So the military responded in a similar fashion as that one hysterical mother?

http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheist-comes-out-of-the-Closet

"'There are no atheists in foxholes' isn’t an argument against atheism, it’s an argument against foxholes." - James Morrow

All religious practice should probably be discouraged in the military, the last thing we need is the US army fighting holy wars.

It doesnt matter whether its true or not they will invoke the Bush tactic of looking right into the camera and say with complete seriousness that its not true and foolish to even think so, and like always saying it on TV must make it the truth so people will just take their word for it and this story will never be heard of again. Irritates the shit out of me the amnesia in this country

"Do you think that faith makes you a better person?"
No, having faith makes you a poorer person (all other things being equal).

After hearing this story, many conservatives began hating at least some troops. I'll almost guarantee it.

But even though there are soldiers complaining about it, we absolutely do not allow that religious stuff! Yeah, right.

I don't care how faithful you are. Unless you've been in the same shit this atheist soldier has been in or similar, you should probably just sit this one out.

The sad thing to me is that I'm pretty sure that 90% of atheists would be happy just to not have other ideas pushed on them. And those who would push their anti-theistic views on the religious are not in fact atheists, but anti-theists hijacking atheism the same way bin Laden hijacks Islam.

Christianity vs. Islam, round 24,... fight!

CNN's coverage of this issue was a dramatic improvement over their previous drivel

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Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Sunday, July 13th, 2008 2:56pm PDT - promote requested by jwray.

>> ^muddro:
And those who would push their anti-theistic views on the religious are not in fact atheists, but anti-theists hijacking atheism the same way bin Laden hijacks Islam.


Except that pushing atheist ideas promotes making decisions based on evidence and experience whereas pushing fundamentalist Islam promotes war mongering and disregard for human rights.

^atheism does not equal antitheism.

All anti-theists are atheists; not all atheists are anti-theists. Anti-theism does not include any persecution of theists, so comparing them to Bin Laden is ridiculous.

Anti-theism simply consists in the belief that the world would be better off without superstition. A few atheists are convinced that religion makes the world a better place, many atheists are agnostic about whether the world would be better without religion, and some atheists are convinced that the world would be better without religion.

It is difficult to swallow the idea that the world might be better with most people believing something that you believe to be false. In the absence of any strong evidence that the world might benefit from the lie, of course one should oppose the lie.

"Pentacostalgon", oh, baby. That's gold. And to quote Richard Dawkins in a related tone:

"Fervent nationalism is akin to religious fundamentalism."

Atheism cant be hijacked, as it describes a negative. its like dividing by zero. An atheist is anyone presented with various metaphysical religious claims, most commonly the claim that there is a god or higher power, and responds "Nope, dont believe ya."

The word atheist has none, and can never have any more meaning than that. You cant hijack the "I dont believe in santa claus"-crowd(The Aclausists) either..

The Anti-Clauses may want us to burn down the christmas tree and pull off santa's mask in front of the 4-year-olds, but thats got nothing to do with the non-belief most of us have towards santa..

Atheism is an ideology/religion like bald is a hair-color.

My heart goes out to the guy, and I really hope he does well.

Unfortunately, I think the attempt will get scuttled by a sub-par legal team. I'm not a lawyer, but I have plenty of experience with legal writing both through looking at my dad's work (he's an attorney), and through reading lots of briefs, decisions, and other filings posted to the internet. I've gotten pretty good at telling competent legal writing from mediocre, and the suit as filed just doesn't cut it. The lawyers clearly didn't do enough research before filing suit, and it shows. It references the First Amendment, but it doesn't even touch the legal complexities one has to deal with when trying to sue the military.

>> ^Jordass:
It doesnt matter whether its true or not they will invoke the Bush tactic of looking right into the camera and say with complete seriousness that its not true and foolish to even think so, and like always saying it on TV must make it the truth so people will just take their word for it and this story will never be heard of again. Irritates the shit out of me the amnesia in this country


It's not called Amnesia, it's called doublethink. Orwell had it right when he wrote 1984:

"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."

I was chatting to some people at a festival and one of them said about god: "it makes more sense to believe in the devil, at least i have seen his work".
he was extremely antitheist, totally didn't care about offending religious people, wouldn't debate anything, called religion "shit" and suggested that all religious people are stupid and dangerous.

i said ... "so you're religiously antireligious"

the look on his face!! lol.

Wow, even Christians read the Bible before bed? Isn't that like, anti-christianity or something? Reading "The Good Word" to quickly make yourself snooze like a ton of sedated horses?

