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Sure, we can all agree to just drop it and all get along...does that include everyone on this blog? Until the next time, maybe!
My mentioning the quote several times does not mean that I am terribly offended or upset over it. I am really not. I am just pointing it out to drive the point home that some people tend to lose their cool...or become more irrational than they were before...it's not healthy to get too upset over anything that any of us say here. Especially if you have ganged up on other people with other, perhaps unpopular, opinions...not that I am totally without sin. But at least, I don't throw personal epithets, ie: name calling, to specific people on this blog. That would be showing a certain amount of immaturity and hot headedness if I did that. So, I only use generalities....like Thom did in his first opening paragraph.
DancingBear: #39-that wasn't my quote...I believe chuckle8 said that.#35 Ok, I see now...you just didn't make it clear whose quote it was.
anarchist cop out: You probably just got caught in the spam filter again by using a word or part of a word that sounded to the spam filter like an advertisement. That's what happened to you the last time..wasn't it?
By the way, if you just wanted to drop the subject, then why did you bring it up again in this one? Same question for you AIW and DAM as well? Why didn't you just go back to that blog, from the other day, and continue on with the discussion there if you wanted to keep this thing going. You must have thought that you had something really brilliant to say back there. ;-}
By the way, unlike you, I did not specifically call you anything. Like Hartmann's remark about flat earthers, my comments were all generalities not specific to the fellow bloggers.
I have to vote NO
Ok, anarchist cop out, I have just read number 45 and I guess you do make it clear that you and Mark Saulys are the same person. You say I am religious intolerant but I say that I am no more intolerant of religion than you, or other people who believe in the supernatural, are intolerant of people who don't believe in religion, God, or the supernatural.
What? I can't disagree with you without you getting upset enough to say things like I need to see a psychiatrist? You said about me that "Palindromedary you are not well, tell it to your shrink." I've never said that about you. In fact I haven't called YOU any names.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a Supreme Being, or a Creator of the Universe, or a God. Most dictionaries have always, until recently in some dictionaries probably due to pressure by those who want atheism classified as a religion, specifically says that religion's chief characteristic is the belief in God. Theism...the belief in God. A-theism... the lack of belief in God. Atheists are atheists because they do not think that there is any good evidence to support the existence of God.
Most of us also do not believe in the supernatural because there is no good evidence to support the existence of the supernatural as it is believed to exist by believers in such things. There have been so many charlatans trying to rip people off, by convincing gullible people in the supernatural, that they have earned a just reputation for chicanery.
Most atheists believe there are no ghosts, no afterlife, and that souls are merely in the same just-pretend category as God or gods or devils. Now if you can provide proof that evidence exists for any of these things then maybe I would believe them....if your evidence stands up under scrutiny of the scientific method. But most scientists do not believe these things for very good reasons.
Since atheists have always been persecuted by "believers" for many thousands of years...even burned to the stake.... I think it is high time that we speak out about our views. Believers sure don't like it...but that's really too bad, isn't it. They come knocking at my door trying to proselytize me. They try to proselytize us with "In God We Trust" on our money and "under God" in our "Pledge of Allegiance". They even drop little suggestions in blogs about their religious or supernatural predilections and expect others not to rebuff them in any way. Sorry, but I can't let that pass. I have just as much right to say how I feel about those things as anyone else.
Many of us here, have no problem in saying what they think of the "rabid right". Many of us have shown indignance at those who dare mention their conservative ideas here. Why should any other topic be taboo? Why should people dance around the subject of religion. You don't care that you may be hurting the feelings of right wingers. Why do you get so uppity over religious topics? After all, religion has bullied people for thousands of years...and they still do bully people with their constant proselytizing.
You said: "Tolerance and open minded, fair discussion is what I'm after." Really? By saying I need to see a shrink? Now if you had only said "atheists need to see shrinks" then that is not specifically directed at me. If the shoe fits, wear it!
You know most shrinks are atheists, too! Now, why do you suppose that is. Maybe the same reason why many priests become atheists. Yes, many are. But they keep up their charade for various reasons...others just drop out. The more they learn, the more they realize that it is just not all very true. I think it must be like Scientology where they collect all kinds of personal data about you as well as a lot of your worldly goods (ie: money) to take all those "courses" so that they can reach various levels of "knowledge". When you finally get to the top and paid them big bucks, and they have all kinds of sensitive, personal information about you, you realize that their top "secret" is a crock. But by that time, if you are not already totally brainwashed, you realize that you've been made a fool by giving them so much of your time and money that you dare not rebel. Besides they have enough personal data on you that you might feel that they will try to black mail you. Some people have run from that organization just to be tailed and harassed constantly.
But, I think that many fallen priests just go along with the program because they think that the "little uneducated masses" need them. What they really need is to realize the truth! And if they realized the truth there wouldn't be very many believers anymore. By the way, I understand that the believer populations have actually shrunk...no doubt due to a better education through the tools of technology and science. It's harder for them to stay shielded in their dogma when confronted by so much enlightening information.
And yes, I am familiar with what Einstein said..he said lots of things..being tugged from both sides...and often misquoted by both sides. He basically just wanted to be left alone on that matter.
We actually agree on many things, obviously not on a few things. We can agree to disagree. That's fine. And in the future, if anyone brings up the subject of religion, superstition, supernatural then I may very well challenge them on it. I have just as much right to do so.
Thanks Marc and Alice, I very much appreciate your support. I still gotta get my username unblocked. I think the volunteer moderator might be an evangelical atheist who's very insecure about their beliefs and would like to repress any challenge to them.
Well said cop out you nailed it. Can you imagine as a business owner I want to make Maximum profit out of my employees. I am not none profit. So you know I am Canadian we don't have undocumented workers we deport illegals.
Who do you think you're crapping, Kend? You and people like you, other business people, would never pay more to more productive workers, if you would pay more productive workers more they wouldn't be "more productive".
"Productivity" is a euphemism for exploitation, it literally means the amount of production per cost - something akin to the "per unit cost of production" only isolating the labor aspect of it. IOW, productivity of workers is the ratio of money you pay for their labor to the amount of production you get out of them, that's why undocumented immigrant workers are "more productive". They let you take advantage of them and abuse them at will because they have no rights in this country so they work their asses off because they know they damn well better since you don't have to be fair to them at all, and, of course, you don't have to pay them anything - or anything more than what would amount to feeding and housing slaves, i.e., just enough to make them able to show up the next day to work for you some more. The same principle is`applied by similar scum to Bain Capital's Chinese workers.
No Palin, I'm not. Because it's not personal; it's a general statement; "some idiot" could be anybody. And Mark is no geocentrist. He's not propping up some crackpot ideology (one that's already been scientifically debunked eons ago) with financial support.
I think I've made my position clear enough. I've already pointed out, PD, that I too am an athiest. Our views regarding religion are very similar. I'm just saying you need to lighten up and not be so (as Mark put it) bombastic. Not everyone shares your views on the supernatural either. It's a fact of life that people have different beliefs, different takes on reality, and it's nothing to get lathered up over. That's all I'm saying. Nobody is trying to force their point of view on you, so you've no reason to be defensive.
Far as geocentrism is concerned, it's was scientifically disproven 500 years ago. This is why Thom says it's stupid to try reintroducing geocentrism as a viable concept. On the other hand, reincarnation has been neither proven nor disproven, so I prefer to remain openminded on that. If you've already decided it's another bogus fairytale, that's fine, but I see no point in arguing about it into oblivion.
Can't we just.... get along? - Aliceinwonderland
Aliceinwonderland:
Remember how this started out?
Are you equally as turned off by what Hartmann said?
Anarchist cop out: Mark Saulys, why are you using your other on-line name now? Anarchist cop out is Mark Saulys, as I remember. Did you get banned again under your real name?
When I make comments, I make general comments referring to some people in general but I don't directly call anyone names. I go by the principle...if the shoe fits.... I haven't accused you, specifically, of anything.
Because they don't want women to find out how underpaid they are!
Mark Saulys: In regard to comment #34 the other day. Isaac Newton was also an Alchemist as well as the head of King William's London mint. About a year ago I read a fun book about his days at the mint. It's entitled, " Newton and the Counterfeiter." It's by Thomas Levenson....check it out!
Wayne Lapierre indirectly indicated at the NRA Annual Meeting today that armed citizens are freedom fighters. He said he doesn't trust the government and commented, "we are on our own....that is a certainty, no less certain than the absolute truth." "Freedom has never needed our defense more than now." "The IRS is now a weapon." Sounds to me like he's encouraging armed insurrection. I'm quite certain that right-wing militia groups are understanding his speech as such.
Question is, who will they target? The handful of private powers / billionaires who both own and control the government? .....or their Teabillionaire employees in the House and Senate who have currently shut down all vestiges of representative government and thus the freedoms this sort of government is mandated to protect. I agree, freedom does need our defense more than ever now. I just hate to see all these militia groups go on a violent rampage aimed at those who have stripped us of our democracy and freedom. Can't we simply jail the billionaires responsible for the Fascist overthrow. Lapierre makes it sound like he wants the militia groups to carry on like it's the French Revolution and commit atrocities against the rich and powerful who currently run our government and suppress our freedoms.
Back to the main topic. It is wrong to keep wages a secret. Any secret held by anyone is done for the purpose of having power over others. The best way to approach this is through transparency. Publicly post the wages of all workers as a way to encourage and to establish trust and loyalty. Nothing is worse for morale than to learn after years of hard work and loyal service that you have been played a fool by someone who you thought you earned respect and trust from. The fact of the matter is that workers always learn one way or another where they stand. To pretend they don't is foolish. It is the characteristic of a disposable labor force, a slap in the face to laborers, and is a disgrace and a huge obstacle for good business.
Mark Saulys ~ I have to side with Aliceinwonderland on this one; although I really side mostly with you. Palin is just that way. I think he must have had a really bad experience with some religious types in his life to make him that way. Don't feel bad, whatever pounding you got (I didn't get a chance to check it out yet), I'm sure I got pounded much harder in the past for the same reason. Never with anything of substance. Just a bunch of "Go away, don't bother me! I don't want to think about it!" rhetoric. Don't get your fur into a ball.
Besides, like I said in the past--I don't know if you agree--I'd prefer a honest atheist to a devout hypocrite any day of the week. Lock me in a room with Palin for a day and no harm done. It would be a pleasant time and a well spent experience. Lock me in a room with a Jerry Falwell or a Pat Robinson and only one of us may leave alive--or in one piece (spiritually speaking of course.)
I would suggest avoiding the topic with him--as irresistible as that may be--instead direct the comment to whomever it may concern. Until Palin matures all you will run into is an infantile defence mechanism. He will never listen or give you a chance. He will always rail insults and criticisms from his own little box. Besides, who really cares what anyone else wants to believe. It is only what we chose to believe that is really important to ourselves. Respecting our differences is the example we really need to show Palin before he shows it to us. That way, we win!
dave -- Are you trying to show the success of a program by counting anecdotes? I think you need to revisit your geometry courses. I think a much better way to determine the success of a policy is to use a combination of economic metrics. My favorites would be to insure that each of the following metrics is positive: Dow, GDP, number of jobs and the median wage of those jobs adjusted for inflation. Economists would go nuts over such measures because it is so intractable. Larry Beinhart has used these metrics and shown the most effective policy is a maximum tax rate over 50%.
Y'all need to look at poverty rate charts. If dems are in office the poverty rate goes down; if repugs it goes up. The Great Society cut the poverty rate in half. How can anyone say the GS was a failure when its knees were cutoff by reaganomics.
Kend -- Thanks for the input. I wish govts would take into consideration that jolting step getting a job while on welfare. Suddenly you are working and receiving less income. I guess that is one of the differences between welfare and a guaranteed minimum income.
Of course they don't want their employees to know how they discriminate. Several years ago I worked for UPI in Chicago. After I left a manager and a friend told me that the newest hire (a male; I'm female) had been hired two grade levels above me. That was galling enough, but it turned out that I was rewriting all of his material because he was no good at it.
Everyboy is equal..its just the rich are more equal...I am not sure this Capitalist system works for the Common Man...
Well let's be careful about using the term "terrorists" since our government isn't beyond going outside of the due process of law when it comes to those it sees as a potential threat. But yes, these right-wing groups should be viewed as vigilantes and as dangerous. They should be monitored and be subject to immediate legal action for perpetrating violence or for threats of violence. The people who recently aimed rifles at federal agents in NV should face legal action.
I think it's true that most employers don't like employees talking about there wages because it does cause " jealousies and strife among employees" but I am with Alice of course they all talk. That is one of the reasons large companies have these massive lay offs when there is a slow down. They get rid of the dead weight. Bain Capital was famous for this. If you could pay harder workers more than less productive employees they would probaly keep them on. But it just doesn't work that way. Business can sure be cruel.
Worked in a job many years back where they tried to do this to us but it didn't work. One little lady told them that she wouldn't tell because she "was just as embarrassed to tell and they would be for anyone to find out" - which was funny - but then she told everyone she knew.
No one I know of keeps these things quiet and as Aliceinwonderland says - it IS unenforceable.
Jesselebby, you got a lot of nerve saying Mark S. is on a high horse when you and Phil are doing nothing but saying that anyone who doesn't accept, what I consider to be, your very unperspicacious views on life and existence is crazy. My (and, therefore, Mark's - as Mark Saulys is my other username) only problem with Phil is not his atheism, he's certainly welcome to that. Hell, I was one - when I was a kid. My problem with him, as I have said many times and as regular users of this forum well know, is his religious intolerance and his personal invective, closed mindedness and his high horse, i.e., his need to talk trash at and about everybody who doesn't share his beliefs in what is clearly a belligerent defensiveness and insecurity about them.
If your atheism works for you that's fine, I don't have a need to have everybody think like me, unlike evangelical theists - or evangelical atheists. I do think, however, that you ought consider that there are things beyond your experience.
In general, my purpose is to crack the religious intolerance of the evangelical and more or less fanatical atheist and try to get them to see that, for all intents and purposes, atheism is a religion - It looks like one, walks like one and quacks like one - and that there is much evidence for the existance of the supernatural - that's why I'm not an atheist anymore - and that atheists are just accepting their belief, on faith, simply because it pleases them or makes them feel good - just as they accuse the believers of doing. I am basicly trying to get them - just as I do every bit as vociferously with intolerant theists - to see that their opinion (belief) is only their opinion, not better than anyone else's and although it seems to them to be the God given truth, if you will, everyone else's opinions seem so to them, as well and that others don't have to accept or live by their opinions any more than they have to accept or live by everyone else's. Tolerance and open minded, fair discussion is what I'm after.
I leave you with Einstein in what are well known to be of my favorite quotes,
"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."
- Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2
"The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."
- Albert Einstein, quoted in: Einstein's God - Albert Einstein's Quest as a Scientist and as a Jew to Replace a Forsaken God(1997)
Mark, I just want you to know, I'm with you and Albert Einstein on this issue. As a non-evangelical athiest, I feel no need to bully or belittle others whose world view differs from my own.
Jesselebby, as a newcomer on this blog, you do not know Mark well enough to determine whether he is of a "conservative mind", or whatever box you might think he fits into. I happen to like Palin and enjoy conversing with him on most topics; just not this one, despite the fact that our views about God and religion are very similar. And I must clarify that it is not Palin's athiesm Mark has a problem with. It's his dogmatism, his aggressiveness and lack of diplomacy. This is a problem I have had with many religious people as well, and it is a huge turn-off.
I think you guys need to lighten up and climb down from your sanctimonious little pedestals. Like I said earlier, minds work best when open. If you'd rather remain rigid in your thinking, that's fine; it's your prerogative. But please, can't we just live and let live, and leave it at that? - Aliceinwonderland