Did you know that Rick Santorum thinks atheism leads to beheading people?
“They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it. What’s left, in France, became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that. But if we do, and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
Which led me to a crazy thought…maybe the atheist symbol should be a little guillotine. I understand there’s a peculiar trend in religions to use an execution device as a fashion statement, so it would fit right in.
It would also be of some practical utility to cigar smokers.
And what overt hostility to faith does Obama have? Did you see his prayer breakfast remarks? He’s so fucking pious I don’t want to vote for him.
How is this idiot given national spotlight? These are the kinds of things some crazy in some Nationalist Party says, not the fucking Republican candidate for president!
Santorum’s remarks are the kind that would lead to atheists being jailed for atheism.
It took a long time, but the John Birch Society, long cast as a small collection of fringe nutjobs, has become the driving philosophy of contemporary conservatism.
It’s simple. For the sake of our and the USA’s survival and continual well being. Hey Rick, it’s all about self preservation.
Satanorum’s perversion of xianity is the enemy of democracy, human rights, and modern civilization.
This guy is a broken human. And he didn’t even come by it the hard way, by adverse life events.
BTW, little Ricky, faith isn’t being crushed by “them”. It’s being destroyed from within by wild eyed evil kooks like you. When xian became synonymous with hater, liar, ignorant, crazy, and sometimes killer, a lot of people didn’t want to be one anymore. I’m one of them.
Well, see, he doesn’t use Jeebus in absolutely every sentence, and every once in a while he implies that maybe we should have a little of that separation of church and state stuff? Unless someone gets mad about it, of course. Then never mind.
This statememt from Rick Santorum: “What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it.”
Hypocritical, since he wants to tell us what to do in our bedroom. He also wants to force homosexuals on who they are.
In ancien regime France, they executed you by beheading you with an ax — if you were a nobleman. If you were a commoner, you had to be content with a mere hanging.
I’d rather have something with tentacles.
The road Rick Satanorum wants us one leads to Somalia, Afghanistan, Saudie Arabia, and Iran.
No thanks Rick. Why don’t you and your fellow slime molds find a nice theocracy somewhere, join it, and leave us and our country the hell alone.
I found the following Rick Santorum quote on CNN today: “I am not guided solely by faith, I am guided by reason.”
I LOL’d.
[insert “Atheists Get More Head” joke here]
Funny, these days it seems to be Islam (ie. some of it) that’s doing all the beheading. IOW: Santorum’s brethren-under-the-skin.
Memo for His Frothiness: you know that we don’t send people to the guillotine anymore in France, right? But parts of the USA still have the death penalty. How about worrying about that if you’re serious about “Thou shalt not kill?”
I know the current GOP primary race put the bar very high for absurdity, but this one is pretty up there…
What, not an American revolution?
He says that like it’s a bad thing…
Duh. Now, of course the government mustn’t treat you like that. Only the Church should be able to “tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it”. Especially in bed.
Because waiting around for God to give you rights has always worked much better than, say, setting up a just government.
Glen Davidson
In the hands of Discovery Institute fellows, small guillotines have other uses:
The Discovery of God by David Klinghoffer Commentary Magazine
“DAVID KLINGHOFFER may hold the world’s record for con versions to Judaism, no fewer than four conversions-and four circumcisions, one self-administered.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-discovery-of-god-by-david-klinghoffer/.html
I now have this image in my head of Mel Brooks’ “Rabbi Tuckman” from “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”… remember the little machine he had for “soycumcisions”? XD
The most important thig to remember is of course he manages to compare someone to the French Revolution, in fact one of the inspirations for separating from Britain, and say it is a limiting of the unalienable rights of people.
I mean WTF?!
Unalienable rights is practically a plagiarism of the documents that came due to the French Revolution…
Umm, perhaps I’m being a bit dim here, but is he arguing that Atheism leads to Capital Punishment? Is he saying he’d abolish the Death Sentence?
You have the right to confess your sins to a priest. Anything you say or do in life will be held against you in the afterlife. You have the right to do whatever the pope tells your priest to tell you to do. If you do not have a priest, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?
No, no, no. The christian thing to do is to wear a symbolic version of the execution device historically used on you, not by you. So atheists should wear a little stake with some faux wood scattered around the base.
If we all wore symbols of the execution devices used by our religions, Christians would be wearing mini racks instead. And mini stakes. And mini stones. Hmmm…better stop there, this could go on for a while.
“And what overt hostility to faith does Obama have?”
He mentioned non-believers during his acceptance speech. Believers, especially those of the American Taliban, are gentle, loving people for whom tolerance is a given. Acknowledging the existence of those who do not believe is not only overtly hostile, it is a declaration of war!
Let’s be happy the Jesus myth didn’t originate in our time. Crosses are dangerous enough in the hands of tolerant xtians, but imagine that they would all be running around with syringes or guns. Come to think of it, in the US, those loving christians already are playing “Be tolerant” with guns, are they not?
Wow. I just realized that my red “A” looks like a guillotine!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ScarletLetter.svg
I’m imagining a very stylish guillotine… with tentacles.
How many times have religions violently separated men from their ‘unalienable rights’ (they keep using that word, I do not think it means what they think it means), not mention their body parts over things like ‘blasphemy’, ‘heresy’, …?
Some things I’ve been poking my way through:
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, White
The clergy a source of danger to the American republic, William F. Jamieson
@ Sqrat #6:
Actually, in ancient regime France (before the 1789 revolution), the nobles were executed by beheading with a sword, which was considered a noble weapon. (An ax was a tool, thus not acceptable for killing a well-born person. There was an etiquette even to capital punishment. Go figure.)
Commoners were indeed often hanged, but it also depended on the crime. Witches and heretics were burned at the stake; highway robbers were broken on the wheel; and authors of attempts against the king were dismembered by tearing apart the body between four horses who each pulled on one of the arms and legs.
I thought the English used an ax, and the French a sword, because the sword was cleaner and required more finesse?
So true. I am seriously conflicted over the Obama administration announcing today that they are partially caving to the Catholic’s waaaambulancing about the whole providing birth control thing. Saying “ok, fine, you don’t have to, we’ll just make the insurers do it” is like gently patting their hands when they should be stamping their faces with a big UR DOING IT WRONG anvil. Appeasing the church over an issue most of their members disagree with them on to me signifies a ridiculous lack of ability to stand up for anything, no matter how symbolic. Which, come to think of it, has largely been my opinion of this administration since the beginning.
On the other hand, at least these women will still get their birth control.
@ andreasegeland:
Although, to be honest, a lot of the inspiration for the French Revolution and the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” came from the American Revolution, and both movements influenced each other. In fact, the U.S. Bill of Rights was proposed about the same time the French revolutionaries were redacting their own Declaration, and stemmed from the same ideas of unalienable rights and individual freedoms.
Seems history is not a particular strong point in his frothinesses intellect.
The French revolution had more to do with an unjust and privileged over class that cared little for the poor…and even less for the morality of the bible.
It was a rich, ignorant and arrogant bourgeois aristocratic society that owned the land, the riches, the privilege and the paupers lock stock and smoking barrel worth! …bit like his frothinesses and his cronies as it ‘appens!
One might consider that his frothinesses might regard himself as a modern day king Louis 16th…and fears madam guillotine on a sub-conscious level.
Coupled with his intemperate theist droolings one might also consider a guilty conscience might be ticking over in fits and starts…after all according to the dogma the cretin is as soaked in sin with the rest of creation both godless and afflicted and this might be giving rise to an uncontrollable paranoid dyspepsia that fuels his incoherent and rather bizarre views on the world!
Look on the bright side, Rick. Since your brains are in your ass, you have nothing to worry about from beheading.
Wait.. Is this Guillotin’s Corrolary to Godwin’s Law?
As the number of speeches in a GOP candidates campaign approaches infinity, the odds that atheism will be compared to the French Revolution goes to one. ??
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
Methinks the frothy-mouth doesn’t learned how to read certain documents correctly…
Oh, it’s worse than that. When he does mention Jeebus, Obama says we should take seriously the things he said about taking care of the poor and the sick. Religious leaders hate that.
So, America – Jesus = French Revolution.
Solving for Jesus, we get Jesus = America – French Revolution.
Had it not been for the French Revolution, America would be Jesus!
And since Jesus is God, the transitive property states that America would be omnipotent and all-loving, were it not for the French.
I think a declaration of war is in order.
Killed By Fish
What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it.
Shiny, shiny mirror, Rick.
This guy wants to force women back into the kitchen, force them to give birth whenever they’re pregnant, force gays to pretend to be straight, force atheists to yield to his delusion, force his delusion onto every school in America–and he wants it all now.
Fuck you, Santorum. Fuck you with every decayed porcupine that’s every been.
Some Americans have never forgiven the French for the Reign of Terror…
<pedantry>
‘Aristocratic’ yes; ‘bourgeois’ no. The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution against an aristocratic regime.
</pedantry>
I should have axed more questions before posting.
Beatrice:
An Octotine!
