browntimmy: gja: And I also view the bible as far too much conjecture and tainted opinion to take it literally..

Uh oh, does that mean it's possible the nativity story is conjecture?

It ALL best guess, pal. All the eye-witnesses are demised, dead, recycled celestially, found the final rest.

Dimensio: A am tempted to decorate my office space with St. Patrick's Day decor. If asked for an explanation, I will reference the Christmas-themed decorations established last week.

Fair enough. I am sick of the commercialization of holiday, myself. Enough so I try to avoid parties held just to use them as an excuse, just 'because'.

Z-clipped: gja: Of course not.

Oh, OK then. It certainly sounded like that's what you were saying.

Now don't be obtuse. I just didn't feel like addressing such a massive topic as that.

Then perhaps next time you might avoid saying "your argument fails", when you really mean, "Sorry, I'm too lazy to elucidate my claims".

Yeah, I can live with lazy. More like busy trying to fix shiat in a cesspool of I.T. horrors, honestly.
And beside, I have no alcohol to imbibe with while at work so I don't really have the stomach for such heavy discussions.

/come to a NY Fark party, I will buy many rounds and together we can fix the world.

Z-clipped: gja: And beside, I have no alcohol to imbibe with while at work so I don't really have the stomach for such heavy discussions.

To be fair, I'm currently drinking pints of Oettingers 8.9% Uber Pils, so I might be flailing about a little more than usual.

SNIFF.... no beer

I drunk what: BronyMedic: Case in point, in 2000 85% of Americans identified with Christianity. in 2010, 75% did.

i heard that atheism is the fastest growing religion

TenJed_77: I just wish it was happening faster.

i suppose you could start feeding them to the lions?


Not enough lions.

Dimensio: gja: Yeah, I can live with lazy. More like busy trying to fix shiat in a cesspool of I.T. horrors, honestly.

Did the IT department where you are located change out an important server without testing the new server implementation with existing applications?

HAH! Testing is for pussies!

/you should only see some of the wrecks I have pulled their keisters' from, no really, it scares me

TenJed_77: I drunk what: BronyMedic: Case in point, in 2000 85% of Americans identified with Christianity. in 2010, 75% did.

i heard that atheism is the fastest growing religion

TenJed_77: I just wish it was happening faster.

i suppose you could start feeding them to the lions?


Not enough lions.

Even lions have taste buds and enough sense not to eat rotten meat.

/que the Hyenas, they eat ANYTHING

Happy Hours: I'm suggesting that it might be wiser not to do so.

So, why not mention that the Christians might be wiser not to insist on putting sectarian religious displays on government property, when that makes them look like assholes to the more secular-minded? Since that's the immediate focus of TFA.

Happy Hours: I think we should be a little more tolerant of speech and allow it and promote it even when we disagree with the message.

However, the Christians would have none of it. One of the major factors for ending the forum was the amount of complaining they did when they were no longer the only voice in it.

hbk72777: Why stop someone else from doing something?

Technically, the atheists didn't. They merely availed themselves of the limited public forum to add their own decorations.

xanadian: It would've been fine if they had 1 or 2. Displays about the secular bit of Xmas. Or even a flat-out atheist thingee about how there's no God or something. That would've been fine. But 18 of 21!??

The lottery allowed winners to claim up to 9 spaces. They did.

Ihaveanevilparrot: I wouldn't be surprised if some of the atheists did it themselves for that reason, the same way religious people have been caught vandalizing their own stuff to make it look like some hate group did it. This atheist group seems like a bunch of trolling assholes, so why not assume that?

Because there are more Christians, making the assumption non-parsimonious.
Not to mention the Christians' history nationally of such aggressive behavior.

cassanovascotian: You have a problem with that. Why?

Because they're doing so on government property, in violation of the principle of Separation of Church and State, which violation is considered a bad thing by secularists.

mhd: Couldn't they just limit the exhibits to actual nativity scenes?

Nope. Not without a violation of the case law on the First Amendment's Antiestablishmentarian requirement (that the 14th incorporates to the States and their subdivisions as well).

DerAppie: If they did it to get equal time they should have picked another date.

However, they were also doing it to make it clear that there was not a government establishment of the Christian Religion, for which a display at another time would be less effective than a simultaneous display.

Happy Hours: Can we keep all non-religious groups from demonstrating on public land too?

Strawman; unattended display ≠ group of people demonstrating.

StrangeQ: The fact that atheists consistantly score higher on religious historical tests than their respective believers.

I'm only aware of one such study, done by the Pew Forum. Do you know of a second?

Ihaveanevilparrot: On the other hand, if you're a complete asshat, you just lost any valid attention from the moderates altogether.

That's one hypothesis. Another hypothesis is the Overton Window -- if you do it long enough, you shift the normative expectations of what's considered a "moderate" position. I'm not aware of any formal psychological studies testing them against each other.

Joe Blowme: Not aware CONGRESS made a law about this

The current case law on the 14th Amendment incorporates the antiestablishmentarian requirement of the 1st to the states and their subdivisions.

newtigator: Funny thing is, Christians have no problem with Atheists displays.

(2012-11-08... the pre-election account too toxic now?)
Actually, there was quite a lot of complaining about the Atheist displays last year, both in Santa Monica and in other municipalities with similar situations.

