Rasa

Okay, let's try again. This time, everyone!

Instead of discussing whether or not God exists, I'd like to know: what qualities make God worthy of worship?

I'm not really looking for holy text quotes, more your own ideas.

Do the mentally ill deserve public welfare?

They make up 35% of people on disability and 28% on welfare.

1) If I put you into a situation where your life was imminently threatened, I guarantee you will experience a fear-response. If you've ever been in a situation of danger and have felt fear, it's because you're afraid of death. The only way this wouldn't work is if you were severely mentally or emotionally damaged or conditioned.

It's just how it is, people. We're biologically programmed to behave this way. Telling me you don't experience fear in the face of death is like saying you don't experience pain when you stub your toe

2) So why do you say something that's not true at all?

i) Do you say this as some preemptive defense against theists who try to use fear to control you?

ii) Are you remarking on merely the concept of death? Much in the same way I'm not averse to the concept of torture, but I am averse to actually being tortured.

iii) Something else?

I hope there are at least a couple humanists on here... haha.

Others are free to share what you think Humanism is about.

"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.9 “This, then, is how you should pray:" [LORDS PRAYER]

Matthew 6: 7-9

Does this not clearly indicate that Jesus (aka God to most Christian/Catholics) does NOT want you to repeat your prayers?

I'm an Atheist, but I was just curious what Christians think about it.

I'm asking Atheists mostly, but of course anyone is free to answer as well.

Anyway, I ask this question because it's the REAL legal and moral question about abortion (none of that religious nonsense). In our societies, "persons" have rights.

If you're 100% prochoice, then you're tacitly saying that the birthing process somehow gives us our personhood. Why? What's so significantly different between a 9month fetus and a 1 second old newborn that birth should somehow separate person from non-person?

And which stage of labor establishes personhood? When the fetus is all the way out? Head out? If it comes feet first, is it not a person yet (and have absolutely no rights)?

If birth does not establish personhood and you're still 100% prochoice, you're implying that personhood is established AFTER birth. When? 1 month? 2 years? and why? Does this non-person not have person-rights?

So to summarize the question: when do we become a person with the rights of personhood?

*** this is the level of the discussion society should REALLY be having, imo. I ask out of curiosity. I have my own views.

because they just don't realize that what makes us moral isn't what we DON'T believe in, but what we DO?

Example: I believe in inherent human rights. Calling myself an Atheist would never tell you that (because Atheism is about what I don't believe in, not what I do believe in).

I can't think of even one way. Knowing a lot and being powerful doesn't make you God. It just means you know more than me and are more powerful than me (or anyone I know of). What if it's just a super powerful alien? How would I know?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110103/ap_on_he_me/us...

So the litmus test for whether or not something is okay for a corporation is whether or not it is excessively harmful. Otherwise, they get a relatively free ticket to pollute.

But if I were to dump just one bucket of that pollution into any body of water or down a storm drain, I get a fine.

So does the corporate right to profit trump our individual "privilege" to not being poisoned or not needing to monitor/clean up some other group's mess?

Fundamentalist Christians have been mimicking mainstream institutions in recent history. For example the Creation Museum or Intelligent Design.

Why do you think these particular people are trying so hard to legitimize themselves by mimicking mainstream institutions (a real museum, actual scientific method)?

Personally, I'm beginning to wonder if their intention is to try to overthrow the mainstream institutions and replace secular society. Am I being paranoid?

Many accept that religion has a very small chance of being right, but they suggest that Atheism's chances are even lower.

Isn't this false because there is a possibility that God prefers Atheists? So being an Atheist is just as likely to get you into heaven as anything else?

I think most political debates boil down to this question, but nobody ever asks it (with the exception of libertarians, as far as I know).

Do people avoid asking the real question at the heart of most every matter because they don't want to have a real debate?

Also feel free to say whatever you want about what you think the role of government is.

Is the one that thinks the other side (liberal/conservative) is intentionally destroying the country?

I disagree with some policies from both sides. But I would never for a second pretend that they're intentionally trying to destroy the country. I think Bush was a colossal failure of a President. But I don't think he was intentionally trying to destroy the country.

Is there any hope that our political debates will ever be raised above the food fight between "good" and "evil" we have now?

with the theory of evolution?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101227/ap_on_re_mi_ea...

I've seen multiple people source this article and insist it means evolution is wrong... but it clearly says "it could upset the theories of human origins."

As in the out from Africa Model or the Multiregional Continuity Model.

So why do they confuse the two? Do a lot confuse the two? And is this an indicator that they don't genuinely understand the science or are unfamiliar with it?

When over 90% of small businesses don't make enough money to have been affected? Why didn't the media call them out on this every time they mentioned it?

Remember the original plan was to keep in place the tax cut for incomes below 200 or 250K.

In a country where this has happened:

1) Selling a war to the American people as costing 50 billion dollars and taking a couple months when it took 750 billion dollars, 7 years and hundreds of thousands of lives, including thousands of American lives.

2) Not properly outfitting the troops with body armor

3) premising the entire war on illogical, nonsensical information

4) Not having a post-war strategy

5) Torturing people in secret

6) Monitoring US citizens in secret

7) Mismanagement of the veteran's healthcare and more

What have we done to make sure this doesn't happen again? It's not about ideology, it's about a colossal failure of our intelligence agencies, public apparatuses and the American public in general to not be misled.

What's different now that would prevent it from happening again?

Some of you assert the idea that the pursuit of God exists beyond science. As an Atheist, I actually agree somewhat. But here's my problem and my question:

I don't know any other systems besides logic and the scientific process that actually produce reliable results, so what alternative system of analysis/proof do you suggest we use to find God?

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.”

Jefferson to John Adams, 11 Apr 1823

It's been 187 years and Christians still believe Jesus was born from a virgin. Would he be disappointed?

Also, what do you think this means for Jefferson: was he a deist? From what I've read, it seems like it, but I'm still not sure if that's the best characterization of what he believed. He seemed convinced that he was the only real Christian in the world, as far as I can tell.

And Christians have that shiny disk around holy people's heads (they call it a "halo")?

Pro-life supporters, doesn't it stab you in the heart as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Christians, please refudiate.

2007- Bomb found at women's health clinic.

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-04-26/us/clinic.bomb_...

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1) Why don't moderate Christians refudiate? Continously? 24/7? Shouldn't they always be refudiating; shouldn't they always have to prove they won't bomb people and clinics just like Muslims always have to prove they aren't terrorists?

2) Do you understand that this (christians bombing clinics or killing doctors who give abortions) is also terrorism?