God makes a comeback in classrooms

By Joyce Howard Price THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Patriotism — complete with references to God — is fashionable again in American schools, gaining support in recent days from parents, educators, veterans groups and Congress.

The New York City Board of Education unanimously adopted a resolution requiring that all public schools lead students in the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each school day and at assemblies and special events.

The board's action re-established a policy that's been all but dead in New York schools for three decades.

"Where New York is going, I believe, is indicative of where the rest of the nation is going," Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which is helping to spearhead the trend, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

A school district in a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., this week changed its policy to require that high schools and middle schools give students the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Previously, only elementary schools there had to offer the pledge.

The decision by the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district means a local American Legion post will resume providing up to $100,000 in support for the school system. The post had withheld the money because the district had not required the pledge to be recited in secondary schools.

The action in Minnesota came one day after the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted 200 to 1 to require the state's students to recite the pledge or sing the national anthem in school each day and to mandate the display of the American flag in every classroom.

The school board in Madison, Wis., voted 6-1 Tuesday to restore the Pledge of Allegiance. The week before, the board had banned both reciting the pledge and singing the national anthem, arguing the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner" are too militaristic and the pledge's "one nation, under God" line was a religious intrusion on the separation of church and state. After a local and national furor, the board reconsidered.

The policy changes in the Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin schools do not compel students to recite the pledge. But under the Pennsylvania bill, students would need written permission from parents to be exempt from saying the pledge or singing the national anthem.

Denying someone the right to pledge allegiance to the nation and its flag would be unconstitutional under a 1943 Supreme Court ruling.

"Under current law, it is entirely permissible for a public school or other government body to display a 'God Bless America' sign or to institute voluntary recital of the Pledge of Allegiance by its students," Mr. Sekulow said.

It is a timely issue, as many Americans look for ways to show patriotism and national unity in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The ACLJ, a public-interest law firm, is contacting school systems throughout the nation to let them know God can be mentioned in those contexts.

At a school in Rocklin, Calif., the words "God Bless America" remain on a marquee outside Breen Elementary School, despite advice from the American Civil Liberties Union that the words should be removed.

"Multiple parents requested that those words be placed on the marquee in light of the September 11th terrorist tragedy, since everyone was feeling both patriotic and mournful," Chris White, a secretary at the school, said in a telephone interview.

But in a letter sent to the school's principal Oct. 3, the ACLU said: "On behalf of a parent whose child attends the school and is greatly troubled by the religious sign, we sent a letter stating that a religious message on a public elementary school violates the California and United States constitutions."

Officials of the Rocklin Unified School District supported the right of "God Bless America" to remain, after their lawyers concluded the words violated neither constitution.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 404-0 on Tuesday to adopt a nonbinding resolution encouraging public schools to display the words "God Bless America" as an expression of national support.

The ACLU of Northern California released a statement that day saying it "does not intend to file a lawsuit" in the Breen Elementary case.

The civil liberties advocacy group said it was concerned that the family opposed to the display had been identified by the school board. "We believe it would only exacerbate the family's distress" by bringing litigation, the group said.

"The message 'God Bless America' is constitutionally protected speech and does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment," Mr. Sekulow said. In fact, he said, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in an opnion she wrote described the three words as a "patriotic phrase" that is constitutional. He also pointed to a 10-year-old ruling by a California state court that found the term did not violate the state constitution.

The ACLJ pledged to defend any school districts that the ACLU decides to challenge for displaying "God Bless America."

Not all patriotic endeavors are advanced by education policy, though. At San Diego State University, a student was interrogated by campus police after criticizing four Saudi students for celebrating the terrorist strikes. He then received a stern warning from the Center for Student Rights.

The Saudis filed a complaint with campus police against Zewdalem Kebede, a native Ethiopian and naturalized U.S. citizen, charging him with "verbal harassment." After an investigation, Mr. Kebede received a letter threatening him with "severe disciplinary sanctions" if he is accused again of confronting others on the campus in an "aggressive or abusive manner."

The incident, first reported in the university's student newspaper, the Daily Aztec, was picked up by the Wall Street Journal online.

Patriotism and God return to public schools, ACLU retreats YES!!

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), October 23, 2001

Answers

Patriotism tends to flare up anytime the country is perceived to be under attack. Hasn't happened for a while; the last one I remember was during the early days of the Vietnam war protests, when flag- waving served as a defense of our policies. Of course, as the mountain of bodybags grew and "victory" receded, this didn't last.

As for the "God bless America", apparently O'Connor and the ACLU have decided (with some reason) that this is a basically non-religious, patriotic, and secular phrase. Given the fundamentalist religious convictions that are behind these attacks, the LAST thing we need is more stupid religion. God in our classrooms is a great deal deadlier than Allah in a hijacked plane. We need no more hijacked minds, thank you.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 25, 2001.

"The LAST thing we need is more stupid religion. God in our classrooms is a great deal deadlier than Allah in a hijacked plane". Flint, that's about the most irresponsible, dumbest, most un-American statement that I've seen printed from a citizen of this United States in a long while. Try tellin that to family members who lost people at WTC who feel closer to God. Run that one by FDNY and NYPD who pray for their dead friends and for their own extension of life. Many wars have been fought in the name of religion but the Heathens always lost and they'll never win the big one!

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), October 25, 2001.

Boswell,

Save your pearls, er, I mean breath. Flint is way too intelligent to believe in God. You see, everything in this infinite universe that we inhabit came into being when a very tiny ball of matter and energy (or is it energy and matter?) blew up in a big bang.

Oh yes, and don't ask where that tiny ball of matter and energy came from in the first place.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 25, 2001.

J, well I suppose that you think that everybody that is a believer is not intelligent. My God, I'm sure as hell no Bible thumper, but I certainly believe in the Creator and to you I say God Bless You. And I must admit this certainly isn't a right-wing conservative forum and this thread sure as hell proves it. I hope you get reincarnated as grasshopper so it takes you all day to hop to the insectual supermarket!

