just the same, someone can say "I hate milk, I don't recommend it to anybody" and people are free to go off of that and not try milk, but it would be lying for a milk fan to say that somebody who doesn't drink milk will never grow strong bones as there are other ways such as calcium suppliments. But it would also be unfair for the other side to say that the milk fans will never be good at singing because milk is bad for your voice because that is not completely true, I have heard some great singers who have had nothing but dairy products the day of a performace and they did great. So I say we let people drink milk if they want to, or not do so if they choose not to, and we shouldn't critisize them either way because who's to say they're not lactose intolerant and whose to say that orange juice just doesn't appeal to somebody at breakfast time.
Sorry if that didn't make sense, but it's late here so I may not be fully awake.
"Odin", aside from my grandfather being named after him, is a mythological character. It is insulting to compare him to Jesus Christ.
Welll, I am sorry if you are upset, but that was actually the point of my using Odin as an example. As far as I am concerned, Odin and Jesus Christ are equally real. They are both characters with an associated mythology. The only significant difference is that more people in the US believe in the divinity of Jesus rather than that of Odin.
And now you have a group like the ACLU. Using our current constitution to keep religion out of the public sphere so that all people, in all circumstances, can be treated equally. Avoiding the whole issue of us having to debate whose feelings are hurt by an invocation of which god.
If you have ever taken the time to read it, the personification of Jesus Christ is one without fault, prince of peace, perfect in morality etc. Even if you do not believe he is the son of God, I challenge you to find fault with any word ever spoken by him, attributed to him. I don't think you can. Bottom line, even if you only see Jesus Christ as a teacher without moral fault, he deserves far more respect than a warrior such as Odin or for my part certainly Mohammed. Even if you only consider his teaching faultless as a prescription for social success, you should at least be willing to give him that. If not, I would be curious as to why not?
I have read the bible. Many times. Extensively. In a structured classroom setting, with one on one tutoring, on my own, etc.
There are only a limited number of words ascribed to JC in the bible. The gospels are largely plaigarized from one another, limiting the actual speech of JC even more. It is not difficult to make sure that this limited amount of direct speech is cheerful.
The reality is that I do not know if JC was without moral fault, or even if he actually existed. Makes no real difference to me. I do not believe in christianity for reasons that are sufficient and go beyond the actual speech of JC. As such, what one character in a book may say really is not relevant to my life.
As an example, I am sure we could find a work of fiction out there, and find a character in it that is portrayed as one without fault as well. Does that mean that we should honor such a character by invoking him/her before all public meetings?
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