@obi

"To be fair, CA, a lot of the folks--especially those in the Bible Belt--saying that America is and was founded as a Christian Nation and using that as justification to both push their religion on others and deny rights to others (first blacks, then women, and now gays) sound as if they're right out of the 19th century to me..."

How come you started that sentence with "To be fair" but then went on to paint 3/4's of the current population of the nation with views held by only a few of them? We're you trying to convince yourself that it was fair to say that?

"It was a cool spring evening, the sky filled with stars, in your little village outside of the...

"I again make that distinction as I did above between cutting the cord and being truly born in the sense of becoming a person"

Sounds like we might have some chilling implications for the next abortion debate. When exactly does someone become a person, of not when the cord is cut?

We had someone here once (I think it was SillyPutin) who argued that a child should be abortable even after birth.

@ Draug - without the Olympics this summer I want to watch a little gymnastics...mental gymnastics, that is.

@ CA - ha ha, touche!

@ Obi - to be fair, wasn't it the secularists who gave us the constitution that maintained slavery and denied women's suffrage and gay rights? I know I asked that question already, but I thought it bore repeating.

@FlemGem

Now you know, all the good ideas came from non-Christian diets and all of the messed up parts we're forced upon them

By the Christians who wouldn't agree to anything without messing it up ;-)

"wasn't it the secularists who gave us the constitution that maintained slavery and denied women's suffrage and gay rights?"

All the atheists on the site say we have an a-religious Constitution, that we are NOT a country founded on God. So yes, the atheist Constitution supports slavery, oppression of gays and women, etc.

"Declaring war is not a physical act in and of itself and maybe small or large. It may involve simple disobedience or may involve killing thousands of people."

...I have to disagree right from the start, Draug--

In principle maybe simple disobedience could be classified as "conflict," sure...

But as war? A toddler throwing his carrots across the room because he wants mac and cheese instead is part of the ongoing War on Parents (and Linoleum?) ;)

I think that's far too broad a definition--

All wars are conflicts, but not all conflicts are wars.

"If you wish to see to the complete elimination of a concept or belief and take steps towards that goal, you are declaring war on that concept/belief even if the action is writing a book denouncing it as false."

1. Did Galileo declare a War on Christianity when he said the Earth went around the Sun and not the other way around? Did Darwin declare a War on Christianity when he put forward a theory that said, well, maybe, just maybe a thousands-year old account of the origin of man that starts with two naked folks, a tree and a talking snake isn't as accurate as Change Over Time and Natural Selection?

There's challenging an idea because you don't like the idea, and challenging it because, well, it's wrong, full stop.

The teachings of Jesus?
Those are debatable, you can argue they're good, they're bad, on and on...
The account in Genesis?
It's wrong. It just is.

And attacking it isn't so much a War on Christianity as it is a War on Incorrect Answers--sure, it has a detrimental effect on Christianity (after all, if Genesis fails, then you kick off the Bible with a failed account and you'll have some problems keeping the faith going as a result) but you shouldn't shelter faith from facts just because the latter endangers the former.

To put it another way--no one gets on the Greeks' case for thinking man was fashioned out of metals and clay and then had the breath of life breathed into them...

It was 2500 years ago, and they needed some explanation for the kids as well as for themselves for that all-important question "Why are we here?"

Likewise, I don't begrudge the Judeo-Christian answer...it's just as wrong as the Greeks' answer, but hey, it was written at a time when there was next to no scientific understanding of how things work and in a primitive part of Judea...you work with what you've got.

But it's wrong, and saying that a belief is wrong isn't a war on that belief so much as it is a war FOR reason.

2. The United Sates Government does NOT sponsor atheism...nor does it sponsor (at least it's not supposed to sponsor) Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other viewpoint.

Secularism doesn't mean that a viewpoint is imposed upon you so much as a LACK of a particular viewpoint is imposed upon you. I know some will disagree and say Secularism does impose a view onto other people by denying a Judeo-Christian viewpoint be imposed upon them, but I'd submit that denying a viewpoint the opportunity to be submitted is not the same was submitting its own viewpoint.

