They just don't get it do they? Reaganomics, faith, etc. remain at the top of their list of priorities.

The party of 'no' and know nothings

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I don't know what they stand for anymore.

As opposed to the Democrats' list of priorities (social engineering, destroying what's left of free enterprise, and making the people the absolute subjects of the State among them). Oh, wait, Those also turned out to be approximately the same goals as those of both Bush and McCain. While the party membership is different, the goal of forcing the people to bend to the will of the State is not.
Who? The party's leaders, who see the majority of the membership as a bunch of illiterate boobs who need to be led by those who "know better?" Or the rank and file, who wonder what happened to the people who went to Washington to cut spending and taxes, and to make sure governmment doesn't overwhelm the people with regulations and programs "for their own good?"

To return to your comments, Kula, what are people supposed to do -- abandon their religious faith and their desire to succeed through free enterprise? If so, who is to be the final arbiter of who can hold which beliefs, or hold which properties, or use what talents in what way? Maybe you want an all-benificent government to rule every aspect of your life, but a good many people do not. And that's why those people would rather die than surrender their beliefs, goals, and wills to people who supposedly know better, but who are too arrogant to admit that they don't.

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"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE... DEH LIBERALS HAVE GOT US IN THEIR EVIL GRIPS!

Where did anyone say anything about abandoning religious faith? A desire to not base policy on a book that is claimed to be the Word of God in no way suggests that people should abandon their faith. It means that they should make their own decisions and be accountable for their choices instead of trying to have the government remove all options until the only option left is to be good little Christian girls and boys.

If you want to live in a society where government doesn't make all the decisions for you, then you should probably start by taking off your blinders. Neither party has all the right ideas. Democrats over-regulate, Republicans under-regulate. Neither party can claim fiscal responsibility, because actually being fiscally responsible ensures that you'll only serve a single term and that all your work will be undone by the next President. Republicans want to tell you how to live your private lives and Democrats want to tell you how to live your public lives. All that, and the third party candidates who actually get anywhere are typically nut-jobs because that's the only way they'll get the press (and because many of them are actually nut-jobs).

I support this message.

I keep thinking if they can get over all their religious right crap (like being a homophobe and other bull shit) they might be able to pull their heads out of their asses and become a viable choice.

Oh, and if they can get rid of most of their self proclaimed spokes people, that would help too.

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Devyn - 2012

He's got my vote.

If I had a penny for the number of times the democracies of the world have elected people under a different political banner with the same ideologies they had before. Not going to change the career politicians, nor will ideologies be drastically different. If you want real change, you need to speak to the minds of millions of Americans who don't want to see substantial change and actually agree with what the majority of Democrats and Republicans are doing. That's where policy comes from, not an arbitrary "old boys club".

They continue to elect people that use the same policies, and it's a safe bet they agree with them or are akin to the woman who continuously marries wife-beater men. That problem needs to be solved within the American peoples' minds, not an external source or by simply changing the banner within which bad politicians reside. Change the banner, and all the big-name politicians will simply flock to the other side(Arlen Specter anyone?) and by the time they've all moved, average Americans won't be able to tell which are the old and which are the new.

I don't follow this.

Republicans look just like Democrats now anyways. Both parties are now neither conservative or liberal and are now "progressive".

Pork barrel, and politically it's usually easier to promise more than it is to cut spending. Even if you do something like cut a useless, scrapped military project that's going nowhere, somehow it will be turned into "He's cutting our defenses and leaving us vulnerable!".

It just keeps getting better: Bill introduced to declare 2010 the Year of the Bible.

Here's the irony for me: people complain that both sides of the party are "too extreme," yet when the two parties start moving close together, you complain that they are too close to being the same.

Can't win with some of you!

You can bet your fucking ass I'll be filing a lawsuit if that ridiculous shit is somehow passed. It's as if these moron congressmen haven't bothered reading the Constitution.

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Dude, those kinds of bills are introduced all the time. It will never pass. It's just done so the congressman can say to his district, "see what I tried to do for you?"

"I tried to completely ignore the Constitution of the United States, which I've sworn an oath to protect and defend, all in an effort to sway the Religious Right to vote for me during the next election." Is that what you mean?

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Declaring a holiday (basically what this is asking for) isn't against the Constitution as far as I know.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

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So are we going to get rid of the religious national holidays too?

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

There's only one. Christmas. And yes, we shouldn't officially recognize it as a Federal Holiday. Nor should "In God We Trust" be on our money. Nor should "under God" be in the Pledge of Allegiance. Just so we're covering all the bases here.

