Patriotism is a devotion, just as religion is a devotion. Devotions both of them to fictions.

The stories people tell propagate and is the real difference between us and the animals.

We progress because we remember our predecessors (or, more precisely, we remember the stories our predecessors told). Were it not for these stories, each successive generation would be a tabula rasa, having to begin society anew.

Dogs do not talk in a systematic way to each other; they do not perpetuate fictions as we do. They have no discernible concept of a nation or a religion, and so they have devotion to neither. What they do understand is what is right before their eyes: they understand - or so some may think - loyalty and love to their master. They understand the natural world that is right in front of them; humans, with our fictive language, understand a fictive world where gods cast down thunderbolts and cause the ground to open up and eat people alive, and Uncle Sam who just so fucking happens to want YOU to enlist, and go kill and be killed for something that only exists (for better or worse) in our minds.

So, yes, patriotism and religion both fall into the same category: they are both fictions created by the stories people tell.

Absolutely not. For one, if drug users are covering the cost of their habits with money taken in from social assistance, then that is money they do not have to find elsewhere (i.e. illegally: theft, prostitution, and the many, many other ways junkies have of finding money (they are quite ingenious people, with the right stimulation)).

On top of this, it is quite a generalization to subject everybody who is down on their luck to this sort of treatment; people who are in need may fear to ask for help out of a belief they will be persecuted for having, say, taken a toke in the previous month, or for having eaten a poppy-seed bagel for breakfast that morning. Gluttonous alcoholics can, however, get around this quite easily, considering that drug tests do not incorporate alcohol in their screens. I am sure most thinking people are very understanding of the great distance that separates the healthfulness of marijuana (or even, I would argue, morphine and certain other drugs) from the common and commonly accepted, yet extremely damaging effects of alcohol and tobacco: physically, societally, and mentally.

Instead of treating all people in need of social assistance as criminals, as sub-human from those who tend to be better-off financially (thanks to a variety of reasons typically outside of their control, such as genetic & environmental factors, as well as inheritances and other familial claims on wealth which the poor very typically lack), effort should be put into lifting up these people from the gutter of their life's circumstances, and they should be given the tools with which they can make their life better.

Humans are primates. Primates have never been known for their herbivorosity: many species eat small game, insects, and whatever other forms of life-sustaining 'foodstuffs' they can acquire. Why are humans any different? Humans never started eating meat; it has been a staple throughout our evolutionary history.

Well, unless those gamma-irradiated cells in the Hulk synthesize organic Kryptonite, I don't think his rage will ever grow strong enough to overcome the Man of Steel.

That is the heart of my argument, yes. As a nation we simply cannot afford it; perhaps if we cut back on our military and billion other expenses we could afford to help out every last child in the country to have access to music/sport/whathaveyou lessons. When you consider that 1/4 of the country is under 20, and even the number of teachers that would be needed to service some 75,000,000ish youngsters, do you really think it is an economically viable practice to begin, precedent to set? We already pay for curricular activities; let's leave extra-curricular activities to the people who desire them.

For the rest of us, there's sandlots, libraries, and YouTube.

A-the-ism - no-god-nameoftheoryorpractice-suffix.

The theory or practice that there is no god.

Defined in my OED as, "disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of god."

Quotes Bacon as writing in 1605, "A little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism."

Atheism is an active construction of the mind: it is to say with positivity that there is no god. It is a belief in the nonexistence of a deity just as ateakettleism is the belief in the lack of a giant, orbiting tea kettle.

To be ignorant of spiritual concepts is not to be an atheist per se, but rather to be, shall we say, atheistically ignorant.

There was this famous TV-Newsman or interviewer, I can't recall his name: lifelong chainsmoker who died in his 90s in the '90s. Then there's dead-at-94 Artie Shaw: though smoking was hardly his worst habit. Not everyone dies early from the evil kiss of nicotine: only a great deal.

Other Testiments too, perhaps?

While it is true that eyewitnesses at times are mistaken - they are not infallible - but they are not either totally fallible. At times an eyewitness may be in a position to do a great justice for his society, otherwise he may - perhaps in error, perhaps in malice - do a great injustice to either the individual at trial or, if his testimony is in favor of the defense, a great injustice to society at large. Ultimately, it is the role and the duty of the jury and of the other participants in the court to weigh the verity and the ultimate influence of not only the eyewitness's testimony, but to nuance every particle from which it is comprised: to pry it apart and piece it back together and be absolutely certain that it fits in the frame of the case.

No. Not music lessons: not anything. The Government is best to keep out of the daily lives of each member of its populace. The odd person may ultimately make an economic contribution via tax-sponsored music skills, but how many more millions will no doubt go to nought: to unmotivated students, to misappropriated funding and any number of unnecessary expenses, or just to downright untalented youngsters. If the child has the passion, let it go and learn on its own accord, not burden even more greatly an already tremendously burdened economy.