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POPSThe Golden Rule and the Separation of Church and State by Rev. Michael Helms, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Moultrie, Georgia. In Franklin County, Idaho, the Mormon population is 91.5 percent. In Utah County, Utah, it is 88.1 percent. If your job transferred you to one of these counties and you sent your child to a public school, would you object if the teacher began class by reading from the Book of Mormon each day? Well, obviously not if you are Mormon. If you are of any other religion or none at all, chances are good you would object.
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POPSThe new atheist nightmare is now a pickle Move over banana... This video fails on so many levels, but I do hope this encourages xtians to stick a fork in themselves and put it in a power outlet. It put jesus in the pickle, it can work for you too! hahahahahahahahahahahah
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POPSMitt Romney Under God ... the hypocrisy of his call for tolerance is likely only to be noticed by those secularists and non-theists who are targeted by his intolerance. To many of us, it will be clear that Romney’s position on religious bigotry is a lot like his position on abortion rights, stem cell research, and gay rights: it’s determined by political expedience. Romney opposes bigotry in self-defense, not in defense of others, which is to say that he does not really oppose it at all .
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POPSHoly Nonsense - Romney's worthless speech. Romney drones on about a barely relevant moment of emotion in 1774 and comes up with the glib slogan that "freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Any fool can think of an example where freedom exists without religion—and even more easily of an instance where religion exists without (or in negation of) freedom.
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POPSSend a Mohammad Bear to the Embassy of Sudan The Embassy of Sudan is, I'm sure, going through some rough times right now. Perhaps sending them a Teddy Bear - the symbol of Peace and Love - might help you can send a Teddy Bear to: Embassy of Sudan 2210 Massachusetts Ave NW Washington, DC 20008 Tel-(202) 338-8565 Fax-(202) 667-2406 http://sudanembassy.com/
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POPSTaking Bible Stories Literally Suggested Bible stories for the next Barna survey I wonder what the result would be if the Bible stories were selected at random. What would happen, for example, if the following six stories were selected? God kills every Egyptian firstborn baby. Exodus 12:29-30 God sends fiery serpents to bite and kill his people (for complaining). Numbers 21:5-6 Moses commands his soldiers to kill every boy, woman, and female child (except for the virgins). Numbers 31:14-18 God orders the Israelites to kill every Amalekite man, woman, and child. 1 Samuel 15:2-3 David buys a wife with 200 Philistine foreskins. 1 Samuel 18:25-27 God kills husband and wife for not giving all their money to Peter. Acts 5:1-10 Would people believe in the literal truth of these stories? Would they still "believe that their personal trust" in the biblical God was "warranted" by them? Barna should do a survey to find out. (I'll bet the believers would drop from two thirds to two p
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POPSHow to Believe in God in Six Easy Steps - Sam Harris Reason is a compulsion, not a choice. Just as one cannot intentionally startle oneself, one cannot knowingly believe a proposition on bad evidence. To believe a proposition, we must also believe that we believe it because it is true. While lapses in rationality can often be detected in retrospect, they always occur in the dark, outside of consciousness. In every present moment, a belief entails the concurrent conviction that we are not just fooling ourselves. Faith enables a person to fool himself into thinking that he is maintaining his standards of reasonableness, while forsaking them. There is a powerful incentive to not notice that one is engaged in this subterfuge, of course, because to notice it is to fail at it. ...every religion has created a black market for irrationality, where people of like minds can trade transparently bad reasons in support of their religious beliefs, without the threat of criticism.
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POPSReasons to Kill And if the answer is, "Oh, but the people that I kill when I appeal to scripture are only those who deserve death," my response will still be, "Don't you think that those others say the same thing?"
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POPSThe ATM in the Church Lobby Can someone come up with a "priceless" commercial for this? Salvation on Sunday - $100 Hookers and drugs on Monday thru Saturday - 1,000 Not being responsible for the bill after the Rapture - Priceless
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POPSNut Job of the Week - The Secret Two Australian TV comedians from “The Chaser’s War on Everything” TV program put the principles of new-age phenomena “The Secret” to the test. The result is hilarious. I can’t believe they trashed a perfectly good car for this skit!
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POPSChurches ad hoc: a divine comedy - A Photo Essay Edited 8/6/07 - see comments below A collection of photos taken by Herman Krieger. Churches ad hoc was introduced on the Internet in 1996. Since then, references to it have appeared in a large number of Christian, as well as atheist, web sites. Each group seems to find a reflection of their own views in the captioned photographs. Excerpts from the series have appeared in places as diverse as the Internet edition of The New York Times, a Methodist church calendar, a rock band cassette cover, the religion pages of the Stockholm Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, and a Cornell Law School poster for a national conference on The Consitution and Religion: Theory and Practice. I take photographs to amuse myself as well as the occasional spectator. Exhibiting photographs for mutual pleasure is similar to a comedian telling jokes to an appreciative audience. But comedy is more serious than photography.
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POPSBad Desires Desires that thwart other desires of the agent The suicide bomber, or even the holy soldier whose desire to serve some god is strong enough to motivate him to risk injury or death Desires that tend to thwart the desires of others Opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ (promoting an ignorance of evolution), adding misery to the lives of homosexuals, inhibiting the education of women, inhibitions on free speech and the free exchange of ideas Desires that cannot be fulfilled A parent with a desire that his children be healthy and happy will act in ways in which he believes will bring them health and happiness. However, the only acts that have real value are those that generate true health and happiness. If an act harms his children, even though he acted with the best intentions, the fact that his children were harmed means that this is an act he has reason to wish he had never performed
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POPSUSA: A Nation of Uneducated Morons So tell me, everyone: why are scientists supposed to respect religion, this corrupter of minds, this promulgator of lies, this damnable institution dedicated to delusion, in our culture? Maybe we need to start picketing fundamentalist churches. Maybe it's about time that we recognize religious miseducation as child abuse.
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POPSHelp Wanted: Museum Geologist This is going to be a tough position to fill and I would really like to meet the person who gets this job. Possibly one of the most impossible professions to get on the payroll and somehow explain an ideology that is in direct opposition of the discipline. - McCranium.org