The Wedge, a fund raising document from the Center for Science and Culture that set forth the group's (IDC) "Governing Goals":

* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

What other scientific FIELD has been attacked with such fervor by the theologians? If science is bad … why isn’t all of it under attack then? There doesn’t seem to be a conflict in medicine, computers and technology, mathematics or physics, astrology or astronomy. Our engineering skills are not questioned nor is our prowess in archeology or geology (except for carbon dating). Where is the all-out attack on that nasty bug we call science … it doesn’t exist? I don’t know why anyone would seek a priest or a church for a better understanding of science???

 

 

Religion is just another system of control invented by the powerful who you will notice are as wealthy as small nations.

As people lose their homes and retirement savings they will say that you are now in gods grace as they write this dribble from a 10 million dollar yacht with minimum wage servants all around to wipe their ass with silk.

myfist0 hahaha ... best short answer I have heard in a while, accolades! It is so difficult … no impossible to talk to the hypocritical and hateful ‘Happy People’. I guess in all that bliss the truth is bound to become unimportant hehehe.

Their governing goal is to make money. What they state on their website is what they use to get people to donate or buy their wares so that they may achieve their true goal of acquiring wealth.

I suppose most power struggles eventually brake down to $$$'s in the end analysis. But my interests here for the most part, are the hopes of keeping any of this theological nonsense out of the public school system. This is probably the only corruption left that hasn’t been experimented on with on our children. God (just kidding) please spare them this additional handicap as they seem to be learning little enough now that is practical.

The courts usually get things like this right in the end and there is a lot of precedence on this issue. One thing the Political Parties love to do is try to implement laws that they know will end up bogged down in the court system. They don't want the issue to get settled because then the flock goes away. This is one of those issues. Personally I don't think it matters if this ends up in the classroom. All you have to do is teach your own children why it is there. In that context it is science....Political Science.

As an atheist I could care less about keeping religion out of the school system because the fight amongst the various religious sects is what rooted it out to start with and is what will keep it out in the future.

 

For the record, the USA calls itself a Republic.  Its the poorly educated masses that call it a democracy.  What's sad is when the pledge of allegiance was said in school every morning, this fact was never mistaken.  "I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."  That whole separation of church and state issue has changed things and the pledge is never uttered anymore.  And people wonder why patriotism is in the toilets.

Contrary to American beliefs, the rest of the world does not pledge allegiance to your flag. 

I believe Americans primarily use Webster's Dictionary? That lists Democracy as a synonym to Republic and vice versa. Also read that republic is a form of democracy. Does not Yale, an ivy league school know it is not a democracy? 

The past few decades have brought a shift in the nature of American democracy—an alarming shift that threatens such liberal democratic values as respect for pluralism, acceptance of the separation of powers, and recognition of the rights of opposition parties. In this insightful book, political scientist Alan Wolfe (<--poorly educated) identifies the current political conditions that endanger the quality of our democracy. He describes how politics has changed, and he calls for a democracy protection movement designed to preserve our political traditions not unlike the environmental protection movement’s efforts to safeguard the natural world.
http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=0300108591 

So why would a country that's not a democracy go around the world spreading democracy with smart bombs and drone missiles? I guess that "Spreading the republic" sounds a little Empire. Not as easy to brainwash the sheep with that term.

It has been my experience that people just don’t know as much as they should in the realm of practicality. Democracy seems to be the buzzword we use to describe our benevolent desire to enlighten the rest of the world with all those things the USG feels obligated to impart … and insists on it.  

Republic applies to the State or Nation itself while Democracy implies a mood of fairness, classlessness, consensus and egalitarianism … all the things we have bastardized for ourselves and desire to do the same for everyone else.

I don't think the absence of 'the Pledge ..." or "a prayer" can compete with all the other 'competition' (Nintendo, Sony etc.) ... they don’t even makes a dent in the child’s education. It is the "system"!

PS: You were right about prayer in school myfist0!!! I have been on a tangent ... but I am back now.

 

Conditioning a child every day from the age of 5 to run if front of a machine gun at the age of 18 was a very powerful tool.

Never said they did, in fact, I never implied that either.  Please don't add your own bias into my comments.

