Merry Christmas Rick Perry

[Rapscallion]

Currently at work, so time is short.

I'm claiming mystical truths? Hardly. I leave that to those who think there's a divinity or other mysterious being. My stand is that there is no god, no mystical being - I leave gods and saints and other mythical beings to those not willing to realise that there is an alternative that they don't have to blame or praise and generally bugger things up with.

I'm seeing a large amount of accusations levelled my way of the errors those who oppose me are guilty of. I'm not claiming mystical knowledge. I don't claim the existence of a redeeming figure who is going to forgive us.

Oh, well, I'm so glad that your magical thinking has supplied you with the only right answers.

Quite.

I live a life that's reasonable by my standards without ascribing my actions or those of others to external and mystical influence. The theistic side has not proved any of their claims of the existence of their god figure, and thus their assertion that they should be able to pollute schools with their mental virus is irreconcilable with decent behaviour.

I don't claim to have answers, but I know bullshit when I can smell it.

Rapscallion

[Hyena Dandy]

You certainly are acting like you have special mystical knowledge, that there's no magic. The only way to know that would be with knowledge far beyond anyone born today, and you're confident enough in it that you feel comfortable referring to people in a thread who disagree with you as "People who are wrong"

[Kheldarson]

Hey, Raps, may I suggest we cease dragging this thread off topic and move the discussion of whether or not religion is real elsewhere? Like the thread I just started? I mean, I'm glad you've found all the answers for life, but I do believe that we've dragged the religious debate through politics long enough. Perhaps you can enlighten us over there.

[Rapscallion]

Incredible - you're still putting words in my mouth.

I don't have the answers to life. I just can show flaws in the answers religions provide.

Rapscallion

[Nekojin]

You know something, Raps? I've enjoyed my time on CS and Fratching in the past, but your behavior in this thread is seriously making me consider the possibility that time is done. Your behavior in this thread has been disrespectful at a minimum, and you wouldn't tolerate this from anyone else on any other topic.

Chill out.

[Andara Bledin]

I live a life that's reasonable by my standards...

And here, in a nutshell, by your own lips, is why your argument is invalid for anyone but you.

[Hyena Dandy]

Incredible - you're still putting words in my mouth.

I don't have the answers to life. I just can show flaws in the answers religions provide.

Who's putting words in your mouth?

Kheldarson and D-Yeti Esq. were attempting to use humor to defuse a volatile situation. As for me, I wasn't putting words in your mouth. I was directly quoting you, in referring to people in this thread who you disagree with as "All the people who are wrong"

[Rapscallion]

Who's putting words in your mouth?

I mean, I'm glad you've found all the answers for life

I never said I had found the answers.

What's really got my goat here is that I'm being accused of the same tricks that theists do - by the theists. I'm really not impressed, and it's not just one person doing it. I'll explain in due course.

The downside is that I can feel my blood pressure rising, so I'm going to have to take a little time to respond.

What I will say in the interim is that the context for this for me is important. Right now, the religious right is deliberately interfering in peoples' lives through politics. Transvaginal ultrasounds? Attempting to pretty much regulate women's bodies? I'm not going to let some arsehole pander to the religious right by allowing them to inflict religion on them in schools legally without comment.

That's why I'm so angry about this issue. I don't care if someone wishes me well in whatever religious sense they mean it. Up to them and whether or not they think it will do any good. It's about as effective as saying I'll go to hell.

It's when that affects people in a real way - and I'm baffled that so many are willing to excuse bizarre behaviour because the person is acting with religious beliefs.

More later, possibly in the other thread. Not decided yet.

Rapscallion

[Nekojin]

Transvaginal ultrasounds? Attempting to pretty much regulate women's bodies?

... have nothing to do with this case. You've been acting just as bad as the hyper-religious sorts who insist that allowing gay marriage is a portal to allowing pedophilia and bestiality. And you're being just as blind to the people who say, "No, that's not right."