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), October 25, 2001.

Boswell,

I am a born again believer in the risen Savior, Jesus Christ. I consider myself to be blessed with quite a bit of intelligence. I was being sarcastic about Flint.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 26, 2001.

J, my sincere apologies to you. I guess I need to read between the lines more. It was refreshing to read your repost because I went to bed last night thinking "why in the hell did I wish somebody would be born a grasshopper?" That kind of stuff makes for weird dreams at 2 in the mornin.

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), October 26, 2001.

Boswell,

I notice that when you quote me, you very carefully remove the parts immediately preceding AND immediately following the portion you repeat, thus depriving it of the context I provided. Are all religious people this dishonest?

Now, let's go back (with believers, you have to take things one little step at a time, and do it over and over). Here we had some religious fanatics causing great destruction. By their (presumed) writing, we see that they did this in God's name. This isn't all that surprising, though. A great deal of terror and destruction throughout history has been done in the name of one god or another.

Now, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that religious people haven't been playing with a full deck. What sort of person would say "Gee, religious fanatics did this. What we need to do is train MORE religious fanatics in our schools. THAT'S the ticket!"

Answer: Someone whose mind is *already* hijacked. J may consider himself "blessed with quite a bit of intelligence" (who doesn't?), but even so, he doesn't seem to see that when dementia causes disaster, the answer isn't MORE dementia, whether he shares it or not. We should take steps to *avoid* the thought patterns that lead to this, not *foment* them. Sheesh.

And by the way, "right-wing conservative" does NOT necessarily mean "addled by religious nonsense and superstition". Honest, Boswell, you *do not need* to be brain-damaged by religion to see the value in competition, free enterprise, minimal government, and personal responsibility. Religious idiocy is the single greatest enemy of conservatism, because it tars true conservatives with guilt by association. It also lends support to anti-conservative, big- brotherism policies like drug wars and blue laws on "moral" grounds, undermining the leave-people-alone conservative message with all-too- typical religious hypocrisy.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 26, 2001.

It's unclear in my mind why sees this article as reason for exhiliration or an indication that God is back in schools. Personally, I don't see it as reason for exhiliration OR condemnation. I grew up in a school system that had already included the "under God" part in the Pledge to Allegiance and I mumbled the words that I remembered, just as kids will do today. Did it make me more patriotic or interested in God? No. I considered it just another bogus exercise, like all the other mandatory stuff in Public Schools.

Moving beyond the Pledge or even a "God Bless America", the temporary Governor here in Texas called a mandatory assembly at a school recently where he led the kids in prayer. This is blatantly breaking the law. Would my kids have cared? No. They would have come home and said, "We had a bogus assembly today wherein the Governor read a prayer." No harm, no foul. HOWEVER, SOME parents now look to Perry and wonder why HE feels that HE can blatantly break the law while remaining in a position where he decides the fate of OTHERS who break the law. Is it only okay to break a law with which YOU disagree? If he runs for office, I guess we'll see how this sits with the constituents.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2001.

I must have screwed up my tags in the last post. I meant to say, "Why Ain't", and I meant to say exhilaration. Well, the exhilaration booboo had nothing to do with the screwed up tags.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 26, 2001.

Flint,

If we replace the word dementia in your post by the word guns, then by your line of thinking we should call for the outlaw of guns every time someone goes on a shooting spree, is that correct?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 26, 2001.

And if we replace J with Dennis, then we get the very same poster.

-- (dennis=J@J=den.nis), October 26, 2001.

And if we replace your brains with sh... oops, someone already did.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 26, 2001.

Anita:

What you describe sounds like a cut-and-dried criminal act, punishable by law. The State Governor CANNOT lead school children in prayer for ANY religion.

This "no harm, no foul" attitude is insular. This is like me saying that if YOU were robbed and not me, then no harm was done (to me), and therefore no crime was committed!

In reality, this turkey is playing pure politics. He knows nobody will arrest the governor. He knows most of his constituency (those who might vote for him) share his superstitions. Hell, if he knew most of his potential voters were ax murderers, he'd commit one of them!

But still, "God bless America" is a feelgood phrase without any semantic content whatever. I'm reminded of the hispanics in baseball, when both the pitcher and the batter cross themselves before every pitch. Whoever wins the contest credits his god, whoever loses blames himself. It's a charade.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 26, 2001.

I agree with you that what Perry did was blatantly illegal. He doesn't see it that way, and I doubt that J or Ain't would see it that way either. By "no harm, no foul", I reflect the thinking of middle-school children raised in secular homes, or at least the thinking of mine when THEY were in middle-school. I can't imagine them coming home from school in tears because their civil rights were violated. Their feelings might have reflected missing a particularly exciting history class or a test for which they hadn't sufficiently studied, but a prayer wouldn't have bothered them any more than a boring political speech by the Governor. Heh. I'm not even sure they would have recognized a prayer. As a parent, I would recognize the illegality of this and file it away as a consideration at election time.

Perry and the Middle-School

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001.

Anita:

Remember that old Dylan song about how God is on "our" (America's) side. "Though they murdered six million/in their ovens they fried/the Germans now too have God on their side!" Perry sounds like J and Ain't, and like those hispanic ballplayers, and like the terrorists. God is on THEIR side, dammit.

I suspect a formal religion isn't always as explicit as a test or a history class, to be tuned out by secular children. If that were so, how would you explain the sheer inescapability of the mental trap J and Ain't are so proud to be captured in? I think such systems of superstition are more insidious, kind of just part of the intellectual weather to be taken for granted, unless we make an effort to stop Perry and those like him.

My suspicion is that sentiments like "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" or "Given these new data, I'll have to change my mind" are purely unnatural for people. But I already wrote that essay somewhere, so you probably read it. Religious superstitions are shortcut explanations for the unexplainable, offering the illusion of control over circumstances beyond our control. They need not be at all rational, so long as they fill a strong enough need, however poorly.