Put another way, saying you can't display religious iconography on government property doesn't prevent you from displaying it in the private sector of life...

The same way that denying the right to School Prayer doesn't deny the right to prayer itself, but rather just to prayer in a publicly-funded place, which seems reasonable and fair given that A. not everyone paying for that public school is Christian (let alone the denomination of Christianity which might be being pushed...I somehow doubt Catholics would be happy with Mormonism being preached to their kids during School Prayer, and vice versa) and B. Jefferson wanted a Wall of Separation Between Church and State to PROTECT one from the other...

Christianity isn't being put in the penalty box by the US Government here--

It's being protected by those who (like me) would love argue against it...but that's not quite fair to do to your kids, after all, they're there to learn about Shakespeare, NOT about why I think Christianity is a failed idea...that's not what you're paying me for and certainly not what you teaching my kids...

But by the same token, if I had them, I don't want MY kids being forced to say "One nation UNDER GOD" and grow up with a school-sponsored idea that the US is somehow backed by or subservient to a divine power...likewise I wouldn't want my kids, if they grew up Jewish by background and atheistic by trade like me, to feel as if they're surrounded by state-sponsored Christianity and Christian iconography.

Keep your religion away from my kids and I'll keep my atheism away from yours.

Secularism is a neutral zone, if you will, NOT an atheist outpost.

3. I'll add as a quick addendum that while *I* reserve the right to criticize Christianity...

That doesn't mean the US Government endorses my doing so, only my RIGHT to do so.

If you want to say atheists are waging a War on Christianity...

Well, to be fair, call it a War on Theism, since it cuts across all religions...

But even then I'd have to say that to classify it as a "war" is a bit disingenuous for reasons outlined in #1:

I feel Judeo-Christian dogma is wrong in the same way a model of our solar system with the Earth at the center is wrong, or saying the Earth is only 6,000 years old is wrong.

If there's a war on ANYTHING, it's a War on Genesis, really...it's a war I think that's largely been won by this point, but still, that's NOT a war on your beliefs so much saying A. Your beliefs are wrong, don't have them anywhere you wouldn't want my atheism taught, ie, in the public sphere and schools, and B. Your beliefs should not receive special privileged status in the United States (ie, Intelligent Design being taught though respected scientific body endorses it, backlash against teaching actual science in science classrooms, ie, evolution, having religious iconography in state and federal institutions, ie the Ten Commandments outside courthouses and nativity scenes on taxpayer-funded property, using a religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman to deny the love of the LGBT community and subsequently deny them legal and marital rights, etc.)

"You implied there couldn't be a war because 80% of the US was Christian."

Not that there COULDN'T be, but that there ISN'T.

I'm not ruling out the logical possibility...of course a smaller group can declare war on a larger group--why, who knows, our Evil Jewish Master Plan my yet overthrow the world!

But for the PRESENT...yeah...no Jewish Master Plan...and no War on Christianity...

There are conflicts that Christians have with non-Christians in this country, but my point is there isn't a concerted, government-sponsored (or even a non-government-sponsored, terrorist-like) effort to break all your crucifixes in half and burn down all the Churches or anything like that.

There's a War of IDEAS...but that's a GOOD thing--ideas should always be at war with one another...

And frankly, if Christianity is worried about being contested and no longer given special favor, what does that say about the strength of the Christian faith (let alone the faith of those who purport to believe in it?)

"I am a firm believer in evolution as well as true ID (evolution guided by God)"

I have to ask on the side, Draug--what evidence is there God guides evolution (never mind evidence that God exists in the first place.)

"The Media and Hollywood are a very small minority of America, but they have access to the minds of America, and the media, and Hollywood, are overwhelmingly biased against Religion."