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I'm not necessarily 100 percent against removing it as a federal holiday... but, looking at it from the other side, by making it a federal holiday are they really doing it because it's a religious holiday and they're trying to prop up this one religion - or is it a federal holiday because we know a massive portion of the population is not going to be working on that day? I don't think making it a federal holiday necessarily means a joining of church and state.

It doesn't matter if it passes anyway. It's simply a resolution asking Obama to issue a proclamation naming some year as 'Year of the Bible' like Reagan did.

I highly doubt he'll do it to be honest, whether the resolution passes or not.

Easter and Halloween are also religious in origin.

Since Martin Luther King was a pastor, should we get rid of that day too?

Easter and Halloween aren't Federal Holidays.

MLK's birthday isn't celebrated for his religious contributions. You know that, so I wonder why you brought it up as an argument, since it's weak as hell.

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His stances on civil rights were a *direct* result of his religious beliefs.

I brought it up because the bill was phrased as creating this year to recognize the Bible's contribution to our culture and society today (whether you agree with that or not is another matter), just as our celebration of MLK day is a recognition of his contribution to our culture and society today.

You're comparing a religious text with a civil rights activist who happened to be a religious man. Despite your assertion that his stance on civil rights were a direct result of his religious beliefs, it wasn't entirely because of his religious beliefs that he led a movement that changed the world. If it were, it would have happened long before he was born, because he wasn't the first man to hold those beliefs. We celebrate the character of the man, his drive, his efforts. Not his religious views.

The Christian bible is a religious text. It is, first and foremost a set of scriptures. Were its teachings universal, then perhaps you'd have a point. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement, which was universal in its importance and application, the bible is really only important to a religious sect.

We still look to Dr. Martin Luther King as inspiration to improve our society and its culture. He still has an impact on us as a nation today. We no longer, as a nation, look to the Christian bible to determine our laws. Nor should we.

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I think you underestimate the influence the Bible has had on our society... every single one of us, whether we believe in the veracity of its statements about God or not. It is a book fundamental to the understanding of culture in Western society.

Look, I don't even want laws like this to ever be passed, but you seem to have a bit of a hardon for the Bible here that I feel compelled to attempt (likely unsuccessfully) to make limp.

Replace Christmas with Festivus and throw in some Holiday trees.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

This is only really true if you assign every bit of moral fiber and human civilization to the Bible, which most religious people are more than happy to try to do.

Just because the Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill." doesn't mean that the Bible is responsible for laws on murder or for people thinking murder is wrong.

But even if you put that aside, I'd say that a collection of zealots and ignorant folk using religion as a tool had more influence than the actual teachings of the Bible.

Yes, that book has had an impact on society that can still be felt today. Not all of that impact has been positive, mind you. Look at the very simple civil rights that we as a nation refuse to afford to gays based purely on what some guy who's been dead thousands of years said. In fact, the bible was used by segregationists and slavers before them to justify their beliefs.

Not to mention the thousands of people who, over the centuries, have been drowned, hanged, suffocated, or burned alive based on a single passage that was deliberately mistranslated from the original text. I won't even bother counting the deaths in tribal lands in Africa because some Christian handed out bibles and didn't take into account that superstitious tribes that were just a generation ago worshiping animistic spirits might react quickly and harshly to accusations of witchcraft.

I have problems with people who use the bible to justify the hate, bigotry, and violence inherent in a religion that preaches love, tolerance, and peace. The bible, like many Christians, is extraordinarily hypocritcal. Glorifying it for anything other than it is (a poorly-written, greatly mistranslated, politically edited, self-contradicting, historically inaccurate collection of fables and sayings) just lends it credence it doesn't need. Quite the opposite, Christians need to either start deciding for themselves that perhaps the MEN who wrote these texts and who later translated them may have been wrong on a few things, or they need to set it aside altogether and start thinking for themselves.

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This is win/win for the supporters of the bill. If it goes through, they can say to their constituents, "Look what we did for you!". If it doesn't, they can say, "OMG GODLESS HEATHEN DEMOCRATS & OBAMA ANTICHRIST!". So, yeah. Shrewd I'll give 'em. I'll also give 'em ignorant, and reactionary.

Woot, another anti-Christian thread!

I know, rite? They've been looking for another reason to play martyr.

Poor, poor majority. Always being picked on by the mean ol' non-Christians.

So it's ok to pick on people if you are in the minority? That sounds... illogical.

I don't recall seeing anyone say that.

The implication is right there.