FTDA: santadog: Sort of off topic, maybe? I'm a photographer, and I find images all over the place. I shot this one in Austin, Texas in someone's yard. Now, I also sell my images. Just ended my first shows ever in Colorado. I've sold this image all over Texas, Ohio, and online without issue. My Sock Monkey Nativity Scene is usually a best seller, but offended at least 8 people at the Colorado shows. How do I know? Because they were very vocal about it.

One of the problems with Christians is they lost their sense of humor centuries ago.

CSS
[imageshack.us image 640x427]

Not all of us have. I think that sock monkey nativity is hilarious!

YAY!! Cause that's all I wanted. :D

I drunk what: i heard that atheism is the fastest growing religion

Depends whether you measure as percentage relative to existing numbers, or percentage of the US population.

[!]

I drunk what: where do morals come from?

Humans are social animals, and like all social animals we evolved rules of behavior that increase our chances of survival by giving us a relatively safe and cooperative society.

I drunk what: revrendjim: I drunk what: where do morals come from?

Humans are social animals, and like all social animals we evolved rules of behavior that increase our chances of survival by giving us a relatively safe and cooperative society.

and just so i understand you properly, are you saying that "increasing our chances of survival" would be how to define what is "moral" so long as it is done is a relatively safe and cooperative manner?

supposing i were to record these evolved rules into a book (or manual if you will)

could a person qualify as ethical/moral by following these instructions?

So what you are saying is that passages in the bible that describe the stories of incest, rape, murder etc.. those are the instructions you are talking about... right? Ones we should follow because they are moral?

The ones that say if you wear mixed fabrics, you should be put to death? Right?

Or like this: Lot, his wife, and his two daughters escape the Israelite God's destruction of Sodom, a town that has a reputation of being wild. YHWH kills the wife by turning her into a pillar of salt because she looked back at the city's destruction. Then the two daughters get their Dad drunk and have sex with him. The Bible paints Lot as innocent in this orgy (he was drunk, after all) but maybe Lot and family actually were just good citizens of Sodom. Look it up. Genesis 19

Or maybe: YHWH humiliates Ezekiel by ordering him to eat only bread baked using human dung fuel and to lie on his left side for thirteen months. Ezekiel has some strange visions. Look it up. Ezekiel 4:4-151, 8-11

Or maybe..King Herod marries his brother's wife, Herodias. John the Baptist tells Herodias it is wrong. She doesn't like being told she is wrong. At Herod's birthday banquet, Herodias' young daughter spins into the room and dances so sensually that the tipsy king can't resist her. He swears to give her anything she wants. The girl, drunk with the first feelings of her sexual power, has no idea what to wish for so she asks her mom. Mom sarcastically suggests the head of John. That sounds like an outrageous request so she says, "I want the head of John the Baptist on a dish." The king is distressed, but he gave his oath in front of all his guests. So John's head is cut off, placed on a dish and given to the girl. Though the Bible never gives the name of the young lady who dances, other sources say her name is Salome and that she does this thing with seven veils that is dynamite. Look it up. Mark 6:17-29

Or..King David sees Bathsheba bathing and decides that he must have her. No problem. Her husband is in David's army and is fighting far away. David thinks it improper to be dallying with a married woman so he plots to make the husband's position in the army so vulnerable that he is unlikely to survive. Then it is in YHWH's hands. YHWH buys in and kills the husband but tempers his action by killing the first born of David and Bathsheba. Look it up. 2 Samuel 11

Or..King David is driven out of Jerusalem by his son, Absalom. As a show of his power (and maybe a touch of exhibitionism) Absalom goes up on the roof of the palace and has elaborate sexual intercourse with his father's numerous concubines in sight of all of Israel. When a battle brews with his father, Absalom makes the mistake of riding his mule under an oak tree and gets his head stuck in the tree branch. He is hanging in mid air by his hair when David's men find, torture, and kill him. Look it up. 2 Samuel 13:20-30, 16:20-22, 18:9-15

I could go on.. but really.. if you are looking for Morality.. it's probably not best to look to the bible.

I drunk what: santadog: I could go on..

here i come Constantinople

Constantinople here i come

how goes your search?

All the leaves are off of the oak and
All of the sheep have followed the spoken
Word. I'm coming Constantinople
Here I come...

:D My search? What have I lost?

I drunk what: vactech: The fact that you even typed that shows why you are the leader of the Fark IS.

i would feel better if you included some image macros

but you can't use storm troopers, those are IBTM

santadog: So what you are saying is that passages in the bible that describe the stories of incest, rape, murder etc.. those are the instructions you are talking about... right?

"you" as in old law jews? but even under the Old Law they were told not to kill, covet, etc.. so what gives?

also according to your logic (do everything that is recorded in the Bible because reading things in context with comprehension is hard) we should also inflict any man named Job with boils and destroy his house and family

cuz, ya know, that's in the bybull too

or something like that?

I drunk what: santadog: My search?

yes, for Truth

santadog: What have I lost?

your recollection that we've done this dance before, i hope that little chorus (see your previous p0st) has properly jogged your memory

i prefer to move on with progress rather than repeat stuff ad infinitum

Nope. No recollection at all.
I guess you didn't really set a big impression on me.

I drunk what: BronyMedic: Case in point, in 2000 85% of Americans identified with Christianity. in 2010, 75% did.

i heard that atheism is the fastest growing religion

TenJed_77: I just wish it was happening faster.

i suppose you could start feeding them to the lions?

orbister: There is nothing ethical or moral about following a book of instructions

where do morals come from?

From the society you happen to live in. Morals are tribal customs. The change as the tribe changes.