AZMike

I'd agree that it may be better for parents to split up if there is abuse (physical, verbal, emotional) in the house. The demographic stats in countries which have a longer history of same-sex marriages show that relationships between cohabiting homosexuals (married or not) are inherently more unstable than heterosexual couples (married or not). A study that looked at legally registered same-sex couples in Scandinavia, published in the academic journal Demography, found that even though same-sex couples enter their legal unions at older agesâ€â€a marker related to greater relational st

A girl guide group faces being thrown out of the national association after refusing to force members to drop God from the oath. Troop leaders have rejected new rules saying that the inclusion of God should not be compulsory but a matter of personal choice. But they have now been sent an ‘aggressive’ letter ordering them to back down or leave GirlGuiding UK at the end of the month. Critics branded the approach a ‘move for exclusion’. The Guiding Promise was altered earlier this year so that members now swear ‘to be true to myself and develop my

According to the Harvard Poll that was just released, a majority of the youngest millenial voters - those between 18 and 24 - would currently favor throwing Obama out of office. That's the group Obama is counting on to buy into Obamacare, to prevent a death-spiral. (http://iop.harvard.edu/blog/iop-releases-new-fall-poll-5-key-findings-and-trends-millennial-viewpoints?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=hero&utm_campaign=Fall2013Survey). Obama's approval rating among young Americans is just 41 percent, down 11 points from a year ago. While 55 percent said they voted for Obama in 2012, o

Merlyn, if you are going to respond by saying "you haven't gotten this straight" and "you don't understand the issues," why are you even posting?

I always like those vintage photos of people dressed typically for their time period, with one anomalously dressed person who looks like a time traveller dressed for our time, like this 1940 with what looks like a time-travelling hipster in the crowd: http://www.everseradio.com/top-five-images-of-alleged-time-travelers/

State-funded colleges have demanded that religious clubs must allow people must not prohibit those who do not hold those religious beliefs from joining or becoming officers, in violation of the enumerated constitutional right to Freedom of Association: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/31/vanderbilt-to-religious-students-are-your-beliefs-really-that-important/ The American Atheists Association has sued to prevent the 9-11 Cross from being displayed in the 9-11 Museum. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316303/atheists-vs-911-cross-nathaniel-botwinick# Government officials

Atheists have sued the IRS over not clamping down on ministers claiming the right of free expression from the pulpit http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/15/atheists-sue-irs-for-pulpit-freedom-sunday/ The government claims their HHS contraception and abortifacient mandate trumps an enumerated constitutional right, and that individuals can't claim religious freedoms when operating their businesses (but they just got their hand slapped by the D.C. Appellate Court this week, which may affect some of the cases above...: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/us/court-rules-contra

jblake47: If the US is truly a religiously tolerant country, why would any one have to compromise the "free expression" of their beliefs or have to alter them to accommodate someone else's complaint. The tolerance is a two-way street. Merlyn: I know it's futile to ask, but DO YOU HAVE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE INSTEAD OF YOUR USUAL VAGUE HANDWAVING? Well, for starters: Numerous Christian business owners are being told by the state they have to provide services for LGBT weddings that their religious beliefs oppose, or lose their livelihoods: Some examples: http://www.huffingto

Interesting. Sounds like the agreement is that Lutheran COs may remove a scout who self-identifies as gay if they are promoting a "social or political agenda," or advocating for a moral view that promotes homosexuality, or being a "distraction" (whatever that may mean), but not for simple self-identification. http://scout-wire.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/MOU-Lutheran-BSA-no-signatures.pdf Resolved, That the Boy Scouts of America will respect the spiritual and moral responsibility of The Lutheran Churchâ€â€Missouri Synod’s chartering congregations with the understanding t

We've found that the Platypus gravity filter works quite well for small groups. It's lightweight, doesn't require you to spend endless time pumping (just set it up and let gravity give you 3 liters of crystal clear water), easily backwashed. Most of the time we have a steripen available to give extra coverage against viruses. (Virii?)

My Dad knew and worked with Abbey. I always liked his "Lonely are the Brave." Good movie, too.