I REALLY hate that generalization, krellin, so I'll comment here briefly--

First, I hate the term "The Media," as if it's all the same super-conglomerate, as if MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and FOX are all the same...you can argue all suffer from poor journalistic standards at the moment (and to varying degrees I'd agree with you) but they're NOT all the same (and that's not even counting papers--the NY and LA times surely don't have the same views as The Dallas Morning News?--and organizations such as Reuters and the AP.)

Hollywood...I'll let that one go a bit more, as while again there's definitely some diversity in Hollywood, there IS still am interlinked studio system so you argue that's a lot more like a conglomerate than various media outlets, and I think it probably is fair to say that the majority of Hollywood folks, if not actively anti-religion, aren't exactly pro-religion.

That being said...Hollywood's also all about marketing and demographics, so they're not (generally) so stupid as to piss off 80% of their possible clientele and be openly anti-Christian.

So while in one sense Hollywood's personnel may be personally anti-religion, in another sense it DOES love to play up the Jesus-symbolism in a lot-lot-LOT of its films (Man of Steel, anyone?) and so in that sense Christianity gets a bit of a break from Hollywood (in fact, of the three Abrahamic Religions, I'd say the loser in the Hollywood system right now is clearly Islam...Jews are obviously doing well in Hollywood, and Christianity may take shots but they also get a lot of Christian themes and allegories which are put into movies...not a lot of Koranic themes and allegories in movies, and Muslims in post-9/11 America are often portrayed directly or indirectly as threats, if at all, and rarely as heroes. What's more, there are prominent Jewish Hollywood figures and definite Christian Hollywood figures...not so much with regards to Islamic Hollywood figures.)

"When a high school valedictorian can't even add a simple prayer of thanks to her God in her speech, she is being oppressed. Her faith was as much a contributing factor to her success in her mind and she should have every right to axpress that gratitude."

I'll agree with you there, Draugnar. I still agree with the school policy overall, but that being said, there ARE times when it's OK to bend the rules a little...

Letting her give a two-minute acknowledgement to her faith on graduation day seems reasonable enough, so yes, I think that was wrong of the school to punish her for that.

Jesus Christ.

tl;dr;

Obi- I gave you a definition from Webster that clearly demonstrated what I eant by war. I clearly stated *organized* conflict. Try reading my whole post, not just the first sentence. K? It's not like I wrote three pages of incoherent ramblings.

"How come you started that sentence with "To be fair" but then went on to paint 3/4's of the current population of the nation with views held by only a few of them? We're you trying to convince yourself that it was fair to say that?"

I added the qualifier to say SPECIFICALLY who I was talking about (the Bible Belt) but I do think it applies to Christians on the whole...and yes, I think it's fair to say that--

At every civil rights juncture in this country, Christians have been decidedly 19th century and slow to embrace or even accept change, and a great deal of Christian rhetoric deals with turning back the clock in a sense--

The notable exceptions to that are the Abolitionists (which is a fair exception, but as Abolitionists cited Exodus to free slaves via the Moses parable and other Christians cited Exodus IN FAVOR of slavery by citing the fact God seems to condone slavery, I'm splitting the difference here, points for, points against) and Martin Luther King, Jr., who was an unreservedly-religious man and arguably did a lot of what he did with the help of his religious convictions...I think that's a fair point--I'd likewise point out that he was one man and most of the Bible Belt stood against him on the proposition, all the while claiming to be just as if not more religiously-backed than Dr. King.

Religion is, by its nature, rooted in the past.

Christianity and Christian rhetoric, likewise, is rooted in the past--and that's not always a bad thing at all...but I think it's something that should be acknowledged.

If you want to say that Christianity is rooted in the past via tradition--fine. I agree. That can even be artistically-interesting.

But it still means your rhetoric is still rooted in the past.

"Why'd you go and do that? Askign obi to explain soemthing is like asking Sheldon Cooper to teach you a little about physics..."

IT'S A WARM SUMMER EVENING IN ANCIENT GREECE.......