Sadly, though, as we see in J and Ain't and others, once that need is filled with nonsense, it's damn near impossible to displace the nonsense with "currently most probable, but maybe still wrong." What the nonsense has to recommend it is sheer certainty, an attribute MUCH more comforting than mere correctness.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 27, 2001.

Flint, you have a knack for over-simplifying things and then basing your reality upon this faulty foundation. I suspect you will always look down on others, feeling superior to them, talking degradingly about them, yet never able to grasp what they understand. It is easier to flaunt an imagined superiority then it is to actually investigate the subject at hand.

-- bogsworth (running@on.8cylinders), October 27, 2001.

Misguided religious nuts caused the disasters of 9/11. Misguided religious nuts are always *sure* that their imaginary god is on their side, and that they're in the right.

The religious posters on this thread seem certain that their imaginary god is on their side. They also seem just as certain that they're in the right.

I think there is an object lesson to be drawn from the posts on this thread.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), October 27, 2001.

bogsworth,

Accurately and concisely said.


Flint,

I was going to try to arrive at the same point that bogsworth made by showing that your equating of radical Islam and Christianity is just as false as equating some psychopath and the vast majority of gun owners. However, you must find it preferable to dodge my post rather than to defend your shoddy reasoning.


Anita,

"Blatantly" illegal is a stretch. Flint is partially right on this point: Perry knows that he won't be arrested. But it is not because he is the governor, it is because the Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution on this particular issue is not shared by many in your great state of Texas. I doubt that they could find a jury to convict your current governor of his egregious wrongdoing.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 27, 2001.

So J, are you saying that if you don't believe in a law it is all right to violate that law? There is a difference between "blatanly" illegal and "just a little bit" illegal?

If everyone can choose to obey only the laws they think are right wouldn't that be kind of confusing?

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), October 27, 2001.

I doubt that they could find a jury to convict your current governor of his egregious wrongdoing.

I agree with you on that, J. It's pretty much a southern Baptist state. However, there are even southern Baptists here who [although they may agree with the desire to put prayer back into schools after the fact] would not go along with breaking the law as it currently stands. It's kindof like the current Marijuana laws here. While most policemen agree that the law will be changed eventually, the law is the law as it stands NOW, and they've been hired to uphold it.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001.

There is no difference between Mother Therisa and Osama Bin Laden.

-- Fagglesatoma (faggy@baggypants.org), October 27, 2001.

There is no difference between Flint and Already Done Happened. Both have the imaginary notion that they are right.

-- grannie gadfly (granny@baking.cookies), October 27, 2001.

J:

The shoddiness isn't in my reasoning, it's in your determination to misunderstand. I am NOT proposing that airplanes be banned simply because some religious nitwits abused them, nor would I suggest guns be banned for the same reason.

What I suggest instead, reasonably enough, is that nit-wittedness itself is what's to be avoided. As has been made clear on this thread, what characterizes religious idiocy is the conviction that they are doing the bidding of some imaginary god, that their calling is thus higher and purer than mere human laws, because they are *absolutely* right, which justifies anything.

So once again, the LAST thing we need is to indoctrinate our children into some equally arbitrary cult, which indeed teaches that their moral absolutes are "above" human law. We may not be able to prevent demented parents from warping their own children, but at least we can exercise the good sense to avoid having the state do it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 27, 2001.

Jack Booted Thug,

No, I didn't say that it was all right to violate a law just because you don't believe in it.

Yes, there is a difference between "blatantly" illegal and "just a little bit" illegal. In fact, some laws themselves are illegal. Beyond that, do you believe that there are no gray areas in the legal system? That everything is black and white?


Anita,

That which you say is true, but even policemen often choose to enforce certain laws with discretion, or not at all. Have you ever received just a warning rather than a speeding ticket?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 27, 2001.

J: I haven't gotten ANY breaks here in Texas when I've broken a law, and neither have my kids, which humorously enough allowed me to assume that it wasn't just because I've lost the good looks of youth.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001.

Here we go again. What makes a law illegal? We have procedures for overturning laws (via the courts), or replacing them (via the legislature). We have NO procedures (thankfully) for individual citizens to decide all on their own that some law is illegal and they need not follow it. Nothing can stop individuals for regarding any specific law as being improper by his own lights, but it remains the law until the procedures are followed. Law simply does not work if it is arbitrary.

This leads, in turn, to the issue of selective enforcement. Nothing undermines a legal system faster than capricious application of the laws. Whether it be due to ambiguous laws, or impractical laws (like absurdly low speed limits), or having too many laws for consciencious citizens to learn, or making the enforcement depend on the offender, capricious enforcement vitiates a legal system.

My own opinion is that we have far too many laws, and too many of those are written specifically as a gift to lobbyists. I think for the next 100 years, every legislature should be required to retire two old laws for every new one they pass.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 27, 2001.

Grannie --

"There is no difference between Flint and Already Done Happened."

Of course there is. He is somewhere else. I am right here. We are two different people.

"Both have the imaginary notion that they are right."

However right or wrong Mr. Flint may be (and we've crossed swords before), I am most assuredly right. I challenge you to prove otherwise.

Misguided religious nuts caused the disasters of 9/11. Misguided religious nuts are always *sure* that their imaginary god is on their side, and that they're in the right.

The religious posters on this thread seem certain that their imaginary god is on their side. They also seem just as certain that they're in the right.

I think there is an object lesson to be drawn from the posts on this thread.

If you're misguided, Grannie, which you appear to be, that's your fault, not mine. And if you cannot draw the rather obvious object lesson that pervades this thread, that's not my fault, either.

Perhaps you should get out of the kitchen more, and possibly use the brain that you claim your imaginary god gave you.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), October 27, 2001.

Flint,

What you are proposing is that religious fanatics who follow the false teachings of a man named Mohammed are the same as the followers of the one true God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The two are not even close to being the same. That is why your reasoning is shoddy.

As far as, "What makes a law illegal"?