My comment is in reference to the USA and its people as per your comment about the USA and its people.  In fact, the quote you highlighted could apply to the world over since the vast majority is poorly educated and thus calls the USA a democracy.  A properly educated person would know the difference.

 

As to Websters, listing or describing something a synonymous to something else merely means they are similar.  Yes, a Democracy and a Republic share similar ideals, in fact, they share many of the same ideals, but they are not the same thing.  If they were the same thing there wouldn't be separate listings for each describing the way the individual political systems work.  Websters DOES make the distinction between the two.  (Mine does anyway, but I have an older hard back dictionary.)  Also the problem with using a dictionary as a reference is that dictionaries are amended each edition.  If everyone refers to the USA as a democracy state rather then a republic state, the dictionary will change accordingly.  It doesn't mean its now the correct term.  Fag used to be in the dictionary meaning a fire starter.  Then it was changed to slang for a cigarette.  Then it was changed to slang for homosexual.  By popular usage, yes its defined accurately, but that doesn't make it correct.

As to Yale Press, not Yale University, that article is not referencing the nation itself, but its ideals which are democratic in nature.  One could also say they are republic in nature.  Its as simple as that.  In addition to that, the quoted article was wrote by an EDITOR, not Alan Wolfe himself so you'd do better to not try to make it out that those comments are from Wolfe himself and thus should mean more then what they really are there for, and that is to sell books.  I can summarize other people's work as well and mistakenly put in synonymous references.  Its really not that hard.  I have to reject your comment in its entirety based on the fact you're blatantly misreferencing your quoting trying to raise their importance.

 

Honestly, what amuses me the most about Canadians in general is they think their ways are better and that they're more open to the influences the rest of the world imparts when the truth is their government demands allegiance more from them then the US demands from its citizens.  A Canadian political figure head (not named due to the lack of relevance to the point) I know personally once said their government force feeds them loyalty on a daily basis to the point where most don't even realize it anymore.  During dozens of visits and extended vacations to my neighbor to the North, I realized that comment was made as more of a matter of fact then one out of spite.  When watching TV in the US during non election years, how often do you see patriotic symbols?  Almost never unless you're watching sports, and even then, really only if you catch the very beginning.  Damn near every advertisement from US corporations operating in Canada have some sort of Canadian patriotic image during their ads on TV up there...  (Probably the same from Canadian corporations, but I just never paid much attention due to the fact I was more pissed off at the US corporations doing it.)  Hell, the Home Depot, to specifically name one, adds a maple leave to their name on every single store wall, print ad, and television ad...  And since I don't follow Canadian politics outside of major issues, I can't be sure my time there was during election years or not, but when I was there repeatedly over the span of half a dozen years, every commercial break had some image of a maple leaf or the flag and some message about what a great country it was.  Better?  No.  Over saturation to the point where you don't even realize you're being spoon fed that on a daily basis?  That sounds more like it.

Personally I think the pledge of allegiance should be said in elementary school, maybe even in junior high.  Just because it has a reference to God in it, which our founding fathers fully believed in, should in no way make it inappropriate.  I hate religion with a passion, yet I still say the pledge without hesitation.  Loving one's country is not, and should never be considered a crime, just as speaking out against it is not and shouldn't ever be either.

But I digress.  The spread of democracy is always in reference to the ideals of democracy, not to the establishment of democracy itself.  Also do recall that until WW1, the USA practiced isolationist ideals and only involved itself in conflicts that directly affected it.  In WW1, it was our European allies that requested we get involved.  The isolationist practice didn't fully return after that, however the USA refrained from getting involved in other country's issues.  At the onset of WW2, even though US ships were being sunk in the Atlantic, the USA was still committed to not getting involved.  What got the US involved?  A direct attack on our soil in the Pacific.  After that, we could no longer sit on the sidelines and let things play out.  Following WW2 the rapid spread of Communism forced the USA and its allies to adopt doctrines of control and containment of that spread.  The USA is credited for most, if not all of it, because it is widely considered to be the leader of the free world and thus the head of any such activity.  Vietnam was France's fuck up, the US just takes the blame for it because France left us holding the bag when we responded to their pleas for help and tried to uphold the government France tried to establish.  Desert Storm 1, for as much as conspiracy people want to believe it was about oil, the US only got involved because the Saudi's (our ally) demanded it out of fears that once done with Kuwait, the Iraqi's would go after them.  Just as if China tried to invade Taiwan or Japan, the US would have to get involved based on post WW2 treaties and agreements with both nations, not because we were stopping Communism or whatever bullshit the media wants to feed the world, but because we have already committed to doing so long before the fact.