Our entire nation is being high-jacked by Christianity, don't get me wrong I think the core values of Jesus' original teachings are great. But it's these people that have complete blind faith that don't bother to to learn anything outside the bible, the one's who think evolution should not be taught in school, the ones who think the world was created a few thousand years ago. These are the people that scare me and it seems more and more that those are the people getting themselves into political & media positions.
I am a highly "spiritual" person I don't believe any one religion is the ONLY way to God.

booooooooo hooooooooooooooooo
more crybabies
you guys make me think I should get some stock in kleenex

>> booooooooo hooooooooooooooooo
more crybabies
you guys make me think I should get some stock in kleenex

^iloseatlife

indeed, you do

Maybe they can enlist her.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Aa1mTNqdFO8

Another sift where self-satisfied, hypocritical Atheists pretend they have superior morality? This is new, refreshing, and unique...

>> ^iloseatlife:
booooooooo hooooooooooooooooo
more crybabies
you guys make me think I should get some stock in kleenex


A fine method of enforcing conformism: deride anybody who complains about anything.

I didn't demonize anyone. Do you know what demonize means? I was making fun of you idiot. And looks like I can easily continue to do so.
Babies aren't evil.
Hahaha, though, that was a pretty pathetic attempt to reinforce your whiny point.
Everyone who makes fun of me is FASCIST goddamnit! Fascist!!!!

>> The word atheist has none, and can never have any more meaning than that.

Except it does. Even Dan Dennett doesn't necessarily like the term atheist because it carries with it the connotation of "belaboring" Christians about their beliefs.

While I suppose, yeah, if you just look at a strict definition by a dictionary, you can make that claim, but people make associations in real life based on their experiences, and while most of my experiences with atheists are positive (I'd say the majority of my friends are atheists, while I'm a Xian), there have been many instances to the contrary as well. On Slashdot, the atheists there are in the majority and incredibly condescending to anyone who believes in Christ, and at my university (UC San Diego) we had a very vocal atheist professor (http://polisci.ucsd.edu/faculty/irons.htm) who was quite the dick to people who didn't agree with him in class, if he thought they were religious in any fashion.

His biggest act of asshat-ery, though, was when during a legal battle over the existence of the cross on Mt. Soledad, he sneakily booked the site for Easter morning, even though (well, because) a church group had held Easter morning services there every year. So that he could hold a pagan ceremony there instead. Basically, though, just to be a dick.

Unfortunately, a word means whatever the majority thinks it means. If a majority of English speakers think Atheist means Satanist, well guess what? It becomes a synonym for Satanist. Fortunately that hasn't happened... yet. But it's got a strong upwelling of people who don't distinguish between atheist and militant atheist or anti-theist. As the atheists become more numerous (and therefor more dangerous to theist beliefs) they will villanize the word more thoroughly.

By the way, I suggest everybody begin using that "ignore" button for a certain troll who's comments inevitably contain the words "boo hoo".

>> ^ShakaUVM:
>> His biggest act of asshat-ery, though, was when during a legal battle over the existence of the cross on Mt. Soledad, he sneakily booked the site for Easter morning, even though (well, because) a church group had held Easter morning services there every year. So that he could hold a pagan ceremony there instead. Basically, though, just to be a dick.


You do realize that Easter (and "Christmas") is and has been a pagan holiday long before Christianity was invented. Rabbits laying eggs, decorated trees on December 25th, hmm, I wonder where that came from?

The Babylonian goddess of fertility, love and war, Ishtar (which is pronounced "Easter"), descended from heaven in a giant egg, landed in the Euphrates river at sunrise on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox, and turned a bird into an egg laying rabbit. The priests would then sacrifice infants, take the eggs and die them in the blood of the sacrificed infants. Ishtar became impregnated by the rays of the sun-god Baal and gave birth to her son, Tammuz, on the 25th of December.

Tammuz was killed, resurrected and descended into the sky to be with is father. When he died, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight.

The name “Easter” has its roots in ancient polytheistic religions (paganism). On this, all scholars agree. This name is never used in the original Scriptures, nor is it ever associated biblically with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For these reasons, we prefer to use the term "Resurrection Sunday" rather than "Easter" when referring to the annual Christian remembrance of Christ's resurrection.

“Easter” is simply one of the names of a woman who mightily deceived the world and whose religion has caused untold suffering and misery. She was clearly an enemy of Christianity, and her son Tammuz was an anti-Christ, a false messiah that ultimately deceived millions.

"highly visible, religiously significant Easter crosses, erected in public parks owned and maintained by local government, in the absence of any symbols of other religions, and without any independent historical significance, violated the 'No Preference' Clause of the California Constitution"

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