Specifically, if a law contradicts the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States of America, then that law is illegal. There are numerous laws on the books in this nation that are contradictory to the Constitution that have yet to be overturned by the courts. How exactly should a person follow two seperate laws which contradict each other?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 27, 2001.

Give an example Mr. Renquist. Just because YOU think a law violates the Constitution does not make it so.

In non faith/belief terms I would be interested in what you percieve to be the difference between religious fanatics who follow the false teachings of a man named Mohammed the followers of the one true God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

BTW, please provide the appropriate scripture in the New Testament where Jesus of Nazareth declares his Godhood.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), October 27, 2001.

J:

[What you are proposing is that religious fanatics who follow the false teachings of a man named Mohammed are the same as the followers of the one true God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The two are not even close to being the same. That is why your reasoning is shoddy.]

Very hard to stop laughing after reading this! So you want to get into the "my prophet is more divine than their prophet" game? Can't you see that they are playing *exactly* the same game, by the EXACT SAME rules that you propose above? These two are identical. Open your eyes for once.

[As far as, "What makes a law illegal"?

Specifically, if a law contradicts the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States of America, then that law is illegal. There are numerous laws on the books in this nation that are contradictory to the Constitution that have yet to be overturned by the courts. How exactly should a person follow two seperate laws which contradict each other?]

You follow the laws on the books until a court determines that those laws are not constitutional. You don't make this decision by yourself, this is what we have courts and procedures for.

However, I've run into numerous Followers of Paul Milne who contend that THEY are the final arbiters of what the constitution means, and that if the Supreme Court doesn't agree with them, then the Supreme Court is wrong, and they are right! And inevitably, this is coupled with the most narrowly self-serving interpretation of the Constitution. But change the fact situation a bit so that the Milniac benefits from a different interpretation, and sure enough the Constitution now means something different, but JUST as self-serving.

In practice, a law is illegal because the Supreme Court says it is, and the reverse (that the Supreme Court says it's illegal because it is) is simply a conceptual error. No absolutes underly any of our laws. The constitution means whatever we decide it means according to procedures we agree to follow. The legality of any law lies in the *procedures*, and NOT in the law itself.

Interestingly, I've found that with no exception I've seen so far, *every single person* who believes that laws are either inherently legal and constitutional or not is ALSO a believer in some absolute religious superstition as well. This desperate need for certainty, for absolutes, blinds you to the richness life offers. Fortunately, the important decisions are made by people who truly understand government, rather than simply memorize self-serving catch phrases. The US Constitution wasn't handed down from heaven on stone tablets (there's stone in heaven?). We use it because it's clear enough to guide our legal system, without being so inflexible as to require us to ignore it. In short, we reserve the ability to make informed and intelligent decisions without being bound by long-dead people from a different world. But we can always distill wisdom from their insights. Wisdom does not mean memorizing someone else's catechisms.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 27, 2001.

What you are proposing is that religious fanatics who follow the false teachings of a man named Mohammed are the same as the followers of the one true God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The two are not even close to being the same. That is why your reasoning is shoddy.

I'm sorry, J, but I must laugh at this, as well. Flint's reasoning is shoddy because he doesn't buy into YOUR belief system? A BELIEF system is a BELIEF system. It requires BELIEF.

Personally, I honor any/all belief systems that people have. I don't SHARE them, but I feel that they should be honored. It's not MY job to suggest that YOU shouldn't be comforted by whatever beliefs you enjoy.

Flint: Getting back to something you posted earlier on this thread, I don't think that children raised in secular homes are affected [Heh. YOU might prefer the term "infected"] by religious offerings. I exposed my children to Bible stories, information on the religions of the world, etc., since early childhood. Aesop's fables were included, Roman mythology, as well as Greek mythology. I think my son was about five when he asked, "What do WE believe?" I told him, and I don't even think that J would disagree with this, that belief comes from within. It's NOT something to be determined by group thought.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Anita:

You might think belief comes from within (and in a sense, maybe it does). But WHAT people believe, statistically, comes *overwhelmingly* from the beliefs of their parents. As small children, we are taught either some doctrine, or we are taught to think for ourselves. And as I wrote earlier, the state has no business either undermining OR reinforcing parental training. From your description, you've taught your children to think, hence they'd never confuse reasoning with supersitition. Thinking people don't make that mistake.

What's amusing to me is that J cannot distinguish arbitrary belief from proposals supported by, and derived from, direct or indirect observation. Notice he says I "believe" in the Big Bang, as though this were a superstition like his. This is a semantic error revealing a huge underlying conceptual blind spot.

The Big Bang is a proposed explanation for various observations we've made, in an effort to find a consistent, non-magical explanation of our universe. It is subject to modification or outright rejection as advancing technology enables new observations. This is necessarily TRUE for all proposed explanations of observation, and necessarily FALSE for all arbitrary superstition such as J prides himself on.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 28, 2001.

Flint: I don't think that childhood indoctrination results in fundamentalism. I would agree with you that there's a TENDENCY to follow a particular faith if that faith was part of the indoctrination process, but it doesn't explain fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism seems to fall into a whole other category, IMO. MOST folks who engage in it were at one time believers in the opposite extreme. J, himself, has admitted that he was as strong in his disbeliefs as Tarzan. Think back to the Y2k debunkers. Who were the zealots? Well, those who'd felt one way at one time and then switched sides. Statistically speaking, you're in deep trouble of having a philosophical change here, Flint. LOL. Your strength of purpose on ONE side leads you to be ripe for an equal strength of purpose on the other.

This is what I was trying to get at in our discussion of Horowitz. Did you not read Eric Hoffer's True Believer? I can't doubt the man's words after observing life for all these years.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 28, 2001.

Jack Booted Thug,

There are a whole slew of laws on the books that make it illegal to own certain types of firearms. You know, those things in the Second Amendment of the Constitution whose ownership of which "shall not be infringed"? Exactly how is it that the state of New Jersey can pass a law that says that a specific weapon (an M-16 clone without full auto capability) is illegal, when that exact same weapon is legal in the state of New York?

