Does this God affect my life in any noticeable way? Can I get anything from it by praying? Does it have any way of communicating with me?

Words have value. They help us understand each other. By how you describe yourself, you don't have a religion. "God" is you word for the universe so by definition you are an Atheist who likes to play word games.

If your God is just the universe and existence then you aren't describing a God. You are an Atheist. The universe will exist long past the death of the last human and it will be indifferent to our extinction.

What do you believe then? Are you a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or what? You came on this debate to dispute what I said about the old testament and gave me some bullshit about Jesus and kept restating that God is the ultimate reality. That's just making empty statements with no useful information.

Just because I hate someone, that doesn't mean that I think they should be killed. Your religion will die out naturally with every new scientific discovery and every new generation. Time and education is our greatest weapons against religion.

So your God isn't really a God? It's just the universe? That means you are a deist. Then why are you referencing the Jesus character.

What you call vision is better described as religious beer goggles. It helps you distort reality so you can play pretend. I would rather look at reality and except it for what it is.

Give me one verifiable thing that your God has done. Just one.

I don't care how many properties you tack on to it. I can call a coffee cup God and say that the fact that I can hold it proves God exists. Give me one verifiable thing that your God has done.

1b still doesn't apply to me because I can't be at war with an imaginary thing. My problem is with the believers because the believers are real unlike their God. I'm definitely not afraid of your imaginary friend because imaginary things can't do anything. That's why we know that Gods are imaginary. They don't have any noticeable affect on our world. We can't see gravity or the wind but we can see the affect that they have on our world. If it has no affect on our world then it has no properties that can be examined. If it can't be examined it is safe to say it doesn't exist.

My beef is with you, not your imaginary friend. Just like how I would have a problem with a mental patient flinging shit at me because the aliens in his head told him to.

I wouldn't trust a devout believer around my child for the same reason why I wouldn't allow a mental patient around my child. Statistically you have a higher possibility of harming my child.

You freaks have been a detriment to human development all throughout history. Book burnings, witch burnings, the burning of scientists, the torture of children in the attempt to preserve the dogma for the next generation. I don't hate your God. I hate you with every fiber of my being. I don't care if you are a nice person in life because you are promoting something that is one of the most toxic thing in our society. You are keeping the candle burning for future generations of Hitlers, inquisitions, crusades, and genocides.

You are the devils we should fear. It wasn't the Atheists who molested me as a child. It was a Catholic. It wasn't the Atheists that drove my wife to jump off a bridge 7 years ago it was her Catholic family that molested and abused her and told her that she was dirty and ugly. It wasn't the Atheists who snuck into her hospital room in droves to tell her that she is going to hell because she tried to end her life. It was you freaks.

What is your evidence then? If you are so sure there is a God then you must have something incredible to back your beliefs up.

I don't believe in the Christian God because it is a character from a fairytale. It would be like worshiping Donald Duck. The Bible was written by ignorant savages who thought bats were birds and whales were fish. They thought Pi was a round number. They thought the earth was flat and that sprinkling the blood from a bird on someone cured leprosy. They worshipped a God who's power could be bested by iron chariots.

How am I superstitious?

Superstitious: having or showing a belief in superstitions.

Superstition:

1.excessively credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings.

2. a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief.

You call me uneducated and then use a basic word without understanding what it means.

"When you point the finger, you got three pointing back at you"

When you are trying to sound wise, it's best not to put your foot in your mouth.

You enjoy acting like a sycophant to a imaginary magic man.

Sycophant: a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage.

synonyms: yes-man, bootlicker, brown-noser, toady, lickspittle, flatterer, flunky, lackey, spaniel, doormat, stooge, cringer, suck, suck-up

You tell me that I need to be more humble and own up to your God but you don't even know what it means to have humility because you can't even adequately describe it.

What you are is a delusional sycophant with no dignity or shame who believes in magic.

Go blow your imaginary friend Jesus some more you delusional sycophant. You are too weak to except that there is no ultimate justice and no ultimate reward. Bad people do bad things and sometimes they get away with it. Stop being do childish that you think you need a magic baby blanket to put over your head to keep the monsters away.

I call you replies word salad because they don't have any intellectual value. I'm not a Christian. I don't believe Jesus actually existed as described in the Bible because there is no evidence that he existed. But even if he did, he still wouldn't have any right to pass judgment on us.

I don't have faith in anything. Not even in myself. I have evidence that allows me to make predictions based on probability.

I know that there is the possibility that I may be wrong about something but when I am not sure about something I don't instantly explain it away with magic like religious believers do.

Faith is what you use when you are either too lazy or too stupid to look for truth.

Oh I get it.

You can never understand God's truth because you aren't one with the faith. God will reveal himself to you if you honestly look for him with your heart.

