Theocracy Watch

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
141

Jackzep, that was an awsome argument. Make them work on all religous holidays, in fact remove them from the national holiday list. If you want to celebrate them, take your own personal time off of work. You’re kids go to school and don’t get a month off in the winter. They don’t get a week off for easter. This would be so much fun.
Any ideas about this? shouldn’t it be all or nothing? RSU is the government declaring christmas a national holiday forcing religion on you?

Vegita ~ Prince of all Sayajins

142

Jewish holidays aren’t national holidays. Muslim holidays aren’t national holidays.

You want to talk about intellectual honesty? Then maybe you can explain how God created woman from Adam’s rib, explain how a talking snake convinced Adam to take a bite from the apple of Sin, how Noah collected 2 of every animal on earth and loaded them onto the Ark, how Jesus was resurrected from the dead, how a burning bush spoke to Moses, how Moses parted the Red Sea, I could go on and on for days.

You want intellectual honesty, it’s not in the Bible.

If people want to believe in the Bible, that’s great… for them. I know some of you guys read the Bible literally. Knock yourself out.

But legislating America based on biblical law is unconstitutional.

I’m not trying to force MY religious beliefs on anyone, and I don’t want anyone to force THEIR religious beliefs on me. Do you think abortion is wrong? DON’T GET ONE. Problem solved! Just because you think a fetus is a “person” with the same rights as a woman doesn’t mean that
I do. But if YOU believe that, then DON’T GET AN ABORTION.
Sure, Christians are free to vote as a block, and seek political power. Likewise, so are people who don’t want America to be a theocracy. We are also free to vote as a block.

That’s why I started this thread, to make people aware that MANY of the current leaders in the GOP want a theocracy here… people very high up in the Republican party ranks, like Rick Santorum, Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, and so on.

Read TheocracyWatch, it’s documented there very extensively.
http://wwwTheocracyWatch.com

Just curious, how come George Bush allows “some” federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, if it’s so “wrong”? Bush hasn’t banned federal embryonic stem cell research, he just won’t open up “new” stem cell lines, or fund stem cell research at the level it should be funded to make real progress. The federal government still funds it though. If it’s morally wrong, why does he allow it to continue? Why has he funded it (in a half-assed way)?

If killing is wrong, isn’t wrong to kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians (including children) in a pre-emptive war, just because you don’t like their leaders? Civilians including women and children… Are we killing them to make them free from tyranny? Or as the famous quote from the Vietnam era went, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it”? Did you cheer during “Shock and Awe” as some of the nitwits here did?

If killing is wrong, then isn’t the death penalty wrong? Why does George Bush hold the record for the Governor with the most executions? Did you know that Bush would only review the State’s case (and not the defense) and only spend about 10 minutes in review before okaying every execution?

Just curious how the holier-than-thou types can rationalize this away.

143

I think what makes me laugh the most is the people who say

"I don’t trust the government, I don’t trust politicians… except the politicans who claim they are doing “God’s will”.

I think that takes a lot of gullibility.

144

Actually, Lumpy,

Legislating based on what someone views as Biblical principles is not unconstitutional.

The First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

While the Court has broadened the Establishment Clause considerably, it hasn’t gone so far as to outlaw any particular reasoning behind legislation. Most of the breadth that has been added to the Establishment Clause comes from the Court frowning upon government adopting symbols of religion or giving money to churches or affiliated organizations.

145

[quote]Roy Batty wrote:
Bandgeek,
I appreciate the sincerity and candor of your post, but at the same time I feel as though it is an insult to my intelligence. Maybe you have a point though. Maybe the populace IS just SO STUPID that left to their own devices they aren’t equipped to make the right choices.[/quote]

Roy:

To speak to this part of your post, I don’t even think it is a MATTER of intelligence or lack thereof. The need to be taught right vs. wrong is no more a reflection on intelligence than is the need to be taught to read or write or to have to learn the skills that are specific to one’s profession. The CAPACITY to learn is there, but the KNOWLEDGE ITSELF is not innate. More later…

146

Lumpy -“Jewish holidays aren’t national holidays. Muslim holidays aren’t national holidays.”

Geez thanks for prooving for us that our nation was founded on christianity!

147

BTW, Lumpy,

On your whole “killing is wrong” schpiel, I think you ought to ask vroom his opinion on simple little rules…

However, on your stem cell position, you have a point - The President attempted a compromise that will really satisfy neither side.

148

Jackzep,
An interesting argument that I will attempt to dig in to here. This is just some “philosophizing,” and not intended to be a ‘legal’ argument, so don’t flame me.

First, Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday, but a historical celebration, like Independence Day. My history may be off, but it is celebration of the Puritan settlers breaking bread with the natives. I don’t think that the natives with whom they temporarily lived in harmony were Christians.

As for the other holidays, humans are still very intuitively connected to the changing seasons etc… Have been for thousands of years. That is why there have always been rituals particularly around the Winter Solstice, and Spring. In fact, Christian celebrations were deliberately placed at the times of the Pagan celebrations by Constantine to help make Christianity “take” faster by the populace. Christmas, which according to our current belief, is supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, who was the Christ/Soter. Only he was born in March, so they kinda “moved” his birthday to the time of year that the then-Pagan populace celebrated the Winter solstice. The same with Easter, which was placed on the time that the populace celebrated their rites of spring (fertility rites), celebrating death and rebirth. It was even named after the Pagan goddes, Astarte, and the rabbit, the Pagan symbol of fertility quickly became adapted to our own standard symbol.

If things changed a thousand years from now to a whole new set of symbols, Christianity got scrapped, Judeaism disappeared, I think that the practice of celebrating at those to basic times of year are so built-in to our collective unconscious minds, that we they would still be a part of our lives with totally new names. As humans, we need some time every year to shut down, recharge, and hit our reset buttons. Currently the celebrations do have a “judeo-christian” element, but even atheists/agnositics want to take the time off to spend with their families or reflect. That doesn’t mean that we all have to think about Jesus. In fact, if you notice, in the last 50+ years, it has become more a celebration of mass consumerism and a boost to the economy for certain industries every year.

Anyway, just because we all take advantage of taking some time off from our daily grind and spending it with family/friends, doesn’t mean that we are a practicing theocracy and just don’t realize it. You are certainly clever to put it that way, but I think you know this too, and just wanted to hit some buttons.

Addressing Lumpy’s post, it reminded me of a paper I wrote in College (over 18 years ago–EEK!), which was entitled something like, “Schizophrenia-Mental Illness or responsible for the shaping of civilization?” My premise was that through history (way before there was a DSM4) people who thought they spoke to god or angels were presumed to have their foot in the door with the divine, and I sited things like the Oracle at Delphi, Moses, Mohammed, and so on, but that they were quite possibly just undiagnosed mentally ill individuals whose “visions” influenced the masses. I think a lot of my paper also focused on the evolution of consciousness (sited some Julian Jaynes, “breakdown of the bicameral mind”). Thanks for reminding me of that memory. I will have to go see if I can dig that up, just for kicks.

149

AAARGH! I spelled “site” several times in the last post, and I meant “CITE”. Stupid dummy-head me!

150

[quote]rainjack wrote:

So am I for Biblical Rule? If it means that my 10 year-old daughter would stop having to practice how to properly apply condoms in health class - Your god damn right I’m for it.

[/quote]

I’m not attacking you, but fathers commonly feel very protective about their daughters.

I’ll agree that 10 seems a little too young to be teaching children about condoms. On the other hand, at what age do children start to experiment with sex?

I’m 24 and I remember those days in middle school, in the 6th grade, when girls were already putting out. Granted, there weren’t that many of them, but by the end of the 8th grade about half the girls were either fucking or blowing someone, according to the rumormill.
How many of you guys were chasing tail when you were around the ages of 14 to 16? These are high school ages, but still young by adult terms.

Ultimately it is the reponsibility of the parents to educate children about sex. How many parents are doing a good job? If the parents aren’t doing a good job, then what should we as a society do?

What if it’s too late when parents decide to have the talk? My wife’s little sister was pregnant at 14. I know my parents never discussed it with me; if not for school and a desire to look the information up myself, there’s no telling what stupid sexual misconceptions I would have.
Apparently the schools and parents are both falling short, since teenagers have babies all of the time.

Maybe I’m biased because I don’t have any kids, but I would think that it’s better to teach them earlier than to try to tackle the problem too late.

The bottom line is that if you’re having sex, you need to be protected against unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. If parents aren’t educating their children, then someone has to step in and do so.

151

Roy Batty: That was an awesome post. It’s too bad, in my opinion, that so many people don’t view things like “Revelations” from the bible as the insane ramblings of the mentally ill. There’s a thread in the Get a Life section where some folks are worried that the new electronic ID implants you might have heard about are actually the “Mark of the Beast” from Revelations.

Good point about the origins of the holidays too, bro. I was gonna post that stuff about Christmas and Easter myself, but you beat me to it. A lot of people don’t know about the Pagan foundations of their “Christian” holidays. Anyway, I want to repeat what I said earlier to Lumpy et al.:

Relax guys. It doesn’t matter if the Repubs have some christian backing. It doesn’t matter if the extremist right is trying to place their members as officers in the republican party. They are kooks, and can only get so far and so much. That is the wonder and joy of having checks and balances. We are not going to turn into a theocracy. Geez!

