LOL LOL LOL... tell ya what, let'em have the satanist and witches but just as soon as they come for the buddhist we'll kick their asses.
You strive so hard to sound credible, AAA, but when you make statements like this you place yourself firmly in the right-wing whacko camp. m
Well I'm trying to understand how you think *exactly* because that is how i learn from people. So are you saying that you don't believe in satan? In your detailed explanation of his connection to wicca it sounded to me like you were pretty seriously concerned about people being fooled by the deceiver. Why is it comical to you? Because satanism should not be taken seriously as a religion? I'm trying to understand your desire to overturn the first amendment and I guess i was hoping that you would have what you consider serious reasons for it. As I said before, i see wicca as benign to mildly positive. If you see it as some kind of threat from satan, I could understand your desire to see it exempted from protection. But if its just because you find their religion humorous I'm not really understanding your thinking which is why I ask. For me, christianity seems equally comical with the mock cannibalism and blood drinking, etc. But it gives meaning to a whole lot of people so i'm pretty sure i'm just missing something and that's why i consider it important that christianity is protected by the first amendment. This is also how i feel about wicca. It seems kind of bizarre to me, but a lot of people find meaning in it. So i want to see wicca protected by the first amendment. etc. Anyway that's how i think. The way you are looking at things doesn't really make any sense to me right now, but i'm really trying to understand your belief system because in my experience that is how progress is made.
What's this about the Founding Fathers burning witches? Never heard that one before. Isn't it more reasonable that the 1st exists in order to prevent "witch" trials?
In the same vein: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.". -- H. L. Mencken One step further: "By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed." - Adolph Hitler For those who still don't get it, could read a fable about it all: "Animal Farm", George Orwell
Nice theory. True possibly for a few oddball cases. Exercising some common sense and guided by the obvious universal validity of the 'useful idiots' principle, the line between self professed atheists and agnosticists can only be called hazy and blurred (it suffices to read a few lines of ET chit-chat). If you are a bit more avantgarde and being aware that 'useful idiots' have always been unwittingly in the service of some crafty ruinous character, it will not be that difficult to spot the missing link. That's what you have a brain for. Querens Querendi. Historical evidence suggests that most of those who got themselves stuck in the 'useful idiots' category, will share in its fate. nononsense
I'm going to hate myself in the morning but .... So what happened to the..... "insufficient data to determine the truth or falsity of that concept" ?.(third option) I would suggest, atheism means without theism for the reason that there is ..... "insufficient data to determine the truth or falsity of that concept" (third option) I don't agree. To me that is an exclusion of more subtle and sophisticated meaning which forms understanding. You tell someone who has not considered the matter in any way previously that there is a giant sky fairy. He doesn't understand, as the suggestion has no meaning or coherency associated with it to enable comprehension. To suggest he is now "Ignoring with intent" and therefore ""practicing" " atheism, doesn't suggest you used the word appropriately...in my opinion of course.
My suggestion is, a missing or ignoring of a particular aspect in all this. One can choose to reject, accept or...accept nor reject. In other words, on matters which are perhaps glossed over with contradiction, absurdity, woeful insubstantialities and which are based only on meaninglessness - as say for instance watching paint dry, basketball and religion - it is reasonable not to have any belief or any non belief in such subjects. They become by their own standards of pointlessness....irrelevant for the purposes of holding a 'for or against', 'belief in or not belief' position. (Except perhaps for paint watching.. green especially) So it isn't just a case of atheist, agnostic or theist. It is also a case of the subject, religion in this case, containing no reason enough to make the time for considering any of those positions as substantive. As religion has no significantly plausible conjectures, making itself inconsequential by a sheer ludicrousness embodiment of outrageous propositions embedded within a wide range of nonsensical ideas, dismissing the notion of it, as one would dismiss the notion of fire breathing dragons as no more than a fictional product of an imagination, is not to then hold a belief in non belief as was suggested. Rejection of the inconsequential, is neither a belief or non belief in the inconsequential. Atheism, I see it, is by definition without theism and by that finds no cause in the first place to believe or not to believe in a preposterous abstraction. As I understand it, the atheist would find no cause to bother with either.
i repeat, the authors of the bill of rights more than likely did not have satanism in mind when they were constructing protection of religion. can anyone truly argue otherwise. i am not even saying they were right, just that they were much less tolerant of satanism than modern society. it is their writings that you guys so virulently refer to, yet you would find their beliefs disgusting today. also, one need not believe in satan to have disdain for his followers. it is funny how you posed as an open minded inquirer in the beginning and now your true colors have come out. are you a witch? an atheist? have you ever participated in wiccan rituals with your friends?