You are just thinking with your limited human capacity but God's the all knowing absolute authority.

What you are describing is a perfect method for creating a delusion.

So you have gone full blown retarded on us.

Does that mean since Trump paints whole rooms in his house gold and he ramped up drone strikes all around the world and dropped the mother of all bombs on the poorest part of the Middle East, does that mean that he wants to be the unholy spawn of Smoug and Sauron?

You are unbelievably stupid and an embarrassment to your species.

What the fuck is wrong with you? It's shit like this that makes me embarrassed to know that you and I are of the same gene pool. You don't think. You just regurgitate word salad all over me.

This is why people shouldn't be religious. Your religion retards your brain.

That is just a bunch of preachy bullshit. What was I supposed to learn from it?

Are you just a walking echo chamber vomiting religious garbage all day?

You don't belong on a debate website because you aren't bringing anything to the table.

You are just a free roaming cloud of stupidity.

That is a pretty big statement to make. Do you have any evidence to back it up? If you say something is true but you don't have any verifiable evidence to substantiate your claim then you are just talking out of your ass.

How can I hate something I don't believe in? What you call God's word is just primitive savages speaking for their God. You are learning from people who knew less than you do. That is reverse education.

Your feelings don't matter to me. Truth does. I'm tired of hearing religious people act like their religion is more superior to any other. You are just children playing out fantasies in your head. God's are like Santa Claus for adults. Grow up and stop holding society back.

I'm really getting tired of the cop out of saying the word "interpretation." All that means in religion is that there are parts you don't listen to in the Bible and some you do. If I were to say " if a man lieth with another man as he would lieth with a woman, they have both committed an abomination in the eyes of the lord, and the punishment is death" how would you wiggle out of thinking that that means capital punishment for being gay.

What if I said" Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." What kind of mental gymnastics are you going to do to say that this verse doesn't say that not only can you keep slaves but also you can beat them as harshly as you want as long as they don't die from it.

Your culture determines how you choose to interpret the religious text that you believe.

There are some Muslims that blow themselves up for their religion and others that say Islam is force for peace. Just like how there are Christians that devote themselves to charity and others are killing their children in Africa because they think their children are witch's.

You are probably one of those " only read the good parts" Christians or Muslims. The old testament condones slavery, rape, murder, child abuse, genocide, child molestation, and racism. What is the punishment for unruly children? Death! What is the punishment for being gay? Death! What is the punishment for shaving your face? Death!

You can't use Jesus to disregard the old testament because he said that he came to fulfill the law, not to change it.

The Republicans have a deep connection with the worst our society has to offer like the KKK,Nazi's, and white nationalists of all types. People won't vote against there self interests to that extreme.

This is a stupid question. I particularly don't care for Oprah all that much. I would go as far as calling her a cunt, but Trump is one of the worst people in our society. It's like asking if a paper cut is worse than third degree burns on 90% of your body.

I would have to say no. I'm sitting safely in my house so I don't see what I have to be saved from.

Is an asteroid heading for me or something?

CNN, Business insider, CBS, and Time Magazine.

I have also talked to at least a dozen Walmart employees to better understand what is going on.

There are 63 Sam's club stores closing or have already closed. All their employees are laid off or getting laid off. They said that they are going to convert about ten of them into distribution centers but this has affected over 10,000 people. Walmart has a long history of fucking over its employees but this is crazy.

The bonus is only a one time thing and the max is $1,000 dollars. You only get $1,000 dollars if you have been working for Walmart for 20+ years.

Evolution is the back bone of modern biology. It is a verifiable fact that living organisms will change over time. With every generation new mutations add information to the genetic code. Studying evolution helps medical professionals predict how actions we take now will effect the biology of the general population. One of the things they are concerned about is that thanks to the advent of modern C section procedures women with narrow birth canals who wouldn't have been able to survive natural childbirth in the past will become more common. Eventually it will be rare for anyone to be able to have a natural birth.

What kind of drugs are you on man?!??!!

I've never owned or needed to own a gun. I'm not some reactionary pussy who thinks everyone is coming to murder me.

I live in Louisiana so climate change is going to become a real problem in the coming years with every year being the hottest on record and hurricanes becoming more frequent.

I have great respect for the advancements of modern medicine do to scientific method. I would prefer not to have small pox or polio.

They also close 60 Sam's club stores without telling their employees. People showed up to work only to be told that they don't have a job anymore. You apparently are a very gullible person. No wait, you're just another right wing sycophant who doesn't like to use your brain. Nuance is just too far out of the realm of what your brain can process.

That's what you believe, not what Atheist believe.

The big bang theory only addresses the singularity because we don't have any method of examining what came before. You believe that a magical anthropomorphic immortal spoke the universe into being with an incantation spell.

We are held accountable to someone. It's called society. Societies punishment is called prison. Christianity say's that there isn't necessarily punishments you will have to face because your God's justice is directly contradicted by the idea that he is merciful. Mercy is the suspension of justice.

The crusades occurred from 1095 to 1291. There forces were 15,000 strong but in 196 years of their holy war 1.7 million people died. It was also during the time of swords and Spears, not machine guns and missiles.

The problem with that argument is that Christians all throughout history and all around the world have and do use violence to propagate their beliefs. The only reason why you don't see Christians in modern times and in developed nations commuting horrible acts of genocide is because they don't have as much power as they use to. The Christian time of genocide was called the crusades. The Buddhists did it in Japan and China and the Hindus have done it to Christians and Muslims all throughout history. The problem comes about when one religion gains total control over a country. That's why the founding Fathers gave us the first amendment.

I agree, but that is the goal of all religions. Name one religion that doesn't want everyone to believe their dogma. Whether it is through converting others or having kids and raising them to follow the religious dogma, the desired effect is the same.

I'm a Left Wing Atheist and although I don't care for there views just like I don't care for the Christians holding up the "God hates Fags" signs, I wouldn't want to take away their right to hold those views. This is America and everyone has the right to believe what they want. The only time it becomes a problem is when they try to impose those views on others and take rights away from people they don't agree with. Your Rights stop as soon as they encroach on mine.

Your question is formed incorrectly. A religion is a faith based belief that some form of self continues to exist after you die. You can be apart of an Atheistic religion like some forms of Buddhism or Taoism.

I do think human cloning should be legal but I am a bit biased I guess.

I don't get it. It just sounds like a bunch of contradictions. I guess I would have to read the book but if this is a direct quote then I would have to say he was just insane. Nazi's weren't socialists any more than North Korea is a Democratic republic.

You are talking about polytheistic paganism like voodoo or tribal God. They are not historically respected because they don't have longstanding religious texts. That means they are passed down through word of mouth. Have you ever played a game of telephone? Try doing it over hundreds of generation's. They are just put under a blanket term of polytheists.

It's impossible to be a Nazi and a Leftist. Nazi's are fascists which falls on the the extreme authoritarian right of the political spectrum. The extreme authoritarian Leftist are Communists. Calling a Leftist a Nazi is like saying that person is 100% white and 50% black. I've watched someone call another person a Nazi communist. That's like saying that person is 100% white and 100% black.

That's funny coming from the biggest snowflake on this site.

Yes, and the old testament didn't exist when the Rig Veda was written. That is why Hinduism is the oldest religion still being practiced.

The Islamic religion started in the year 610 CE so it has existed for 1408 years.

The word "Atheist" was used by the Romans to describe Christians because to the Romans, they didn't have a God because they worshipped a dead guy.

Revelations doesn't give the date of fulfillment, doesn't mention the names of any countries outside of the middle east, and it doesn't mention any modern people. It's just a mash up of vague incoherent nonsense.

It's so vague that you could never tell when it was being fulfilled. That's why the Christians thought it was the end times in every century since the first century.

You are just apart of another generation of nut jobs that us normal people have to deal with.

You have massive victim complex. Mao and Stalin formed a religion of the state. People of every religion have committed genocide against everyone else or each other at one time or another. You are taking something that has always been and called it a fulfilment of prophecy. That is the very opposite of a fulfilled prophecy. A prophecy is a very specific prediction that can only be fulfilled by that one event.

Is a prosecutor trying to make a one legal system where ever defendant goes to prison whether they are guilty or not?

To make a country work you need people from both sides of the political spectrum giving there perspective. Or countries problem is that both leading parties are right leaning. This has created an imbalance.

Usually that only happens if the baby is past due, the mother can't pass the baby naturally, or she doesn't want to deal with the pain of giving birth. If they got that far then obviously they chose to keep it. Abortion is about the mothers choice of whether she wants to be pregnant or not. It's her body. If my wife chose to abort our baby, I would have no right to tell her she couldn't. It's not my body. My wife has extreme physical problems and they gave her an 85% chance of dying from the pregnancy. Her pelvis is more metal than bone and she broke two screws in her spine carrying our baby to term. She is the bravest woman I know, but I wouldn't have thought any less of her if she decided that she didn't want to go through with the pregnancy.

The quote you used was " you are just trying to minimize loss of life".

You cut out the context. The context was" if the mother died".

I said every fetus has the right to live. That means if the mother is dead then your only option is to save the baby. I said this because that is the only reason why you would cut a fetus out of a woman to save it.

You asked "Do you see a difference in terminating a pregnancy in order to destroy the fetus vs terminating a pregnancy in order to save the fetus?"

