WooHoo! More idiots running the gub'ment.

Here in Illinois, next Tuesday our state congress will vote on a measure that will remove LGBT people from our discrimination laws at the work place. In other words, if this measure passes, it will no longer be a violation of the law to discriminate someone based on sexual orientation at the work place. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one.Edit.Oh, the guy that introduced this bill said he did it out of his religious conviction.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Illinois General Assembly - Full Text of SB3447

Ok, so now we know Buzsaw would have supported slavery, segregation, women's non-right to vote, etc. Good to know. Let me try to be as clear as I can on this.The only way we can ensure that EVERYONE has the freedom to worship or not worship anyway they want is for the state to be completely neutral on the issue. This means that the elected officials must stay neutral at all times.I know you have a hard time sympathizing and empathizing for the minority because as it stands you belong to the majority who are in power, which are white protestant men. But try for once in your life imagine yourself in the place of someone belonging to a minority group. Try for once in your life that you are not a white protestant man. Would you want the majority to vote into law whatever the hell they want just because it is their religious conviction?Remember, buz, in some muslim countries they still execute people for converting to christianity. Christians in some countries still have no right in that they don't get protection from the police and their communities terrorized by the muslim majority.What you are advocating is essentially the same thing. You advocate that the protestant majority could do whatever the hell they want through the vote (a politically correct way of saying tyranny of the majority).So, buz, again, please try for once in your life to empathize with others. The lack of empathy has in the past led to countless tragic events, including but not limited to the Holocaust and the Trail of Tears. Both these examples were widely supported by the majority through the power of majority vote.

It roles back the Illinois employment non-discrimination law. It gives exception to religious and non-profit organizations in regard to sexual orientation. In other words, they still can't discriminate against race, religion, or gender, but they can discriminate against sexual orientation given that they are either a religious institution or operated by a religious institution.Added by edit.Have we forgotten the Iowan republican state reps that tried to introduce a bill that would exclude LGBT students from the anti-bullying law?Page Not Found You people... instead of finishing up my report, here I am spending my time reading this forum.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

But that's not the point, is it. The point is you seem to advocate the idea that popular vote = the American way = right. Slavery was popularly supported. So was segregation. So were the concentration camps.In other words, because you want to impose your christian beliefs on to the rest of us so much that you are defending a ridiculous position. Haha, you seem to have trouble avoiding logical fallacies. Ever heard of argument from tradition? Nonsense. The fact that ALL candidates had to repeat a kazilion times they were christians should be telling enough that you can't get elected in this country unless you're christian. In every national election, candidates repeat till their throats bleed that they are men of faith... in the christian god.

First of all, I really hate the fact that I work during the day and when I came home at night I find that people already said what I wanted to say. Normally, I would expect someone like buzsaw to say this nonsense, not someone like you.Being someone who has a love affair for history, it really ticks me off whenever someone repeats this nonsense!Those dictators initiated their purges for political reasons, not because of some atheistic doctrine.The regimes that they molded their governments into were based directly on past theocracies.First, they proclaimed themselves to have a monopoly on truth. Everything they said was somehow (divinely) inspired, although they didn't directly say this.They then indoctrinated the school children to view them as religious icons. I have a friend who grew up in Vietnam. He told me that when he was in grade school there the children were made to recite the communist pledge (pray) to a picture of Ho Chi Minh. School children in Soviet Russia also (prayed) to a picture of Stalin and Lenin. School children in China also (prayed) to a picture of Mao. Sound familiar?And when they began to feel threatened by some political group or persons, they began their purges... you know, sort of like the inquisitions and the salem witch trials.But that's not all, they arranged it so that even after their deaths school children still (prayed) to their pictures.Ask any North Korean if you ever get a chance. Every one of them will tell you THE LEADER is father to ALL and will protect them against ALL enemies and ALL weapons, including nuclear bombs. (I loosely quoted that from an actual interview of North Koreans I once saw.)The communists claimed religion was the opium of the masses. What they managed to fool everyone was that they in turn created new religions of their own.They had nothing to do with atheism or human reason. To claim so shows the kind of naive thinking found in either school children or republicans.

