h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>I personally am not a satanist myself so don't go bitchin to much if you are

Nope, not me.

If you want to pigeonhole me, put me in the 'athiest buddhist' box.

If the comments in this thread so far are to be taken at face value, then 'satanism' has a particularly bad name; in a similar way to 'hacker'. I'll freely admit that I'm a hacker, but request that you go and look the word up in a dictionary. Among all the other rubbish I have to do, I write device drivers for our hardware at work. Anyhow that's neither here not there, so let's get back on topic.

> Personally, I'm starting my own religion,but that's a topic for a different time.

According to L.Rob Hubbard (let's see if I can get sued for saying this, them scien{rest of word deleted for legal reasons} do like a good courtroom battle) that's one way to make an awful lot of money. I'm not going to make any direct comment about that particular religion, but if you choose to go that route, back up your brain to tape, you may need to restore it when you get back..

> What ever happened to the good ol days when pagenism and Wicca ruled the worship of the masses?

To get back to the original question, I think that in he main, mankind has grown less afraid of things it doesn't understand, mainly because of the increase in things that it does understand (like the structure of the local solar system) and is unlikely to grovel just because some burke wearing antlers commands the sun to rise, so it does.

However, modern organsed religions are established, mainly because of fear too; the church being one of the major power blocks in recent (A.D.) history. However, I'm not saying that you shouldn't beleve. Beleive in what you like, just don't expect to be able to convince the world to go with you.

Religion is a funny thing; any action that a group of people performs could be considered to be religious; it could, for instance, be argued that there is a god of eating fish on fridays; (this stems from the government of the UK at the time trying to boost the status of the UK's fishing fleet, I think). So many people do it nowadays as a matter of ritual, just as the bloke who runs the chip shop at the end of my road.

Anyhow, time to start working on the christmas shopping list. Dang! those darned christians have got to me again...

I'm responding here to all the posts. It is very silly to use exampls of things that happened centuries ago. In my opinion, the Crusades and the Inquisiton broke the Christian laws. That happened a long time ago and I don't think the Catholic church is like that anymore. According to my cathecism (SP?) classes, we should tell others about our religion (if they are willing to listen) but do not force them or anything. And people who are devout in religion are /not/ very gullible. They just believe in something that cannot be proven. We are human and therefore we cannot know everything. When the church denied the Big Bang (haven't heard this being proven, but I'll post as if it was proven) (or Galileo's theories [forcing him to take them back was wrong, though]), the people were working on the information of the time. You can believe in the Big Bang and God at the same time.

Where did the mass from the Big Bang come from?

Praying in school is not bad, as long as it is not forced. If you want prayer in school, go to a Jesuit school (or the other religion's equivalent).

Hope this sounds OK.

No sorry it doesn't. "If you want prayer, go to a Jesuit school" should read "If you want prayer, send your children, who have no say in the matter, to a Jesuit school (or the equivalent in another religion) where they will be force-fed unprovable nonsense. Go to your religious gatherings out of school time or send your kids to them, but don't try to comandeer my taxes or dragoon my (not yet born) grandchildren into taking part.

I agree that if my tax money is going to support a school, I don't want somebody else's religion taught at that school. That's easily fixed - no school-supported religious activites. Presto! (And that doesn't mean some kid can't wear a cross or a pentagram around his neck - but you all are intelligent enough to figure that out.)

In the US, churches and (I think) other religious organizations are exempt from paying taxes. In effect they get more buck for the buck than everybody else. If church and state are supposed to be separated, how come the churches are given a break?

I made a mistake in my previous post about the indians in Mexico. They accepted the Spaniards religions. Since they were war like, when they were conquered, they thought that the Catholic God must be stronger than the god they worshiped. /But/ they still believed in their High god, Omeotl (this one did not require blood to live only the Sun God). Later, the Virgin of Guadalupe says to Juan Diego that she is Omeotl's mother.

About the Church Exemption, I don't know. Are altruist organizations exempted? Maybe they count churches as altruist?

The US government has made all religious activities tax exempt. I think this was to show they were not against religion, since they heatlessly excluded them from government . Religion has its place, and is good for people, and should not be stifled. Such was their belief. Occasionally someone gets himself ordained as a minister of their own invented religion for the purposes of tax evasion, just to piss off the government. It works more often than not, too.

While religion isn't taxable, personal income made from it is, and that's why so many televangelists got nailed to the proverbial cross by the IRS, Jim Bakker prime among them. Just seeing him squirming and whining on national TV, with Tammy Faye's mascara running all over her hideous visage, just fills me with such glee that I almost believe there is a God.

I just felt like saying this: Yay!

I hate Televangelists.

Frood.

Actually Church of Satan is one of the few (is there any other?) "religious" organisations in the US that pays tax. This is done because of their own "rule":

• Satan represents responsibility for the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires!