I couldn't conceive of any instance where you would have to terminate a pregnancy in order to save the fetus because by definition the womb is basically the healthiest place to keep a fetus that isn't ready to be born.

Your questions was idiotic.

I already said that every fetus has the right to live, but there is a second clause. It doesn't have the right to live at someone else's expense. If the mother is dead then saving the baby is the most logical option. There is no right that a dead person has that would justify letting someone else die.

As it pertains to abortion, the fetus doesn't have the right to use the woman's body against her will to stay alive. If it lives, good. If it dies then that just means that it was using that woman to stay alive, which it doesn't have the right to do if it is against her will.

You can twist what I said all you want. That just shows that you can't defeat my argument as it was stated.

The only reason why you would have to do that is if the woman is dead or the fetus is having health problems that needs to be treated right away. In that case you are just trying to minimize loss of life. I already said that every fetus has the right to life. It just doesn't have the right to live at someone else's expense. If it comes out and lives, good. Whether it lives or dies is irrelevant to the fact that a woman has the right to choose what goes on in her body.

Some of them might have but on the whole, no. The Bible is irrelevant. They saw people that were having a ruff go of things and they helped them out. You are arguing for correlation and not causation.

If it is able to live then that's good. But if it dies, so what? They aren't trying to kill it because that isn't the purpose of an abortion. If it can't live outside of the womb then that is just too bad. An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy.

You are for taking away a woman's right to not be pregnant. How very immoral of you.

If you took it out of my hand without my permission then by definition you have just stolen it. First you said that I dropped it and now you are saying that you took it out of my hand. These are two different things entirely. Your arguments aren't consistent. Homeostasis is the stabilization of your internal environment. You can have an internal environment

Without homeostasis. It will just be one that can't maintain a living thing. A fetus doesn't have the ability to keep its body working outside of the womb. That doesn't mean anyone has the right to make a woman remain pregnant.

Conspiracy;

a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

Establishing a country for a group of people isn't a conspiracy. Don't use words if you don't know what they mean.

The Bible had nothing to do with it. We recognized the wrongs that have been done to the Jewish people throughout history so the UN saw it as a good way to make things right by officially recognizing a Jewish state. People are relevant, the Bible isn't. No one cares about your book because it is useless to us as a species.

I don't speak crazy. Can someone translate? Are you talking about actual puppets? If I were talking to puppets and I thought they could really understand me then I would definitely be crazy. However that isn't the case.

More insane ramblings from Brontorapter.

1. When I say that a fetus can't survive on its own I am talking about internal homeostasis. It can't maintain its own internal temperature or regulate its own metabolism. If my kidneys fail, I can't make you filter my blood for me.

2. From a legal standpoint you didn't steel it from me. If I drop a $100 dollar bill and you pick it up and I am long gone, I am not there to declare ownership and you are under no obligation to wait until I return.

Your argument is nonsensical because these are basic concepts.

1. You can survive just fine in the woods by yourself. People have done it for hundreds of thousands of years.

2. In a just society, your rights stop as soon as they encroach on mine. I have the right to have my things. My right to swing my arm ends at your nose.

Your argument is nonsensical.

I don't know where you get this idea that he and I are conspiring against you. We both just so happen to disagree with you on everything. I don't talk to anyone outside of the message boards.

Your paranoia is just another sign that you might be certifiably insane.

1. I'm not pissed. At this point I just find you to be funny and a little sad, like the village idiot.

2. Having Israel become a Nation again is in not evidence that the Bible is true. It was thanks to the UN that it even happened in the first place. Saying Israel is a fulfilled prophecy is like saying a house is a fulfilled prophecy written by the contractor. People set a goal and they obtained it.

That sounds a lot like every time in history. When your predictions are vague and nonsensical then you can apply them to just about anything. The genocide of the Jews by Christians during the holocaust 72 years ago. The genocide of Muslims and pagans during the Spanish inquisitions 500 years ago. The genocide of Christians by Buddhist in Japan 150 years ago. The genocide of Mormons in America 120 years ago. The genocide of Christians by other Christians in ever year since the first century. You are only arguing for the abandonment religion.

You don't understand logic in general. That's why you sound crazy. You show that your religious belief is the most harmful thing in your life.

If you can't achieve homeostasis then you won't be alive for long. Every fetus has a right to life but it doesn't have the right to live at someone else's expense. I don't have the right to knock you out and stick an iv in you so you could filter my blood for me even if it would keep me alive. Are you handing out special rights?

It looks like a Facebook page made by someone whose main focus is revelations and promoting nonsensical word salad. Everyone should believe in God because he is the one true God and he is coming and that is why you should believe because this is all true. Believe it because you should believe it. I find it funny how religious proclamations always sound like the insane ramblings of a mad man.