152

They have been teaching this stuff (sex ed.) in schools for a long time and things aren’t getting any better and no amount of public education can help. How long does it take for people to realize that the government can’t be a replacement for the sorry parents this society has.

153

[quote]Roy Batty wrote:
AAARGH! I spelled “site” several times in the last post, and I meant “CITE”. Stupid dummy-head me![/quote]

Does that mean you cannot become president?

154

[quote]ALDurr wrote:
rainjack wrote:

“Better yet - How is the Christian Right any worse than the Congressional Black Caucus, N.O.W., PETA, NAMBLA, or any of the other fringe freak groups that are crawling around in the Democratic Party?”

I find it HIGHLY offensive that you would include the National Black Caucus in the same breath as those nutcases from PETA and those sick freaks from NAMBLA. How DARE you compare a group who’s goals are to insure that the rights of African Americans are represented and not repressed, as they were from pretty much the founding of this country up until the mid to late 20th century, to a group who’s idea of a good time is fucking 8-year old little boys up the ass! Or to another group that avocates killing people to save lab rats from being used for testing of drugs to save human lives. I have seen alot of boarderline racist, antisemetic, mysoginistic and plain insensitve shit on here from time to time, but this analogy has crossed the line of decency![/quote]

I don’t support any of the organizations I listed as left-wing shill groups. I wasn’t ranking them in any order and I wasn’t opining on any of their beliefs.

I have to disagree with you on the CBC. They have done nothing - nothing- to further the civil-rights movement in this country?

How many of them are republican? Was J.C. Watts allowed into this bastion of racial equality? Nope.

The CBC is guilty of racism on a much greater scale than the petty shit you are accusing me of. They hate JC Watts, Justice Thomas, Condi Rice, SOS Powell, and Walter Williams. They are all black. Is it OK to hate blacks if you are black?

Where- in anything I wrote- do I say I hate blacks, or infer racism at all? Do you have any idea of my ethnicity?

The CBC is not the NAACP - or the UNCF - they are a left-wing political caucus that is concentrated on maintaining thier own power at the cost of those they supposedly represent.

155

[quote]The Mage wrote:
Roy Batty wrote:
AAARGH! I spelled “site” several times in the last post, and I meant “CITE”. Stupid dummy-head me!

Does that mean you cannot become president? [/quote]

Actually that DOES mean that in my eyes. I don’t want the president to be an “average joe” as so many of you have said is what makes him so appealling. I want him to be a fucking mental giant. He needs to be an extraordinary human being, far smarter than I.

156

[quote]Roy Batty wrote:
The Mage wrote:
Roy Batty wrote:
AAARGH! I spelled “site” several times in the last post, and I meant “CITE”. Stupid dummy-head me!

Does that mean you cannot become president?

Actually that DOES mean that in my eyes. I don’t want the president to be an “average joe” as so many of you have said is what makes him so appealling. I want him to be a fucking mental giant. He needs to be an extraordinary human being, far smarter than I.
[/quote]

According to some calculations, the President has a higher IQ than John Kerry. Therefore, we have the best of the two in office now.

157

[quote]Roy Batty wrote:

Actually that DOES mean that in my eyes. I don’t want the president to be an “average joe” as so many of you have said is what makes him so appealling. I want him to be a fucking mental giant. He needs to be an extraordinary human being, far smarter than I.
[/quote]

Really, how do you define a mental giant then? How do you know who the mental giants are? It is too often after a person?s death that their true contribution to society is known.

Also don?t forget, the people who graduate from college work for those who drop out.

One of the books I have read talked about being a generalist to run a business. You don?t have to know how a light switch works to use it. It is a waste of time learning how it works when there are people you can hire to do that for you. Just know how to use it right. (This was a heavily paraphrased quote from a good book I read about 10 to 15 years ago.)

Sorry, but I find Kerry lacking in both intelligence and ability to lead.

158

[quote]Roy Batty wrote:

Actually that DOES mean that in my eyes. I don’t want the president to be an “average joe” as so many of you have said is what makes him so appealling. I want him to be a fucking mental giant. He needs to be an extraordinary human being, far smarter than I.
[/quote]

Neither of these two candidates is much above the average, from everything we can surmise. While certainly neither is a mental midget, they are still on the fat part of the bell curve – if slightly to the left.

What they lack in intelligence they have made up for in ambition, contacts, people skills, and what have you. The measure of the man is the sum of the parts.