Everything post 9-11-2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan does not fall into the spreading democracy doctrine because all actions were in direct response to a direct attack on the US itself.  Throw out whatever reasoning you feel is appropriate for the invasions, but let two things be absolutely clear, the first is both countries knew what would happen, its not like the US was being shy about saying we would invade anyone anywhere who was unwilling to cooperate, and they still deliberately went against US efforts to track down those responsible, even having political leaders gloating about how they would intentionally hide anyone from us.  Everything after that is propaganda bullshit.  Case and point.  Why did we not attack Saudi Arabia even though many of the terrorists were from there?  Because the Saudis are our allies and gave us complete and total access.  Why did we not attack Jordan?  Because we are not on unfriendly terms and they gave us access to look around and investigate.  Why did we not attack Iran?  Because even though we are not friendly to each other, they knew damned well not giving us access meant they would be invaded, so they let us poke around looking for certain people (under supervision, of course).  The second thing to make absolutely clear, is in every single case, for as much as people want to believe it, the USA has not and is not interested in setting up an empire.  In every single case, a new government has been formed, sympathetic to western nations, of course, but the USA does not exercise any control outside of the usual influences that all nations and states participate in.  Are Iraq and Afghanistan considered US territories?  Absolutely not.  Can Germany step up at any time and offer aide to either country in exchange for something else?  Absolutely.  Facing reality here, if we wanted to bomb the shit out of Vietnam, and North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Cuba and Venezuela and take over, who would stop us?  Who could stop us?  Nobody. Its not like the world would all of a sudden start hating us, and the fear of that is holding us in check.  They already do hate us and most US citizens don't give enough of a damn to ever want to leave and go somewhere else where the opinions of the world would even matter.  The US participates in the spread of democratic ideals, not imperialism.

For someone who laughs at others for 'buying the whack job kool-aid', your comments lead one to believe you to be full of a lot of it yourself.

 

 

Back on topic though since I feel like I've had this discussion before, while I wholeheartedly believe religion should shut up and take a back seat to scientific advancement, especially considering the negative impact religion has had on science in general, I do also recognize and fully acknowledge the important role religion has played in advancing science.  Gregor Mendel, being my favorite example, is widely considered to be the father of modern genetics.  Gregor Mendel himself was a Catholic priest who was well learned in the sciences before entering the priesthood, yet it was the church and not the scientific community that gave him the resources and the place to conduct his research.  Scientists at the time criticized his work, only to later realize its significance and accept it.  Where would our understanding of genetics be today without him?

Jeeze, I couldn't get past the 2nd paragraph

You use a quote from my post then the 1st thing you state is "only the uneducated", then you do it again in the 2nd paragraph above. I am supposed to read the rest of that dribble from some "overly" educated arrogant rant. Forget it.

 

Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar of German decent who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Although the significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century, the independent rediscovery of these laws formed the foundation of the modern science of genetics. Doesn’t one have to ask … “why he was posthumously recognized and why an independent re-discovery was necessary” since he was under the auspices of the RCC … whom you SAY … just loves science and all its wonders, hahaha? After his death, the succeeding abbot burned all papers in Mendel's collection, WTF man??? Is that what you call ‘Church supported’ or is it just the ‘Scientists at the time criticized his work’ hehehe.

Personally I like Galileo Galilei because he makes a much more substantial monkey of religion and the Church which has confounded science from its inception in the minds of scoundrels (the RCC).

Do you actually have any common sense ... one does have to wonder?

 

 

Do you really have to wonder? It's rather obvious where that kind of thinking comes from isn't it?

Why? Were you laughing too hard? It gets even better after the second paragraph.