I don't know what the point of that link was. It was just a religious Facebook page. So what? You seem to think restating your position over and over again makes it valid in some way. Your position has ever sign of a self deletion. Give me evidence and reasoned arguments or your position is worthless.

So you say that you have evidence. What is it?

You seem to be a fan of nonsensical word salad. Saying that I am weak and scared does nothing to confirm your position. If you have good reasons then you should give them. Read first Peter 3-15.

And if I would have never met her mom and had sex with her, my daughter wouldn't exist. What's your point?

If one of the other 800,000,000 sperm that I shot into her would have fertilized her egg we would have a different baby all together as well.

Your statement is nonsensical.

You are mistaking the word faith as synonym for evidence. I believe that the food I eat is safe to do so because I have a reasonable expectation that it is based on evidence and past experiences. If the meat in my fridge smells wrong then I know that it might not be good.

You don't understand logical deduction. That doesn't make you crazy, just stupid.

Whether reality is real or not is irrelevant to the fact that I live in it. Even if reality is just a simulation and we are all in the matrix it is still reality as it pertains to us.

You literally just described faith as belief through gullibility. You believe in things that you can't physically experience because someone told you to.

That is the very definition of a fool.

Thanks buddy. I have been busy with my new baby girl so I took a break from internet forums.

You argument is nonsensical. Just because you can give birth to the child and it is alive at birth, that doesn't mean that it is viable. One of the seven criteria of life is maintaining homeostasis. If it can't survive on its own then it isn't viable. No one (pre born or post born) has the right to persist at the expense of another person. Abortion isn't about killing babies. Abortion is by definition, the termination of a pregnancy. We have a definition for a late term abortion. It's called a caesarean section.

If you are against abortion then you are against human rights and you aren't a real American.

I would agree that God is an immaterial being in the since that he is imaginary.

The existence of God is not indicated by anything we know of so I would have to say no.

This argument is not only wrong, but categorically wrong. The flat earth model has been debunked for hundreds of years. People have been just about everywhere you could possibly go on our planet. That is why we moved on to space travel. It is the next frontier. You aren't arguing for there being a conspiracy perpetuated by NASA. You are arguing that every nation on the planet have been lying about the shape of the earth for hundreds of years just to make people believe the Bible is wrong.

Really? That's what you are going with? So all the Christians who are cosmologists, astronauts, and physicists are trying to cover up the truth about the flat earth claims of the Bible? Really?

If you believe that then you belong in the loony bin.

Evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life we have. There is some debate over the mechanism through which evolution occurs, but it is a verifiable fact that it does. A theory is the highest point that any explanation can reach. Without the theory of evolution, nothing in biology makes sense. Evolution is a fact. All living things change over time. Asking if evolution should be taught in school is like asking if gravity should be taught in school.

I'm more of a man than you loser. I have three kids and a wife that I work two jobs to take care of. I also accept the world for what it is, and not what a book of fantasies tells me it is. Why don't you go kill rape victims like your God ordered you to you freak?

You're assuming that those people have always been Democrats. You are way to simple minded. What I was saying was that you only post angry simple mind us or them debates. You are an angry petty little worm of a man. I'm not even sure you could actually be called a man. Your obviously a thin skinned little bitch.

Said the guy with the imaginary friend. Grow up dude. Pretending is for five year olds.

Actually my father was a womanizer and a Christian and a Republican. He cheated on his first wife with my mom and got her pregnant with me. Also my mom put me in Christian school for a good part of my childhood. You are still a moron.

Skin cells live about two or three weeks. Colon cells have it rough: They die off after about four days. Sperm cells have a life span of only about three days, while brain cells typically last an entire lifetime (neurons in the cerebral cortex, for example, are not replaced when they die).

As long as your mind stays the same, you are still you. Only experiences can change the core of who someone is.

You mite be the dumbest angriest person on this site. You have made this argument dozens of times and it always falls apart as soon as facts get involved. You mite actually be insane.

President Lyndon Johnson (D) signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the same year Dixiecrats became Republicans.

Senator Ted Cruz recently defended his party’s racism by essentially saying, Well, Democrats are racist, too!

His evidence: Dixiecrats, the keepers of Jim Crow. But the Dixiecrats largely left the Democrats to become Republicans.

Here’s why that happened.

1. Republicans and Democrats after the Civil War

1866 Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Race. Clymer is a Democrat and Geary is a Republican.

It’s true that many of the first Ku Klux Klan members were Democrats. It’s also true that the early Democratic Party opposed civil rights. But there’s more to it.

The Civil War-era GOP wasn’t that into civil rights. They were more interested in punishing the South for seceding, and monopolizing the new black vote. (More on this in a future post.)

In any event, by the 1890s, Republicans had begun to distance themselves from civil rights.

