It extends all the way to the point where the government doesn't get to make employers the nannies of their employees via unConstitutional benefit mandates.
Forget the theological angle; why should Hobby Lobby have to provide coverage for ANY birth control, or cancer treatment, or rectal exams or whatever the hell else they don't want to pay for?
There's not even an option in SlaveryCare to offer employees increased cash wages in lieu of insurance. Because employees and employers are just too incompetent to manage their own lives and businesses.
If maph could expend half the energy he wastes on tripe like this on some goal that would build something he would be an unstoppable producer. Instead we have this waste "of what was once a great mind".........
Hey, I'm just trying to warn people about the danger of theocracy, which is a very real threat, though conservatives typically don't realize it, or refuse to admit it.
Maph, your ideals are being shaped by the trash you are accepting as knowledgeable sources. One thing I can tell you is that they are as rabidly hate mongering rags as any mouth organ of a propagandist dream.
My lands man, how can you accept this piece as at all balanced? It's obscenely slanted - just like every marginal "source" you have posted here for months. Shear garbage. Mental candy for non-thinkers and at the very worse it's propaganda written by somebody who thinks that all churches should be closed up, religion banned and all bibles burned.
You are capable of so much better than THIS! Don't allow these sort of bottom dwellers to keep shaping your mind and thoughts. It's poison.
My dear boy, I see in your awesome ability to research and analyze true marks of greatness in whatever you do. BUT you have got to make a effort to screen out the trash that collects in the web like no place in our history. There was a day that due to the cost of publication, a person could be comfotable in assuming that anything that got published was worth looking at. As time has passed and it seems that printed information has gotten cheaper and more widely distributed. The web can almost be free.
Today on the web information is so cheap that ANYBODY for less than the cost of a quality textbook can setup a site and become a "published authority" on any subject. This has also allowed any crackpot suffering with insomnia and minimal literary skills to setup a website proclaiming his wildest vulgarities. And passing them out to the unsuspecting as fact, truth and marching orders for the mindless foot soldiers of the far left or far right.
In this country we have strong ties between the establishment of our nation and religion. Religion is neither the boogyman some fear or the guide for government some would like it to be. Almost all our laws and all of the Bill of Rights are precepts laid out in the Christian faith, yet there has NEVER been a drive to make our government a theocracy, unlike all those countries in the middle east that are now commanded by Muslim Theocracies. There were those in S. America that were controlled by the religious leaders until they disappeared from history. Evangelical Christians have no desire to rule this country, none at all. That does not mean that they won't run for office, protest, march and do all the things any American does who cares about his country.
If you are concerned by the money the family who owns Hobby Lobby has and how they might use it, I'd caution about that. They have just as much power as you or I do, or even Mike Bloomberg - one man, one vote. How they spend their money is their business, not ours.
All sources are inherently biased, because all people are biased. It's impossible for any human being to write anything without inserting their own personal prejudice into it. There is no such thing as a non-partisan source. The only question is, "To whom is the writer partisan?" It would be unwise to dismiss an entire set of data simply because it happens to be partisan to a group you personally dislike, or because it presents ideas which make you feel uncomfortable. When you do that, you're letting your own bias get in the way of rational thinking. Therefore, it's best to gather information from a multitude of sources, each with different slants (and all information is slanted). Only by viewing information through a wide variety of lenses will it ever be possible to obtain real truth.
The fact is that Hobby Lobby has no connection whatsoever to education. The writer did not provide evidence to support his conclusion. He is therefore not reporting his is making an accusation that is unfounded.
And now we have a person stating simply what you should have found for yourself Maph. If you ever apply some reasonable filtering to your "sources", limiting them to those who will give you the proof of the data they state.
Facts are much more important than opinion. Evidence is golden but only to the point that it applies to your subject.
Here is what we know of the owners of Hobby Lobby; They are wealthy. They are a family with a closely held company. They won their fight against O-care. They are a religious family.
Here is what we KNOW about the Hobby Lobby Folk's employees; They are well paid, between a beginning at above minimum wage, to twice min. wage. The healthcare they are provided gives good coverage, including 16 of 20 birth control methods. They have a good vacation package, maternity leave, even educational help is available.
From my personal conversations with employees of Hobby Lobby employees, they are pretty happy with their jobs, benefits and pay packages.
Maph - every point I listed I can look up and give you a website that confirms each and every point with data from interviews and from published data about the company. As livefreely stated, your "source" lists no data or references.
Without sources the thing is just opinion and accusations. .
I am not disputing any of those points. I am simply shining a light on the fact that Hobby Lobby executives have a plan to try and teach religious doctrine through the public school system. Granted, their plan may not be successful, but it is incredibly foolish to assume it is automatically doomed to failure.
