Humor me...let's play a guessing game. If 50% of the population was atheist you have to agree it would be irritating to have under God in the Pledge ...right?
Let's decrease the percentage in increments of 5%...you tell me at what percentage it would be ok and not irritating to have the phrase.
45%?
40%?....
20%?
Chrissee wrote:A large portion of the US population doesn't believe in god, this is news to you?
BTW how can this guy hate an entity that doesn't exist?
Care to provide proof on this statement? All reports that I have seen indicate the opposite that most people in the US believe in God.
First, I want my question asked...what percentage?
Baldimo wrote:Chrissee wrote:A large portion of the US population doesn't believe in god, this is news to you?
BTW how can this guy hate an entity that doesn't exist?
Care to provide proof on this statement? All reports that I have seen indicate the opposite that most people in the US believe in God.
A large portion is not necessarily a majority. A large portion of the US population doesn't believe in a god, and an even larger portion doesn't believe in the hateful, smiting God of Abraham.
BTW most people in the US believe in alien visitation, what is your point?
I'll take Aliens first, any day. I've never even heard of anyone fighting over Aliens.
Baldimo
At no point have I indicated that I thought that most people were agnotic or atheistic.
It is a large...and sigificant....number.
Most estimates of non-religious in America as between 10% and 11% of the total population...which makes it twice as large as the Jewish and Muslim populations combined.
That is a significant number of people.
Americans are considerate enough not to offend Jewish and Muslim Americans by putting "...one nation, under Jesus Christ..." in our pledge.
I see no reason, since we are a larger population than those two groups combined, to ask that the non-religious not be offended by including the phrase, "...one nation, under god."
The phrase has absolutely no impact on the purpose of the pledge...which essentially is to pledge loyalty to our country. We are asking that people pledge loyalty to it...without regard to whether it is under any god or not.
panzade wrote:First, I want my question asked...what percentage?
I've already asked that question...and no one answer it.
Must be a very tough question for that side of this issue!
snood wrote:Frank Apisa wrote:McGentrix wrote:What do you consider a "significant portion" to be when you say "despite the fact that a significant portion of the population does not subscribe to that notion. "?
Oh...a portion at least as great as say...the Jewish population...or the African American population.
Wouldn't you say those groups represent a "significant portion" of our population?
How big would we have to be before desciminating against us would no longer be okay?
Are you saying that you believe the atheist population to be as large as the Jewish, or African-American populations?
The year 2000 census demographics show...
...that the non-religious population of America is larger than the Jewish population, Snood...twice the size of the Jewish and Muslim populations combined.
It is not as large as the African-American or Latino populations. Each of those groups represent between 12% and 13% of the population.
Non-religious population is between 10% and 11%.
The courts decision is 100% correct. No damages have occurred. The plaintiff places himself in a position by choice and should understand what his choice will subject him to.
All the rest is just the usual "chrisitan bashing" by knuckleheads who did not bring up this subject during prior inaugurations.
That guy Bendow or whatever would have had an absolute stroke if he'd been around for Abe Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:
"If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
"non-religious" is misleading and unclear. Someone can consider themselves "non-religious", and still believe in God. I asked if the atheist population was equivalent.
snood wrote:"non-religious" is misleading and unclear. Someone can consider themselves "non-religious", and still believe in God. I asked if the atheist population was equivalent.
Well if I answered that the non-religious population is not equivalent...and if the atheist population is only a part of the non-religious population...
...I guess you've got your answer.
Yeah Frank, you started with a minimum and worked up and I went with a maximum and worked down...same result.Silence.
I found a Gallup poll from 1996 that had the number at 22% but apparently there was some controversy about the numbers and I don't believe it to be that high.
I would guess that it's in the 12%-18% range.
JW, an "A" for effort on finding Abe's quote but I bet I could find a founding father who believed in slavery and denying women the right to vote.
Pan - wasn't that passage just amazing? Are you really an atheist? Or agnostic? If the Shrub said anything like what Abe said, would it get your blood pressure up?
So many questions LOL.
snood wrote:"non-religious" is misleading and unclear. Someone can consider themselves "non-religious", and still believe in God. I asked if the atheist population was equivalent.
If I was asked by a stranger what my releigion is I would say Catholic although I am an agnostic. I still go to mass most every Sunday. One's religion is a deeply personal matter and no one's business, especially a census or survey taker.
Chrissee wrote:
If I was asked by a stranger what my releigion is I would say Catholic although I am an agnostic.
I never considered that possibility and that the numbers are skewed because some agnostics still haven't found the courage of their convictions.
JustWonders wrote:Pan - wasn't that passage just amazing?
Yeah man...I'm still re-reading it.
Quote: Are you really an atheist? Or agnostic?
Frank and Edgar totally confused me about what I am but I know that I've never believed in "God"
I respect the hell out of Snood's attitude on religion
Quote: If the Shrub said anything like what Abe said, would it get your blood pressure up?
If Dubya EVER said anything that approached Lincoln's eloquence I would abandon my non-belief and be at Sunday Mass , promptly.
Quote:So many questions LOL.
JW, I admire you as a teacher and student for just that reason!
OCCOM BILL wrote:I'll take Aliens first, any day. I've never even heard of anyone fighting over Aliens.
I've heard of people fighting Aliens tho ... there was some movie about that ...