;)

"First, I hate the term "The Media," as if it's all the same super-conglomerate, as if MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and FOX are all the same...you can argue all suffer from poor journalistic standards at the moment (and to varying degrees I'd agree with you) but they're NOT all the same (and that's not even counting papers--the NY and LA times surely don't have the same views as The Dallas Morning News?--and organizations such as Reuters and the AP.)"

Maybe the networks aren't all one, but it is very disingenuous of you to try and claim there aren't conglomerates int he media. The papers get their stories from the AP and the UP. Big ass conglomerates. So yes, the views presented at a national and world level in two different cities may well be the same depending which of the two conglomerates they subscribe to. Radio news? Well, Clear Channel and Fox own pretty much the whole fucking country so pretty much the majority is two big conglomerate with a few independent outliers/holdouts presenting alternative views to the liberal and far right views.

No, the news is a set of two basic conglomerates. Liberal left and extreme right-wing. Right or left leaning centrist views don't get heard outside a few local markets that happen to still have some independent stations.

So you think Christianity as a whole pushes it's views on others? I daresay you have a limited experience with Christianity as a whole and that you opinion is as wrong as the story of Genesis.

"Sounds like we might have some chilling implications for the next abortion debate. When exactly does someone become a person, of not when the cord is cut?"

Two meanings of the word "person" are in play here--

Person in the sense of being a living, breathing human being?
When they cut the cord.
Person in terms of having a discernible personality, ie, being a person distinct from others?
I'd argue that comes later.

A newborn is just a newborn--

And he can be fashioned into anything from a Shakespeare to a Hitler to a rambling college Jewish atheist Sheldon Cooper (that man has my eternal sympathy, Draug.) ;)

The Colonies were just a newborn when the Declaration cut the cord...

With the Constitution, they took on a legal and political "personality," if you will, one which has, with alterations, largely lasted to this day.

What made us different from the English or French or Prussians wasn't that we declared independence and rebelled...many did that before, many have done so since--

What made us different was we decided to set up a system of government that exemplified the ruling intellectual ideas of our time, that is, Enlightenment ideals--

No king (George Washington famously said "Do you think I fought George III in order that I might become George I?") but instead an elected republic with checks and balances and no state-sponsored religion, all completely divorced from ideas of sovereignty or religion (in contrast to the idea of Divine Right to Rule and the Church of England.)

THAT'S what made us the United Sates of America.

"Person in the sense of being a living, breathing human being?
When they cut the cord."

So you have no problem with a baby coming out of mommas womb and the doctor then crushing in the babies skull and not cutting the cord until the heart stops beating? It's not a person until the cord is cut. Isn't that what you just said?

"So while in one sense Hollywood's personnel may be personally anti-religion, in another sense it DOES love to play up the Jesus-symbolism in a lot-lot-LOT of its films"

This is actually a fairly astute observation. You can argue that it's Hollywood playing to a Christian market but I'd say it's because the Jesus story and symbolism is the best story in the world and try as they may they can't improve on it, so they keep borrowing from it. Which is perfectly fine with me.

"I added the qualifier to say SPECIFICALLY who I was talking about (the Bible Belt) but I do think it applies to Christians on the whole...and yes, I think it's fair to say that"

I'm a Christian and I live in the Bible belt. Do you assume that I'm against all the things you've spoken of? AND you think that it's fair?

Speakign of that, I finally watched 2012 the other day (great effects and a better story than I expected) and couldn't help but notice that whole main chacter being a Christ like figure even coming back "from the dead" at the end when everyone thought he had drowned. I prefered the sacrifice for others of the original Poseidon Adventure more though as each and every sacrifice was a mortal one there from the old lady who saved the reverend's life and then had a heart attack to the reverend himself giving his life to save the last half dozen that had made it to the engine room. The remake covered it somewhat with Curt Russle's character drowning and reversing the maneuvering turbines when he couldn't outright stop them, giving the rest a chance to survive.

Sacrifice is a mainstay in disaster films and it all comes back to Christ's sacrifice and his followers as martyrs for His cause.