2. Democrats v Republicans on Jim Crow

Segregation and Jim Crow lasted for 100 years after the end of the Civil War.

During this time, African Americans were largely disenfranchised. There was no African-American voting bloc. Neither party pursued civil rights policies — it wasn’t worth their while.

North Carolina, 1938. Between 1877 and 1974, North Carolina only had one Republican governor. The majority of Jim Crow governors were Democrats. Photo Credit

Democrats dominated Southern politics throughout the Jim Crow Era. It’s fair to say that Democratic governors and legislatures are responsible for creating and upholding white supremacist policies.

Southern Democrats were truly awful.

3. President Truman Integrates the Troops: 1948

Fast forward about sixty shitty years. Black people are still living in segregation under Jim Crow. Nonetheless, African Americans agree to serve in World War II.

African Americans fought and died for a country that doubted their equality.

At war’s end, President Harry Truman, a Democrat, used an Executive Order to integrate the troops. (That order was not executed until 1963, however because: racism.)

These racist Southern Democrats got so mad that their chief goblin, Senator Strom Thurmond, decided to run for President against Truman. They called themselves the Dixiecrats.

South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond was a fair-weather Democrat but a committed racist.

Of course, he lost. Thurmond remained a Democrat until 1964. He continued to oppose civil rights as a Democrat. He gave the longest filibuster in Senate history — speaking for 24 hours against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

4. The Party of Kennedy v the Party of Nixon in the Civil Rights Era

At the time of Kennedy’s election, his views on civil rights represented the views of most Northerners, not necessarily most Democrats.

Two things started happening at the same time:

Racist Democrats were getting antsy

Neither party could afford to ignore civil rights anymore

In 1960 Kennedy defeated Nixon. At the time of his election, the both parties unevenly supported civil rights. But President Kennedy decided to move forward.

After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson continued Kennedy’s civil rights focus.

As Southerner and a Democrat, President Johnson was unusually open to civil rights.

As you can imagine, that did not sit particularly well with most Southern Democrats. This is when Strom Thurmond flew the coop for good.

In fact, a greater percentage of Congressional Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats. Support for the Act followed geographic, not party, lines.

Governor Geroge Wallace of Alabama was a life-long Democrat. He vehemently defended segregation, but later apologized. Here, he physically blocks the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963. He is being served by the US Attorney General — another Democrat. Photo Credit

Soon after, the Republicans came up with their Southern Strategy — a plan to woo white Southern voters to the party for the 1968 election.

The Kennedy and Johnson administrations had advanced civil rights, largely through national legislation and direct executive actions. So, the Southern Strategy was the opposite — states’ rights and no integration.

As in the Civil War, the concepts of “states’ rights” and “tradition,” were codes for “maintaining white supremacy.”

Starting with Thurmond in 1964, and continuing throughout the Johnson and Nixon administrations, Dixiecrats left the Democrats for the Republicans.

Two former Democrats, President Ronald Reagan (R) and Senator Strom Thurmond (R). Reagan was not a Dixiecrat. He left the party in 1962.

5. Those Racist Dixiecrats Create Mainstream Republican Policy

By the time they left the Democrats, Dixiecrats Thurmond and Representative (later Senator) Jesse Helms were on the fringes of their party.

But their ideas formed modern GOP’s core platform.

Jesse Helms successfully made the case that “minorities” were preventing white people from getting job.

In a campaign ad, Democrat-turned-Republican Jesse Helms said “racial quotas” prevented white people from getting jobs. The lie of racial quotas persists in the GOP’s rejection of affirmative action. Racial quotas are illegal.

Take the idea of “special interests.” Here’s Helms’ view, as a Republican:

“Are civil rights only for Negroes? While women in Washington who have been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights. The hundreds of others who have had their purses snatched by Negro hoodlums may understandably insist that their right to walk the street unmolested was violated.” — Television commentary, 1963, quoted in The Charlotte Observer.

But you would think that Ted Cruz would have a clearer understanding of the connections between the Dixiecrats and the Republican Party.

He loves Jesse Helms.

Cruz wishes there were “100 more like Jesse Helms.” He speaks in the Hertiage Foundation’s Jesse Helms Speakers Series in 2015.

Sprechen Sie darüber, wie sich die Sprache entwickelt, wie Wörter in der Gesellschaft verwendet oder ausgesprochen werden? Wenn ja, dann bin ich einverstanden, aber ich denke auch, dass Sprachbücher eine richtige Basis für das Lernen geben.

Did you break out of a nut house or something? You are exhibiting signs of paranoid delusions and schizophrenia. Seek help immediately before you hurt someone.

Ja

Weil es die häufigste Methode für die Weitergabe von Informationen ist, die der menschliche Geist erkennen kann.

