Atheists; what do you base your morals on?

[Esquilax]

No, I want people to be able to choose where they go to school, not have beliefs forced on them.

I dunno about you, but I did choose where to go to school. I even got a scholarship at a fancy high school outside of my area.

Beyond that, home schooling has already been given to you as another option in this thread. And I think another question I'd want to ask is, why the fuck isn't church enough for you? Why do you feel entitled to push your beliefs into every sector of life, even the secular ones?

[Silver]

My morals are based on common sense. It should be evident to anyone to do good for the sake of doing good.

[catfish]

@Chad, Catfish and Jstrodel

If you read my entire post on the Word of God dichotomy, it offers the opportunity to any of you to explain the magical powers you use to fully distinguish and decode the Sorta-Kinda Word of God.

Good luck.

Fuck you, that's YOUR strawman, you deal with it.

[jstrodel]

No, I want people to be able to choose where they go to school, not have beliefs forced on them.

I dunno about you, but I did choose where to go to school. I even got a scholarship at a fancy high school outside of my area.

Beyond that, home schooling has already been given to you as another option in this thread. And I think another question I'd want to ask is, why the fuck isn't church enough for you? Why do you feel entitled to push your beliefs into every sector of life, even the secular ones?

How am I pushing my belief on you? You are the one who is accepting the system of forcing people to pay taxes to create government structures that use their money for things they don't want.

As for homeschooling, have you ever heard the term "separate but equal"?

Why would church be enough for me? I have to pay taxes. Why shouldn't I expect that society be organized for my benefit, to the degree that I support it?

[ABierman1986]

Well there ya go, the flaw in your argument "...to the degree that I support it". Suppose that you support a certain kind of society that exists in a god-fearing religious context as prescribed by the father of Abraham. Now suppose I support a society of persons who support no idea of afterlife or supernaturalism and base their values on collective, changeable, ideas. Well now suppose those two groups not only have to find a way to create a collective society, but they have to be neighbors, and coworkers, and colleagues without killing each other. When developing rules for the two to live together, why does it make sense to exist only as an individual may agree with it? If you argue that society should be organized to your benefit, why can I not argue it should be organized to mine? What needs to be put in place is a system where any individual can do as they please and no individual can with intent harm another without some sort of consequence, at least as I see it. Rebuttal?

[Esquilax]

Why would church be enough for me? I have to pay taxes. Why shouldn't I expect that society be organized for my benefit, to the degree that I support it?

Because you aren't paying taxes with the expectation that the government configure the world exactly to your liking, nor to the liking of the majority. You're paying for infrastructure.

Consider it like ice cream flavors, if you like: the secular system we have now is the "vanilla" system without embellishment that represents the things that the entire populace would want, not just your specific subsection of it. Your religious beliefs are something additional, like sprinkles, if you really want to labor the metaphor. They're specific to you and to the people who believe like you, and thus it's a cost you've gotta pay yourself.

You pay your taxes, but that doesn't entitle you to dictate government policy. I'd remind you that there are several million other citizens out there who also pay their taxes, and many of them don't believe the same religious stuff you do. Why are your beliefs privileged over theirs, in this regard?

[jstrodel]

America is 80% Christian. There is nothing unreasonable about wanting the system to reflect the interests of the majority, or at least allow the majority an option of putting their tax dollars elsewhere.

You don't realize how authoritarian you are.

[CleanShavenJesus]

The flaws in the Bible are there, whether Christians want to twist the words or not.

It depends on what you mean by flaws. I understand the point though. Sometimes I think God puts those in there as prompts to remind us not to take the text literally and look for the meaning within the text.

I'm talking the constant reminders in the Bible of the inferiority of women, I'm talking the constant controdictions in the Bible. I'm talking human error. When you have a book with as many passages and as many authors as the Bible, there are going to be errors and controdictions. Not when God writes a book though. I say if God writes a book, he should get it right. And if you say he left errors in it for us on purpose, I'm going to shoot you.

[Esquilax]

America is 80% Christian. There is nothing unreasonable about wanting the system to reflect the interests of the majority, or at least allow the majority an option of putting their tax dollars elsewhere.

You don't realize how authoritarian you are.

You have a constitution specifically designed so that the whim of the majority doesn't interfere with the rights of minorities. You got a problem with it, take it up with your founding fathers.

Beyond that, you're still missing the point: nobody is telling you not to preach your religion, nor are they restricting your ability to do so. Hell, given that churches are exempt from paying taxes, I'd say they're getting off far better than they should be. But schools are for learning facts, and that's pretty much the end of the discussion, as far as I'm concerned. Schools are for learning factual things, and the fact that there are thousands of denominations of christianity sort of tells me that there's not even an agreement on the facts about your own religion within your own religion.

Besides, if your god is real, if your religious beliefs are true and reflect reality, then what reason do you have to be concerned? The truth cannot be harmed by the input of additional information; learning new things would only shine a light brighter on things that are true. If your faith is correct, then every fact would point to it, everything one learns in school would only strengthen the conviction in the creator. The truth does not fear investigation, it encourages it. This isn't an atheism vs religion point, by the way, it's just me expressing how baffled I am at your apparent fear of learning, away from the constant pressure of your dogma. If what you believe is true, then what are you afraid is going to happen?

I will, however, take a moment to point out the absurdity of you calling me authoritarian moments after you advocate for mandatory christian religious teaching in school regardless of the faith of the students because, in your own words, there are more of your kind than there are of mine. That's some good irony.

[Simon Moon]

America is 80% Christian. There is nothing unreasonable about wanting the system to reflect the interests of the majority, or at least allow the majority an option of putting their tax dollars elsewhere.

You don't realize how authoritarian you are.

Is is absolutely unreasonable for the US system of government to reflect the majority if the majority wants something that is unconstitutional. The majority doesn't always get what they want if what they want tramples on the rights of the minority.

The US is a secular country in that our form of government is not at all based on any religion. The Founding Fathers went out of their way to assure this because they saw the results of theocracies in Europe.