I'm on your side on this issue, and so are many of the other posters here, but it's likely that we'll have to "wait and see" how it plays out. And then, in 6 months, when schools there are decked out in full Christmas regalia with only a dreidel or menorah tucked away in some corner, the Supremes can bring out the ban-hammer, and declare, "Your petty little state laws mean nothing to us," and we can both say, "I told you so."

But alienating the people around you over it is a poor way to express your position.

[Hyena Dandy]

What's really got my goat here is that I'm being accused of the same tricks that theists do - by the theists.

Again, I bring you to

"All the people who are wrong in this thread."

Not "All the people I disagree with." "All the people who are wrong."

If being accused of acting like theists (and not actually (most) theists on this FORUM) is that upsetting to you, instead of us saying "I'm sorry, I'll never accuse you of that again" you can just stop acting like it.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Raps, let me say it this way and maybe it will help your BP more. For a lot of us, this entire debate occurs on an "on average" basis meaning when I think religious, I'm not thinking "transvaginal ultrasound guy" any more than if I think atheist I'm thinking Pol Pot. I'm not thinking the crusades, nor am I thinking about Stalin rounding up and murdering Christians. When people accuse atheists of things, honestly it's a very specific type of accusation because theists and atheists are fundamentally operating differently although both are full of potential douchebaggery.

I get disliking the political things some religious people do, but it becomes disengenous that if a person belongs to a group, they are responsible for all members of that group. People who believe in gun rights are not responsible for Dylan Klebold. People who believe in a god are not responsible for evangelicals. It's a rhetorically iffy argument because it constantly requires your opponent to constantly reestablish ethos. What it amounts to though is extended ad hominem.

So when you get to THIS topic, you need to realize that some of us are just operating on the issue itself regardless of our personal beliefs. Read the full text of the bill. You won't find where this conflicts with current Supreme Court cases which have leaned heavily on the side of curtailing specifically Christian celebrations at the expense of others. So when you say "inflicting religion", I honestly don't know what you mean. Expressing a celebratory thought to another person through your particular chosen idiom isn't oppressive, it should be protected speech. You can't protect everyone else by limiting speech. If I had a problem with pluralism, I couldn't operate in NY. The Christian is as welcome as the Jewish as the Atheist as the Muslim. You think I have a problem if someone wishes me happy Kwanzaa? Hell no. I'd ask where the party is.

[Nekojin]

Read the full text of the bill. You won't find where this conflicts with current Supreme Court cases which have leaned heavily on the side of curtailing specifically Christian celebrations at the expense of others. So when you say "inflicting religion", I honestly don't know what you mean. Expressing a celebratory thought to another person through your particular chosen idiom isn't oppressive, it should be protected speech. You can't protect everyone else by limiting speech. If I had a problem with pluralism, I couldn't operate in NY. The Christian is as welcome as the Jewish as the Atheist as the Muslim. You think I have a problem if someone wishes me happy Kwanzaa? Hell no. I'd ask where the party is.

The catch here is that established Federal law - between actual laws and rulings on those laws - say, "No religion in government agencies." Public schools are government agencies. When a State attempts to say, "Yes, religion in public schools, as long as you pay lip service to the idea that there are other religions," they're breaching the fundamental stance of the Federal laws.

Clause 1B is voidable on its very face. The rest of it is suspect and probably voidable.

[Rapscallion]

And, incidentally, this post? Oh, wow. "Sorry to all the people who are wrong" ? This could not have worded that in a more dickish way if it had typed it out in a special font made of letter shaped dicks. The level of condescending smugness contained in it was absolutely unnecessary.

I should manage more condescension? Easy to do, but take it from me, being offended by someone is far less painful than some of the things done in the name of religion.

I want to echo Andara here. Please, Raps. Enlighten us. What mysterious truths do you wield.

I don't. I leave mysterious truths to the religious.

You know something, Raps? I've enjoyed my time on CS and Fratching in the past, but your behavior in this thread is seriously making me consider the possibility that time is done. Your behavior in this thread has been disrespectful at a minimum, and you wouldn't tolerate this from anyone else on any other topic.