I was just curious about how every day people think the world would react to major changes in the social climate. That is the only purpose for this debate.

What is wrong with you mouth breathing neanderthals? Do you think there are only 6 countries in the whole world? I doubt you could even name 10 principles that America was founded on and yet we have to list to you assholes constantly ramble on about your fake patriotism bullshit. You would be more at home in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. There you can solute on command and be sent to prison for bad mouthing your country or its dear leader. Grow a brain and\or a spine you fascist sheep.

Same to you my friend. I feel we have all grown a little in our understanding. Keep up the good work and I will try to do the same.

Mathematics is the language of science and has enabled mankind to make extraordinary technological advances. There is no question that the logic and order that underpins mathematics, has served us in describing the patterns and structure we find in nature.

The successes that have been achieved, from the mathematics of the cosmos down to electronic devices at the microscale, are significant. Einstein remarked, “How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?”

Amongst mathematicians and scientists there is no consensus on this fascinating question. The various types of responses to Einstein’s conundrum include:

1) Math is innate. The reason mathematics is the natural language of science, is that the universe is underpinned by the same order. The structures of mathematics are intrinsic to nature. Moreover, if the universe disappeared tomorrow, our eternal mathematical truths would still exist. It is up to us to discover mathematics and its workings—this will then assist us in building models that will give us predictive power and understanding of the physical phenomena we seek to control. This rather romantic position is what I loosely call mathematical Platonism.

2) Math is a human construct. The only reason mathematics is admirably suited describing the physical world is that we invented it to do just that. It is a product of the human mind and we make mathematics up as we go along to suit our purposes. If the universe disappeared, there would be no mathematics in the same way that there would be no football, tennis, chess or any other set of rules with relational structures that we contrived. Mathematics is not discovered, it is invented. This is the non-Platonist position.

3) Math is not so successful. Those that marvel at the ubiquity of mathematical applications have perhaps been seduced by an overstatement of their successes. Analytical mathematical equations only approximately describe the real world, and even then only describe a limited subset of all the phenomena around us. We tend to focus on those physical problems for which we find a way to apply mathematics, so overemphasis on these successes is a form of “cherry picking.” This is the realist position.

4) Keep calm and carry on. What matters is that mathematics produces results. Save the hot air for philosophers. This is called the “shut up and calculate” position.

The debate over the fundamental nature of mathematics is by no means new, and has raged since the time of the Pythagoreans. Can we use our hindsight now to shed any light on the above four positions?

A recent development within the last century was the discovery of fractals. Beautiful complex patterns, such as the Mandelbrot set, can be generated from simple iterative equations. Mathematical Platonists eagerly point out that elegant fractal patterns are common in nature, and that mathematicians clearly discover rather than invent them. A counterargument is that any set of rules has emergent properties. For example, the rules of chess are clearly a human contrivance, yet they result in a set of elegant and sometimes surprising characteristics. There are infinite numbers of possible iterative equations one can possibly construct, and if we focus on the small subset that result in beautiful fractal patterns we have merely seduced ourselves.

Take the example of infinite monkeys on keyboards. It appears miraculous when an individual monkey types a Shakespeare sonnet. But when we see the whole context, we realize all the monkeys are merely typing gibberish. In a similar way, it is easy to be seduced into thinking that mathematics is miraculously innate if we are overly focused on its successes, without viewing the complete picture.

The non-Platonist view is that, first, all mathematical models are approximations of reality. Second, our models fail, they go through a process of revision, and we invent new mathematics as needed. Analytical mathematical expressions are a product of the human mind, tailored for the mind. Because of our limited brainpower we seek out compact elegant mathematical descriptions to make predictions. Those predictions are not guaranteed to be correct, and experimental verification is always required. What we have witnessed over the past few decades, as transistor sizes have shrunk, is that nice compact mathematical expressions for ultra small transistors are not possible. We could use highly cumbersome equations, but that isn’t the point of mathematics. So we resort to computer simulations using empirical models. And this is how much of cutting edge engineering is done these days.

The genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded in genetic material (DNA or RNA sequences) is translated into proteins (amino acid sequences) by living cells. ... Those genes that code for proteins are composed of tri-nucleotide units called codons, each coding for a single amino acid. Codes are a human construct that people use to help make information palatable to the human mind. We haven't reached the level of knowledge to which we can cast off the shackles of simplification. We are at the level of 2+2=4. Hopefully we will one day reach the realization that there is no 2 or 4. These are mathematical constructs designed by the human condition. Nature doesn't require mathematical constructs or codes. The universe isn't conscious so it does not care,feel, or think. It just is. The odds that life or the universe could exist as it is now are so astronomically great that it would seem impossible that either one could exist at all, but it must exist in one form or another otherwise it wouldn't exist. If you take all the rocks in the world and tried to find one that fit perfectly in a shot glass, you would most likely never find one. However, if your pour water into the glass it will conform to the shape of the glass, but that doesn't mean that water was designed to fit perfectly in the glass. The water is the nature of things and the glass is how we perceive them.

