The Glade 4.0

To put it another way, if you can only justify a law with religious reasoning, it's a bad law. Regardless of the religion.

Lenas,

Many of our laws, and even the Constitution are based on religious principles. Thou Shalt Not Kill, etc...

You can't separate the two as long as they both exist. It's just not possible.

Come on, can you only justify not murdering your neighbor because the bible tells you not to? You can easily separate the two. Laws and the like should be based on objective fact and studies. Not faith or belief.

That's not what I'm saying. The two (laws/lawmaking and religious ideals) are so intertwined, that they are impossible to differentiate.

Yes, actually they do. The only thing they don't ahve a right to do is create laws that enforce the beliefs themselves.

It's entirely irrelevant what the belief behind a law is; it's relevant what the effect is. We've been over this. This is why it's Constitutional to create a law banning liquor sales on Sunday. That's already been ruled upon.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If you don't, you're just basing it on moral philosophy.

It's ok to make a law against killing because it satisfies some abstract moral system, but not because God says its not ok to kill?

what exactly is the difference?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's not exactly an abstract, it's an agreed-upon moral system that our society already has in play. It can't be attributed to any single religion. It should be attributed to the advancement, understanding and equality of everyone that takes part in it. Religion by itself does not promote or even allow for equality in many cases.

It's agreed upon by our society which is, in the majority, religious, and because it does not disagree with our most common religious beliefs.

As for "equality", religion generally is not predjudicial to "equality" at all. Sometimes religious people try to use religion as a reason to justify otherwise, but there are plenty of religious people who are firmly on the side of as much equality as possible.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

+100000

When presented the choice to eat shitpile A or shitpile B you are choosing B because you perceive its a smaller portion?

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Your metaphor is flawed; we choose B because it's the same sized portion but it's got a delicious black peppercorn sauce.

Ever consider a hunger strike? I will be voting issues only until someone cleans their **** up and offers up food.

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I'm considering writing in a Ron Paul vote.

I need to double check the latest status of the Ohio voting law, but if write-ins aren't discarded, I'll be doing the same. If they are, I'll be voting Gary Johnson.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

This thread baffles me. The folks who are willing to endorse Obama for another four years because they are afraid of what some people who aren't running for president and aren't even politicians are saying really confuse me. I'll give you a hint, those same people are going to keep saying those same things next year, and the year after...
The real issue is our country's economics. His party, the one that has controlled the Senate for nearly four years, hasn't even been able to find the time to fulfill it's Constitutional mandate and pass a budget in nearly four years. You're endorsing this kind of crap by saying you'll vote for Obama because you're afraid of the speachifiers and pundits. Instead of voting for the guy who's running mate got his budget plan (one that wasn't close to harsh enough IMHO, it just slowed the growth of Gov't) passed with bipartisan support in the house and a 58-41 vote in the Senate, you'll vote for the guy who's budget plan was to increase the size and scope of government with a commensurate increase in spending? Hell, even in his party's Senate, his plan got NO votes (99-0).
Lenas, I noticed you gave actual examples of what you don't like:

I'd ask you to consider that the Patriot Act extension was signed by Obama, it doesn't matter what the President's stance on "corporations being people" is, the SCOTUS has already ruled on it, Obama just increased the stringency and number of embargoes we're perpetrating. Obama says he's the best friend Israel has had in like ever, Obama greatly increased our presence in Afghanistan and has started numerous other "wars"(he's taken us into Uganda, The Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Pakistan, North Africa, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Qatar...). He had the same stance on "the gays" until a few months ago, and I'm not really sure where you're going on "science" and "the environment".
I was surprised to hear someone speak of the Republicans' "religiosity" of late. I hadn't noticed an increase of such, as a matter of fact, I thought it was toned down lately. Especially with all the talk of the religious right/fundies not getting behind Romney. It's amazing to me that people, when faced with the literal mountain of debt our Gov't has racked up along with the continual beat-down our civil liberties have taken over the last decade alone, want to continue blithely along that path following the lead of a guy who has repeatedly lied to you. If you're worried about leaders and religion (As an aside, I'd rather not even know what, if any religion the President practices. That's a very minor reason I was planning to vote Johnson until Romney picked Ryan. ), the quickest way to a theocracy/autocracy is to let the country fall into the economic abyss. If you can't see that as being the path our current brand of leadership is taking us down, I'd suggest you're being blinded by talking heads and pulpit-pounders.




Raciss! Why not white peppercorn sauce? In actuality, you're being lied to, that sauce is just asparagus scented piss.

I'm not going to continue to blithely munch on the same shitpile I've been given the past four years, I'm hoping that this new shitpile will have some nuggets of actual food in it (as they've promised it would), whereas I know what that other shitpile is made of and will continue to be made of; to think otherwise is kinda foolish.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Bullshit.

Humans figured out it was a bad idea to kill each other in a society LONG before any formalized religion was created.

I was gonna let this go, but I really can't. Gospel Christianity is all about equality. All human beings have a fallen nature and are therefore equally guilty and deserving of God's justice and punishment. However likewise any human being can receive God's mercy through Jesus Christ. When they do they have the equal standing of believers that transcends racial, political, economic, or social lines.