Are you serious, or are there recent examples of Christians flying jets into buildings of which I am unaware?

"I and the Father are one." John 10:30 NIV.


Flint,

My eyes are wide open. Maybe someday you will see the fallacy of your belief system that the entire infinite universe started from a tiny ball of matter and energy that just inexplicably materialized out of nothing. Enlighten me as to the details of your superstition: just where is it in the laws of physics that energy and matter suddenly come into existence from nothingness?

You're dodging my question. How does one follow both the Second Amendment of the Constitution and the New Jersey statute which makes it illegal to own an M- 16 clone which does not have full auto capability? How does a person follow two contradictory laws while he waits for the courts to overturn the illegal law?

You are wrong. Certain rights are absolute and inalienable, and no law to the contrary made by government is valid. Or are you saying that if the Constitution is amended so that anyone named Flint shall be publicly hanged until dead, that you will step right up to the gallows because the correct procedures were followed and the courts have agreed?


Anita,

Maybe your laugh was a nervous chuckle because you didn't understand the topic at hand. Flint's reasoning is shoddy because he equates the belief system of radical Muslims with the belief system of Christianity. His reasoning is especially shoddy because he holds his belief system as superior to all others, while not even recognizing that it is a belief system, and not a truth.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 28, 2001.

J: I've heard these arguments before regarding LACK of belief constituting a belief system in itself. I can't find the logic in that, myself. Just because one doesn't believe A, it doesn't follow that one must, therefore, believe B. One might simply consider the data inconclusive to believe either. Flint, certainly, has strong opinions on what he considers to be superstitions. I wouldn't conclude that to be indicative of a belief system in itself. I don't think I read you wrong. You were saying "My God's better than YOUR God."

Just out of curiosity, looking at your comment to Flint: Maybe someday you will see the fallacy of your belief system that the entire infinite universe started from a tiny ball of matter and energy that just inexplicably materialized out of nothing., how do you explain the notion that God always was? That was the explanation given to me as a child in Sunday School when I asked, "Who created God?" There's got to be SOME starting point, so SOMETHING had to have inexplicably materialized out of nothing.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.

Anita,

In regards to the discussion at hand, "One (who) might simply consider the data inconclusive to believe either" is referred to as an agnostic. The words of Flint make it quite clear that he is not an agnostic, but that he has chosen to believe that there is no God; therefore, he is an atheist.

You, as a (seemingly) finite being living in a finite existence, are asking another being (me) in the same environment to try and explain the infinite. God's eternal existence is inexplicable from our current perspective.

I don't know how God has always been. I do know that using the scientific theories that help us to understand our finite universe fail miserably when we try to use them to explain the inexplicably infinite. They lead people like Flint to build their entire case on a premise that is contradictory to the very rules that are held so dear.

So yes, "SOMETHING did have to inexplicably materialize out of nothing"; but isn't it obvious that using the "laws" of physics (which say that situation cannot occur) to "prove" that said situation did occur, is faulty?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 29, 2001.

The US Constitution wasn't handed down from heaven on stone tablets (there's stone in heaven?).

LOL Flint, you must have missed the scene in The Ten Commandments where God uses fire from heaven to engrave stones on the mountain.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), October 29, 2001.

Interesting stuff! On the God issue, a distinction really has to be made between arguing for a "First Cause" and calling it God; and postulating that there's a First Cause who happens to be Allah, Yahweh, Jesus Christ or (insert your favorite deity here).

There's an absolutely enormous difference between the two.

-- Eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), October 29, 2001.

J: Probably one of the FEW things I remember from my Physics classes is that "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed." So, if there's going to be a "big bang", there must have been energy floating around, eh? YOU, apparently, choose to use this energy to "create" a middleman of sorts who then goes on to "create" everything else. Flint, OTOH, chooses to avoid the middleman and simply state that what we see is what we see, and we HAVE watched species evolve, so THIS we can see. You're absolutely correct when you state that neither you nor I can discuss anything beyond the finite. It's all we know, and infinite may not even exist.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.

J:

Do you ignore the point I was so careful to make because you find it inconvenient, or because your religion makes that point invisible to you?

Anyway, I'll try again. I don't "believe in" any big bang. I never said I did, because the phrase does not apply. If you care to go back and read what I wrote rather than putting falsehoods into my mouth, you will find that I described the big bang as a proposed explanation for the observations we've made. This is strictly provisional -- our proper goal is to *prove it wrong*, the very opposite of the religious inclination to defend silly-sounding stuff as true-by- definition. A proposal like the big bang CAN be proved wrong.

I admit I do believe that cosmologists, within whose area of expertise the big bang lies, are sincerely looking for the best explanation they can find for what we observe, and sincerely willing to modify or discard any explanation in the face of conflicting observation. They do not START with a supernatural, unproveable explanation, and reflexively reject anything and everything else out of sheer insecurity. You don't disprove the big bang by claiming it happened by magic instead. The wise man says "I'm not sure, but this seems most probable right now." The fool says "I *KNOW* for certain, because I found a book that makes this claim, and I know the book is true because it says it is!!!"

[How does one follow both the Second Amendment of the Constitution and the New Jersey statute which makes it illegal to own an M- 16 clone which does not have full auto capability?]

You follow the statute until such time as the Supreme Court (and NOT YOU!) decides it's unconstitutional. Now, from what I've read, there are some (sane) legal scholars who have actually wondered WHY that stuff about a well-regulated militia was stuck into the 2nd Amendment. If we conveniently omit it, then that Amendment is crystal clear, so why is it there? Is it possible the founders stuck those words there for some purpose, or did they just all suffer from the same brain cramp at the same time, and nobody thought to correct this?

Now YOU come along and say "Gee, I don't know why that phrase is there or what might have been intended, so I'll just ignore it so that the 2nd Amendment says what I want it to. THEN I'll complain because *I* think the State of New Jersey is violating what *I* have decided that part of the 2nd Amendment means that *I* choose NOT TO IGNORE!" Uh, right.