I don't understand this premise. New genetic code is written with every new generation so we know that it is a random nationally occurring product of evolution. The genetic code in my body isn't completely the same as yours or anyone else's even though we are all human. If it was then we would be clones or at least twins and detectives wouldn't be able to use DNA to catch criminals. Life gradually becomes more and more complex as more genetic code is generated through mutation.

It doesn't matter what political party,religion, or social group you are affiliated with. We are all people. Being an atheist or a Christian doesn't make you a fascist. Rejecting people or treating them poorly for having a different mind set does.

I understand.

My argument was directed at the debate premise, not your response to it. I was being hyper literal.

Personally I consider you an ally on this site. Keep up the good work my friend. Fight on

3 ounces of meat is all a person needs in a given day. Humans are omnivorous so we need a mix of different kinds of food to be healthy. There is a reason why people who eat mostly meat get fat and are far more likely to die from heart disease. You can't fight genetic limitations.

There for we should only farm fruits, vegetables, and grains. Meat should only be acquired through hunting while also regulating it to protect animal populations.

This debate topic doesn't make sense.

1. Genetically, everyone is at least 2% African because that is where all people originate from.

Race is irrelevant relative to the human species as a whole.

2. You can't self identify as a different species, especially if you aren't genetically or morphologically compatible. Humans are classified as apes but that isn't a species. It's a group classifications. You can't proclaim to be a dog but you are an animal, mammal, and a vertebrate. We have an 87% genetic compatibility with dogs.

A new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades has concluded that religious people are less intelligent than non-believers.

A piece of University of Rochester analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, found “a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity” in 53 out of 63 studies.

According to the study entitled, 'The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations', published in the 'Personality and Social Psychology Review', even during early years the more intelligent a child is the more likely it would be to turn away from religion.

In old age above average intelligence people are less likely to believe, the researchers also found.

One of the studies used in Zuckerman's paper was a life-long analysis of the beliefs of 1,500 gifted children with with IQs over 135.

The study began in 1921 and continues today. Even in extreme old age the subjects had much lower levels of religious belief than the average population.

The review, which is the first systematic meta-analysis of the 63 studies conducted in between 1928 and 2012, showed that of the 63 studies, 53 showed a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity, while 10 showed a positive one.

Only two studies showed significant positive correlations and significant negative correlations were seen in a total of 35 studies.

The authors of the review looked at each study independently, taking into account the quality of data collection, the size of the sample and the analysis methods used.

The three psychologists carrying out the review defined intelligence as the “ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience”.

Religiosity is defined by the psychologists as involvement in some (or all) facets of religion.

According to the review, other factors - such as gender or education - did not make any difference to the correlation between intelligence and religious belief.

The level of belief, or otherwise, did however vary dependent upon age with the correlation found to be weakest among the pre-college population.

The paper concludes that: "Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme —the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who 'know better'."

Criticisms of the conclusions include that the paper only deals with a definition of analytic intelligence and fails to consider newly identified forms of creative and emotional intelligence.

The psychologists who carried out the review also sought to pre-empt the secularist interpretation of the findings by suggesting that more intelligent people are less likely to have religious beliefs as they associate themselves with ideas around personal control.

"Intelligent people typically spend more time in school - a form of self-regulation that may yield long-term benefits," the researchers wrote.

"More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs."

Setting guide lines for what is socially acceptable based off of common decency isn't fascism. Nuances are non existent when it comes to people on the right. People mite take it a little far sometimes but it is far from Nazism. The wording of the disagree choice obviously shows that a child typed this up. This is a debate forum, not a day care for small minded babies.

po·lit·i·cal cor·rect·ness

pəˈlidəkəl kəˈrek(t)nəs

noun

the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

fascism

[fash-iz-uh m]

noun

(sometimes initial capital letter)a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

No

Because school is a neutral playing field. Schools should not postulate one way or the other whether or not a God exists. Teachers should only present the evidence and let the chips fall where they may. I don't believe schools should allow biblical teaching but I also don't think they should openly state that there is no God

Updated on archaeological findings? You referenced someone from the 1800's. I love how creationists feed off of what scientists got wrong in the past but can never use their religion to improve our future. You're dead weight and I can't wait for society to cut you loose as a whole.

I love it when the hopelessly ignorant start desperately flailing about with anger because their argument fell flat on its face. You're a clown. Nothing more and nothing less. Just tuck your tale between your legs and go cry home to mommy.