And livefreely is simply sticking his head in the ground and trying to pretend that large corporations have no ability to influence public education. We all know that Hobby Lobby has no DIRECT connection to the public school system, but that doesn't mean they can't influence the system through the legislative process by buying politicians and bureaucrats to impose their will on the community.
There is no proof that this is Hobby Lobby's plan maph, There is not one shred of evidence offered except that the owners are Christians.
I could say that you intend to force public schools to teach homosexual sex for four years - it does not make it true. Where is the evidence? There's none on that site.
Lets not inject reality into the situation. Even if HL hoped to do something like this there would be many barriers to to them actually implementing it. Besides, how could a private company - even if they were trying to seduce a school district into allowing their agenda - manage to mandate anything in the curriculum. That power, apparently, is cornered by the politically correct.
Incidentally, my children's traditional school once taught homosexuality as a biologically legitimate lifestyle. LOL. Naturally I had words with the "science" teacher over this as well as their stealth assembly where my kids were lectured for a hour about global warming and their "role" in protecting the environment. Oddly enough the global warming assembly gave no forewarning to parents AND had no opposing perspective presented.
You're right in that there are significant barriers in place, but that doesn't mean Hobby Lobby's plan doesn't exist.
And homosexuality does have a legitimate basis in biology. Countless studies have verified this. To deny this is to deny reality.
As for global warming, that also has a legitimate scientific basis as well, though there is a debate as to whether it's being caused by pollution or by the Sun. But either way, the planet is definitely warming. Even Glen Beck agrees that the Earth is heating up, though he takes the position that the Sun is the cause.
Baited. Explain how it LOGICALLY fits into the biological evolution of any species?
Homosexuality does exist so I give the people who are homosexual their due respect as human beings. But the reality is its a scientific and biological abnormality (look up the word, its not an insult) that is counter to evolution.
Only half the planet is warming. The other half is cooling (well, the exact proportions depends on what time of year it is). Every morning... and every evening...
I never said he has authority, I said he has a plan. The fact that he doesn't hold any authority himself is irrelevant. He doesn't NEED to hold any political power, he only needs to have money, which he does. People who have both a plan and money can buy legislators to implement their plan.
I gather news from a wide variety of sources. Daily Kos is but one among many. Occasionally I'll even try to get coverage of the same event from opposing sides just so I can be sure one isn't clouding my judgement more than another.
If a person is known to be a peddler of propaganda and falsehoods to the exclusion of all else, I feel completely free to ignore them. The daily kooks fit well in this category. On the rare occasions that truth passes across their sites pages it's either an accident OR there is some other goal in mind.
Any large company has the potential to impact the public education system. For example, Microsoft is a software development company, yet they're also a big proponent of Common Core, and one of the main reasons why Common Core is becoming so widespread. Your incessant belief that large corporations have no ability to influence public education is totally irrational, and has no basis in reality.
You know what the rea danger is don't you? Well I'll tell you. It is the belief that birth control is women's responsibility. I hereby say start snipping men.
But no matter who's responsibility it is nobody should be forcing everyone else to pay for it.
Condoms are not expensive, certainly less than you spent on the date. Ditto for birth control pills, Walmart has them on their special program in their pharmacy
Either sex can get birth control materials for free if they are unable or unwilling to pay for it themselves.
So the other night we're waxing the floor in front of the pharmacy. It's about 3 am I guess. A woman walks around until she gets to the fence closest to where I'm waxing and whispers, asking me to get her something from the pharmacy. I asked her what she needed. She whispered something again. I asked her, "what?" "I NEED CONDOMS". "Oh! Well you can get them yourself, just go around past our fence, you can get into the pharmacy."
I felt bad, since if I'd just given her directions I could have saved her some needless embarrassment.
What did I care if she wanted rubbers? She wasn't going to have sex with me, that was darn sure...
Hey, when my parents decided they'd had enough kids (or as I sometimes put it, "took one look at me, and..."), my dad got a vasectomy.
Me, I've never needed birth control; long ago I decided that I'd never make love to a woman I wasn't willing to marry and raise a child with. If she feels differently... well, as I told an ex-girlfriend once, "I can't control who you sleep with; I can only control who *I* sleep with."
(which was terrible grammar, I know. It should have been "with whom you sleep" and "with whom I sleep", but I wasn't such a grammarian back then...)
Yes, it is. It is the worship of a murderous ball of rock infested with life, by placing its imaginary "needs" ahead of the very real needs of our own species.