What matters most, in the question of choosing between them, is who is the man who can and will lead the country in the way that most conforms with where you think it should go. I know what I think is the answer (although I know you (respectfully) disagree: Bush.

159

Where do you guys get that Kerry has a lower IQ than Bush? First of all, aside from any tests, have you ever actually listened to them? The difference is staggering. Second of all, Bush’s aptitude test to get into the Texas Airguard was a shameful score of 25 out of 100, yet it was still good enough to warrant jumping him ahead of over 100 candidates on the waiting list ahead of him. Third, although I cannot remember the source because it was from a Bush biographer prior to the 2000 election, he claimed that Bush actually did take an IQ test early in college and he was a whopping 98 on the Stanford Binet. If you want to throw that out due to my lack of a source I will accept that, but it is consistent with my observations. He was rejected from local Texas university due to his low scores on his entrance exams, yet he somehow managed to get into go from there to Yale. The thing of it is, I know from reading Mage and BB that you guys are far to the right of the Bell curve, which means that you KNOW this. That means something much more sinister to me then. Despite your intelligence, you have an agenda that is advanced by that little puppet, so you are therefore Bush Apologists.

160

[quote]Roy Batty wrote:
Where do you guys get that Kerry has a lower IQ than Bush? First of all, aside from any tests, have you ever actually listened to them? The difference is staggering. Second of all, Bush’s aptitude test to get into the Texas Airguard was a shameful score of 25 out of 100, yet it was still good enough to warrant jumping him ahead of over 100 candidates on the waiting list ahead of him. Third, although I cannot remember the source because it was from a Bush biographer prior to the 2000 election, he claimed that Bush actually did take an IQ test early in college and he was a whopping 98 on the Stanford Binet. If you want to throw that out due to my lack of a source I will accept that, but it is consistent with my observations. He was rejected from local Texas university due to his low scores on his entrance exams, yet he somehow managed to get into go from there to Yale. The thing of it is, I know from reading Mage and BB that you guys are far to the right of the Bell curve, which means that you KNOW this. That means something much more sinister to me then. Despite your intelligence, you have an agenda that is advanced by that little puppet, so you are therefore Bush Apologists.[/quote]

Interesting statements. You say that Bush is dumber then Kerry because of what they say. But is this biased because you prefer his opinions? You cannot base a person?s intelligence on your like or dislike of them, or their opinions.

Let?s look at this. You said that Bush should not be president because Bush cannot speak right, but ignore when Kerry said that he voted for the 87 billion before voting against it? Or when he said the reason he said that was because it was late, and he was tired after a whole day of campaigning, when it was early afternoon when it happened? Does that disqualify him?

Also you?ve gone back into history to find fault with Bush, but ignore the fact that his studies in college were to further his ability to become a pilot in the guard. How exactly do you know there were 100 other people, how do you know he went ahead of all of them, and did any of them have the college behind themselves specific to the job? How did they do in college compared to Bush? And this is only a small part of what is involved in this. You make too many assumptions.

Also what were Bush?s grades in college? That might be a better indicator of his intelligence then a test he took one day, which he may not have even tried very hard to pass because he didn?t see the point. Seriously, other then self indulgence, what is the purpose of an IQ test?

Also how did you get access to his tests, and what was average for the aptitude test?

I remember being at the Meps station in the mid 80?s, and saw a lot of low numbers when I glanced at the folders people were carrying around. I glanced at another person?s folder and saw a 30. I didn?t know what a normal number was, and was surprised his was so much lower then mine, so I started glancing at other folders, and the highest I saw, other then mine, was in the 50?s. I was surprised I did so much better then everyone else, especially when I took the test, I didn?t give a rat?s ass about it.

I still don?t know what a normal score was then, and I know it has changed since then. I have no idea what the test was like in the 70?s.

As far as my agenda, I am fairly certain it is the same as yours. I want a better USA and a better world. Obviously we differ on how to go about this, and this is the fundamental difference between the right and the left.

As far as my statement about Kerry, it has to do with his ignoring the facts. The only way his methods work is by altering reality. We have history that can be studied.

Also there is the fact that he is so interested in how other countries think about America. We should not fall into this codependence. Our country should not be run to make others like us.

This is not an attack on him, but what I believe. I don?t need to go back to the Vietnam war to determine that, or go down the hate and attack road to get to that conclusion. I have no doubt that he believes what he is doing is right, though I think he is following too many on the left and going down the wrong path to get there.

If he becomes president, then I will respect that. He will be my president, unless he does something of which I believe constitutes impeachment. But I simply believe that Bush would be better in the long run. And I don?t need to distort the facts, or find hate to get there.