Responciblility for the responcible. Responcibility is paying your taxes.


Also here is a quote from LaVey himself:

"There are no categories of Satanists -- there are Satanists and nuts.... I would divide Satanic *poseurs* into several groups. These are specific tags *we* employ to identify someone who might not grasp the concept fully yet. There are various Subjective Satanists, who agree with the philosophy only to the extent that it can be used to condone their particular fetish.... There are Rock and Roll Satanists, who only know the kind of Satanism sung about by pop stars....

"Then there are the Christian Satanists, defined as those who are attracted to the iconography of Satanism but can't seem to break away from Christianity's definitions. They continue to work within a primitive framework of Good Vs. Evil, taking the part of Evil instead of Good. They rebel against Christianity, but using the same rules. They may know no more of Satanism than what they see on record jackets. It's a last-ditch effort to preserve their belief system."

I must say that to all my dismay and disappointment I know of the flame you refer to! It is a real thing and is in the Bible as so! I personally believe the Bible for all it is! I do believe it for it is one of the few things that offers truth, love, joy, peace, guidence, and moral standerd! Will you tell me where you can find that in any other book! If you studied up on Biblical archaeology and Biblical prophasy than you would know that quite a bit of the Bible has been proven true. I do not wish that the prayer time be in school as a pushed on thing, however, I do believe that it should be allowed to be instituted as a silent time in the mornings! I believe all people are entitled to their own beliefs , however, I will tell you that I also believe that all people should be allowed to express their beliefs no matter where they are without fear of reprisal!

...and I thought this thread had died off yonks ago..

The central point of this discussion is whether or not children should be forced to take part in organised religion at an age when they are, according to virtually every rule made in law on the subject, incapable of making up their minds on the matter.

In my opinion, religion is a personal thing, and should not be forced upon others for any reason. Having been through a C.of.E primary school, my view of organised religion is now very negative; most of the people that I still know that I went to school with at that time share similar feelings. However, I know a lot of committed christians, and know that they find great happiness in their faith. That's fine by me. (I also know a number of hindus, several muslims, many buddhists (and you thought christianity had many forms...), one zoroastrian, and a couple of sikhs).

Anyhow, I look forward to an informed discussion on the subject, again.

Jim
-- Obviously, this is not the five minute argument, but the full half-hour.

Perhaps you should shift your focus from archaeology and prophecy to the Bible itself... a thorough study of it reveals very little moral guidance, an abyssal lack of joy, love, or peace, and above all, a complete vacuum of truth. But as for silent time, kids are in school to learn, and they don't do that by muttering mantras to themselves. If people want to pray, that's fine, but don't make it a standardized thing. You punish the students who don't want to pray by forcing them to observe a silent time that they didn't want. Anyway, the faithful kids find time to pray in school all the time... right as the teacher hands out the test that they didn't study for. There is absolutely no need for a "silent time."

GargleBlaster -

You and I agreed on all this months ago (looking down about half a dozen messages). As far as I know, the U.S. Supreme Court still has not ruled on the "right" of Christians to open a highschool athletic event with a prayer broadcast on the PA system. I still see this as an imposition on my "right" to attend the event without being forced to endure, at a publicly funded event, a religious ceremony that I don't accept - especially in a country whose Constitution mandates separation of church and state. (I recall reading the UK is moving in this direction?)

But in any case, I say to your comments "Amen" ... uhhh, "right on".

The US Supreme Court has decided the issue. Prayer is not allowed at public school events such as football games, over the public address system. They evidently decided this is not "free speech", but does violate the US Constitution which mandates separation of church and state. My only concern is that the vote was 6-3, rather than unanimous - I haven't seen the dissenting opinion, if any. Television has already shown the religious folks talking about where to go from here ...

I've got a few suggestions on where they can go...

6-3 *is* pretty shcoking, and from where I sit, things are only going to get worse. Traditionally, the Republicans have cowtowed to the Religious Right, and GW Bush has proven to be no exception. The scary thing is that Gore has also done everything he can to lure them to his side. With both sides sucking up, the losers are the American people (and that includes the Right as well, but they're too dim to know it).

I did see a summary of the dissenting opinion, but didn't really understand it. Something about the fact that the policy of letting students vote on having a speaker had not actually been implemented yet, so the majority opinion was prohibiting something that might not happen - i.e. it would be up to the speaker to decide whather to pray or not. The majority addressed this defense by stating in legal terms "B.S.".

Also, Bush said he was "disappointed" by the decision, but I think Gore said he supported it. So if Bush starts appointing Supreme Court Justices, I see a market for religious paraphenalia - public schools.

I recall a young black man saying you have to be careful what you wish for - he wished for a black Supreme Court Justice, and got Clarence Thomas.

Col. Sellers: "Prayer in schools hasn't happened yet"

On the contrary, two hours before the start of exams, you probably find more fervent and sincere prayer than in a week of church services...