Calm down, PZ.
Obama only says what he needs to say in order to prevent political suicide. The religious establishment will slay any politician that DARES not respect their authority (look what happened re contraceptives).
As an ex-evangelical, I can tell you most of us can sniff out fake religiosity ten miles away. And Obama’s religion is as fake as it gets.
So if you don’t vote for Obama, and enough people feel the same, you want Santorum to be president????
But seriously, if Mitt Romney becomes the candidate, all the Dems have to do is to play clips of his total disconnect from people less affluent than him:
– $10,000 bet
– I’m not concerned about the very poor (even in full context, this is a moronic statement)
– giving an unemployed man $50
if it’s Santorum, all they have to do is to play his clips about how wrong contraception is, and all the other crazy stuff he’s said..
thinice,
I’ve heard this argument before, but how do you do it, sniffing out his fakeness? Religion doesn’t just consist of fundies, there are also the so-called moderates? To the ex-moderates here, doesn’t Obama appear like a typical moderate Christian?
Funny, I seem to recall that one of the leading causes of the French Revolution was how the non-nobility were shouldering all the tax burden, while the rich and the churches had all the assets, and lives of incredible luxury–but weren’t taxed.
Eventually, the poor got tired of being shit on, and they murdered the rich and their enablers (namely the scumbag churches).
That’s a hint, Rick.
Sometimes, I think that there’s nothing wrong with America that a few guillotines couldn’t fix.
We need to recalibrate people’s sense of scale. If Obama is overtly hostile then what are we anti-theists going to be? Those of us convinced that religion is the greatest bane on human existence are grouped together with Obama!? (Though I still think he is achieving near optimal pragmatism in many cases.)
Wait… Rick Santorum has a problem with death penalty?
Rick Santorum, uneducated moron, science denier, god-soaked idiot. His idea, atheism leads to beheading people, is interesting. There is something that leads to cutting off a person’s head with a small sharp knife, but it isn’t atheism.
I also thought this was interesting:
Obama — “And he suggested that his proposal to increase taxes on wealthier Americans is consistent with the teachings of Jesus.”
Therefore, according to our president, the dead Jeebus would have been in favor of stealing money if the victim is a successful person.
The same people who complained about Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright, are now claiming Obama is anti-religion. They can’t even be consistent in their whines.
Calm down, PZ.
Fuck you. Obama has been a disaster as a president, in just about every way, shape and form.
Obama only says what he needs to say in order to prevent political suicide.
The republitards are going to hate him, anyway. Rather than appeasing them, and shitting on the constitution and making the rich richer, he could shut the fuck up and do something worthwhile for a change.
The religious establishment will slay any politician that DARES not respect their authority (look what happened re contraceptives).
And that’s why you ignore then and do the right fucking thing anyway. This isn’t difficult.
As an ex-evangelical, I can tell you most of us can sniff out fake religiosity ten miles away.
Right. These are people who aren’t bright to begin with, and notoriously gullible. These are the people who think that Catholics aren’t really religious. Or even other evangelicals.
I don’t think I’d rely on what they think of–well, anything.
And Obama’s religion is as fake as it gets.
It’s no more fake than that of any funditard.
So if you don’t vote for Obama, and enough people feel the same, you want Santorum to be president????
Santorum won’t be President, but why should we have to hold our nose and vote for someone like Obama who trashes the constitution and screws over his base with glee?
If he wants my vote, he has to fucking earn it, like any other candidate. He’s not entitled to it, and, no, I’m sick of being held hostage with Supreme Court this and civil rights that. He doesn’t do that much for either. In some important ways he’s as bad as Reagan the Scumbag–or GDub.
If anything, this piece of shit has to work harder to get my vote than he did in 2008, or he can fuck right off. He has to start standing up to these scumbags on the right, stop going the extra mile to please the conservatards, stop fucking over the Constitution, stop fucking over the poor and working classes.
I’ll vote for the scumbag when he gets off his ass, and does things that make me want to vote for him–because he’s done precious little on that score, thus far.
I’m through with the scumbag until he shows some fucking spine. Why should I have to vote for someone whose policies are at the bottom of the barrel with Reagan the Scumbag’s?
Fuck that.
And fuck Obama.
As an ex-moderate Protestant, almost all xians look fake.
The fundie perversion is just right wing extremist politics with a few god stickers stuck on. About all they seem to really believe is that they need more money, power, and sex and the rest of us need to obey them. No thanks, pea brains.
And all xians are cafeteria xians. Even Ken Ham types. The bible says the earth is flat, orbited by the sun, the sky is just a dome with lights stuck on it for stars, and 6,000 years old. Ken Ham tosses all of that except the 6,000 year age.
False. Our creator was nature or reality. The Big Bang feeding into solar system genesis and evolution.
We are keeping our rights.
pastorwinthrop:
That’s not clear. If rights were bestowed by the creator, denying the existence of a creator is not renouncing rights. If the creator gave them, only the creator can take them away.
And since there is no creator, it really doesn’t make any fucking difference, does it?
Rick’s logic is ludicrous, and not clear at all. There are too many hidden assumptions.
This, ladies, gentlemen and thinice, is Obama’s problem with Democrats. Thirty years ago, Obama would have been a moderate Republican, along the lines of Nelson Rockefeller and Mark Hatfield. The last moderate Republican to become president was Richard Nixon. Obama is probably more honest than Nixon, but he isn’t any more progressive than Tricky Dick was.
pastorwinthrop,
news flash: the Declaration of Independence has no legal power whatsoever.
Try the Constitution, you know that document that doesn’t mention the creator once, except in the signatory statement where it is used to count the years. The constitution deliberately avoids any reference to a higher power.
You’re a fuckwitted nincompoop as well as a sociopath, as has often been observed. Taxation is not theft, shit-for-brains. It’s no wonder someone as egregiously stupid as you is a conservative.
Oh hey, speaking of the French Revolution, did you guys know that Max Robespierre, one of the architects of the Reign of Terror old frothy is apparently referring to decided it would be a really good idea to not only hold the Festival of the Supreme Being (deism), but also to dress up like Moses, descend a mountain made of papier-mache, and to basically anoint himself a god? Yeah…’twas the evil atheists who herded the poor believers into Madame Guillotine’s cold embrace.
I suspect the French Revolution and the Jacobin were opposed to the catholic church primarily because the wealth they had accumulated was taken from the commoners. Religious opposition to the initial values of the revolution (equality, liberty, all that jazz) may also have been a factor, but I honestly do not know.
Anyway, apparently Google’s search critters pick up on the names of links and their destination, so presumably Santorum or Rick Santorum would cause those results to be ranked higher than old frothy’s campaign website. I have no idea whether or not it’s true, but it can’t hurt to try!
‘Tis,
this is a fun game to play. Who said these words (years redacted):
I’m amused that it isn’t just any old revolution that is the result of removing god. It’s the *French* revolution. Does this qualify as a dog whistle for the anti-Europe crowd?
pastor, jump off a bridge.
And Aquaria – I blogcrush you so. hard. I 100% agree on Obama.
Inherent in your statement is the assumption that a creator exists. The fact that I don’t think a creator exists doesn’t mean I don’t believe in basic human rights. Our unalienable rights come from our social contract with our fellow humans. Why is it so hard for some people to simply respect their fellow human beings without a supernatural being ordering them to do so?
It’s a damned good thing that we’re only pushing our luck with a non-existing “God,” not with asshole Xians like pastorwinthrop (yes, very well could be just a troll, but it is what many would say).
God has one good excuse–he’s a fiction. These morons do exist.
Glen Davidson
pastorwinthrop:
Really? Where does it say that in the Declaration of Independence? Hmm? Even more, where’s your creator in the Constitution?
Funny you mention that because the moment Frothy Fecal Mix said the words “french revolution” I heard “freedom fries”.
it’s not anti-Europe, so much at it is anti-French, i think. Deriding anything “french” is the calling card of the manly-masculine-macho teathuglican crowd.
I’m not saying that you sound like a psychopath, but… no, actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
pastorwinthrop, #51
Speaking of veiled non-threats…I’m not saying we should execute morons like you, although some extremists would, but I should make it clear to you that it is only because nobody here is enough of a dick to actually harm another person for what they choose to believe that you can enjoy life and liberty. You shouldn’t push your luck.
“The logic of Rick Santorum is very clear:
1) The Declaration of Independence states that the right to life, liberty and property is bestowed by the Creator.”
I would add that this creator is the creator that “MY Church” teaches only namely the jesus WE believe in all other churches and religions are false and of the devil and are just as bad as the atheists.
well I can understand kinda why Obama is the way he is I have not lived his life. I live in the real world as much as I can these seem to be the only choices we have at the present. I will vote for the moderate over the reactionary but I will continue to work for more.
it does seem like a Sisyphean task though and I am not telling anyone else who to vote for.
uncle frogy
Pelamun:
An amphibian of salamanderine affinities, maybe?
@illuminata
Why are there Americans who hate the French so much? Isn’t the days in which Britain and France bullied America over their idiotic wars long over (as in two centuries ago)?
