Well, he started out with some valuable insights into the problem of too-strict a holding to political correctness, but started to get too preachy by the end, in my opinion.
Ben Stein is just an old fashioned, old jew. He's really old, you know. But I think I can relate more to what he's talking about considering I was raised jewish...
Well, he is an old fashioned guy in a lot of ways. I just do not like how many social conservatives seem to make the association that the Bible and morality are directly associated and the lack of one means the lack of the other. I feel like they lack objectivity because of this.
I am not saying that the Bible cannot impart moral lessons, but rather to the notion that good morals and the writings of the Bible are the same thing instead of seperate parallel things.
He needs to wake up and realize that America is an INSANELY religious and conservative country. "Explicitly atheist country"? what the fuck? That is so far off the mark I don't know where to begin.
Also, to insinuate that all of the bad things in this country are done by non-believers is terrible. Some of the nicest people I know are agnostic/atheist. And some of the most terrible people I know are die-hard Christians. Having morals and being religious are not as hand-in-hand as many people make them out to be :/
I'd write more but I have to go take a final. And be rude to people and kick puppies or whatever it is that agnostics apparently do.
back in the day...quetzDecember 12 2008, 18:53:32 UTC
Thomas Jefferson fought hard to avoid enshrining Christianity as an official state religion. We were a puritan nation of busybodies all minding other people's business back then, and still are today.
Re: back in the day...sloth_mobileDecember 13 2008, 10:46:28 UTC
I'm not trying to sound like I'm defending the argument, but didn't Thomas Jefferson have several children with his black female slave back in the early 1800s? Imagine if back then, they actually knew about the scandal (behind closed doors, nobody except for a select amount of people knew)... they wouldn't let that kind of shit fly. If you really think about it, we still ARE a puritan country. Bad things in America have been going on since day one. Then again, in the words of Bill Clinton, "There is nothing bad about America that can't be changed by all the good things about America".
Sorry... I just thought it was funny that you mentioned Thomas Jefferson.
Re: back in the day...fearless_sonDecember 14 2008, 03:40:00 UTC
Honestly, a lot of the early "New World" colonists were people who were considered so religiously extremist by the rest of Europe that they were practically shunned. Many of them came to North America with the intention of founding a Christian theocratic state.
I thank the memory of Thomas Jefferson every Independence Day for making sure that did not happen.
Two days ago, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was pushed through in 1948 (in spite of resistance from the then-Eastern Bloc countries, then-Apartheid-state South Africa and those bastards in Saudi Arabia). Compare that to a hundred years previously, when slavery was an institution and a woman's place was in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
Anyone who believes we are less moral as a result is an attention whore, is selling you something, and/or is trying to run your life for you.
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I am not saying that the Bible cannot impart moral lessons, but rather to the notion that good morals and the writings of the Bible are the same thing instead of seperate parallel things.
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http://www.kimatv.com/news/36008784.html
my fucking awful hometown gets a Sonic, and I still have to drive 30 miles to the closest one in fucking LA! Grr!!
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He needs to wake up and realize that America is an INSANELY religious and conservative country. "Explicitly atheist country"? what the fuck? That is so far off the mark I don't know where to begin.
Also, to insinuate that all of the bad things in this country are done by non-believers is terrible. Some of the nicest people I know are agnostic/atheist. And some of the most terrible people I know are die-hard Christians. Having morals and being religious are not as hand-in-hand as many people make them out to be :/
I'd write more but I have to go take a final. And be rude to people and kick puppies or whatever it is that agnostics apparently do.
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Sorry... I just thought it was funny that you mentioned Thomas Jefferson.
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I thank the memory of Thomas Jefferson every Independence Day for making sure that did not happen.
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Anyone who believes we are less moral as a result is an attention whore, is selling you something, and/or is trying to run your life for you.
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