I am confident that Rand would place the Green religion on the same plane as any other religion.
Not a bit surprised. We see this in the Gulch all the time. You say that you have no idea where "everything" came from and the next thing you know someone wants you admit that Christ is King.
The basic problem is our legal ambivalence with religion because of the horrible wars that religionists perpetrated on each other. We insist that church and state be separate, so churches evade taxation, even though taxes have been collected for churches. You had the right to believe in any Supreme Being of your choice, or else you could not vote or serve on a jury.
So, someone figured out that they could get past the unconstitutional (anti-constitutional) ACA, and somehow that justifies a religious incursion into the public schools -- which themselves are constitutionally problematic, of course.
It is a mess because consistent, objective foundations are lacking for making these decisions.
There is absoulute historical proof that bad people are everywhere. A certain king decided he would be the head of a new religion. If put into political terms there were Dumbocrats and Republicans. One wanted to go to war and the other decided to run. Another party emerged who wanted things their way and they decided to attack the peaceful region The coward decided he would stick them with a pin. Now they push their politics in the classroom and no one else is allowed.
Hey, Genius... what kind of theocracy was the Soviet Union, communist Vietnam, Cuba, China, etc? Not exactly noted for being "religionists", these atheocracies still hold the record for perpetrating horror.
The separation of church and state is to protect the right to exercise one's religion from *state* intrusion, NOT to protect thin-skinned (censored) from being exposed to religious views.
Christianity is a derivative of pagan mysticism. Therefore, EVERY Christian is a thorough-going mystic, because that's what Christianity is. So you are technically correct that Hitler was a mystic, but that doesn't change the fact that he was still a Christian.
"To some liberal Christians, the Pagan-Christian parallels are convincing proof that much of the magical components of the gospels are of Pagan origin: the virgin birth, bringing dead people back to life, the many miraculous healings, exorcisms, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, Jesus' anticipated return to judge humanity, etc. These stories were derived from Pagan material that had been circulating for centuries when Jesus was born. Except for the occasional coincidence, that material cannot refer to real events in Jesus' life. Many key Christian beliefs have to be questioned and perhaps abandoned.
One comforting factor may be a recognition that some of the basic teachings of Christianity and some of the traditionally accepted events of Jesus' life may actually be over 4,500 years old, grounded in the pre-history of humanity. Another is that, when we strip away the miraculous and supernatural legends in the gospels which came from Pagan sources, we are left with the natural. What remains is a story of an itinerant Jewish teacher who taught through parables and by example. It is the core teachings of Jesus which emerge from the gospels -- undiluted by Pagan material."
DailyKos is no more slanted than any of the other news sites which typically get posted here. It just happens to be slanted in the opposite direction.
I suppose you don't need to watch the video, as the transcript of what was said is written right there, so you could just read it if you prefer. But sticking your head in the sand and pretending Hobby Lobby doesn't actually have these plans is a denial of reality.
I love your assumptions about me. For instance have I posted a single link? Cant remember? The answer is No.
Just for your general fund of knowledge I cant stand either party. I am for small government which neither party supports.
The Republicans rob you blind and the Democrats make sure you are too poor to rob. Not much difference to be seen for the people having their pockets picked.
Zealots of either stripe are a ridiculous pain in the ass.
I am not sticking my head in the sand.
Unlike you I understand the reality that Hobby Lobby is not now, nor is it ever likely to be, in a position to mandate anything of the sort in the public schools.
Did you not read that far in my post?
In a private school they could, but not in the public schools. And in a private school that is perfectly ok.
Something else to think about too, if they did set up private schools like that plenty of people would prefer that to the public schools.
The only one denying reality here is you, but then you are busily surrounding yourself with straw man arguments so there is no room for reality.
"Unlike you I understand the reality that Hobby Lobby is not now, nor is it ever likely to be, in a position to mandate anything of the sort in the public schools." --- Only if we stop them. They've got plans to do exactly that. You seem to be operating on the assumption that these plans are inherently doomed and guaranteed to fail, while the truth is that they will only fail if we fight back against them. Sure, Hobby Lobby may not be in a position to mandate anything RIGHT NOW, but they are very clearly attempting to put themselves into such a position, and they will succeed if we don't fight back.
If you want to obsess over Hobby Lobby you go right ahead. Apparently its very existence punches buttons for you.
Apparently have no problem with the ACA / Obamacare and the consequent government takeover of health care itself. So there isn't really a lot of room for discussion.
You like big government and all its ills, and I do not.
I am not upset by the existence of Hobby Lobby, I'm upset by their plans to push their own personal religious beliefs onto the general population through the public school system.
And I don't support the the Affordable Care Act, either. I think if we're going to have a public healthcare system, it should be done on a state level, not a national level. That way it would have greater flexibility, and the people would be able to control it more effectively at a local level.
I also don't like big government. But I don't like theocracy, either, not even if it's limited to a state level. Separation of church and state is something I believe in very strongly, and I will fight against any religious organization which tries to impose itself onto the general public.
If you did not support Obamacare you should be supporting their winning that limited victory against it.
But since You dont like their belief system you twist their victory against that law as some sort of empowerment to mandate religious instruction in the public schools.
Since you are against religion in schools, why do you not protest the allowances given to other faiths? Or is it simply Christianity you hate?
This model you fear more closely resembles the traditional educational system that gained us the best educated and most literate population on the planet, than does the current, Christianity-free educational system.
I will never understand why some people fear religion so much. This story is written like they just solved a crime. Hobby Lobby objected to the birth control mandate on religious grounds. It's perfectly understandable that they would support teaching religion in schools. I doubt that they will be successful.
I didn't say you were being sarcastic. What I meant was that *I* was being sarcastic. Looks like you need to check your reading comprehension as well...
No, Communism is socialization of the means of production, and nothing else.
And I agree, freedom of religion is very important. But what you need to realize is that you cannot have freedom of religion without freedom from religion. The first cannot exist without the second. If people do not have freedom FROM the religious beliefs of others, then no one can have freedom OF religion. The two go hand in hand, and are inseparable.
"No, Communism is socialization of the means of production, and nothing else. "
Oh my no. Communism is much more than just that. It's practiced as a complete system and if you bother to look at it, religion is suppressed. Pastors that are allowed to stay become government employees and the church is ran as a propaganda arm of the government and they were told what to say..
In Russia the churches were only visited by the very old who continued to go out of a old pattern of life. All Jews who stayed were sent to Siberia along with most Christians of working age. These were the ones who refused to recant their religion.
For all intents there was no religion practiced in Russia, getting caught holding "church" in your home and you next stop would be aboard a train heading to Siberia.
As practiced in Russia, there was no freedom of religion.
It depends on which Communist nation you're talking about. Some have suppressed freedom of religion, while others have not. Cuba, for example, allowed open religious practice. I'll have to do more research into the Soviet Union's policies, but I'm pretty sure they only banned religion initially, and then eventually relented and allowed open religious practice as well.
Also, that's the definition which was established by Ludwig von Mises, who is one of the few anti-Socialist writers who actually has a scientifically and historically accurate account of what Communism and Socialism actually are. Most other writers **coughcleonskousencough** tend to spread misinformation by engaging in historical revisionism and fear mongering.
It's not an oversimplification, it's a historically and scientifically accurate definition. Communism means to put the entire population in collective control of the means of production (i.e. in control of businesses). Of course the entire population cannot act collectively except through some kind of legislative authority or electoral body, which inevitably means that putting businesses under the control of the people translates into putting them under the control of the government. Nothing else except that can ever rightly be called Communism, and to attach the labels of Communism or Socialism to any other idea is a distortion of the truth.
Communism is theft of people's minds, their means of production.. Either all fail,( well except those who govern) or all succeed. Eventually if all succeed they get lazy and they quit learning how to be creative because they lose their survival skills. It depends too much on perfect conditions. What if there is a drought or a plague or a shortage of steel or overpopulation? Who do you kill and who decides? I guess that is a job for the evil Professor Ferris.
You can't say people were "meant" to be anything without accepting a creator who had intentions. Also you don't think they should be free because you think they need a government to take a portion of their property, by force if necessary, to support the general public.
As I was already "researching" video clips for my "Philosophy from Babylon 5" post, I happened to think of this clip by your comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJmuHNDc...
"“You know what happens when atheists take over—remember Nazi Germany?” Many Christians point to Nazism, alongside Stalinism, to illustrate the perils of atheism in power.1 At the other extreme, some authors paint the Vatican as Hitler’s eager ally. Meanwhile, the Nazis are generally portrayed as using terror to bend a modern civilization to their agenda; yet we recognize that Hitler was initially popular. Amid these contradictions, where is the truth?
A growing body of scholarly research, some based on careful analysis of Nazi records, is clarifying this complex history.2 It reveals a convoluted pattern of religious and moral failure in which atheism and the nonreligious played little role, except as victims of the Nazis and their allies. In contrast, Christianity had the capacity to stop Nazism before it came to power, and to reduce or moderate its practices afterwards, but repeatedly failed to do so because the principal churches were complicit with—indeed, in the pay of—the Nazis.