NETWORKS AS ONE -- Actually, apart from Fox News, the overwhelming majority of the major US Media players are essentially one and the same. Next time there is a "big story" jump from station to station, and not only are the reporting the same story with the same spin, but they very often use the exact same "tag lines"...words like "gravitas" will start being floated around, or whatever...essentially, whatever their puppet-master in the White House has commanded them to say so that they can still ahve their government access, they repeat like good sheep.

No..the media *is* lumped together in this country - they don't compete are all - they just reinforce one another, and reinforce the political ideology of their Masters.

There used to be a time when a politician *feared* 60 Minutes....now they pay for the privilege of a sculpted, made-for-campaigning "interview".

Fox is at least different from the rest - but they are simply beholden to the Republican party.

"So you think Christianity as a whole pushes it's views on others?"

...Yes. Yes I do.
How did it grow from a tiny cult in Judea to the West's largest, defining religion?
How did it spread to Africa, Asia and the Americas?
Do you hear Jews and Buddhists knocking on your door spreading "The Good News," or do you (to generalize, but fairly, I think) hear of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses generally doing that sort of thing?

Yes. I think Christians push Christianity on others--SOME MORE THAN OTHERS, and I'm sure that some don't do it at all (I'm discussing the faith of a billion-plus here, nearly nothing I assert is going to hold true for all of them) but yes...yes, Christians have and do push Christianity on others.

To be fair, well, that's how religions spread a lot of the time, and religion is very concerned with the spread of itself, so I can't blame Christians for trying to push their religion on others in that sense...

Most are probably genuinely trying to help people and genuinely think they're doing a good thing by doing so (now, at least...over the course of history, I don't think we can classify the spread of Christianity as so benign in intent, especially when Jews, native peoples and other religions paid the price.)

But yes, that still means, to whatever degree, consciously or not, Christians push their beliefs on others...because they believe those beliefs and want to spread them.

"I daresay you have a limited experience with Christianity as a whole and that you opinion is as wrong as the story of Genesis."

I'm going to have to disagree...I've met a pretty damn good assortment of peoples period in oh-so-diverse Southern California...

And given that I'm vocal about my non-belief, I attract even more attention from Christians of various ilks and walks of life, and so I have a pretty good amount of experience dealing with them, I think.

(There's a reason I'd get stopped at my old community college often and be asked, "Hey, you're The Atheist, aren't you?" as if only one vocal atheist existed in the whole valley...though it's a pretty Christian valley, so who knows...but yes, I do have plenty of experience dealing with Christians.) ;)

"So you have no problem with a baby coming out of mommas womb and the doctor then crushing in the babies skull and not cutting the cord until the heart stops beating? It's not a person until the cord is cut. Isn't that what you just said?"

If you want to exchange "come out of the womb" for "cut the cord," fine by me.

I was sticking with the "cut the cord" statement for its metaphorical use regarding the American Revolution.

"How did it grow from a tiny cult in Judea to the West's largest, defining religion?"

You confuse correlation with causation. In the words of Holmes, eliminate the impossible and whatever remains must be the truth. You haven'e eliminated the impossible. Perhaps inspiration had something to do with it.

And then there is the fact that you are using the past to explain the present and not allowing for change over time. The crusades pushed Christiantiy. Yes, very much. But I asked if you believe Chrisitanity pushes (not pushed). I was asking present tense and you try to say the past proves the present, which it simply doesn't. If that were the case, then the Germans would still be gathering up Jews and putting them in concentration camps now that Germany is reunified.

You reasons for that belief are invalid and you should reallye xamine them. Arguing the past as present is beyond an educated man and makes my opinion of you sink to that of my opinion of SillyPutin. I hold you to a higher standard than that, obi (God knows why).

And the cord is cut after the baby is out of the womb. When is the baby a person and no longer eligible for abortion? Please enlighten me.

Lol Obi,

I think the fact that you interpreted "experience with Christianity" and "dealing with Christians" as equivalent tells a bit about your stance there ;-)

Oh and "Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses" are hardly the bulk of Chritianity. There are far more of most other protestant faiths than those two combined. When was the last time a Catholic came knocking on your door or a Lutheran? Probably never except to sing a Christmas carol or two and try to spread cheer during the holidays.