Far more worrying than his sounding like a psychopath is the fact that he chooses to sound like a psychopath. People with actual mental disorders aren’t in total control of that sort of thing, while this dude CHOOSES it.
He actually choose to say, essentially, that atheists shouldn’t be straight up killed (there’s there xtian love again!), but they they shouldn’t push their luck. And why shouldn’t they push their luck, exactly?
Because god will torture us forever in hell (cuz he loves us!) or was that pastor whackadoo’s passive-agressive way of threatening violence?
The fact that he’s an adult and willfully chooses to believe and regurgitate this embarrassing bullshit is amazing.
pastorwinthrop:
I’m a test-tube baby, you insensitive clod!
I have no idea, but one can’t deny the constant “the french are cowards/weak/sissy” meme that permeates American culture. I’ve always assumed its insecurity – since French culture is frequently held up as an example of sophistication, etc., insecure americans (read: conservatives), feel the constant need to belittle it so as to feel superior to it.
i’m willing to bet most of them have no idea the French aided the newborn US in the Rev War.
Which is amusing, as I literally just drove through Lafayette Sqaure, complete with a statue of the man, an hour ago.
Hmmm, it’s not like there weren’t any quasi-religious elements in the French Revolution. Look at Robespierre. On guillotines as jewelery, I’m in favor, so long as it is the 1795 version.
Since God’s little worshipers love to do his dirty work for him (you know, dirty work they know he wants them to do), I’m taking that last “Don’t push your luck” as a far more earthly threat than a simple threat of hell.
pastorwinthrop:
Genes, amino acids, proteins, embriology… No ‘creator’ required. I recommend a little light reading for you:
Dawkins, Richard. The Greatest Show on Earth, 2009.
It’s entertaining and elucidating and you don’t need a scientific tertiary education to follow it—just an average IQ and an open mind. And it sounds like you badly need some elucidating.
Beatrice – 100% agreed. Let’s see if Pastor Drive By is “man” enough to admit that, or if he lies instead.
pastorwinthrop: Shut the fuck up you moronic uneducated worshiper of a pretend violent middle eastern sky-despot.
pastorwinthrop #51 wrote:
The basic problem here how one views “rights:” top-down, or bottom-up. By invoking “Nature’s God” and reason instead of supernatural revelation as how we discover the source of our rights, the Enlightenment flipped the hierarchy. Instead of being a “gift” granted by an authority — a King or Government as King — our rights were grounded in the natural origin of equals. The people. The individuals themeselves.
With the old kingship view of rights, an owner would give a privilege to the people beneath them. A ‘right’ is seen as a kind of permission which is enforced by authority and force. A king or God King endows people with rights as a free gift. They are only ‘inherent’ by being seen as a sort of invisible essence imbued into the invisible essence of personhood.
And, like all invisible essences, you can easily assert that some people were inherently granted more rights than others. The Owner or Creator need follow no other authority than His whim. Anything goes, because you cannot check or test invisible spiritual “essences.”
But the new way of understanding rights was to examine the concept from the bottom-up. A right is the flip side of a duty: we see that both are the facts of fair relationships. They emerge rationally from a recognition of equality. My right is your duty because the same right is also my duty to you.
Rights are therefore not “gifts” granted from above. All we need to understand, recognize, and respect them is to start off in a state of equality among human beings. We don’t technically need a Nature’s God — we only need Nature itself. Reason does the rest.
IN a theocracy, the “rights” can go anywhere and would only be ensured if God’s existence and authority ensure them. This means that the argument lies in theology. God institutes the government. Good luck with that. The disputes are always about who understands God better. Control runs amok because God has no duties.
In a secular democracy, however, WE THE PEOPLE institute government, and the disputes are resolved through rational means guided by observation of nature. Rights and duties are grounded in relationships among members who are basically equal because they are basically human.
It’s much more secure.
Both Santorum and pastorwinthrop are seeing “rights” the way a child would.
Since the history of the American revolution and French revolution are intertwined, I don’t think it is specifically anti-European.
To some, the excesses of the Reign of Terror was a warning about where too much revolutionary zeal could lead to. After all, the US constitution is not exactly a testament to trust in the rule of the people.
coragyps:
that was Nixon, in 1974..
Makes sense. They believe in imaginary beings, as children do.
pelamun: +1
How can there be rights bestowed by an imaginary deity? Your logic is flawed as usual. Cut out the presuppositional shit of imaginary deities and inerrant book of mythology/fiction, and you might actually have a thought that resembles reality. I bet is would scare you shitless though…
pastor whack’ado
are you saying that my rights to life and liberty are in some kind of jeopardy? I should be careful that either the right to my life or my liberty may be revoked? Just who the hell do you think you are anyway? What are you advocating?
Are these rights for only those who are what?
What are the criteria for granting them?
Are you the one or must it be only those who believes as you do?
You think you sound like a good American but you say things that are profoundly undemocratic.
uncle frogy
Does this qualify as a dog whistle for the anti-Europe crowd?
It’s a dog whistle, but not of the freedom-fries species.
The guillotine is a symbol of the antichrist.
Archy explains.
Link got lost:
http://johnmckay.blogspot.com/2012/02/did-santorum-just-call-obama-antichrist.html
slime mold
guillotine with tentacles
The very same mindset that pushed people to start the French revolution, pushed their descendants to prohibit the death penalty some 200 years later.
How about you, USA? Not stopped killing people yet?
@ radpumpkin #55:
You hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head. The fiercest French revolutionaries, the very artisans of the Reign of Terror, were mostly deists, not atheists! Robespierre and his cronies set up a whole parallel Church (controlled by the state) and a cult of the Supreme Being while beheading priests loyal to the pope. If they opposed the Catholic Church as well as the monarchy, it was for very solid economical and political reasons: the Church and nobles didn’t pay taxes while owning huge properties, and commoners couldn’t participate in the government, unless they were bishops or other prelates.
After all, American colonists in the 1770s revolted over similar issues, like paying taxes to the English king without being represented in parliament…
@70: Don’t forget World War II…. some people think that because we helped France in its hour of need, they owe us forevermore (and that they’re weak and pathetic for not being able to properly defend themselves in the first place). But yeah, American history circa 1777 seems to be lost on a lot of people who think this.
@ pastorwinthrop:
And I sneer at your puny challenge. Yes, I was “created”, if you mean that I “came into being”, by my daddy having sex with my mommy! Nothing to do with any deity… unless of course it was Pan, Eros, Aphrodite, Ishtar, Freyr, or any of that horny bunch.
unclefrogy #81 wrote:
I think he’s suggesting (assuming he’s not just an atheist trolling) that if atheists don’t understand where rights come from then they can’t really use them. “Rights” can make no sense to an atheist. This assumption is made under the assumption that there can be one and only one way to view human rights: as a “gift” given by a powerful Authority who owns everyone.
They’re afraid that if God is out of the picture then human rights STILL have to be seen as a “gift” handed out by a powerful Authority who owns everyone: in this case, the government.
The possibility of interpreting rights in some other way doesn’t seem to occur to them. By accusing atheists of wanting to turn government into God they’re simply projecting their need for God onto us.
It’s like two people eating on a table having a dispute over where the table was made — and one side cannot or will not comprehend that if the table was not made in X place then it could be made somewhere else. Instead, they keep hearing the statement “there is no table factory in X” as the exact same thing as saying “there is no table in front of us.” If you don’t believe the table was ever made, then you make no sense when you try to eat off the table you said was never made. Your dinner is in jeopardy.
A failure to comprehend alternative explanations.
@pelamun Richard Nixon, in 1974.
I am appalled at the amount of vitriol that is poured over president Obama, here in the comments and what I am hearing from neighbors here in the US where I am staying, and their visitors, statements like “this black b@st@rd that is ruining our country”. I have never heard such venom about prime ministers in my country of birth, the Netherlands, or my current country of residence, the United Kingdom. Disagreements yes, but worded like this?
I learned about the USA in the early 60s, that after a presidential election, nearly everybody would be behind their president, whether they voted for him or not. I wonder now whether that ever was true. I doubted it already when I heard that after JFK’s assassination, there was jubilation in some parts of the country.
Irene,
how many commoners actually became bishops? AFAIK, the Church was split into nobles and commoners too, many bishoprics had become de facto heriditary fiefdoms of many noble families.
I assert that I was not created in my mother’s womb.
See – it’s easy. Setting aside the fact that there is no creator, Pastorfuckwit is as ignorant of human biology as he is of everything else: conception occurs in the fallopian tube.
@ justsomeguy #87:
I’m afraid you’re right about the WWII meme, although I suspect that all this French-hating and dog-whistling has more to do with the fact that a mere 9 years ago, one G.W. Bush tried to pass off his Iraq war as perfectly legal and that some French guy called his WMD bluff publicly at the UN.