Most German Christians supported the Reich; many continued to do so in the face of mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel. Elsewhere in Europe the story was often the same. Only with Christianity’s forbearance and frequent cooperation could fascistic movements gain majority support in Christian nations. European fascism was the fruit of a Christian culture. Millions of Christians actively supported these notorious regimes. Thousands participated in their atrocities.
What, in God’s name, were they thinking?
Before we can consider the Nazis, we need to examine the historical and cultural religious context that would give rise to them."
I don't know. What about all the Christians who support Obama and his regime, when they could have stopped it, hmmm?
"mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel."
Christianity didn't make it depraved and murderously cruel. It wasn't depraved and murderously cruel because it was fundamentally Christian. Or Moslem. Or Jewish. Or Buddhist. Objectivism has as much to do with Nazi Germany's depraved and cruel nature as Christianity. Because Objectivism can as easily be warped as can Christianity to justify depravity and cruelty.
Again, like with communists and all the rest on the left, religion, any religion, is just a tool to further their agenda, not a motivating belief system.
That's utter nonsense. Much of the "state religion' revolved around the historic pagan religions of the Germanic regions. And all religious references were used by the Nazis to promote their agenda... just like communists do.
"“You know what happens when atheists take over—remember Nazi Germany?” Many Christians point to Nazism, alongside Stalinism, to illustrate the perils of atheism in power.1 At the other extreme, some authors paint the Vatican as Hitler’s eager ally. Meanwhile, the Nazis are generally portrayed as using terror to bend a modern civilization to their agenda; yet we recognize that Hitler was initially popular. Amid these contradictions, where is the truth?
A growing body of scholarly research, some based on careful analysis of Nazi records, is clarifying this complex history.2 It reveals a convoluted pattern of religious and moral failure in which atheism and the nonreligious played little role, except as victims of the Nazis and their allies. In contrast, Christianity had the capacity to stop Nazism before it came to power, and to reduce or moderate its practices afterwards, but repeatedly failed to do so because the principal churches were complicit with—indeed, in the pay of—the Nazis.
Most German Christians supported the Reich; many continued to do so in the face of mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel. Elsewhere in Europe the story was often the same. Only with Christianity’s forbearance and frequent cooperation could fascistic movements gain majority support in Christian nations. European fascism was the fruit of a Christian culture. Millions of Christians actively supported these notorious regimes. Thousands participated in their atrocities.
What, in God’s name, were they thinking?
Before we can consider the Nazis, we need to examine the historical and cultural religious context that would give rise to them."
"If a page was recently created here, it may not yet be visible because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes and try the purge function."
Christianity has been borrowing from paganism since its inception. The Christmas tree is a pagan symbol, and so are bunnies and eggs on Easter, which is also a pagan holiday. The point is Christian fundamentalism is what lead to the pseudo-theocracy of the Nazi regime. The fact that the Nazis borrowed from German paganism doesn't change that, because that's something all forms of Christianity have always done.
The Catholic church didn't "borrow" from paganism. It warped and twisted pagan themes in order to expedite the conversion of pagans to Christianity.
Are you suggesting that Torquemada was a contemporary of Hitler?
Hitler "borrowing" from paganism didn't make hiis regime Christian. The Nazis also "borrowed" from Christianity and Judaism (and Islam, for that matter) to create a mishmash of *ideology* to promote their agenda. Similar to the way the early Roman empire "borrowed" from its neighbors' pagan religions to make a mishmash of Roman religion promoting the supremacy of Rome more than a "true" faith.
The Catholic church didn't "borrow" paganism, it rewrote paganism.
The Nazi regime was NOT theocratic, unless you want to call state-worship "theocratic" in which cast the Soviet Union, again, had them beat cold.
It extends all the way to the point where the government doesn't get to make employers the nannies of their employees via unConstitutional benefit mandates.
Forget the theological angle; why should Hobby Lobby have to provide coverage for ANY birth control, or cancer treatment, or rectal exams or whatever the hell else they don't want to pay for?
There's not even an option in SlaveryCare to offer employees increased cash wages in lieu of insurance. Because employees and employers are just too incompetent to manage their own lives and businesses.
(That's from AS part III maph)
My lands man, how can you accept this piece as at all balanced? It's obscenely slanted - just like every marginal "source" you have posted here for months. Shear garbage. Mental candy for non-thinkers and at the very worse it's propaganda written by somebody who thinks that all churches should be closed up, religion banned and all bibles burned.
You are capable of so much better than THIS! Don't allow these sort of bottom dwellers to keep shaping your mind and thoughts. It's poison.