The same reason that you and your ilk have been accusing Obama of being a secret muslim agent in hopes of rallying the masses against him.The Chinese communists have succeeded in creating a religion of their own. And like you, they don't like competitions. You know... sort of like how you people keep trying to get the schools to lead prayers to jesus christ, amen.

You just realized this now? I've been calling him out on it for months now. Personally, I'm still going back and forth between lying and senility.

No, he wasn't. He has the understanding of history as a 10 year old, an over-simplistic view of historical events. Frankly, that's an insult to those of us who are passionate about studying real history to ensure that we don't repeat it.

Let's all take a breath and notice something. Everyone's popularity points have gone down because of this thread.Added by edit.Except for mine. It actually went up by 0.3.Edit again.Dr. A's went down by 0.6.Just an observation.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention to you. When I said "everyone" I really meant people I've been paying attention to. Buz's points went down by 0.3. Mine went up by 0.3. Dr. A's went down by 0.6. 4 or 5 others went down by 0.2 or so.On a separate note, Dr. Sing's took a nose dive in another thread...

Have you seriously studied Marxist ideology? How Russia became a communist country was anything but Marxistly ideal. Hint: Both Russia and China went directly from feudalistic-like societies directly to dictatorship. They named it communism, but it had little to do with it.And again, all those purges weren't a result of atheism vs religion. They were all religion vs religion. Instead of praying to a cross, the people had to pray to portraits of their great leaders. Everything about those regimes resemble theocratic rule.

To add onto what others have said regarding values that atheists hold.I have never met a single christian in my life who actually cares for the environment. The fundamentalist ones (like you and your soul-mate Ann Coulter) seem to think that we can rape and pillage this Earth all we want. The rapture, after all, will soon come upon us, so why bother keep the air clean for our kids? The less fundamentalist ones just don't seem to care at all.For me as an atheist I apply common sense to this issue. If we leave crap lying around eventually our children will inherit a pile of crap. And I'm speaking as someone that has vowed to never have biological kids of my own. We'll adopt when we're ready. But the point is without the threat of eternal damnation we atheists can actually think about it and genuinely care for this wonderful planet of ours. On the other hand, with the threat of eternal damnation, you people only seem to want to ruin it.If you want to know what atheist values are, there's one for you to think about. Even if we consider all those violent people in the past as not true christians, I would still have a problem with your so-called real christians. The ones you refer to as real christians certainly don't use violence to oppress others, but they use other means to oppress.Case in point. Florida in 04 passed a law that banned gay people from adopting orphans. As a result, thousands of children remained in the system until they reached 18 when they were kicked out to fend for themselves. NPR recently ran a story of a specific gay couple who for years tried to adopt 2 boys they previously foster cared for. When the law got passed, these boys were forcefully removed from their loving parents and grew up in the system. They were 10 and 12, so of course no straight couple wanted to adopt them.Another example is the recent proposed bill by the christian right in Iowa to exclude gay students from their anti-bullying law. I'm not even exaggerating. Look it up yourself. They specifically introduced a bill that would specifically take out gay students from their already existing anti-bullying law.These were just two examples out of many acts by your so-called real christians that I find downright evil, let alone immoral.Violence isn't the only criterion for immorality. The fact that you even introduced this argument is disturbing to me. Think of all the evil yet non-violent acts in human history. It's mind-boggling to me that you haven't already seen this.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

I'm sorry for interrupting, but would you like to tell us what these mathematical assumptions are? I'm pretty literate in mathematics and have worked for a number of years in research, so I'm sure I could understand at least some of what you have to tell us.Thanks in advance.

Your post is a perfect demonstration of your lack of what I would consider real morality. When I presented my argument that christians use other means beside violence to oppress, I actually used real modern day recent examples of this. When you tried to counter with arguments against environmentalists, all you could come up with were ridiculous caricatured made-up environmentalist arguments. This is dishonesty. It even violates one of your damn 10 commandments.It just boggles my mind how someone like you could proclaim to be a real christian, hold the moral high ground, and lie so casually.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.