Allies (and so we were, and still are, most notably in Afghanistan) thinking themselves to be, well, independent allies, and not servile minions? Unthinkable! No matter that France was far from the only one with serious reserves on the issue, it was easier to scream at them and rename French Fries than piss off, say, China or even Germany, who weren’t thrilled either with this adventure. Earth logic didn’t stop GWB’ crew, no more than it stops Santorum now.
Did a god or a ‘we the people’ government give women the right to vote?
Did a god or a ‘we the people’ government end slavery?
Did a god or a ‘we the people’ government guarantee everyone an education?
Did a god or a ‘we the people’ government allow you to believe any faith desire?
Did a god or a ‘we the people’ government write the American Constitution?
Did a god or a ‘we the people’ government give us Medicare and Social Security?
You may notice – There is a pattern and no end to this.
If god is so great at giving us rights, why does our government always beat god to it?
Rick Santorum – go away.
Irene,
where did you get the idea that the American right did not want to piss off China or Germany?
Check out Rumsfeld’s famous “old Europe” comment,*) and all that anti-China rhetoric coming from both sides of the aisle, though for different reasons.
*) But Rumsfeld’s distant relatives in the Lower Saxon plain disowned their famous relative, whom they had welcomed with open arms in 1972, that surely showed him!!
@ pelamun:
You’re right about bishoprics becoming de facto hereditary, but it’s worth noting that in the Ancient Regime France, one of the rare careers open to an intelligent and ambitious young commoner* who wasn’t of noble birth was to become a priest. It opened the doors of influential people who needed trusted secretaries, wise professors for their children, discreet intermediaries in diplomatic negotiations… But other professions, like lawyers or doctors, were barred from the circles of power. By the 18th Century, even serving in the army had stopped being a way to gain a title and thus power and influence.
A career in the Church could even lead to the top of the government. During the reign of Louis XV, a few decades before the French Revolution, two of the most influential men of the kingdom, who became not only bishops but acted as prime ministers, were originally commoners.
—
* Women included, in a small capacity, because for girls, the only alternative to marrying was becoming a nun, which could sometimes lead to becoming the head of a monastic order.
I guess Santorum knows nothing about the principles of government – especially not those of the USA and France. Let’s send him to a little cave in the vicinity of Jerusalem where he can rule over the sand and rock.
Because only God would cause horrible birth defects like this one–and much more disturbing ones as well.
Glen Davidson
thinice, #38: So if you’re not an evangenital, your religiosity is “fake”? Is the tartan on that Scotsman you have there authentic?
nix avid europae: “I learned about the USA in the early 60s, that after a presidential election, nearly everybody would be behind their president, whether they voted for him or not…”
A polite fiction at best.
@ pelamun #95:
You certainly know American politics better than me, and I may be misremembering some things. But the fact is that apart from a few heated words, no “bad German” meme was spread at the time. No one proposed to rename wieners, for instance, or German Shepherds!
Now, I’ll grant you that with China, it’s more complicated, and other things came since 2003 to sour the relationships between the USA and the PRC.
@ madscientist:
Now, if Santorum could not only become an hermit in the desert, but a stylite…
Aquaria: You are fucking awesome.
Irene,
W. was personally offended at the German chancellor because Schröder had promised him that his opposition to the Iraq war was campaign rhetoric only. Of course once he understood how well the electorate responded, he went all out, and won reelection. He never had him over at his ranch, unlike Schröder’s successor Merkel, who in her time as opposition leader had supported the Iraq war (in the world of diplomacy these things matter a great deal. 20 minutes in New York Hotel, or 2h in the Oval Office, or days spent together in Crawford).
Probably there had been a “French surrender monkey” meme already in popular usage, and that was reinforced by the official anger.
@ 35 Synfandel
”
‘Aristocratic’ yes; ‘bourgeois’ no. The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution against an aristocratic regime.
When enough folks do it it becomes ‘bourgeois’ by default…
The aristos did it as a right of their position…the ‘citizens’ did it to rid themselves of the aristos enactment of that right.
Both did it in numbers…ergo ‘bourgeois’ action tabled on both sides.
Exactly, and a significant part of that privileged overclass was the clergy, many of whom were themselves members of the aristocracy. And, as the old joke suggests, they were some of the most despicable aristocrats. So, quite a few of them lost their heads.
Though I think it was really the priests and nuns that they hated, the French Revolution could be seen as actively anti-Christian. That’s why they invented there own calendar among other cultural innovations. From what I gathered in France, anti-clericism is still relatively strong there.
Needless to say, Santorum is just using fear, and the hate it spawns, to get votes. His ahistorical rants are as stupid and unfounded as all the other wackos running for the Republican nomination. No surprise that. His view of the French Revolution is almost certainly based on snippets of college textbooks and Hollywood rather than having read anything in much depth about, even as questionable a source as Wikipedia. He’s too busy reading his Bible and praying to inform himself.
Oh, and while I was talking about birth, power and economical status in Ancient Regime France, I forgot to mention another thing that may have been the final nail in the coffin of the monarchy, because it subverted the whole aristocratic system from the inside:
While it’s true that nearly all the prestigious, influential, and lucrative appointments were reserved to the nobles (except for a few ecclesiastic exceptions), and that the same nobles didn’t pay any taxes, there was one very well-known and increasingly common way for ordinary people to enter the supposedly closed caste: they could simply buy their way into the aristocracy.
And I do mean buy it like you buy a house or a piece of land.
The thing is, there was little to no bureaucracy in the Ancient Regime, but the king had centralised more and more functions in his hands, so he needed both funds and personnel. To kill both birds with the same stone, the French kings had taken since a few centuries to sell (for substantial sums of money) the “privilege” work for them! Clerks, tax-gatherers, even magistrates: one could get nearly any job in the royal administration if they could pay enough. And as a bonus, you were now considered an honorary noble (since working for the king is a privilege in itself) and your children and grand-children would be part of the aristocracy.
The buyer of such a job could not only hope to become noble (or at the very least, his children), but also to enrich himself: clerks and magistrates kept for themselves the “fees” paid by the public for bringing a suit to justice or registering a patent or whatever, while tax-gatherers were allowed to keep a certain percentage of what they took from the peasants. In fact, the whole system worked on corruption, with the nobles and the king being the first to profit from it. But many rich bankers and merchants bought their way into the aristocracy… paving the way to radical criticism of the whole system as not only unjust but corrupt and unsustainable.
One of the main incentive of the revolutionaries, apart from abolishing the privileges, was thus to get rid of corruption and build a system where education, work and probity were rewarded instead of birth or the ability to gather money. It helps explain a lot of the passion and the manicheism of the French Revolution.
Irene,
since you seem to know so much about the aristocracy, can you tell me the definition of nobility/commoner in England? When watching the Tudors, it was confusing, because some characters, like Anne Boleyn, at times were shown to be commoners, and sometimes nobles. I think there might be a third class called peers, but how they exactly relate to each other was baffling to me, and Wikipedia didn’t really help.
(Now, in Germany, nobility was stratified into several strata, most commonly high nobility and low nobility. Originally, only the Emperor had the right to ennoble commoners, though with time, other high princes received the right to ennoble as well. Later on, to make nobility more exclusive, in many areas of privilege, “Adelsprobe” were introduced (all of your four, or even eight, direct ancestors had to be certifiably noble).)
Gee, that sounds exactly like the present USA.
@90 It’s true that there are more than a few racists in the U.S.. though perhaps Europe could give us a run for our money on that account. And it’s true that some of the most disgusting criticism of Obama comes from our American racists. However, there is much to criticize about Obama that has absolutely nothing to do with his race. Aquaria upthread has it right, except that it was evident four years ago and earlier what a smarmy little prick he is.
I`ve read the bible a few times over the years and have yet to find a single word or statement that has anything to do with human rights of any kind. The only `right` granted to humans by this so-called uber benevolent being is to kneel at his feet in feudal-minded serfdom and subjugation to his every whim and wish – no matter how horrid, criminal and ignorant it might be. It is no different from the all too many times in history where people where all subject to a lord or king or emperor as dutiful peons and chattel. A type of culture that the Enlightenment endeavored to fight against.
No one owns me in any way, shape or form – nor do I own anyone else.
Believe it or not, I frequent a cigar shop that has a cutter that looks like a small guillotine.
Sigh… I’ve asked it once. I’ll ask it again…
When do we get to actually vote for someone who has the brains, guts, spine, and balls (i.e. either testicles or ovaries, I care not which) to agree with and execute our positions rather than just an milquetoast ass who would be elected to sit in a office for the sole purpose to keep the other party from getting power?
There are some on the Left who would call this “strategy” for eventual political gain. I call it a strategy for stagnation, not progress. Hell, given our current planet’s overall economic and environmental status, it’s a strategy for extinction. We need radical change and we need it 30 years ago! Waiting for this nation’s common dullards to eventually wake up and realize that their jingoistic worship of ancient superstition and cut-throat capitalism was wrong all along is time the rest of the human species doesn’t have left.
