Question for those who are of religious faith....

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I thank you and respect you for acknowledging my point: As influential as it *might* ocasionally be, religion does not every actually force any governmental decisions ... and I would add that even when it *does* seem to do so, it is really only being thrown a bone (as with abortion, education and lifestyle).

Are you serious, abortion, education, and lifestyle is being thrown a bone!! !! !! !! SAY 'meh its nothing' to someone affected by such meddling and see what they say. Religion should have ABSOLUTELY NO influence on anyone who does not share those beliefs.

As I have already stated I doubt any religion in a western democracy could ever 'force' a government to do something, but that is just semantics. The fact is religion DOES have an influence on government behaviour, just recently in Australia, Cardinal George Pell threatened to excommunicate any catholic mp who voted in favour of cloning legislation.

As I have said time and again if you believe in god and the bible fine, just stop trying to get legislation passed that fits in with your narrow religious beliefs. Legislation should be based upon hard evidence and best scientific understanding not religious dogma and superstition.

BTW you can cherry pick from the bible but please, if you are going to quote me do so using full sentences so that the complete context is shown

Yes ... and the band plays on while the applause shifts back and forth from one side of the room to the other.

I'd have to agree with Dent on this but also have to blow further past it - that he just said sounds like the further end of both political wings. Fanatical theism probably isn't too far from fanatical egalitarianism in the extent of gross imposition attempted.

Then you would both be wrong! There simply is no bunch of religious people forcing governments to make decisions ... unless, of course, one might be referring to some seeming "bunch" of pluralistic, global elitists! To wit:

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From: "President Declares 'Freedom at War with Fear'"
Office of the Press Secretary, September 20, 2001
Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People
United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., 9:00 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:
“... Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make: Either you are with us* [who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom], or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.)
... This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of *all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.”
---

With all mere rhetoric aside, those are the facts.

And that same President quickly proceeded to s**t all over the Bill of Rights and impede progress, pluralism, tolerance, and freedom.

"Forcing" was a strong word, but the Religious Right in America is well-organized and has disproportionate political clout. Gay marriage being illegal, and the continued push to teach creationism are two notable examples of how a small subset of religious people are attempting to force their views on the rest of the population. Abortion is similar, especially when the Catholic church threatens to excommunicate politicians who don't vote the right way.

Certainly! That is part of the "progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom" agenda ... and your namesake is the one from whom I first heard about doublespeak.



Yes, and actually quite ineffectively. Just 50 years ago, abortion was illegal everywhere, homosexual behaviour was a punishable crime and bible-reading and prayer were unavoidable elements of the typical school day ... and I know all of that because I was there.

Do you really believe there is even the slightest shred of evidence suggesting anyone at all is ever going to return us to such a state?

Oh dear....

Our (Homo Sapiens) family is Homonidae. We literally ARE apes.

Your point could be reapplied like this: "only "creation" can explain the fact that cocker spaniels, poodles and cockapoos still exist side-by-side without either ever getting any closer to becoming the other.

One of the POINTS of the theory of evolution is that it explains why humans and other apes coexist, you also seem to be making the false assumption that evolution has a path. Ancient apes did not become humans because this suited their environment. Some of them would have been born with mutations that caused them to be rejected by "pure" apes. You might think that this would mean they would all die, but think about this - imagine that the gene causing mutation in the direction of humanity was a recessive allele - not all offspring would result in the mutation BUT there would be more than one or two. This is just one split scenario.

You also must be aware that other apes do not and never have had a globalised community. One family of apes is completely seperate from another. And who says that todays zoo-style great apes are the same apes we evolved from.

Evolution doesn't work like pokemon (Monkey evolves to..... MAN! Would you like to give man a new nickname?)

The origin of life, which you mentioned in another part of your post, has NOTHING to do with evolution. Evolution is a measure of change in allele frequency, it explains the diversity of life and was NEVER meant to explain its origin.

For the most likely origin of life, see abiogenesis. life can be made from non-living matter in labs, and in a perfectly predictable way. Scientists have recreated the start of life on Earth. (look up the experiments in manchester university from a few months ago, I THINK the lead scientist was something like.... John Sutherland? Anyway, I'm surprised it wasn't better publicised. Probably didn't want to make theists start killing people.)

Argh, forgot to finish this point.


Ancient apes did not become humans because this suited their environment, humans stayed around because they were suited to the environment.

Its the other way around, to say that apes became humans because humans are better suited is sort of backwards and wrong.

Some ancient apes descended into humans and didn't die before procreating. That is all that matters. We aren't better than other apes at living in our environment, its just that humans and other apes are both good enough.

If it worked in such a way that when something different mutated from say, dogs or moths, that could survive and spread into a legitimate population all others would be dominated by then we would have one breed of dog and one type of moth. But evolution doesn't work that way.

We still die. Therefore we are not perfectly adapted to our lifestyle, therefore POTENTIALLY something could overtake us and we end up being outcompeted and wiped out. OR it could live alongside us , like mosquitos. They are better at living than us in a way, but not so much better as to dominate us.

We are better at shaping out environment than other apes, but not so much better as to dominate.

On the other hand! We HAVE dominated plenty of weaker plant and animal species. THESE are the things that die out due to our progress in evolution, not the life we directly descended from.

I disagree, i am not saying 'BAN RELIGION'. All I am asking is for political and social decisions to be made without the influence of religious belief. Obviously the concept of complete objectivity is not possible in these decisions but we could try a damn site harder than at present.

And if you believe this statement to be sincere then you are a fool

So then, you equally oppose pluralism, pantheism, etc., etc.? And if so, then upon what do you believe political and social decisions would/could/should best be made?



Which statement? GWB's, or my own? Either way, today's continuance of globalism proves both true.

Well lets hope that never happens, but the 'christian' right (how a person can claim to be a christian and hold such judgemental and right wing views completely evades my understanding of the teachings of christ) are doing their damnedest to prevent further social progression.

Well lets hope creationists, will die out, as all species who do not keep up with evolution must surely do

I do not recall where I found this following definition of "progress" quite some time ago, but I do see little evidence of mankind ever actually achieving it:

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Progress:
A royal journey marked by pomp and pageant;
The progressive (pompous) development of humankind.
---

In any case, that is definitely what the globalists have in mind, and no opposing religious group could ever possibly stop it.

Oh, I certainly know that the influence of religion in these areas has diminished (I've argued with the atheists on here about it before). We have a strong secular culture, but it is still being held back by fundamentalist elements.

Right now actually, when you consider the current boat of politicians - the current Republicans are far better, I've voted that way for the last three elections and unless something really flips upside down it'll be much the same in 2012. The difference though is this - I don't think that there are more wackaloons on the right or left, just that the current climate has elevated wackaloon liberals to the status of being the parties best while for even a moderate conservative you have to be extremely articulate and provide proof after proof that your not a supernaturalist nut. Yes, almost all of the conservative politicians believe in God, same with many if not most of the liberals - I'm far from an atheist myself so I have no qualms with that one. The left currently has its Westboros not far from the front line - the right currently has most of the like locked up in the attic.

Still I think you get the gist, its a matter of circumstance. If the pendulum swung back the other way we could be getting what we always wanted to see for a while.... and then we'd be getting way more than we'd bargained for, probably even enough to make either of us change voting habits entirely.