Chill out.

So, is your comment just because I run the board or because you can't debate the points? If I was another former who was coming up with these points, would your reaction be different?

Why wouldn't I accept it from others? In what way have I gone against the board rules?

This is already framing the debate in a dishonest way. There is no current scientific evidence that proves that a god or gods exist.

In no way, shape, or form is this dishonest. It's dishonest to say that something exists and not back it up, instead relying on word play to try and make a point. Scientists have to do that for their claims. The response of the religious is to go further towards the gaps where their god can hide, and the gaps are getting smaller.

I don't have a burden of proof. I am not claiming something exists, and to try to present to children that a religious option is legally allowed and thus it is accepted as a factually accurate state of affairs is not, in my view, acceptable.

And you're being incredibly disprespectful to those members of the community who have a faith.

It's a debate forum. Rule 2 is the pertinent one, if a cursory glance of the rules suffices. By the way, I find religion's intrusion into the secular life to be offensive. Where does that leave us?

This isn't a valid question.

Religion doesn't do anything in and of itself. Neither does science. Or charity. They provide frameworks in which people can do things.

I don't accept that; when you've got instructions from a claimed deity telling you to do things, that's not a framework - that's direct commands.

The question is this: If humanity didn't have the kind of greed for power and/or control that lead us to murder, extreme exploitation, and violence, would we have religion?

I'd actually suspect that we wouldn't have survived as a species without being some of the most efficient survivors around. I think it used to be useful in less socially enlightened times, but I also think we've evolved to a point where we can discard it.

No, you're not. You think you are, but when you say that bad is because religion while dismissing that good can be because religion, you're being a hypocrite. Either both good and bad can be because religion or neither can. It's either intrinsic or it's not. It cannot be conditionally intrinsic.

I believe I actually asked the question as to whether or not the good done by religion outweighed the evils it caused. I'm still waiting on the answer. I certainly didn't in that state that there was no good. I know of people who have received charity from church organisations, including mental health. I know of people who have derived great support from similar. I don't personally know of anyone who was raped as a child by a priest or beheaded by a muslim for being a soldier, but I'm pretty certain that's happened. I'll be over here, waiting for an answer to my question.

I know there's far more to deal with and that I've missed fair chunks, but there's always tomorrow (or later tonight) and I have to admit that Panacea's posts are going to be interesting to respond to.

I'll leave you with one thought for now. I'm quite happy for people to have a religion, but they've been overstepping the bounds of reasonable behaviour for far too long. They've started affecting others - whether it be the Christian right in the US (you sneeze, we catch a cold) or the muslims in the UK etc. This whole issue of protecting a religiously inspired ritual phrase in schools is imparting far more legitimacy to a faith than is reasonable.

Would the same protection be afforded if a muslim child wished his classmates happy eid? I'd like to think so. I can't accept that it would be. Can anyone who has studied the law in question tell me if it just covers one religious festival, or all festivals for all religions?

Rapscallion

[Hyena Dandy]

If I was another former who was coming up with these points, would your reaction be different?

Yes. If another forumer said "Sorry to all the people who are wrong in this thread" and proceeded to make baseless and non-specific comments about 'claiming victory' then I would have reported them.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Clause 1B is voidable on its very face. The rest of it is suspect and probably voidable.

I'm not sure what you're referencing unless you can provide it, I'm not really sure how to address it. 1.b.(2) however specifically states the interpretation of the Supreme Court's ruling in ACLU v. Schundler (1999). So no, unless the court becomes more liberal, 1.b should be fine. 1.b.1 might be problematic, but that's a simple matter of changing the word "or" to "and." And frankly the State can manage the issue before it gets to the supreme court so if someone sees the problem, it will get addressed unless they're specifically looking for another trial balloon.

Like most laws, of course it could be voidable but it really just depends on the politics of the court that hears it. But it needs to be directly at odds with the Supremacy clause and I just don't know what Federal Law it would violate. The bill does not enforce religion, rather it says its historical context can be taught, that secular symbols and other religions must be respected.