Apparently he’s taken a bit of a disliking to Heavy Metal now too, claiming it causes all sorts of problems, including Mental Illness.
http://tyrannyoftradition.com/2012/02/10/rick-santorum-declares-war-on-heavy-metal/
I’ve been a Heavy Metal fan since 1987. Though I probably shouldn’t admit it as I do suffer with Mental Illness, but then I was diagnosed in 1981. So, does Heavy Metal cause Mental Illness or does Mental Illness cause Heavy Metal?
No, but I heard that Metal Health with cure your crazy, Metal Health will cure your mad.
@51. pastorwinthrop :
.. But I’m certainly thinking it loudly!
Is “pastor winthrop” for real or a Poe? Poestor winthrop? I wonder. Not that it makes that much difference.
I would seriously enjoy reminding Santorum of his right to remain silent; that if he gives up that right anything he says can and will be used against him in a court of law and that he has the right to have an attorney present before any questioning, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be provided for him at no cost. Then, I’d like Santorum to explain to me how those rights come from god.
In a closely related matter – remember, rights granted by god a witch-doctor can be taken away by a witch-doctor.
It is interesting to reflect on the guillotine versus the cross as symbolic of methods of execution. They had very different philosphies behind them.
The guillotine was devised with – believe it or not – humane and egalitarian intentions. It was to be a mechanism for a quick, relatively painless death applied equally to all – “nobles” & “peasants” alike. It reduced the role of executioners and took human errors – which happened even with axe & sword beheadings – away.
The Cross on the other hand was intended to be a humilating, agonising death reserved for the lowest of criminals. (“High born” Romans would traditionally perform something akin to seppuku, slitting their wrists and dying “nobly” that way or stabbing themselves as Nero tried and failed to do & Mark Anthony did.)
Crucifixtion was, intentionally, a slow death as drawn out as possible and essentially an instrument of torture and terror as well as capital punishment deterring the populace from crime and also used in brutally enforcing social division. (Even if some “weirdo / oddballs” still found it a “doddle” which the Roman soldiers who found the spoon found uncomfortably hard to believe!)
Given the choice, I’d opt for being executed by guillotine over being crucified anyday. (Well, obviously I’d prefer NOT being executed at all but y’know what I mean!)
So in even its symbols (if we do adopt the guillotine as such) Athiesm will be more humane and equal than Christianity!
If my understanding of history is correct Rick “Stinkyfroth” Santorum has it all backwards too – The French revolution which overthrew the old order and freed and enabled (some) people to think radically led to increased atheism not vice-versa.
IOW, Revolution first, then atheism not atheism first then revolution.
“I should have axed more questions before posting.”
I don’t know why frothenstein is being such a sword loser. I could tell you more but I’ll spear you the details because I know it would be an arrowing experience.
.
.
.
Apologies to the reader and the early Dragon magazine.
@83. 01jack :
Thanks for that link – I recall the guillotine was used in the Left Behind’ cult Christian Rapture series of “novels” too.
I’m going to break that stinker of a santorum quote down a bit further here :
Encouraging people to be good to each other is a bad thing why? Don’t the Religious Right-wing also believe in people being good to each other too? Didn’t someone supposedly important to them say something about loving and being kind to their neighbours?
Actually they used the guillotine to go *from* tyranny. To another tyranny admiteedlly but its not like the majority then were in a great situation before the Revolution either.
Aww, well that’s sounds nice. Something good to look forward to too! Are we supposed to be afraid of or oppose better healthcare or something?
On the disliking France front – Ithink it has a lot to do with the pretentious and snobbery of the french at leats in reputation and stereotype.
Also perhaps an association with the intellectualism of the french culture clashing with the stronganti-intellectual urrebnt n US society?
Gak! Typos – make that :
Also perhaps an association with the intellectualism of the French culture clashing with the strong anti-intellectual current n US society?
It is however generally true that over the last century or so the “Cheese eating surrender monkeys” have earned their reputation for being militarily pretty useless. Plus that the USA has rescued them from foreign powers occupying them.
There’s more than just a grain of truth to that – although backinthe Napoleonic wars and time of the US & French Revolutions things were very different in that regard.
I’m not going to go on at length defending the ancien regeime, but it wasn’t as bad as some sources portray it, according to some recent work.
Fuck you. As a gay man and an atheist (and an outraged observer of the thoroughgoing dehumanization of women, genderqueers, non-whites, etc.)I’m tired of being the acceptable casualty for politicians and public discourse. You have NO idea how degrading, dehumanizing and wearing it is to deal with this every day. And when people like you tell us to calm down about it it’s like pouring acid in an open cut.
We don’t need to calm down. YOU need to get outraged and open your fucking mouth against this shit instead of telling us what we should and shouldn’t get outraged about.
You know how you change the unfortunate reality of having to pay fealty to religion to get elected to public office? You start raising hell about it and making it socially unacceptable. You know how you ensure that it continues? By wasting your effort insulting the legitimate grievances of the victims and telling them to pipe down.
So again, fuck you.
“Cheese eating surrender monkeys”
contrasted with
“burger chomping invasion monkeys”
Ah,I see Aquaria got to it before me. Well then, everything she said. Nyah.
A slight distraction, going back to the wild jewelry idea – there is a nice guillotine charm available. http://www.etsy.com/listing/45766084/guillotine-sterling-silver-charm-off
@47. pastorwinthrop :
I disagree on its clarity and would say that its very flawed and does not logically follow.
Missing premise – assumed “truth” – that the Declaration o’Independence is *correct* in making this claim.
Unstated assumption that a Declaration stating something makes that thing factually accurate for everybody universally.
(Analogy : The Koran states Mohammad is the Allah-god’s “prophet” – it stating so, doesn’t make that true.)
Missing word which changes the meaning and renders that premise false – Atheists deny the existence of a SUPERNATURAL divine “creator.”
As has been pointed out already, atheists beleive in the scientific “creation story” – backed by plenty of evidence – that we were “created” from natural events such as the Big Bang, the formation of the Sun and earth, evolution and natural processes. The word “Creator” doesn’t necessarily apply to such things but there is a sense in which we were created by these natural, explicable, occurences. That we were born and have life and as such have those philosophical rights to life, liberty and property because of our natural state of being human.
Your conclusion does NOT follow from the premises.
Denying a supernatural God does not automatically imply losing rights just because other groups consider one (or more?) “God(s)” to have been that “Creator.” I presume you do not identify the “Creator” as Zeus or Krishna or the American Indian “Great Spirit” – does that mean *you* lose your rights for refusing to accept your “Creator” then?
IOW, the term “Creator” is vague and NOT specifically identified with any specific diety and covers a range of them and also the possibility that the word may be a metaphor or poetic license.
The Declaration of Independence is NOT a contract making our *inalienable* (& stress that word inalienable -think on what that means please!)human rights contingent or dependent upon having religious faith in a specified diety.
The DoI was a document written in a certain historical context reflecting the views and understanding of that historical period. If it were written or re-written today the wording would likely reflect our improved modern comprehension of reality and replace “creator” with a better phrase.
(Eg. “Humans being born equal have the common intrinsic rights as fellow human beings to life, liberty, property, freedom of expression and to pursue happiness providing that pursuit of happiness does not remove otherhumans righst to same.”
I could be mistaken but I think you’ll find that some of the authors and signatories to the DOI were themselves atheist, agnostic or unchrishtian “deists” eg. Ben Franklin?
@38. thinice says:
I wonder what would happen if Obama came out and outed himself as an atheist now.
Atheist wouldn’t openly be elected POTUS today but I suspect more than a few have been at least agnostic & privately non-believing. Yes, Obama is among those secret atheist Presidents.
If Barack H. Obama came out and said something like :
If Obama was to come out and openly say this would the reaction be furious? Would it bring out the crazies even more? Sure at first – but then would people soon settle down and accept it and understand that maybe, just maybe, it ain’t the end of the world if an atheist is POTUS? Would it change hearts and minds so that in future being atheist was more accepted and not just in politics? I wonder.
Wish he had the cajones to actually say that and then we’d know & see for sure.
So *is* it politicial suicide then? To start off with, yes, but once in power – perhaps not? Maybe he’ll save that announcement for his second term?
Personally, I don’t want either of them! Any of them in fact. I wish we had a wholenew bunch of candidates because surely to fucking goodness we can do much better than any of these clowns currently on offer.
However, of the realsitic candidates running today my own choice – grudgingly and with held nose – would be that hypocrite, narcissicist and adulturer Newton Gingrich because he’s the only one talking human space exploration with a bold vision in that area and that means the most to me outweighing his other negative factors.
But I’m pretty sure we’ll end up with either Barack H. Obama or Mittens Romney and frankly I don’t see an awful lot separating them. Aside from maybe Obamacare which I think will probably stay in some renamed form even with a Romney presidency. Given that Mittens himself came up withsomething so similar and is a relative moderate as opposed to a relative rightwinger democrat in Obama. Santorum? Not a chance.
BTW. You know who Gingrich reminds me of quite a lot?
Ironically enough – Bill Clinton.
Not a great president but not the worst you’ve had either and I suspect a Gingrich presidency would turn out much like the Clinton terms.
Also I suspect that neither Bill Clinton nor Newton Gingrich really believes in religion as anything other than a useful political tool.
@27. anubisprime :
Like with Christopher Hitchens’ thinking with that breed of frothing rabid religionist zealot, I strongly suspect Santorum will one day be caught with the proverbial live boy or man. At least I hope it is the live boy and not the alternative proverbial dead girl which with the disgusting mix of lube and fecal matter wouldn’t surprise me either. Think its a safe bet santorum’s got some (metaphorical) skeletons in the closest driving his fucked up personality to the warped extremes he’s gone to.
He’s so fucking pious I don’t want to vote for him.
No kidding! I’m pretty sure the reason the religious right treats him like a bowel obstruction is because of how far up Christianity’s ass he is. When the pope coughs I swear I can see Obamas teeth.
You mean he’d be impeached?
We can but hope.
God damn you again, santorum. Again with the same thing that so many (ok, pretty much all) “‘Merica was founded as a Christian nation, it’s in the Declaration of Idependence” wankers typically fail to understand, is that the identity of the ‘creator’ is actually quite moot in contrast with what was being conveyed. The fact of the matter is your ‘creator’ could have referred to the Christian god, muslim god, hindu god, norse god, flying spaghetti monster, gaia, creator spirits, or simply your lineage (parents, grandparents, ancestors) which nevertheless had endowed within you rights that you recognize to be inalienable – at least when you consider how far people will go to secure them. To the point of lethal force and willingly facing death.
Considering various aspects about our reality, with no expectation of an omnipotent being appearing, and through divine intervention restoring anyone’s rights (the very fact that we had to fight a bloody revolution without such assistance as though the rights that were not hard fought and paid for by blood do not exist, and the fact that the christian god’s so called holy dictates do not include any of the rights listed by Thomas Jefferson) I would openly and confidently declare the Christian god as pretty much out, and having no relevance to this document or America’s foundation. With that said, fuck you Frothy, and all your fellow pretenders who have no understanding of what this country is really about.
These would those ‘inalienable rights’, right? So even stipulating this ‘creator’ chappie, they would be rights that can’t be taken away. Doing that would make a liar out of His Creatorness and … oh wait. SOP.
OK, so a lot of you are saying “fuck Obama”. He hasn’t lived up to our expectations.
So what’s your alternative? You going to vote for some loser that has no chance, or not vote at all, and increase the chance that one of these religious crackpots gets elected president, exactly like GW Bush got elected twice?
If you say that a second Obama term is worse than a Romney or Santorum presidency, then I say FUCK YOU. Your idealism is blinding you to reality. Aquarius, I’m talking to you.
It’s Aquaria, as in, not-the-dawning-of-the-age-of.
And did you read any of what she or I said? Can you understand why we’d bristle at the “pipe down or you’ll only make it worse” suggestion? Can you understand why reasonable people would disagree and say, “It’s not OK to tread water. We have to start pushing for actual progress”?
Damned bolding fail.
Expecting better, dimwit. Refusing to buckle under, being active, being noisy, being mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore.
You need to shut the fuck up and attend to your education.
My creation is still occurring, since I’m not a christian. The process of creating me did, indeed, start in my mother’s reproductive system, but my parents loved and respected me enough that they did not burden me with the arrogance of faith — instead, they gave me the authority and responsibility to continue my own creation process as I was able.
They had the wisdom to get out of the way, slowly over the early years, as I ‘set aside childish things’, found the wonder of reality and joined the humility of the scientific epistemology.
In the seventy years since I was delivered, with help and inspiration from many people, I’ve continued my creation as a human animal. For as long as I’m able, I will not stop the creation process. I hope that my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren — and everybody, for that matter — are willing to be responsible and authoritative for their own continued creation.
That’s why I avoided giving my descendants the arrogance of faith, the idea that growth can reasonably conclude (and decay set in) just because one has made a religious conclusion.
And no, it’s not just ‘gene regulatory networks’. the pastorwhoizits still has operating gene regulatory networks, but appears to have concluded his growth and started his decay some time ago.
Doesn’t say a lot for the way the US is headed does it?
I have this idea (fantasy probably) that Obama is, as thinice said, doing what is necessary in a “Christian Nation” to get re-elected. Once that aim is achieved he will, in my fantasy, come out as the true “evil” atheist that he is. Barbecued babies on the White House lawn anyone?
se habla espol
That was lovely.
Have you sent something to PZ for “Why I’m a Atheist”?
I somewhat agree with Bassmanpete. If Obama gets a 2nd term, you will see a bolder, more progressive president, not backing down so much to Republican threats.
But I still don’t see an answer to my question. I’m probably as or more liberal than most here, and I’m damn mad at his failure to keep some of his promises (but he made a start on healthcare, first the first time in US history) but, will you honestly be OK with a Republican as president because you’re so mad at Obama? I’m thinking that Aquaria, Josh and Caine ARE ok with that, from their responses. Frankly, the prospect of that terrifies me. I’m still furious with the boneheads who took enough votes away from Al Gore to prevent his election (he could have won easily, don’t blame the Supreme Court), just so they could feel good proudly flying their liberal freak flags. Did voting for Ralph Nader make you feel good, eh?
Jesus Christ, you really don’t read what we say, do you? How about you re-direct your scorn (publicly and loudly) to the regressive right-wingers who want to deny women control over their bodies? How about you re-direct your scorn and speak out about spineless “left” lawmakers and executives who keep giving religious nuts not only a free pass, but actual sway over the rights that all American citizens should have?
Why don’t you want to spend time doing that instead of castigating us, whom, you’re surely aware, are not going to vote for a Republican?
Josh:
Obviously not. I’d say someone is still evangelically wired and is allergic to learning. The critical thinking and comprehensive facilities aren’t evident.
Just whom do you think you’re addressing? Why do you assume you’ve got an audience of Ralph Nader voters?
And why, for the love of god are you trying to punish dissenters and NOT the actual right wingers? Why is it OK by your lights that I have to suffer as a second-class citizen and not pipe up just so that I can preserve the tenuous status quo that’s shitting on all of us?
Seriously —-you’re the textbook example of fighting your own people for a tiny slice of the pie rather than rising up to protest the fact that the bakery has unfairly reserved three quarters of the pie specifically to set the rats to fight each other over the scraps.
chigau (違う):
Thank you.
Yes, the first day (or night) of PZ’s invitation to submit.
As opposed to that telling coming from delusional religious fanantics who want to run everybody else’s lives. There is nothing, nothing in the universe, scarier than a moralist who will let nothing stop him in his efforts to *save* people by removing all their options and any ability they had to run your own life in order to *make them moral* all for their own good.
This man would no doubt cry over how terrible it was that he’d had to torture someone or burn them alive to make sure they got into heaven, but he would still pull out the fingernails or light the fire. This is how the Inquisitors reasoned, and the possibility that he might actually get his chance to imitate Savonarola is terrifying.
@ ^ Josh, Official SpokesGay : [Applause] Well said.
@132. nms :
Hah. I guess its always a possibility wheoever gets to be President. A job with let’s not forget, some pretty powerfulchecks and balances and limitations on it.
But if memory serves they tried to impeach Clinton but couldn’t actually remove him right?
Too slow. Make that :
@145. Josh, Official SpokesGay :
& also from #136 :
Well said [Thunderous applause.]
I had visions of faith being extracted, crushed, and used to make diamonds.
A Gingrich presidency
really that would be a good thing? the contract on America guy, the the two timing womanizer? who got into ethics trouble while in office? that guy really?
because Obama could not get everything you wanted nor all of what I wanted either. Really what was the chance that was going to happen so easy any way.
What would you think the reaction of the crazy right wing fringes would be if he really would push through the hard stuff like single payer health care, full civil rights for all people regardless of sexual orientation to include the right to get married or scrap homeland security. You pick any or all of them and you ask yourself if the crazies are flipped out because of the moderate things he has done what do you think they would do if he was really advocating truly left wing progressive politics. He probably would like to get through his term in office in one piece.
uncle frogy
Rights are the product of the society you live in , in the same way that cars and houses are. They obviously change as society does. You aren’t born with rights you are born into a society that has them
If you are on a desert island alone you have no rights
It’s no surprise at all that you’re too fucking ignorant to know what “impeach” means. Look it up, shit-for-brains.
Yeah, we already know you’re a moron. No need to go on proving it.
StevoR,
You should re-read the replies you got back on this thread.
It’s good that you aren’t going to be involved in our election, but the sentiment is still ridiculous and so please, please consider our ridicule again.
You are wrong, so very wrong, to sacrifice humans now and for ages in a vain hope to rescue non-existent humans in a billion years’ time.
Peers were actual lords, entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Their immediate family would count as nobility socially, although in legal terms they were commoners. When Anne Boleyn was born her father was a commoner, but he was made Earl of Wiltshire. Her maternal grandfather was the Duke of Norfolk, so she was always of the nobility in the broader sense. She was given (by Henry VIII, before their marriage) the first peerage awarded to a woman, as Marquess of Pembroke, but never sat in the Lords.