"I'm a Christian and I live in the Bible belt. Do you assume that I'm against all the things you've spoken of? AND you think that it's fair?"

I do and I don't--that is, from our Great Debate discussions, I think you do have views that are rooted in the past via your religion...that being said, I haven't heard you make a 19th century-esque denouncement of gay marriage or something like that (which if you do live in the Bible Belt you'll have to admit is a matter which isn't exactly welcome, after all, correct me if I'm wrong, but a quick Wikipedia check shows all the states in the Bible Belt with a state ban on gay marriage, and that's definitely religiously-fueled, especially as the states famous--fairly or not--for a "lack" of religious fervor in favor of liberalism and agnosticism--ie, the Northeast, Illinois and now, thankfully, California once again--all DON'T have such a ban.)

When you're discussing a billion-plus, some assumptions are going to be made.
Same goes for a million-plus.
I think it's fair to characterize the majority of Bible Belt Christians in some respects given that their public rhetoric supports that...

As I "know" you, I don't have to generalize or assume in your case.

And I'll be back later, after a solid hour and a half of typing just now.

Draug - just curious, how do you feel about assisted suicide?

I know - it is not *at all* a one to one correlation to murdering a baby - but I'm still curious as to your views on it.

Any fuck (and I mean that word in the most horrible sense - it is but a mere shadow of my hatred at this point...) that thinks it is acceptable to kill a baby simply because the cord has not yet been cut is not worthy of being called a human being. It is not a religious argument at this point, and if someone believes it is acceptable to kill a human with cord attached....but then this same asshole wants to get all high an mighty about protecting homosexuals from hurt feelings and not offending jews and all sorts of other bullshit...this is a being not worthy of oxygen.

And your valley of Christians hardly equates to even a significant portion of Christiandom where you can pass judgment on all of us. I wouldn't dream of passing judgment on the Jewish people despite having an entire side of my wife's family being jewish and having been to numerous jewish weddings and bar/bat-mitzvahs. Because that is still one community of Jews only. Many temples (Akron is big on Judaism) and flavors from the faithful to those who love ceremony and heritage but don't really believ to those who accept Christianity but follow the Jewish faith for it's symbolism and the fact that Christ was a Jew. Yet I wouldn't dream of trying to equate my experiences over the last 24 years of marriage as being representative of a majority of Judaism.

"And the cord is cut after the baby is out of the womb. When is the baby a person and no longer eligible for abortion? Please enlighten me."

When it's out of the womb.

And that's the last thing I'll say for a bit as I have to go, I'll be back...

I WILL say that, again, the cut the cord-thing was really more of a metaphor for the American Revolution, guys, I didn't mean it as a hard-and-fast analysis of the abortion issue.

But yes, I'd say when the baby is born, out of the mother; there are stages where I PERSONALLY would consider abortion wrong given how far the baby's progressed inside the mother (so I am OK with abortion and for weeks at least after conception, life for me does NOT begin at conception) I don't think it's a good idea to consider it legally wrong because legality and morality don't always match up.

There's a legal issue with denying a woman the right to control over her body, and YES, you can (and we have! lol!) made all sorts of arguments back and forth on the matter, but I'll leave it there for now...

Life begins at birth, when the baby is born,
I think abortion is fine for many weeks after conception,
Life doesn't begin at conception for me,
There ARE stages where I'd severely frown on a mother's aborting a fetus...
That being said, I can't in good conscience tell a woman she MUST do something with her body and suspend her control over it,
If possible I'd always rather a woman have a C-section when the fetus is viable and she doesn't want to have it or carry it rather than abort,
That being said, again, I can't in good legal or moral conscience FORCE her to carry a baby, so while the idea of aborting a baby that's 28 weeks or so along is morally repugnant to me, I can't legally back taking control of a person's body away from them.

And with that, I leave you for a while. :p