Also if you think religious morality is the enemy of a free society and therefore should be discarded, then you're in disagreement with most of the men that founded this country.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I don't believe that's an accurate statement, Aizle.

1) I haven't seen any proof of such, what have you seen?

2) That doesn't even begin to touch the debate that humans have figured out any such thing, even now.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Romney has been chosen because he's not significantly different from anybody else.

In the unlikely event he is elected, it won't matter, because he will continue Obama's primary policies, which are a continuation of George W. Bush's primary policies, which are a continuation of Bill Clinton's primary policies, and so on.

1. The federal government will continue to spend more and more each year, and go further and further into debt.

2. The federal government will continue to amass more scope and power and size, wittling away at the powers of the state and municipal governments.

3. Corporate interests and lobby groups will continue to eat away at the rights of the people. Corollaries - two of many examples: Copyright law will become more and more restrictive, taking more and more rights away from content creators, content consumers, and putting them in the hands of the megacorps. Means of self sufficiency (gardens, private farms, etc.) will continue to find more ways to be banned or made unworkable, in favor of megacorps running everything and keeping people their indentured servants. And so on...

4. Rights to privacy, free speech, and other fundamentals will continue to be eroded.

Ron Paul is "unelectable" only in the sense neither party (who are in collusion to make the political process impossible to enter for individuals or other parties) will support him. He stands for the opposite of all these primary points. He is the only real opposition they have at that level.

It should come as no surprise to anyone when I say how much I despise religion, and yet I would support Ron Paul, if I lived in America. I would support him over any atheist or agnostic that the RNC or Democrats actually gave their support to in the primaries. And yet Ron Paul is a Christian. Despite this, he knows the place of religion in politics. (Which is to say, it doesn't have one.) More importantly, he knows the very small place of government in society.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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This was very well said. I think all the Obama supporters should read this every day till it sinks in.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Show me a gospel Christian organization that supports homosexuality and gay marriage, athiests and other non-Christians.

It's really quite simple Vindi. For any society to exist, you need to have rules around how that society works. There are examples all over the animal kingdom of very complex and structured societies within various animals species. Very rarely do any of those involve the death of a pack/pride/herd member and if they do it's usually for a good reason. Humans evolved in much the same way, so thousands of years ago before we even had a spoken language or certainly a written one, we had figured out that we needed rules to survive together. Ways to help each other. To function as a society.

Obama
Science - Gutted NASA.
Environment - Threw millions, if not billions by now, at companies who lined their own pockets.
the gays - Has flip-flopped back and forth. Oh, but don't worry, he's totally principled now.
domestic policy (patriot act, corporations being people) - Signed a four year extension of the Patriot Act. Engages in just as much cronyism as Bush 43 that caters to the worst types of corporations.
foreign policy (supporting embargoes / Israel / the war) - Embargoes and sanctions are not working to slow Iran or North Korea down. Russia and China make them ineffective. Obama continues to snub Israel, one of the U.S.'s few clear allies in the Middle East. Pakistan, once a close ally, is nearing hostility due to Obama's frequent use of drone attacks on civilians. The Afghanistan war has seen some of its bloodiest months this year with no improvement in sight (unless you count leaving). Obama supported the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who is already starting religious persecution of non-Muslims and beginning to push the bounds of a years-long peace treaty with Israel.
and... I just don't like him. As a person. - Fair enough. I'm just curious what character flaws you both feel he has that you don't feel the President is guilty of as well.

And yet, none of those things, except perhaps foreign policy, have any effect on the fiscal morass this country is mired in. Our President is incompetent to bring about the fiscal changes needed to bring about true recovery. The stimulus was a complete disaster. Solyndra and a few others tanked. GM is sinking because the President bailed out the auto worker unions rather than allowing the company to restructure through bankruptcy. His only solution is taxation of the rich which would have been insufficient to pay off the national debt even had he gotten his way.

The only focus on religion, or even social matters in general, in the Presidential election has been by the media trying to create a social issue argument and by candidates who already got the boot in the primary (read: Republicans didn't want this to be a social issue election). I don't like Romney either, but his platform has been almost entirely about the economy. The focus on religion is your own. You are turning this into a social issue election. But go on and keep getting your opinions from The Daily Show. All that snarkiness is an excellent substitute for critical thinking.

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't intend on voting for Romney.

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The Dude abides.

I was going to say this is the first major issue on which Obama has differed from other administrations, but then I thought, he really hasn't differed from them. Dubya talked about sending people to Mars, but nothing ever came of it.

None of them give NASA the funding it needs. Space exploration has ground to a halt since the end of the cold war, and it is one of the most important fields of endeavor humanity has ever been involved in.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It's from 2009, so Obama hadn't done anything yet on science, but it's rather enlightening for people nonetheless.



In a nutshell: The GOP is not going to put creationism or intelligent design in the science classroom, because it undermines science education and cripples the nation's ability to move forward technologically and economically.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.