I don’t know how many of you might be listeners of the Stephanie Miller Show and thus familiar with the audio creations of “Mike in Raleigh”, but there have been several about Santorum:
Santorum Surge Warning
Frothy Santorum Holiday Special
Oh, and as a cigar smoker – I prefer a punch to a guillotine. Fewer stray bits of tobacco, you see.
@155. Drolfe says:
Who said anything about billions of years time?
Or human sacrifice?
Who says the hope is “vain”?
Humanity needs to spread out to survive – toavoid having what happened to the dinosaurs happen to us. Ever read any Carl Sagan or Isaac Asimov or Pamela Sargeant many other people with actual long term vision for Humanity’s future beyond this planet. A trio of quotes for you to consider :
“This [space] is the new ocean and I believe the United States must sail on it and be in a position second to none.”
– President John F. Kennedy after John Glenn’s first orbits in ‘Friendship-7’ on Feb. 20th 1962.
“I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.”
– Stephen Hawking, 8th January 2007 – interviewed before taking a zero-gravity flight.
“Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.”
– Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
I agree with those quotes and the visions of the people who said them. I think you have to admit JFK, Stephen Hawking and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky know what they’re talking about and are better smarter people than you.
@ 154. KG. aka That Jihadist apologist moron who is dumb enough to trust Ahmadinejad with nukes :
They tried to remove Clinton from power, they failed. That’s what the impeaching was about. If there’s some technical detail I’ve missed, well meh, that’s the gist of it.
StevoR,
we already know about your callous disregard for minorities, so just fuck off please.
Also, if you don’t know what impeachment is, just stop digging and educate yourself first. Anyone who has studied American politics knows that impeachment does not mean necessarily mean removal from office. And no, it wasn’t necessarily about removing Clinton, it was about politically damaging his presidency (a removal was impossible from the start), a goal which they succeeded in).
But given your black-and-white views about politics in general, no surprise that you thought that impeaching Clinton was about removing him.
KG,
Thanks. So I guess that’s because morganatic marriage and the distinction between high and low nobility were both not that important compared to the HRE?
Sounds like Frothy Mix’s speech writers tried to pack into one speech as many dog whistles as they could, with a fine disregard for actually making sense.
The psychiatrists have a word for the disconnected utterances of the truly insane: word salad. Santorum’s speech qualifies.
Anybody else notice how there’s a very 1984-ish flavor to this speech, black and white being swapped, ignorance being knowledge, freedom and oppression confused, and so on?
And talk about redefining marriage!! The santorums of the world want to redefine marriage from being a civil contract, often but not necessarily solemnized in a church, to the RC definition where the civil side of things is irrelevant.
That’s a pillar of our civilization? Thanks but in that case I’ll take to the trees and hang by my prehensile taile.
SteveoR,
You’re lying again. I don’t trust anyone with the power to obliterate millions of people, and certainly not Ahmedinejad – who, of course, would not be in control of the weapons, as you are too ignorant to realise. But advocating mass murder to avoid the risk of someone committing mass murder is both evil and stupid.
They did impeach him, fuckwit. If you don’t know what a term means, it’s inadvisable to use it.
SteveoR@158,
Only morons think quotations are arguments.
[Asked what he thinks about most during the day] Women. They are a complete mystery. “Stephen Hawking at 70: Exclusive interview” in New Scientist, 4 January 2012.
StevoR,
As KG points out, quotations don’t address the argument. Attacking me as worse and dumber than Hawking, or JFK — irrelevant.
But if we want to bring up whether or not you’re wrong in the eyes of other people, beyond me and those here that have said as much on multiple threads, how do you think JFK would answer this question: Given Newt’s speech about privatising space and colonizing the moon, and the rest of his policies would you endorse him for president over Barrack Obama?
If that’s too much of a stretch, how about just this one request. Justify your use of quotations to attack my ethical position: protecting existing humans from harmful likely policies is more important than protecting non-existing future humans from unlikely neutral policies.
@162. the fuckwit KG.
Reading comprehension FAIL again from you KG?
Quoations can indeed be used in arguments to support what was said and as evidence of how others think. Liek say, how I sued them to illustrate a couple of important points.
@155.Drolfe :
The offensive nastiness there has been considered and rejected as the short-sighted, reading comprehension FAILure, thoughtless stupidity it is.
People ridiculed the Wright brothers and the early rocket engineers too. Space travel was supposed to be “bunk” and Moon landings impossible – but history has gone on to say otherwise. Just as the idea of Columbus sailing around the world to find a new route to China was supposed to be impossible according to the nay-sayers too.
We’d still be living in caves accomplishing and learning nothing if people had listened to arguments like those spewed against human space travel and colonisation there. I’m glad we’re not. I’m sure all those tired, zero-sum, unimaginative, cowardly canards will be ignored again and again into the future too. Venturing over the next hill and exploring and settling new lands – even new worlds – is part of human nature after all. It is what we do. So it seems too is other less far-sighted and visionary humans complaining and saying it can’t be done.
You were using them simply as arguments from authority: “Oh look, these clever people agree with me, so I’m right.” Only morons do that.
@116. Hairy Chris, – 30 January 2012 at 10:52 am on the Dan Savage doubles down thread.
Yes indeed and if you read the thread closely you’d have seen me say so myself here :
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/01/28/dan-savage-doubles-down/comment-page-1/#comment-254671
@ 165. D’oh. Typos. Make that :
Quoations can indeed be used in arguments to support what was said and as evidence of how others think. Like say, how I used them to illustrate a couple of important points.
StevoR,
are you really that stupid or are you trying to be a minor grade troll? Quotations without their proper context are nearly useless in an argument.
Just take JFK for instance. He was a politician who had as one of his goals to send a man on the moon. So yeah, there will be some quotations from him supportive of space exploration. Colour me shocked.
Look where Gingrich made his space exploration pledge. In Florida. Just before the primaries. Now which federal agency has a substantial presence in Florida? NASA. My goodness, this is Pol Sci 101.
Did Gingrich win Florida? No. Do you think that he will remember his promise if elected and reelected? My goodness, the sheer idiocy of your statements is mind-boggling.
Hey, you’re still not getting it. No one is making a zero-sum argument. Many, many times on previous threads on this topic, I and others said, “we can do space science and feed people and promote justice and promote equal opportunity, etc., etc.”
Voting for Newt accomplishes none of that great stuff, does it? I don’t have to be smart to be right. Humanism isn’t hard. Newt is the wrong choice if you care about people.
And to your post #168: What important points are you illustrating with quotations, beyond as evidence those people are smarter and better than a person you don’t know on the internet?
@167. KG Muslim apologhist and all round shitpile :
Well I guess as a moron you’d know wouldn’t you KG you fuckwit. What’s your problem anyhow -still mourning Osama bin laden?
PS. No, I wasn’t using them as simply arguments from authority – I was using them as supporting evidence and backing up my arguments which you, Mr Ahmadinejad-lover, have again failed to comprehend. Unsurprising given what a fuckwitted fuckwit you evidently are.
@170. Drolfe :
Funny, it sure looked that way to me on the other thread. At least one poster argued it was either Obamacare or space travel and people accused me – completely wrongly – of making exactly that sort of zero-sum argument.
We won’t know *what* it accomplishes unless Newton Gingrich gets in – which he almost certainly won’t – but at least he is talking about a vision for space exploration and colonisation for the future which is far more than either of his rivals are doing.
I do – but so are the other two frankly.
Netwon Gingrich is the right choice if you care about human spaceflight and I do.
Gingrich as POTUS would be limited by the courts and constitition and checks and balances. I don’t think he would be as bad as his enemies are claiming. I don’t like the hypocrite but he offers more in the one key area for me than the others.
Its all moot as he probably won’t get in.
But Newton Gingrich is the science geek candidate and we’re supposed to be science geeks here right? I don’t think we should allow our understandable dislike at his history and some of his other policies blind us to the good thing he offers space policy~wise.
Never thought I’d have to argue with Luddites over the value of space exploration and space science here, sigh. I’ll have to continue this discussion later. Half asleep now as it is.
Wut? What alternative reality do you live in?
If there ever was anything like a science candidate on the Republican side this year, it was Jon Huntsman, and he’s already out.
One last thing before I go to sleep – See :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/16/wait-how-big-is-nasas-budget-again/
for an illustration of how little money really gets invested in NASA and space exploration.
@pelamun says:
Strawman and false in so many ways. I’m in a number of minority classes myself as it happens.
I do care about other people and other issues too but there are priorities and dreams and hoeps that matter a huge deal to me and I think everyone in the long run too. I’m not advocating everything Gingrich stands for. I thought I’d made that clear.
I really wish there was a better alternative to Gingrich promising the sort of space policy vision he’s offered. Alas, there’s not.
Right, but we keep banging our heads over and over saying, StevoR, why do you care about human spaceflight more than women controlling their own bodies, or other civil rights?
