Religion is good as long as those that practice it allow their own to practice other religions if they so desire without social descrimination... If that means you must move from the state when a state is religious based, so be it... But to force anyone to practice any religion without choice is evil, as it is evil to not allow a citizen to migrate from ones nation to another if the citizen does not agree with the policies or government of the land... The catch is there will always be this evil to some degree in the world that will require a modern crusade... The problem is a modern crusade can be quite bloody when not done properly as we have seen in Iraq... For a modern crusade is just what it reads "modern"... You don't start while the women and children are sill in the zone of war for starters! - Earn Snyder
Author "$aving the bureaucracy - Killing the beast"
Modern Progressive Independent
www.appyp.com/fix_main.html

Mother nature causes these things in regions of people that cannot expand their own... And unless we move quickly we will make the same mistakes as before... - Earn Snyder
Author "$aving the bureaucracy - Killing the beast"
Modern Progressive Independent
www.appyp.com/fix_main.html

You are oh so wrong on oh so many counts. This country was founded on freedom of religion as well as freedom of speech. Why is it that we want to censor all freedom of religion to include religion in the form of prayer in schools and basing our rules and regulations or laws on God-based rules. Unfortunately this is censored as I previously pointed out, but "hate" speech is never censored. People, in our own country, burn our flag, spout hate towards all Americans, spout hate towards our religions (of all kinds) and are never penalized! This is an outrage. Let's penalize those who spout hate and let our resident citizens practice religion as they choose -- as long as it hurts no one.

Scaredtodeath

After reading several comments, I find that bloggers want to take out "the cistine chapel." Take all reference to God out of our public buildings. I agree that religion is one of the reasons we are polarized, but there is a larger picture. Let's put it into benign terms: good vs. evil. If we don't want to believe there is a tremendously evil force out to do us in, we have our heads in the sand. There are millions of brain-washed people who are behaving 'evilly' who want us dead. Period. While we fight over terms to give meaning to what God means to us or if we even believe in a God, we need to face the realization that we are at war. We will die, we will loose America, we will lose our next generation and all that come after if we do not take a good, hard look at the world and get rid of this evil that wants us dead. How? Can we get off our dependence of oil much like Brazil did? Can we discuss, civilly, our intentions - within our own country, with our own people - to keep Good or God in our lives, even in our public places, because else that we will allow evil. Can we educate our people better? Can we get better health care? Can we make every citizen a viable citizen, not dependent on government to bail him or her out of a bad situation? Not dependent of handouts? Can we keep more of the money we earn? I agree that our politicians have polarized us. I will not stand by, however, and let this evil permeate the rest of our world so the our lives are changed forever. Next time you want to talk to a terrorist, I suggest you ask him or her if he or she has a bomb attached to him or her and has intent to use it. I sign this scared to death because I am. You may think I am paranoid. It is my job to know what is happening. I choose to take my head out of the sand and take a good look. And yes, it does scare me to death. Scaredtodeath

MFV a TRP Independent

philsexton: I am sorry for putting poor taste as the title to mys post. I used the wrong words, you have every right to your opinion.

MFV a TRP Independent

philsexton: The God I worship has given man a free will, therefore your amendment idea does not hold water with me. By the way I think you are joking to rattle some cages.

Nearly every chapter of the book describes Christians fighting Muslims... only for a few hundred years, while we discovered the new world, have we taken our eye off of the slaughter by either side... in this span of 200 years Islam have multiplied to billions! Now we must make up for lost time or see the world destroyed by this evil... yes my Islamic extremists - it is time to change your philosophy of killings Christians - or once again face the fire as we grow tired of your throwing of stones when we own the skies ... - Earn Snyder
Author "$aving the bureaucracy - Killing the beast"
Modern Progressive Independent
www.appyp.com/fix_main.html

I thought the direct line to the Sistine Chapel was disconnected after Kennedy. Maybe Carter reconected it? No, he was an Evangelical. In any case, how would a direct line to the Universe as God make any diference? That's just another religious belief.