I can see how you would come to that conclusion, but no. I don't think it is alright to pick on Christians. I do think it is alright to point out where Christianity and/or Christians have acted wrongly, especially when those actions have helped contribute to it becoming one of the largest groups in the world.

I also think the same standards should apply to all religions, even my own.

Sounds good so long as we can also claim that Stalin and Mao have "helped contribute" to atheism becoming one of the largest groups in the world.

That might be viable if Atheism was some sort of group. As it is, Atheist is nothing more than a name applied to someone who hasn't joined any groups.

It's the name given to non-religious people, who are equally as rabid.

Wow, really?

Vocal atheists are just as bad, if not worse, than vocal $INSERT_RELIGION.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Rabid atheists are pretty bad on the internet. You know the ones that jump on any thread that wanders too close to discussing religion and start calling everyone idiots. We had one jump into a thread on another forum discussing the "Dollhouse" show and start picking fights because one of the characters used the word soul. I'm glad that Atheism is pulling down a bigger share of religious point of view pie chart every year but as it grows more and more idiots are drawn in and think they need to be the poster boy.

I don't speak to unsaved godless trash myself!

Duh. The past 30 years of minority comedians should have taught you that shit.

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Tyral claims both the high road AND the low road. All roads are his!

so much worse. every vocal religious i've known has had a "this is what i believe and this is why" disposition, and every vocal atheist has had a "this is what i believe and if you disagree you are an idiot" disposition.

seriously fuck (those) atheists

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I've had different experiences on that one. Down here on the buckle of the bible belt, if you don't agree with everything Ms. Bertha Betterthanyou says, then you're a godless hell-bound heathen who is unworthy to even talk to her. And if she shrieks loudly enough, there's always a cop nearby willing to 'chat' with you while she teeters away, trying to see past her nose.

Had a friend arrested for 'causing a disturbance' because he said he wasn't religious, when approached by one of these zealouts. Soon there were a dozen shrieking, loudly praying imbeciles, doing their best to impersonate chickens dressed as Elton John.

Yeah, I know. Anecdotal. But not uncommon down this way. That's what happens when you give several city blocks to a church.

I should charge a toll.

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Ignoring for a moment that to be atheist(and not agnostic) requires at least some belief on one's part since there is no factual data one way or the other, which may or may not be considered "joining a group". It could be considered a group in the sense that each and every person within that segment of the population made the conscious decision to either believe, not to believe, or in the case of the agnostic abstain until further evidence presents itself. I'd say that conscious decision in itself is at least a similar judgement call that all of those people made in common.

But it's similar to saying every Christian is a member of a group. Well, the only thing in common with all Christians is that they prescribe to a certain number of various beliefs. They don't all go to church, they don't all get baptized, they don't all agree on innumerable cornerstone issues.

Sarissa probably better summed it up though. It's still a group with a commonality any way you want to slice it.

The only thing I'd add is that young people(or people who have never been exposed to religion in their lifetime somehow) who have yet to make any decision about the matter probably wouldn't fit into that group.

Well, thanks for reversing the trend on the boards. You realize that no Christians on this board post preachy, shrieking messages about their beliefs, but you're doing a fine job of it yourself. You are what you despise, congratulations!

Who was posting about their beliefs? I was posting about an encounter I had with some rather annoying holy-rollers. The consensus seems to be, on these boards, that the vocal atheists are much worse than vocal believers. I thought it prudent to point out this is not always the case.

But hey, it's not your fault you've got all the analytical ability of a encephalitic marmot. I'm sure you'll be able to rant and bitch about me legitimately in the near future.

The "No, you are!" stuff is pretty common with the religious folks, Syuni. (Re: Venen's post that atheists require faith.)

Just let it go. <3

Lol.

I haven't posted any sweeping generalizations about atheists, merely responding to sweeping generalizations about Christians. Of which both Syuni and Bovinity (in the post above) have done.

But, far be it from me to get in the way of the pile on.

Syuni posted something that he said was anecdotal right up front.

My comment, while arguably sweeping, was based largely in part to posts on this thread.

So, what are my religious beliefs, sir?

"I'm not ignorant, because he was ignorant first?"

Methinks you don't understand how admitting something is anecdotal relates to the following comment: "Down here on the buckle of the bible belt, if you don't agree with everything Ms. Bertha Betterthanyou says, then you're a godless hell-bound heathen who is unworthy to even talk to her." It doesn't matter how you get to a conclusion, if the conclusion is a generalization. The irony of it is that she makes that generalization while complaining about generalizations. heh