No, he’s not. Science geeks aren’t for Newt, if we’re going to generalize. To generalize further, science geeks probably like women, and don’t like the creationist party, and think AGW is both real and a problem.
If people were accusing you of making a zero-sum argument, even if it was me, I wouldn’t be shocked — you’re saying Newt uber alles because one thing! While we’re saying hey, you can get some of one thing in addition to not throwing at least half of Americans under the bus. (You know rather than getting none of one thing, since it’s just fucking pandering, and still throwing over half of Americans under the bus.)
Luddites, really, StevoR? This is why we keep making fun of you. Not supporting Newt makes us Luddites. That’s what you’re saying. How can we take that seriously?
Irrelevant. Minorities can be bigots too.
Hey, in the last thread I was saying just that, NASA’s budget is so small there’s no reason we can’t keep the same level of space science funding AND not throw over half of Americans under the bus! See that’s exactly NOT a zero-sum argument!
But you know, Newt wants to CUT NASA, right? He wants his moon colony but wants to do it without government scientists because government.
*head desk*
Newt Gingrich isn’t going to do a fucking thing for spaceflight. He’s not going to take us to the moon. He’s not going to do anything except say whatever it takes to get elected.
Gingrich’s plan is to shift the burden of space exploration to the private sector. Hm. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah! That’s what’s been happening for the last two fucking decades.
Gingrich is going to do what all conservative candidates are going to do (and by “conservative candidate,” I include President Obama): cut Nasa’s funding to help balance the budget.
Gingrich will, if anything, fuck up the economy even more. You can’t go into space without a real economy. Oh, you can sure as fuck talk about going into space. But you simply can’t unless you have enough budget to cover the Republican priorities here on earth: policing the internet, going to war with Iran, cutting taxes for the rich, and so on. So even if Gingrich wasn’t simply pandering to his audience (which he was, and transparently so), he wouldn’t be able to get any of his grandiose ideas off the ground anyway.
If you are really concerned about our future in space, you’d best work on getting our economy fixed first. There ain’t no way congress is going to pass any kind of space exploration bill in our current economy.
Why must it be the USofA that does this “space exploration”?
(why am I making this comment on a thread about weird jewellery?)
StevoR said:
Right on, Nigel. If you want to explore space, Republicans aren’t the gateway to that aspiration (as has been pointed out over and over). Newt in particular isn’t going to do shit for NASA and in this case his pandering to Floridians amounts to straight up lying. So, if you aren’t banking on NASA, or government in general per the Republican M.O., for advances in space science then no choice in president matters one wit (you should instead be backing whichever billionaire says he’s going to privatise space exploration first). You have to remember these shits keep insisting that government is the problem, forever preventing our sweet, sweet off-world colonies.
[Meta]
Chigau,
We talking about US-done space science because StevoR thinks Newt, a cadidate for US President is going to promote it. It mustn’t be Americans in the broader context. I bet it isn’t even controversial to predict that the next humans on the moon are Chinese.
Sorry this has become sort of a derail of a derail, but StevoR keeps bringing up Newt and his glorious space vision. And then we, wrongly or not are compelled to point out then endorsing Newt comes with serious costs to existing people. I mean we could get back to talking about how stupid Santorum is, instead of how bad Obama has been thus far, instead of how Newt would be better than him on space all other factors be damned. (That’s the same reason idiots support Ron Paul, fwiw (hey! free weed! Abortion be damned!))
What StevoR doesn’t admit to himself is that Newt expects private enterprise, with something like a million dollar prize for a carrot, will spend a billion dollars and take over for NASA and go to the moon. If he believes that bullshit, I think PZ has some Hudson Bay lake shore property in Minnesota for sale.
An advocate of genocide whines about offensive nastiness. Truly, you couldn’t make it up.
None of the quotations included anything resembling an argument – but then, you think this sort of verbal diarrhoea:
is argument, so it’s unsurprising you think they did. Really, it’s of a piece with your vile talk of “taking out Iran”, as if mass murder was a neat move in a video game. It’s obvious in both cases that actual people, with lives to live, and everyday needs and desires, just aren’t real to you – you truly are a psychopath, although I’m sure you don’t realise it.
Incidentally, those who said Columbus was wrong, were entirely right. In case you’ve forgotten, he didn’t reach China. He thought the eastern edge of Asia was only 3,000 miles west across the Atlantic. If he hadn’t bumped into the Americas – which, by the way, he continued to his dying day to insist were Asia – he and all his crew would have died of hunger and thirst.
And another thing:
StevoR
You have an cartoon view of human history.
Well since what you appear to mean by “science geeks” is fuckwitted numpties who believe a proven serial liar running for political office, when he spouts a ludicrous fantasy about how private ennerprise will give us space unicorns that fart moonbases if we just get the darned gummint outta the way, no.
Hmmm… I dunno… a little guillotine might be mistaken for a circumision device.
May I recommend the Sanity Fish instead?:
YouTube- The Sanit Fish – thatgaybloke
It’s not just history
Plausibility of the claim rules out science geeks
Newt might as well have promised us a FTL drive.
I am a huge nerd, and old enough to have watched and read Sagan when he was fresh and exciting, and even I cannot hear such claims without mocking them. (I say this as a weak defense against StevoR quote-slinging.) Then again, I grew up under fear of nuclear annihilation so I have a different set of existential fears, I guess. Escaping this rock is a distant goal compared to fixing the deep problems in existing human societies right now. Sending off the Space-Arks as a hedge against stuff that could get us killed any day isn’t really feasible to me.
This debate just blows my mind and gives me such crazy siwoti.
To bury this issue — since appeals to authority seem to be the order of the day — ask yourself, “What would NdGT do?” Would he vote for fucking Gingrich in November?
@StevOR, #dear-fuck-where-do-I-start-he-does-go-on-doesn’t-he?
You know, StevoR, as much as you’re frantically obsessed with your shiny rocket ships, I don’t think you’ve stopped to consider that, until we kinda sort humanity out down here, all we’ll be taking to the stars (which we won’t anytime soon, but, y’know…dream that stupid dream!) is a copy of our fairly crappy Earth society, and thus we’ll have got precisely nowhere.
I’m fairly amazed at how much you fetishise space travel above all other concerns. You do know it’ll still be people on those utterly hypothetical rocket ships, don’t you? People with all their flaws, which you apparently think we’ll can just wish away because we have TEH SPACE TRAVEL. I mean, what do you plan to do about the trillion other issues politicians have to address? Pray them away?
But you see, AshPlant, when we “escape” the Earth there will be an A-ark and a B-ark. This solves the social problems because the in-group will blast off on the A-ark and the out-group will go their separate way on the B-ark (and C-ark etc, amirite?). All this social friction you would think we’d need to solve first will evaporate as segregation finally just works.
Also:
You’re not. You’re being told, repeatedly, that in essence: you’ve been shown a picture of a shiny thing you want by a politician, let us not forget, and a Republican politician at that, and one who was speaking to the state with all the space stuff in it at the time in the run up to an election, and one who can’t even keep a single personal promise to his wife(s), and you’re jumping and barking at this shiny thing and your yapping is irritating people, and when they tell you to keep it down you just reiterate how much you WANT IT. Nobody’s arguing about the value of the entire field space exploration that I can see; they’re just poking at your rose tinted spectacles to see why they’re so firmly affixed to your nose.
Hmm, I’m kind of mixing my metaphors now. So, politics, eh? You USAnians all got your (non-space-related) escape plans for one of these regressive nutters getting voted in?
I’m glad I live in Australia. Far away from pontificating morons like Rick Santorum.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Josh & Cain: My god you guys are getting boring. I have read and understood both your points, and you both seem to have a pathological inability to answer a straightforward question with a yes or no: is an Obama 2nd term worse than a Romney or Santorum presidency? In November, you have no other options. Period.
This isn’t just some random BS he’s throwing out there – this is Christian fundy symbology at work. They make *movies* out of this crap. The guillotine is a great big honking horn of Satan to these morons.
It all goes back to those idiotic armageddon-porn “Left Behind” novels. Please recall, there are millions of those books in print. They all sing clear and loud about the guillotine.
The shit-stainSantorum is trying to drum up the Christians against Obama. That’s what you’re seeing. It’s not just some stupid yahoo belching out invective around his last three cans of Milwaukee’s Best, it’s a stupid yahoo belching it out in a calculated move to try to generate hatred and fear of the President.T
But StevoR knows how to do that: the mass murder of Muslims – especially, but by no means limited to, Iranians – and applying the death penalty without worrying about wrongful convictions, will sort it all out.
thinice:
Santorum would be the worst possible candidate. Hell, even Huckabee would be better.
Romney, though, is a horse of a different flavor. I’d say he’d be about the same as Obama. I’m not sure there’s really that much difference between them. Even the issue for which Obama is most derided by the conservatives, “Obamacare,” is modelled on a bill Romney passed in Massachusetts.
I’m thinking I might vote whoever the Green Party nominates, which might be Roseanne Barr.