BadenP wrote: "Catholics use a variety of prayer books and catechisms and rarely use the Bible in their worship and in religious classes." Weird. I'm pretty sure EVERY Catholic Mass around the world includes a reading from the Old Testament, then a reading from the Psalms, a reading from an Epistle, and finally a reading from one of the Gospels, BP. Over the course of about a year and a half cycle, a daily Catholic churchgoer hears the entire Bible. The prayers commonly used in Mass and daily life are taken directly from the Bible. Every religious class I ever took required and relied

It didn't exactly "start" with the "persecution" of Galileo, Blancmange. You only have academia and a university system because of the Catholic Church. You have the preservation of Greek science because of the Church. The Church was doing cutting-edge research in the sciences - in fact, pretty much the ONLY group funding and doing cutting edge research in the sciences - because of the belief that the Universe is ordered, that it operates by standard rules, and that it is good and worthy of study ("For God so loved _the world_ that he gave it his only begotten son.") You have the scientific met

I've seen groups of women scrubbing the village's clothes in a river in the third world who backbite and gossip less than some of the people on this thread.

Nope, you're the one who mis-described what I had said, even though I clearly stated "I'd agree that these are not ethical actions" ...and then you described the examples I gave as ethical actions. Freudian slip? "So, only killing SOME children is moral?" Has your government done the same? Are you sure that no innocent children were ever killed in the war against Nazism? If a people, such as the Canaanites, are in the wrong but still keep their children with them in a battlezone, who would be responsible for keeping them in a battle zone? The Israelites gave them a chance to surrender. Why

So, as ethical as a military action for the survival of one’s people can be, then, Merlyn. Clearly not ethnic genocide or ethnic cleansing, as God and His prophets were as hard or harder on His own people when they backslid into immoral behavior - so the issue God had a problem with clearly was sin, not color of skin. More on that later. Now, Merlyn is likely to say, well yes - but what about your God? (Although Merlyn would probably use the lowercase-g, as hip and trendy atheists like to do.) Isn’t what He commanded E-V-I-L? No, clearly not. Even by an atheist’

Ah, Merlyn is backtracking from what he said earlier. Perhaps we should summarize. So, the original question was to answer a question Christopher Hitchens posed - are there ethical actions that could be done by a believer but not by an unbeliever? Hitchens and Merlyn and Moosetracker seemed to believe not. I pointed out several examples, all of which an unbeliever would be unable to do (without being hypocritical, which would invalidate the ethical nature of the acts), and which would be considered ethical in that they were done out of concern and compassion for another, and would cause no

Merlyn: "None of the ethical actions you cherry-picked, no, but, for example, Joshua and his troops, etc. etc." So you agree that the actions I described were, in fact, ethical actions. And Hitchen's supposed dilemma collapses. Sweet! And why do you think the fact that people will argue over an issue that is not based in any objective moral code somehow makes it anything other than arbitrary?

Merlyn, you wrote, "Once you start bringing in arbitrary actions that gods want, even killing other people (that god wants you to kill) magically becomes an ethical act. This doesn't mean I'm going to consider it ethical." As best I can recall, none of the ethical actions that believers can do that unbelievers can't (which I describe) included killing those whom God has commanded us to kill, nor are they arbitrary. By the same token, however, an atheist can argue for the murder of the unborn, the murder of the aged, or the murder of the deformed using the cloak of, say, Utilitarianism or the

Merlyn wrote (quoting Christopher Hitchens): "Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. The second challenge. Can anyone think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? "The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first awaits a convincing reply." Hitch's argument was a stupendously inane one, Merlyn, because it allowed him to move the goalposts to avoid having to deal with an answer. Clearly, there are numerous ethical action

You make it sound like the Werner Ehrhard EST courses that were popular in the 1970s.

I can't remember all the details from the (deleted) original description of the incident, but as best I can recall, the scout in question cajoled younger scouts into fondling each other inside a sleeping bag or under a blanket, using some game or dare called "A Night in Heaven" or somesuch. Obviously, National was advised, but: A) Were the other boys' parents advised of this incident? If not, why not? B) Were the police advised (by the troop or National), as BSA policy requires? If so, did they conduct an investigation? C) If National did not report such an incident (which merited

As the real Thomas Jefferson wrote a bill that called for homosexual men to be castrated, your choice of a screen name is weirdly ironic.

How about this: Tell him the truth - that this was the result of an extremely divisive vote, and that some adults in the organization voted to change the traditions of the BSA. It was a political decision, as factions within the BSA who felt it was the right thing to change the policy, contended against those who felt the traditional policy was correct and should remain. As a result of the vote, many friendships have been ruptured, many good men and women and scouts will be leaving the BSA, probably forever, and we will almost certainly see a net loss of leadership over the years. Those who su

EmberMike, didn't your write that if the vote didn't go your way, you were going to take your kids and put them in the BPSA or something?