My dear boy, I see in your awesome ability to research and analyze true marks of greatness in whatever you do. BUT you have got to make a effort to screen out the trash that collects in the web like no place in our history. There was a day that due to the cost of publication, a person could be comfotable in assuming that anything that got published was worth looking at. As time has passed and it seems that printed information has gotten cheaper and more widely distributed. The web can almost be free.
Today on the web information is so cheap that ANYBODY for less than the cost of a quality textbook can setup a site and become a "published authority" on any subject. This has also allowed any crackpot suffering with insomnia and minimal literary skills to setup a website proclaiming his wildest vulgarities. And passing them out to the unsuspecting as fact, truth and marching orders for the mindless foot soldiers of the far left or far right.
In this country we have strong ties between the establishment of our nation and religion. Religion is neither the boogyman some fear or the guide for government some would like it to be. Almost all our laws and all of the Bill of Rights are precepts laid out in the Christian faith, yet there has NEVER been a drive to make our government a theocracy, unlike all those countries in the middle east that are now commanded by Muslim Theocracies. There were those in S. America that were controlled by the religious leaders until they disappeared from history. Evangelical Christians have no desire to rule this country, none at all. That does not mean that they won't run for office, protest, march and do all the things any American does who cares about his country.
If you are concerned by the money the family who owns Hobby Lobby has and how they might use it, I'd caution about that. They have just as much power as you or I do, or even Mike Bloomberg - one man, one vote. How they spend their money is their business, not ours.
Facts are much more important than opinion. Evidence is golden but only to the point that it applies to your subject.
Here is what we know of the owners of Hobby Lobby;
They are wealthy.
They are a family with a closely held company.
They won their fight against O-care.
They are a religious family.
Here is what we KNOW about the Hobby Lobby Folk's employees;
They are well paid, between a beginning at above minimum wage, to twice min. wage.
The healthcare they are provided gives good coverage, including 16 of 20 birth control methods.
They have a good vacation package, maternity leave, even educational help is available.
From my personal conversations with employees of Hobby Lobby employees, they are pretty happy with their jobs, benefits and pay packages.
Maph - every point I listed I can look up and give you a website that confirms each and every point with data from interviews and from published data about the company. As livefreely stated, your "source" lists no data or references.
Without sources the thing is just opinion and accusations.
.
And livefreely is simply sticking his head in the ground and trying to pretend that large corporations have no ability to influence public education. We all know that Hobby Lobby has no DIRECT connection to the public school system, but that doesn't mean they can't influence the system through the legislative process by buying politicians and bureaucrats to impose their will on the community.
I could say that you intend to force public schools to teach homosexual sex for four years - it does not make it true. Where is the evidence? There's none on that site.
Incidentally, my children's traditional school once taught homosexuality as a biologically legitimate lifestyle. LOL. Naturally I had words with the "science" teacher over this as well as their stealth assembly where my kids were lectured for a hour about global warming and their "role" in protecting the environment. Oddly enough the global warming assembly gave no forewarning to parents AND had no opposing perspective presented.
And homosexuality does have a legitimate basis in biology. Countless studies have verified this. To deny this is to deny reality.
As for global warming, that also has a legitimate scientific basis as well, though there is a debate as to whether it's being caused by pollution or by the Sun. But either way, the planet is definitely warming. Even Glen Beck agrees that the Earth is heating up, though he takes the position that the Sun is the cause.
Homosexuality does exist so I give the people who are homosexual their due respect as human beings. But the reality is its a scientific and biological abnormality (look up the word, its not an insult) that is counter to evolution.
another PSA.
Every morning... and every evening...
Maybe the mobile layout is confusing you. Here's the desktop version:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/10...
Chill out!
.
“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. Learn from them.”
― Bill Nye
It is the responsibility of both people involved.
But no matter who's responsibility it is nobody should be forcing everyone else to pay for it.
Condoms are not expensive, certainly less than you spent on the date. Ditto for birth control pills, Walmart has them on their special program in their pharmacy
Either sex can get birth control materials for free if they are unable or unwilling to pay for it themselves.
"I NEED CONDOMS".
"Oh! Well you can get them yourself, just go around past our fence, you can get into the pharmacy."
I felt bad, since if I'd just given her directions I could have saved her some needless embarrassment.
What did I care if she wanted rubbers? She wasn't going to have sex with me, that was darn sure...
Me, I've never needed birth control; long ago I decided that I'd never make love to a woman I wasn't willing to marry and raise a child with.
If she feels differently... well, as I told an ex-girlfriend once, "I can't control who you sleep with; I can only control who *I* sleep with."