[How does a person follow two contradictory laws while he waits for the courts to overturn the illegal law?]

You follow the statute. This is long established. It is NOT YOUR RIGHT to decide that YOU see some contradiction and therefore YOU get to do as you damn well please. If you do, the courts will and should convict you.

[Certain rights are absolute and inalienable, and no law to the contrary made by government is valid.]

And just WHO gets to decide which these are, or even whether this statement makes any sense? You? Me? Surely you can see that there might be some societal problems if everyone gets to decide for themselves which laws to follow and which to ignore, based on THEIR personal catalog of "inalienable rights". In practice, you need only the shallowest glimpse of history to show you that your own personal catalog has been violated by nearly every government throughout written history. Obviously, these are hardly "absolute" at all. They either work or they don't.

Now, I agree there are probably some general principles absolutely required for any society to last a long time in more or less the same form. This doesn't make them absolute or inalienable by any means, it simply means that different principles lead to different goals, and some goals are unstable by nature.

We all follow laws we don't like, and most of us can (and are encouraged to) vote for those who will change the laws so they're more to our liking. And the success and stability of our government can be traced directly to this ability of the people to change the laws and the people who make and interpret and enforce them. Our very strength lies NOT in our rights being "absolute", but rather in their being *redefinable* at will, according to accepted (and workable) procedures.

Anita:

OK, I'll agree there is a distinction between a casual follower of some religious doctrine, and a fire-breathing fundamentalist, though I see this as a spectrum moreso than as a dichotomy. For most people around these parts, church is simply a place to go to show off the latest cars, clothes and hairstyles, and to exchange gossip. A social club with some do-gooder appeal.

I suspect (from my lifetime of observation) that people have widely varying capabilities to deal with the essential uncertainties and inevitable unknowables of life, the future, the actions of other people, and so on. What appeals to the fundamentalist is the guarantee of certainty. Of course, about the only thing where such a guarantee can be made is supernatural, inherently unproveable assertions. But the idiocy of such assertions is nearly irrelevant, what matters is that they are ABSOLUTE TRUTH that can be relied on never to change or be modified.

I prefer to understand the odds, like the house in Las Vegas. Let the True Believers keep throwing the dice, convinced their god will favor them *this time*. If J wants to think of the house as considering the odds to be a "belief system" because probabilities are not TRUTH, the house does not care. Probabilities are a sometimes useful way to describe an objective reality that needs nothing magic or supernatural to be what it is.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 29, 2001.

J, Anita hit the nail on the head, I think.

The words of Flint make it quite clear that he is not an agnostic, but that he has chosen to believe that there is no God; therefore, he is an atheist.

That's not true, is it, Flint? I always took you for an agnostic who SO excoriates dogmatic god-believers that you just SOUND like an atheist.

-- Debbie (dbspence@pobox.com), October 29, 2001.

So yes, "SOMETHING did have to inexplicably materialize out of nothing"; but isn't it obvious that using the "laws" of physics (which say that situation cannot occur) to "prove" that said situation did occur, is faulty?

The laws of physics, as formulated, are not faulty; they are incomplete, and don't pretend to be otherwise. Anyway, a First Cause only makes sense if you consider Time to be something immutable. To us humans, the idea of a Something that came "before" everything else, is so mind-boggling as to lead us to say "since I can't explain this, it must be God." More accurate, *I* think, is to say we can't explain it because categories of understanding such as causation, time, and space, are grounded in the nature of the mind. What science explains is a world ordered by the mind's own apparatus.

-- Debbie (dbspence@pobox.com), October 29, 2001.

Yes, Eve. That's the difference between dogma, and an intellectual abstraction. If dogmatic folks could SEE this little difference, there'd be much less dogma around and what dogma there was, would be tolerant of differing dogmas. (IMO) But they won't see it-- and it is not the dogma that stops them from seeing it. I'll agree with Anita, that it isn't the dogmas that do the harm. It's what people DO with the dogmas. There are certain dynamics that fundamentalists have in common, across all dogmas.

-- Debbie (dbspence@pobox.com), October 29, 2001.

Anita,

I have heard God called many things, but never "a middleman of sorts". : )

Your saying that there must have been some energy floating around prior to the big bang begs the obvious question: where did that energy come from? Since we know that it can't be created, it goes without saying that there is obviously something beyond our understanding at play here. It is my belief that it is God.


Flint,

I ignored your point because it is just so much more of your typical crap. Your arrogance is always unpleasant, but it is especially so when you are flat out wrong. Play your little word games to try and pretend that you are so intelligent, but it does not make you so.

You believe that the big bang theory is the most probable explanation for the beginning of the universe. I believe that God created the universe. You say that I am superstitious and unable to think clearly, but you merely saying so means nothing.

I have studied man's secular explanation for the creation of the universe, for I once believed that it was the most plausible explanation. The more that I studied it, the more that I saw that it was wrong.

I have looked at both sides of the argument. I have not dismissed one out of hand as you do. You see, I am not some unthinking dolt that was indoctrinated into believing in God, as much as you would like me to be. I have carefully weighed the evidence and concluded that God exists.

By your line of thought, we should all still be speaking the King's English, drinking tea, and waiting for a court to see it our way. For the most part, citizens should follow the laws as they are written; this is because most laws are Constitutional. I believe that there are certain laws, however, which citizens do not have the luxury of following as they wait for the courts to overturn them. You may give up your guns when the time comes that they are all declared illegal, and then wait for your day in court to try and right that wrong, but hopefully you will be in the minority.

For such a self-acclaimed intellect, you make some glaring errors in reasoning. You have a right to life. A criminal kills you. Your right has been violated by the criminal, but his act does not negate that right. Just as it is true that governments throughout history have violated the rights of their citizenry, those actions do nothing to negate those rights.

I note that you didn't bother to comment on my "public hanging of those named Flint" amendment. I guess it's easier to abide by those laws that are "self-serving", huh?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 29, 2001.

where did that energy come from?

