Organized religion used to burn you at the stake for having even a slightly different view of the trinity. There is no major religion that believes in "many paths to the same ideal". All major religions have killed people who had the wrong beliefs when the religion gained power for one reason or another.
Now I'm sure there's some professor of Religion at a college somewhere who believes in "multiple paths to a single ideal". But it's not anywhere near a majority of religious people.
That's what the "Asian look" is all about. It's a group of genes that gives a sexually attractive look and is mostly dominate, so it spreads very quickly. It seems to have spread across Asia in only the last 3 to 8 thousand years.
Well, you have to admit, saying "I don't like people pledging allegiance to my Lord God the Eternal Creator of the Universe" doesn't make a lot of sense.
If he's God then why wouldn't I want to pledge allegiance?
Come on. I'm an atheist. I really don't like the idea that every American is swearing allegiance to a mythical being. Especially as for practical reasons this means they're swearing to obey the orders of their ministers or preachers, and not our elected officials.
All of the Republican presidential candidates have come out opposed to teaching evolution in schools, have said they support Israel because it's a religious duty, and have even come out against the germ theory of disease.
You're the one who takes a few moderate Christians, and tries to convince people they represent all Christians. If that was true, why isn't one of them running for the Republican Presidential nomination?
That's a very good example. Manson didn't kill anybody. He didn't brainwash the Manson girls by playing them Beatles songs. The Manson girls killed those people, and they liked it. You don't hold a pregnant women's arms while your girlfriend tries to stab the fetus unless you're really, really into it.
Yet everyone is like "Look at those perky nips! Those pretty white girls must be innocent!".
Give me an example of someone who had an arm cut off and grew it back after a pilgramage and you might convince me. Using a medical condition that even the doctors didn't understand going into remission isn't very convincing.
It's impossible for a religious person not to base his political policies on religion. If you believed in the imminent return of Christ, as Reagan and Bush did/do, how could any decision you make not be based on that belief?
Look up the statement that Watts, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, made that implied there was no reason to worry about the environment because Christ will soon return. Now he later clarified that by quoting biblical verses saying we should protect God's creation.
The important thing to note here is that at no time did he consider that damaging the environment would cause mass health problems and food shortages. He couldn't, that's not the way a religious person reasons.
Now you talk about the intolerance of atheists, imagine how an atheist feels talking to a religious person who, by definition, believes he is in communication with God. A religious person believes that his beliefs are the beliefs of the supreme being.
How do you argue with that? How do you change the mind of a person who believes his beliefs must be true because God said they were true?
She was living in Italy with an English girl for a roommate. She tried to get a foursome going with her boyfriend, a male friend of theirs, and her roommate, Her roommate didn't like the idea and started resisting. The friend finally ended up strangling her while Amanda and her boyfriend waited in the kitchen.
What's terrifying the atheists like Dawkins is that we control too much technology to allow it to be controlled by people who believe in religion, not science. How do you convince someone who believes in the imminent return of Christ that it's important to protect the environment? How do you convince someone who believes that God created the earth that man can destroy the environment? How do you convince someone to use birth control to slow population growth when, like Palin, they believe that God is in the room when you have sex?
Rick Perry has already stated that his faith has told him to support Israel, wouldn't you rather foreign policy was based on trying to avoid nuclear warfare?
Right now probably half the nations of the world base their policy decisions on religion. That's very scary when you realize how much technological power a nation controls today.
There you go. The government saved $30, and spent 5 grand on an emergency 911 call and ambulance. The guy probably lasted 3 days in ICU. At least 50 grand.
If it's cobra that means the company was paying close to 14,000 a year, which is about right for a family policy.
If Obama had been allowed to offer a government option, you could have taken that and saved at least 15%, based on the fact that Medicare/Medicaid only spend 5% on administrative costs, while a private health insurance company takes 20%.
You're missing the point. The government probably paid at least 50 grand, and probably a lot more, taking care of the dying man. A taxpayer cost that could have been avoided with $30 worth of meds.
The other thing is he had probably paid 10's of thousands of dollars for private health care while he was working, or at least his employer did. That's the racket, health insurance companies make all the profits and then can dump the truly sick on the government.