(which was terrible grammar, I know. It should have been "with whom you sleep" and "with whom I sleep", but I wasn't such a grammarian back then...)
But the theocracies that threaten us are twofold, and neither... NEITHER is Christianity.
1) Green
2) Islam
Stop distracting from the REAL theocratic threats by these attacks on "theocracy" that always seem to revolve around Christianity.
It is the worship of a murderous ball of rock infested with life, by placing its imaginary "needs" ahead of the very real needs of our own species.
I am confident that Rand would place the Green religion on the same plane as any other religion.
The basic problem is our legal ambivalence with religion because of the horrible wars that religionists perpetrated on each other. We insist that church and state be separate, so churches evade taxation, even though taxes have been collected for churches. You had the right to believe in any Supreme Being of your choice, or else you could not vote or serve on a jury.
So, someone figured out that they could get past the unconstitutional (anti-constitutional) ACA, and somehow that justifies a religious incursion into the public schools -- which themselves are constitutionally problematic, of course.
It is a mess because consistent, objective foundations are lacking for making these decisions.
The separation of church and state is to protect the right to exercise one's religion from *state* intrusion, NOT to protect thin-skinned (censored) from being exposed to religious views.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm
Oh, and the Soviet Union made Nazi Germany look like humanitarians... so try again.
One comforting factor may be a recognition that some of the basic teachings of Christianity and some of the traditionally accepted events of Jesus' life may actually be over 4,500 years old, grounded in the pre-history of humanity. Another is that, when we strip away the miraculous and supernatural legends in the gospels which came from Pagan sources, we are left with the natural. What remains is a story of an itinerant Jewish teacher who taught through parables and by example. It is the core teachings of Jesus which emerge from the gospels -- undiluted by Pagan material."
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jc...
Your comment under the title applies equally well to the government, only worse since they want to control EVERYTHING
In other words not a reliable source.
You dont even need to watch the video.
The title/file name they assign tells you all you need to know about their position.
Hobby Lobby isnt in the position now, nor will it ever be in the position to "Mandate" anything.
Typical BS
I suppose you don't need to watch the video, as the transcript of what was said is written right there, so you could just read it if you prefer. But sticking your head in the sand and pretending Hobby Lobby doesn't actually have these plans is a denial of reality.
Just for your general fund of knowledge I cant stand either party. I am for small government which neither party supports.
The Republicans rob you blind and the Democrats make sure you are too poor to rob. Not much difference to be seen for the people having their pockets picked.
Zealots of either stripe are a ridiculous pain in the ass.
I am not sticking my head in the sand.
Unlike you I understand the reality that Hobby Lobby is not now, nor is it ever likely to be, in a position to mandate anything of the sort in the public schools.
Did you not read that far in my post?
In a private school they could, but not in the public schools. And in a private school that is perfectly ok.
Something else to think about too, if they did set up private schools like that plenty of people would prefer that to the public schools.
The only one denying reality here is you, but then you are busily surrounding yourself with straw man arguments so there is no room for reality.
I like that...
And this thread reminds me of how right I was to make it.
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Only if we stop them. They've got plans to do exactly that. You seem to be operating on the assumption that these plans are inherently doomed and guaranteed to fail, while the truth is that they will only fail if we fight back against them. Sure, Hobby Lobby may not be in a position to mandate anything RIGHT NOW, but they are very clearly attempting to put themselves into such a position, and they will succeed if we don't fight back.
Apparently have no problem with the ACA / Obamacare and the consequent government takeover of health care itself. So there isn't really a lot of room for discussion.
You like big government and all its ills, and I do not.
And I don't support the the Affordable Care Act, either. I think if we're going to have a public healthcare system, it should be done on a state level, not a national level. That way it would have greater flexibility, and the people would be able to control it more effectively at a local level.
I also don't like big government. But I don't like theocracy, either, not even if it's limited to a state level. Separation of church and state is something I believe in very strongly, and I will fight against any religious organization which tries to impose itself onto the general public.
But since You dont like their belief system you twist their victory against that law as some sort of empowerment to mandate religious instruction in the public schools.
Since you are against religion in schools, why do you not protest the allowances given to other faiths? Or is it simply Christianity you hate?
I know why you fear this...
" I'm upset by their plans to push their own personal religious beliefs onto the general population through the public school system. "
You ACKNOWLEDGE, implicitly, that the public school system has become nothing but an indoctrination system.
The 1st Amendment doesn't protect us from exposure to religion, just from the government declaring a national religion (like the Green religion...)
This model you fear more closely resembles the traditional educational system that gained us the best educated and most literate population on the planet, than does the current, Christianity-free educational system.