Heh. It ALWAYS was.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.

"Are you serious, or are there recent examples of Christians flying jets into buildings of which I am unaware?"

Would bombing an abortion clinic be considered a similar attack, or the murder of a doctor that performs abortions? Haven't some Christians performed such acts as these? Is the Army of God representative of all Christians?

You miss the point about comparison so I will put it bluntly. Aren't Christianity and Islam both religons, who central theme is monotheism, belief in an afterlife and sprinkled with extremists that utilize the dogma of their religon to justify attacks on those who do no believe in the exact same manner as they do?

Regarding your conflicting laws example, you can go to court to get an injunction on the enforcement on any law that would require you to surrender your weapons. This would stay any enforcement while the constitutionlity of any such law was heard. At the end of the process you might not be very happy, depending on the ruling by the court, but this would be the proper procedure to follow, not arbitrarily deciding which law you will choose to obey. Actually this is what makes our system work so well (using established legal procedures instead of the anarchy you suggest) and I am surprised to hear you suggest the illegal undermining of the American system.

I for one am damn proud of our country and the legal, government framework that makes the system work. Please do not smear the very fundamental basis of our system that allows this great country to be what it is. Next you will be bashing apple pie and motherhood (oops, forget that because motherhood is part of your religios belief system).

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), October 29, 2001.

try ,this scripture=(GOD is no respecter of person's)

but Promise's blessing's to the faithful!!!!

is that a guarantee=of no suffering????

NO NO NO.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), October 29, 2001.

J:

[You believe that the big bang theory is the most probable explanation for the beginning of the universe.]

Where did you find this? I never said anything like this. I described the big bang as a proposal, made in an effort to explain observation, by those trying to explain their observations. I said it was inherently disproveable by further observation. I never said I believed in it, and I never even said I accepted it as "most probable". I've never understood the math involved well enough to comment meaningfully about it. I do know that there are very different proposals that cosmologists have put forward as *also* not being contradicted by anything we currently know. There is a vast gap between describing something and believing in it, which you skip over like it isn't there. Try again, but this time respond to what I actually wrote, and not what you WISH I had written.

[I have carefully weighed the evidence and concluded that God exists.]

Uh huh. And the only evidence you've found for the existence of any god is that you've found things you can't understand, and your knowledge of those things is too limited for proposed explanations to make any sense to you. But magic is understandable even to toddlers. It needs no evidence whatsoever, since it becomes true *by definition*. But I don't accept that the universe must be instantly understandable even by simpletons. I can see that the universe is extremely complex, but so far we've never had to cop out and claim it's magic. You can if you want, and you can obviously convince yourself that lack of evidence for magic is evidence after all if it makes you feel better. But thoughtful people have never needed to run away and hide like that.

[For the most part, citizens should follow the laws as they are written; this is because most laws are Constitutional.]

Chuckle. And didn't legislators write the Constitution as well? So aren't you simply taking it upon yourself to decide which group of legislators is "right"? Remember what I wrote about voting? This allows us to select legislators whose preferences we like better. The Constitution is simply another legal document produced by mortal people. You are confusing it with your notion of the bible, as divinely written by gods, using human hands like puppets. Typically, you are wrong in both cases.

[For such a self-acclaimed intellect, you make some glaring errors in reasoning.]

Wrong twice again (you have a bad habit, you know). First, I am not a self-acclaimed intellect. YOU might acclaim me an intellect, but I don't. I just try to think about things as clearly as I can. Second, the only "glaring errors" you have found aren't errors in *reasoning*, they are "errors" due entirely to my refusal to accept your a priori presumptions as "facts". That is, errors of DOGMA, not errors of logic.

[I note that you didn't bother to comment on my "public hanging of those named Flint" amendment.]

And wrong again! I spoke at some length about following laws we don't like. You proposed an extreme case of this, but I discussed the general issue. I'll go further -- I agree that it is entirely possible to pass bad laws, and we do so all the time. What I've been trying to say is, what makes a law a bad one? The best you've been able to come up with is, you've personally declared the Constitution, in essence, the *inviolable word of god*, you've declared yourself the arbiter of what it means, and you've taken upon yourself the right to declare "bad" all heretical laws according to your legal religion. And you seem to think this is some kind of *absolute* bad, beyond honest disagreement!

Now, I think the Constitution has some errors and inconsistencies in it, as you'd expect since it was a compromise document like anything else in politics. But I prefer to consider laws "bad" according to principles we've learned over time by trial and error. If people refuse to follow a law, it's a bad law. If people CANNOT follow it ("breathing is illegal"), it's a bad law. If it's so complicated or so vague that not even a lawyer can tell if he's breaking it or not (and we have many like this), it's a bad law.

My notion of bad laws is entirely empirical, and NOT definitional like yours. My notions derive from asking "what are laws for? Why do we have them? Are particular laws actually supporting or leading to the desired outcomes? Are laws being enforced capriciously? Are there so many laws that it's impossible even to know if you are a law- abiding citizen? Does the total cost of a law (cost of both enforcing it and abiding by it) exceed the cost of not having that law? How should such costs be measured?" Note that clauses of the Constitution must answer these same questions.

For me, this difference is extremely illuminating, because it mirrors our outlooks about many things. For me, the quality of a law is determined by how well it suits our social purposes when put into practice. For you, the quality of a law is determined by how well it accords with *received doctrine* which is NOT TO BE QUESTIONED! For me, laws codify workable, effective social behavior. For you, laws codify absolute rights handed down by divine powers. This lets me toss out what doesn't work well, and replace it with another experiment. All you can do when your "absolute rights" are ill- considered is to beef up the police force and build more jails!

Can you see the difference in mindset between the True Believer and the skeptical investigator?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 29, 2001.

Jack Booted Thug,

"Would bombing an abortion clinic be considered a similar attack, or the murder of a doctor that performs abortions"?