The fact that most if not all presidents belong to one or another Christian denomination may just reflect the makeup of the American people, or at least the ones who vote. Atheists either don't fare well in presidential contests or they don't participate.

Religion isn't very funny, actually. I agree with author Sam Harris that those who hold literal beliefs in the tenets of many organized religions -- moderate or extreme -- are very dangerous to the future of humanity and civilization.

But I don't think much is to be gained by focus on the downside - I'd rather refocus the debate on the upside.

One thing Unity08 could do is focus on identifying and seeking to remove the inappropirate grafting of religious dogmas onto American political institutions, into our laws, or our electoral processes.

We need to get that Sistine Chapel ceiling painting out of our public life -- as a concept, it is ludicrous at best, very dangerous at worst. Belief in such a concept leads to all sorts of "shoulds" and "should nots" that find their way into so-called wedge issues and legal disputes.

Time to call a time-out on all that.

I do not disagree with Sam Harris that religious dogma - anyone's dogma - is irrational. I think, however, that he should take more care to focus his remarks on a prime source of the problem that organized religions present.

We face a linguistic problem -- we are not all talking about the same thing at the same time. We assume we know what others mean by certain words, and we assume that they know what we mean. I'm not at all sure of that in either instance.

Mr. Harris is not wrong to be anxious about the terrible consequences of modern religious conflict. However, the entire debate over faith and religion overlooks one of the first steps that should be addressed, and if possible, agreed to.

What do people mean when they say "God"? What concept are we referring to? Unless we can agree that we know what one another is referring to, it is very difficult to engage in a rational dialog about these ideas about faith and religion.

For example, I have no difficulty in saying I cannot believe in that concept of "God" meant to refer to a being rather like the one on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a "God" that is rather like us, a "God" that is involved in or even consciously aware as we are of our own personal lives or of the collective life of humanity.

Yet I would not say I do not believe in any and all concepts of "God."

I do feel convinced that all established religious dogmas and faiths that define a concept of what is meant by the word "God" ultimately refer only to man-made organizations that use humanity's deep curiosity about and fear of the cosmos for their own interests and purposes.

While this may place me outside the fold of these various organizations, and I may reject as equally irrational belief without evidence all these established concepts of "God," I do not dismiss ideas that depend on the simple admission that we don't know very much about our cosmos, about how it came to be, about why it is, about what we're doing in it and why.

It is unfortunate that these questions must be argued back and forth within the context of contending interest groups, which to my way of thinking is what organized religions merely are.

We ought to take more care about these kinds of discussions. We ought to avoid merely throwing kitchen sinks at one another. We ought to talk calmly about when and why that which manifestly is in the universe turns into, implies or leads by necessity to something which we in our political life believe ought to be or should be made into American law.

I'd rather spend my time sharing views about what we each think might count as answers to these questions than disputing who has it wrong, who is irrational, and who is downright stupid about it all.

Only if we start from a common starting line can we run a fair contest concerning these ideas. I will admit up front I hope we wind up at the finish line concluding any and all these beliefs based on organized religious tenets are barred by our US Constitution from American laws as lacking Substantive Due Process under the 14th Amendment.

But I'm not averse to talking about the idea that the entire Universe, the small amount of which we can apprehend and comprehend now, as well as that vast "dark" amount of matter and energy about which we have as yet few clues, may itself be "God."

What then? Good discussions, but, please, no more wedge issues and no more religious doctrine as American laws.

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts. Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom.

Let us face them and defeat them, together.

All praise is to GUS. GUS bless America AND NO ONE ELSE, Amen!

Try DailyKOS, Moveon.org, or Michael Moore. They really appreciate that sort of hyperbole.

Many of the Whereas's are similar to those that are used to justify federal universal health care. "The present system is chaotic and doesn't work." "There should be a single payer instead of everyone paying their own health insurance premiums." "It is a national problem and control should be centralized."
The alms giving part would simply expand the present welfare system.
I hope that those who are determined to centralize all government power to the federal level might give a little thought to the consequences.

You're kidding right?