And I agree, freedom of religion is very important. But what you need to realize is that you cannot have freedom of religion without freedom from religion. The first cannot exist without the second. If people do not have freedom FROM the religious beliefs of others, then no one can have freedom OF religion. The two go hand in hand, and are inseparable.
Oh my no. Communism is much more than just that. It's practiced as a complete system and if you bother to look at it, religion is suppressed. Pastors that are allowed to stay become government employees and the church is ran as a propaganda arm of the government and they were told what to say..
In Russia the churches were only visited by the very old who continued to go out of a old pattern of life. All Jews who stayed were sent to Siberia along with most Christians of working age. These were the ones who refused to recant their religion.
For all intents there was no religion practiced in Russia, getting caught holding "church" in your home and you next stop would be aboard a train heading to Siberia.
As practiced in Russia, there was no freedom of religion.
Also, that's the definition which was established by Ludwig von Mises, who is one of the few anti-Socialist writers who actually has a scientifically and historically accurate account of what Communism and Socialism actually are. Most other writers **coughcleonskousencough** tend to spread misinformation by engaging in historical revisionism and fear mongering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJmuHNDc...
By whose intent?
You're all for freedom of religion... until someone chooses to exercise his CHRISTIAN religion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_...
http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_chri...
A growing body of scholarly research, some based on careful analysis of Nazi records, is clarifying this complex history.2 It reveals a convoluted pattern of religious and moral failure in which atheism and the nonreligious played little role, except as victims of the Nazis and their allies. In contrast, Christianity had the capacity to stop Nazism before it came to power, and to reduce or moderate its practices afterwards, but repeatedly failed to do so because the principal churches were complicit with—indeed, in the pay of—the Nazis.
Most German Christians supported the Reich; many continued to do so in the face of mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel. Elsewhere in Europe the story was often the same. Only with Christianity’s forbearance and frequent cooperation could fascistic movements gain majority support in Christian nations. European fascism was the fruit of a Christian culture. Millions of Christians actively supported these notorious regimes. Thousands participated in their atrocities.
What, in God’s name, were they thinking?
Before we can consider the Nazis, we need to examine the historical and cultural religious context that would give rise to them."
Read more at: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/f......
"mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel."
Christianity didn't make it depraved and murderously cruel. It wasn't depraved and murderously cruel because it was fundamentally Christian. Or Moslem. Or Jewish. Or Buddhist.
Objectivism has as much to do with Nazi Germany's depraved and cruel nature as Christianity. Because Objectivism can as easily be warped as can Christianity to justify depravity and cruelty.
Again, like with communists and all the rest on the left, religion, any religion, is just a tool to further their agenda, not a motivating belief system.
Much of the "state religion' revolved around the historic pagan religions of the Germanic regions.
And all religious references were used by the Nazis to promote their agenda... just like communists do.
A growing body of scholarly research, some based on careful analysis of Nazi records, is clarifying this complex history.2 It reveals a convoluted pattern of religious and moral failure in which atheism and the nonreligious played little role, except as victims of the Nazis and their allies. In contrast, Christianity had the capacity to stop Nazism before it came to power, and to reduce or moderate its practices afterwards, but repeatedly failed to do so because the principal churches were complicit with—indeed, in the pay of—the Nazis.
Most German Christians supported the Reich; many continued to do so in the face of mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel. Elsewhere in Europe the story was often the same. Only with Christianity’s forbearance and frequent cooperation could fascistic movements gain majority support in Christian nations. European fascism was the fruit of a Christian culture. Millions of Christians actively supported these notorious regimes. Thousands participated in their atrocities.
What, in God’s name, were they thinking?
Before we can consider the Nazis, we need to examine the historical and cultural religious context that would give rise to them."
Read more at: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/f...
"If a page was recently created here, it may not yet be visible because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes and try the purge function."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Res...
See section: Role of the churches
The Catholic church didn't "borrow" from paganism. It warped and twisted pagan themes in order to expedite the conversion of pagans to Christianity.
Are you suggesting that Torquemada was a contemporary of Hitler?
Hitler "borrowing" from paganism didn't make hiis regime Christian. The Nazis also "borrowed" from Christianity and Judaism (and Islam, for that matter) to create a mishmash of *ideology* to promote their agenda. Similar to the way the early Roman empire "borrowed" from its neighbors' pagan religions to make a mishmash of Roman religion promoting the supremacy of Rome more than a "true" faith.
The Catholic church didn't "borrow" paganism, it rewrote paganism.
The Nazi regime was NOT theocratic, unless you want to call state-worship "theocratic" in which cast the Soviet Union, again, had them beat cold.