Yes and no. There would be similarities in that violence was used as a means to an end at the WTC and Pentagon, and also in a clinic bombing or killing of an abortionist. The difference would be that an abortion clinic bombing or the killing of an abortionist would be specifically directed violence as opposed to the random killing of those who are doing no direct harm to anyone.

No, the Army of God is obviously not representative of all Christians. I think that your equating of the radical elements of Islam and Christianity is wrong in this main way: The radical Christians that you have cited have used violence to specifically counter violence against the unborn. The radical Muslims have used violence against those who have done nothing violent.

My decisions to follow or not to follow laws are anything but arbitrary. I let the Constitution be my guide. The system has worked very well, but the Founding Fathers also envisioned a way to change things when the system fails to work. Calling this anarchy is incorrect; it is correctly called revolution. It is obviously not to be undertaken lightly, but when government continues to encroach upon the rights of its citizens, revolution will ultimately be the result.

I am also very proud of this country and its institutions. It is a shame that many of those institutions have rotted by corruption and incompetency to a fraction of what they originally were. I smear nothing by pointing out this fact.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 29, 2001.

[The difference would be that an abortion clinic bombing or the killing of an abortionist would be specifically directed violence as opposed to the random killing of those who are doing no direct harm to anyone.]

Snort! BOTH of these killings were random acts of violence against those doing no harm to anyone, EXCEPT to True Believers of the appropriate religions. Which is precisely JBT's point. And to those believers, BOTH of these killings are carefully directed against violators of their specific beliefs.

Two more things they have in common. Both believers consider their beliefs correct and obvious and the other's beliefs hogwash, and both consider murder fully justified for religious reasons of their own.

But this gets us back to where we started. The LAST thing we want is to attempt to breed more True Believers in our schools. We not only see on this thread what they end up doing, we have personal testimony by one of religion's victims that he's PROUD of the murders done in the name of his religion. Sick sick sick.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 29, 2001.

Flint,

Okay. You appear very much to be an atheist. What particular flavor of creation sans God you choose to believe in doesn't really matter to the point at hand.

Who is it exactly that responds to what he WISHED that the other had written? How is it that you are so arrogant as to think that you can even begin to know what it is that I can or cannot understand, or how limited or vast my knowledge is? I have yet to see a theory of the beginning of the universe that was too complicated for me to grasp, and I have yet to see one that made more sense than a Creator.

Wrong. The Constitution is not simply another legal document. It is the framework for the greatest nation on earth. Although you will refuse to admit the existence of inalienable rights because of your hatred of all things that even hint of God, they exist, and they need no man or government to create them.

Flint, if your arrogance conveys anything, it is that you view yourself as a great intellect. I don't necessarily share that view.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 29, 2001.

Maybe I'm too simple minded, but it seems to me that America is just bursting with patriotism right now. Hell -- that's not our problem.

Our problem is that a certain number of hateful people want to kill us -- with planes, anthrax and any other weapon they can use. What does saying the Pledge of Allegance or increasing patriotic and religious hoopla do to solve the problem?

When we're under attack, patriotism takes care of itself without any tending to. Wild horses couldn't keep us from flying the flag when we're under attack from abroad. No need for school boards or government to push it, it's going great guns without their help.

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), October 29, 2001.

Flint,

Those unborn babies murdered in the womb would, of course, disagree with your assertion that they had been done no harm.

Nice try at putting words in my mouth, but I never said that I was proud of the killings that have been done to those who murder the unborn.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 29, 2001.

J:

[I have yet to see a theory of the beginning of the universe that was too complicated for me to grasp, and I have yet to see one that made more sense than a Creator.]

Yes, I believe this. I can only urge you to reflect that magical explanations "make sense" only to those who believe in magic. For me, what makes most sense is "We simply do not know". I'm content with this. We may never know, and that wouldn't bother me either.

[The Constitution is not simply another legal document.]

Indeed it is. In fact, every state has a constitution, and most nations have as well. Some are adhered to more closely than others. All are the works of men acting as politics dictates. Your effort to imbue it with biblical infallibility (that's a joke, son) is kind of sad. Constitutions everywhere are honored by adherence when they are good ones, and honored in the breach when they are not.

[It is the framework for the greatest nation on earth.]

Hell, I'm chauvinistic enough to agree with this. By all indications, the writers of the US Constitution and those (like Locke) who influenced them had a pretty good handle on human nature. And others, like Marx, didn't understand people very well at all. And frameworks are notably ineffective unless they are firmly ground in human nature, or (as is usually the case) ignored because they are not.

[Although you will refuse to admit the existence of inalienable rights because of your hatred of all things that even hint of God, they exist, and they need no man or government to create them.]

Actually, I hadn't associated any religious superstitions at all with my understanding of what a legal system really is. I tried very hard to show that a *religious* view of the law was problematic. I did try to show you that, although the concept of inalienable rights can sometimes be a useful conceit, it can ALSO hogtie you if you're not careful. There is a conceptual tradeoff between regarding law as at the one extreme so transitory that laws are dayflies without force, and at the other extreme so inflexible (inalienable rights, forsooth!) that a society of law and not men cannot adapt to circumstances.

I think our founders did a damn fine (and smart) job setting up a system whereby laws including the Constitution itself can be changed, but not easily, not quickly, and not directly but through representatives. This achieves a nice balance, where laws retain practical force, but do not make for a rigid and brittle society.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 29, 2001.

Flint,

I do not want to convert you to my way of thinking. I respect that, "We simply do not know", makes the most sense for you. I only look for the same respect from you of my belief in God, "magical" though it may be to you.

I believe that you make the mistake of assuming that my belief in certain inalienable rights is necessarily tied to my belief in God, when this is not the case. My belief in the concept of certain inalienable rights predates my belief in God, just as my belief that abortion is wrong predates my belief in God.

I will conclude by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with your admiration of the Founding Fathers of this great nation.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), October 29, 2001.

I sure am going to miss you, Dennis.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), December 05, 2001.