(May 15, 2011 at 9:51 am)Whirling Moat Wrote: No...I choose empowering the poor and uneducated. However that would be truly magical considering that the money would have to come from somewhere and the United States is facing an imminent Civil War due to the priviledged classes stance against being forced to help with the cost of ensuring that poor people can do things like go to the hospital and put food on the table . How do you think a Bill proposing universal education would go over?No, you do not choose to empower the poor and uneducated. You want to give them the tools to deal with being poor and uneducated. How is that empowering? That is merely ensuring they stay poor and uneducated. And saying a universal education bill would be neccessary is a strawman argument. We just need to fix the state of the existing education system and stop the attack on teacher's rights and benefits.
(May 15, 2011 at 9:51 am)Whirling Moat Wrote: I have already stated very clearly that every atheist I have known personally behaved morally consistent with the norms of the culture.If morals are cultural why would you expect atheists of entirely different time and place to behave the same?
Behaviour which is considered morally correct is very much relative to the Ethos of the civilization or social condition of the time and locale. Groups don't tend to break down into clusters of law abiding and criminal neatly along religious lines. They break down consistent with other factors like income, education and class. If the morality of atheists in some biological imperative you would find a consistent atheist morality extending unaltered throughout time and geographic location. A chinese atheist of 3rd century BCE should espouse the same moral stance as a Bengali of the 20th century and both should be consistent with an atheist living in New York today.
(May 15, 2011 at 9:51 am)Whirling Moat Wrote: Well there aren't enough jobs for everyone even if they were educated and there are still the other isms to deal with.......Then let's help create jobs, not further the poverty by teaching them to be happy that way.
(May 15, 2011 at 9:51 am)Whirling Moat Wrote: However, lets say that everyone was Free, received the same Justice as their neighbor, had adequate resources , and had Equal opportunity and education...yeah..You wouldn't need Religion at all..I think the Great Morgan Freeman/Gandalf/Dumbledore/ Sky Daddy would be happy with that.And here you jump to another topic and assume there is some higher power to be unhappy with us. Plus, you seem to be arguing that we need uneducated people around to keep religion around and make the sky daddy happy.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell


