“Democrats, they make the tax laws but refuse to abide by them.”
oh my, you’ve come to the realization that democrats are human and even some of them are flawed! stop the press!
of course, i don’t know when you all of a sudden became the watchdog for the irs. did you say the same about mccain when it was made public that he hadn’t paid back taxes? btw, daschle paid the taxes and interest. seems to me that he abided by the tax law (albeit a little late).
daschle did the right thing to take his name out. conservatives want to see obama fail and he knows that they’d burn him to bring down obama. right now, conservatives can’t touch obama because he has too much support from the rest of the country. you’ll see them attack his staff and congressional democrats and say that the dems aren’t being bipartisan enough when in actuality it’s they who aren’t cooperating. they want things 100% their way or no way. that’s why i say kick more right wingers out of the senate so we can get something good done for a change.

Tax law is written by both parties. It has become a two edged sword that slices them all at one time or another. The only other more labyrinthine and arcane code are the immigration laws. These have all been devised to catch “the other guy” but often becomes the very quicksand that traps unintended allies. Reveling in one person’s fallibility only means they will in turn cheer when another person you favor is likewise consumed.
Glad you are feeling well enough to blog again.

“Reveling in one person’s fallibility only means they will in turn cheer when another person you favor is likewise consumed”
Exactly. Just giving the Democrats the same treatment they gave Bush.
I don’t WANT to see Obama fail, because I’m glad we have an African American President. I DO want him to reverse, or at least tone down, his radical socialist and death-embracing agenda. If he won’t do that, then failure is an acceptable alternative.
Hope you’re feeling better Michelle.

“Just giving the Democrats the same treatment they gave Bush”
Many of Obama’s supporters also wanted Daschle to drop out. Being a moderate, liberal, Democrat or any of the other labels does not mean they want the approval of a tax cheat.
For at least the last year Bush had a 20 something approval rating, which means many conservatives did not approve of Bush’s actions.

You must be feeling better – you’re back to politics.:)

of course, i don’t know when you all of a sudden became the watchdog for the irs.
It seems that it’s the IRS that is the watchdog for us…as it should be.
We hardly need any more tax cheats.

I don’t WANT to see Obama fail, because I’m glad we have an African American President.
I do want the liberal politics to fail and (to me) it doesn’t matter if the one who pushes them is African-American, European-American, Native-American or Martian.
I voted according to politics, not skin color. I think that “going easy” on President Obama would be giving him less credit than he is due (I don’t think that the color of his skin makes him any less able to cope with politics in Washington DC)

This Democrat actually agrees with Michelle on that last point. There should be no going easy on any President of any color. As for wanting politics to fail, I’d say careful. I want the country to succeed.
And I am rather incensed over the Geithner episode. I realize it is possible to make money and not owe self-employment taxes. You just make over $99,000 in your other job, and, actually you don’t owe self-employment taxes. So if Geithner really owed those taxes, he wasn’t making $99,000 a year. What kind of chief banker of the Free World didn’t make $99,000 a year before becoming Treasury Secretary? For crying out loud. If I had to pay $43,000 in taxes this year, and I don’t by a long shot, I’d be inclined to write in a Geithner credit that would at least give me until 2013.

As for wanting politics to fail, I’d say careful. I want the country to succeed.
I do want the country to succeed. I don’t believe President Obama’s politics are the way.

Well, MzEllen, let’s pray that the President and our country are blessed despite themselves. For our own sake.

I pray daily for the health and safety of our leaders and that my Holy Father will guide the hearts and minds of those who are charged with leading this nation.

MzEllen said, “I do want the country to succeed. I don’t believe President Obama’s politics are the way.”
What specific Obama financial or foreign policy politics would keep our country from succeeding? What should he do differently that would ensure we succeeded?

I wanted both Geithner and Daschle to step down, but I am wondering about:
Does someone running for the Presidency have a lower standard than the head of Health and Human Services?
June 2008
Newsweek published a report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and were currently in default.
Positive for Pres. Obama, he is backing the plan to cap salaries for companies receive bailout money to $500,000. A couple days ago it looked like he wasn’t going to back Sen. Claire McCaskill’s bill. I would have preferred it to be capped at $0.00

What specific Obama financial or foreign policy politics would keep our country from succeeding? What should he do differently that would ensure we succeeded?
Julie, why do you assume that “success” is financial or foreign?
Liberal policies (all around) I believe are not good for this country.
That said…how many pork projects are wrapped up in this “stimulus package”?
Do you care?
Does someone running for the Presidency have a lower standard than the head of Health and Human Services?
Let’s hear it for hope and change.
I would have preferred it to be capped at $0.00
Yes. Everybody deserves to work without being paid. Especially when a company’s problems come from the economy tanking, not their management skills.

If President Obama wishes to make an effort at “change” he might want to ban pork and earmarks from the “stimulus” bill.
Liberals ran on stopping the out-of-control Republican spending…tell me…how big is the “stimulus package”? How many dollars per person will it add to the debt?
Julie, you scolded (especially Michele and Ellen) about hearing Robert’s “who cares”. “Who cares” is indeed the initial reaction – but most people get to a realization that we all care, even when we are facing down illness and death.
If we leave children behind, if we care about those who follow us, we care.
I’ve been in a place of not caring about the future…and then my children walked through the door.

MzEllen,
Your entire response to my simple queston was based on the assumption that I am a liberal and that I blindly support all things Obama. Also that everyone that supporters Obama is a liberal that think exactly the same.
You “assumed” that I only care about financial. I asked a focused one thing question in an attempt to start a discussion on an important issue without
You have no idea about what I think about the stimulus bill.
There are no earmarks in the bill.
Democrats in the house that voted against the bill There are Democrats in the Senate that have issues with some of the things in the bill. Sen. Ben Nelson (D- Neb) wants to cut tens of billions from the bill.
How about a discussion on the stimulus bill. What specific items are “pork?” What is missing from the bill?
The managers of the banks took too much risk. Read about “credit default swap” (CDS) that was one of the major causes of the financial collapse. CDSs are basically gambling.

I am the author of the “who cares” comment.
Right now, I am focusing on avoiding additional complications. God grants life, or doesn’t, as the case may be, but I see no reason to let doctors “practice.” That’s the focus of my thinking, but not the whole of it.
The thing about the divide between liberals and conservatives is that while you have true blue (OK, red) conservatives, there is by definition no such thing as a true blue liberal. There is a fundamental difference in how the two arguing sides view the possibilities for the world. Conservatives start with certain assumptions, and liberals assume there are no assumptions.
As for my concerns about the nation and the world beyond myself, I am more about results. I agree with MzEllen that not all the stimulus will be stimulating. However, I can also put it into a bigger context. Sure, the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. But even in terms of economics, every one of those trillions (do the math) can be paid off in 40 years at a buck-fifty per American per week.
You still don’t want to throw away trillions, or let them line the pockets of thieves. But even trillions can be dealt with. The real challenge is honesty in government. And although I was more inclined to give Obama the benefit of a doubt than McCain, I just don’t see what I think the country needs right now. Even liberals can maintain moral standards. Obama is taking short cuts. This does not bode well. But let’s treat him like he’s a Christian and do exactly what the Bible tells Christians to do when they see others at fault (which most don’t, and I haven’t, either, done in comments here from time to time). First we express our concerns privately as if we could also be tempted, doesn’t the Bible say? That we could be also tempted part is the hard part. Then we go to the church for prayer. I’m for including Obama in discipleship. Who knows, he might respond. God has worked in ways more mysterious than that.

“radical socialist and death-embracing agenda”
hahahahahahahaha…
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
“We hardly need any more tax cheats.”
agreed.
“I do want the liberal politics to fail”
you may want to rethink that. here are some liberal policies that have done great things for this country:
* freedom of religion
* freedom of speech
* womens’ rights
* social security safety net
* public education
* workers rights
* the fdic
* abolition of slavery
* progressive taxation
* the free market (laissez faire liberalism)
* veterans benefits
* unemployment insurance

Robert – great response! I am guessing that thinks are more difficult than you described. Your positiveness is a good example for all of us that fail far too often.
It is not productive to sterotype people with words that have multiple definitions.
anonymous reincarnate listed important items that are basic liberal beliefs. There are multiple subcategories associated with liberal. Look-up Political Liberalism on Wikipedia.org. Check links to four other categories of liberalism. The same for conservatives.
Congress has a wide range of liberalism and conservatism approaches to issues. I have not read any respected conservative that think Obama as a socialist.
McCain acknowledged that he does not really believe that Obama is a socialist.
It is my opinion that continuing the allegations that Obama is a socialist is a reckless disregard for the truth.

Most of the top executives have been earning over $10 million a year. They should already have enough money to life the rest of their life without working. They have continued lavish & unnecessary spending while laying-off thousands of employees. AIG spent $440,000 on spa treatments for executives after taking $85 billion from taxpayers. Public outrage caused Morgan Stanley & Wells Fargo to cancelled their extravagant trip.
I care about the 1000s of people that have lost their jobs. I care about the people without health insurance that cannot afford needed care for their family. The thousands losing their job will have to pay very high Cobra cost for health insurance, which many unemployed people cannot afford.
I care about the children left home alone while their parents work multiple jobs at minimum wage to be able to feed them. I care about the people nearing retirement that have lost a large part of their modest retirements. My list of “care about” is very long.
People like different flavors of pork. A major problem with the stimulus bill is the many different opinions from economist or other individuals knowledgeable about finance. Which one is right? No one can guarantee that any specific item in the stimulus bill will work. We have never experienced like what is happening now. Many prayers are needed.

Here’s an example from today’s propaganda machine of the left (you can’t see my smirk) the New York Times, commenting on Obama’s proposed pay cap for executives of companies the government is bailing out:
“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”
Now who’s liberal and who’s conservative here? Sounds like they are all crooks, and liberal vs conservative only matters to get enough votes from people who really hold liberal or conservative views.
Incidentally, the news that my treatment is probably killing me isn’t the only news I got the other day.
I used to work for the federal government. I did a good job, got promotions, etc. They have terrific insurance. I moved on to work for the privagte sector.
So I applied, made it to the top of a list of a couple hundred applicants despite my age and health, and I was supposed to start next Monday. Two days ago, however, I got a voice mail that “in reconsideration of our budget priorities, we find that we need to support our current employees,” and your job offer is withdrawn.
I was in a state health insurance risk pool that required me to notify them and withdraw from coverage when I was to start federal employment. So I do what I agreed to do, let them know, and I’m out of one insurance plan. But the very same day, our job-creating, health-insuring new Obama-led government withdraws its offer to pay me about 1/20 of executive pay with insurance.
Seems to me if you want to create jobs, you might start by honoring your own job offers. If you want people insured, you let them pay for insurance. But I don’t run the country. (And since I’m not a federal employee, I’m once again free to comment publicly.)
I’m not saying anyone should give up their liberal or their conservative principles. But I think the first thing we need to do is get rid of crooks from both sides. How we do that politically, well, maybe we have some ideas here.

How about a discussion on the stimulus bill. What specific items are “pork?” What is missing from the bill?
Define “pork”.
I see part of the package that includes $4 billion for groups such as ACORN. Money for STD prevention, National Endowments for the Arts…
coupons for digital TV conversions?

“I see part of the package that includes $4 billion for groups such as ACORN. Money for STD prevention, National Endowments for the Arts…”
sure, i see. it’s “pork” if it’s something that you don’t like.
what you don’t see is how that “pork” translates into jobs. a person in my community lobbies congress for earmarks on a fairly regular basis. this person heads up a nonprofit that instructs college students to teach kids with physical and mental disabilities that just can’t be taught in mainstream schools. sometimes this person gets lucky and bags an earmarked amount of money… other times this person fights for something in the pools of federal and state grants. that money is used to hire people to do research, software development, instruction, etc. sometimes that money might come out of “pork” from areas like the national endowments, or broad education.
yes, i once worked for that person in that organization. it did wonderful things when it had the funding prior to the bush administration. it’s unfortunate to see its projects put on hold or cut off completely once you know what a difference it made in these kids’ lives. that organization once had up to 40 “employees” and it’s now down to 4 or 5. sure, that’s small stuff, but there are thousands of organizations like it around the country that are in the same situation.
i can’t think of a better way to stimulate the economy than to stabilize employment and get workers feeling secure in their jobs again. and hey, if we end up with fewer sexually transmitted diseases, a greater appreciation for the arts, and better educated kids because of it… at least it’s not being spent on invading sovereign countries and killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians out of personal vendettas.

it’s “pork” if it’s something that you don’t like.
No, it’s “pork” if it fits the definition.
(per Wiki) In United States politics, the term pork barrel refers to the appropriation of government spending for projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular constituents, such as those in marginal seats or campaign contributors.
Just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t make it “pork”.
Merely because we disagree doesn’t mean I don’t understand.

OK, so there’s pork we like and pork we don’t (obviously no Messianic Christians commenting here) and everybody is intelligent. My little liberal heart does not bleed $4 billion for ACORN and STD prevention, which wouldn’t be “pork,” exactly. Make sure nobody, Democrat or Republican or Oddfellow, messes with the voting machines, and we get as much benefit to society as hiring homeless people to collect voter registration cards; abstinence isn’t always a terrible thing. But I am much more concerned about the second $370-some-odd billion being thrown at the banks, whether or not the execs get their pay capped at a “draconian” $500,000 a year, poor darlings.

Indeed, MzEllen, you are right about that.
Whatever you think about ACORN and federal programs for STD prevention, and even though I’m of a liberal inclination I have serious reservations about both of those, and I understand the cultural concerns about the National Endowment for the Arts even though I don’t put the same weight on them, the big ticket items are a bigger deal to me, like the second half of TARP. Limiting executives of failed companies to $500,000 a year but still handing their companies billions without any strings hardly makes fiscal sense to me, conservative, liberal, or Martian.

Sorry, didn’t think the first comment above “took.” But you all get the idea. What about TARP?
Of course, on the bright side, at least we aren’t spending $375 billion on STD prevention.

I see…because I stuck a question mark (indicating incredulity) you label my opinion as “worthless”.
I see.
Volumes.

Your Name wrote February 4, 2009 7:59 PM “and everybody is intelligent.”
Sorry Robert, that’s not true. These are some of the dumbest bottom feeders on the planet – we call them Reformed Christians – and they believe everything they hear on Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh show. They’re not intelligent.
Boris says: Don’t forget they believe everything they read in the Bible and everything they read INTO (an afterlife) and OUT OF (the Bible clearly states the earth is flat and never moves) the Bible too. Try to remember that these Reformed Christians are the people who actually believe dinosaurs and humans coexisted only six thousand years ago. They home school their children for the express purpose of teaching them this nonsense and making sure they are scientific imbeciles.
What really makes me sick is that Christians have been getting away with labeling dangerous, absurd and childish superstitions as “religious beliefs” and then demanding and getting respect for them. I say no more this has GOT to stop. All religion needs to be publicly mocked and ridiculed for what it is – nonsense – so we can raise up a generation of atheists and finally stop killing each other over whose stupid fairy tales to believe.
“The atheist, agnostic, or secularist… should not be cowed by exaggerated sensitivity to people’s religious beliefs… Those who advocate a piece of folly like the theory of an ‘intelligent creator’ should be held accountable for their folly; they have no right to be offended for being called fools until they establish that they are not in fact fools.” – S.T.Joshi

Boris,
I am curious about what you hope to achieve with your comments?
I can see some validity in your statements. I agree that there is often considerable hypocrisy from individuals in the name of Christianity. Having different opinions is one thing, but your considerable effort is not likely to have any affect.
I respect your right not to believe in Christianity, however, putting all Christians into one group is like Michele and MzEllen putting all liberals into one group. There are many Christians that do considerable good in this world because they believe in importance of the Bible that stress helping others, such as Matthew 25.
I do not belief Michele or MzEllen are evil. I wish they were more open to other people’s opinions, exploring facts behind their beliefs, and did not attack people that disagree with them. There are very few people that are really evil. I do not think President Bush was intentionally evil, I believe his intentions were to bring democracy to the Middle East; however, is ideology did not match reality. He was also probably trying to prove he could be more successful than his father, but instead his father looks much better. There was also probably some motive for oil behind the Bush administrations actions. The results of his “save the world” by trying to force our brand of democracy resulted in evil and horrendous deaths and maiming of millions of innocent people, including the many children that were left without parents.
Robert’s approach is far more likely to be successful.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) fought against torture and the Iraq War. President Bush and VP Cheney are members of an UMC, but that did not stop them from very actively letting Bush know what they thought. Before he started the unjust and unnecessary war, the church told him the war was against the teachings of Christ and there was no evidence that weapons of mass destruction were pointed at anyone. The UMC asked members to tell Bush, “United Methodist do not torture.”
Fellow Methodist Demands Bush Impeachment 2006
“Impeach President Bush!” urged Jim Winkler, head of the Capitol Hill-based United Methodist Board of Church and Society. Winkler was speaking earlier this spring here in town to an “Ecumenical Advocacy Days” rally for liberal religious activists, organized by the National Council of Churches, mainline denominations, several left-wing Catholic orders, and Jim Wallis’s Sojourners group.
Winkler, ostensibly a spokesman for 8 million United Methodists, whose numbers include both Bush and Vice President Cheney, said impeachment is the correct response to an “illegal war of aggression” that was “sold on lies.” He also cited the NSA’s “spy program,” which he insisted is “unconstitutional.”
“These are actions far more serious than a failed land deal on the White River or a sexual indiscretion with a White House intern,” Winkler said, comparing Bush to Clinton, whose impeachment was never urged by Winkler’s agency. Had the Iraq war been led by John Kerry or Al Gore, Winkler surmised, the “Limbaughs and Gingriches of the world would be screaming for their impeachment.”
“Now, we are widely hated and despised,” Winkler noted, probably with some pleasure. “Despite the President’s insistence he was placed in office by God for this moment, there was nothing Christian in his response to September 11.”

Robert,
“I was in a state health insurance risk pool that required me to notify them and withdraw from coverage when I was to start federal employment. So I do what I agreed to do, let them know, and I’m out of one insurance plan. But the very same day, our job-creating, health-insuring new Obama-led government withdraws its offer to pay me about 1/20 of executive pay with insurance.”
Your situation makes me furious. The supposedly wealthiest country in the world (now probably past tense) cannot create a solution for the large number of Americans without health insurance.
I had a somewhat similar story, except mind turned out much better. I also left the federal government for more money in private industry. I went back to work at the federal government a few years ago. The primary reason was the health insurance. I am now in a miserable job, but I cannot complain because I know what trying to purchase health insurance is like. I would have had to purchase from a state health insurance risk pool insurance, which was far more expensive than Cobra and it seems like it did not pay very well.
I have a couple friends that are self-employed or working for a small company. Their health insurance is really catastrophic insurance. They have to be extremely sick before they get medical treatment because the deductible is very high. They are at risk for not being diagnosed when a disease is still treatable.
Have you considered contacting the members of Congress from your state and the Obama campaign? I know it is often impossible to get anyone respond.
Obama is trying. He started community meetings on health care before his inauguration. I will look at some information I have and potential Obama contacts in a couple days.
Today I read that the Senate removed health care for unemployed and other groups from the stimulus plan. I think about the health insurance plan that could have been implemented with the trillions of dollars blown away in Iraq and we do not even provide adequate health care for the injured military.
Would you like others on this blog to make some noise on your behalf? I am passionate about the health care issue.

“your name”…I simply do not wish to debate with somebody who treats me with the mean-spiritedness that you have shown. I do not wish to have a conversation with somebody who has shown the unwillingness to have a civil conversation. As per Julie’s suggestion to ignore those who are rude…I will do so.
Julie: I do not lump liberals in together (I see that Robert is very different than the elusive “Your Name” who does not share their identity and Boris.
As for Robert – I sincerely believe that there should be a safety net. Those who want enforced “cradle to grave” nation-wide nationalized health care (like Canada’s) are asking for something other than a safety net for those who are not covered.
I sat on the board of directors for a community health center that was one of those “safety nets”. My main hospital is a non-profit Christian hospital that is another “safety net”.
We should fund the “safety nets”. We should fund them well.
Unfortunately (and I would support them in doing this)…some of those Christian “safety nets” would disappear if FOCA forces them to act against their conscience.
We should also make sure that those “safety nets” are not abused. There are a certain number of people (NOT NOT Robert who do not wish to be responsible. I know a few people (women) who are in their mid-life, who have numerous children, who are on public assistance…who have never had a job and who never plan to. I don’t believe we should be supporting people’s irresponsibility.
I believe that if a person is able to work, they should put in some hours if they are on public assistance. We should take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Those who can, but will not take care of themselves…that is a different case study.

Julie,
Boris,
You said: I am curious about what you hope to achieve with your comments? I can see some validity in your statements. I agree that there is often considerable hypocrisy from individuals in the name of Christianity. Having different opinions is one thing, but your considerable effort is not likely to have any affect.
Boris says: My posts have a devastating effect on any believer who reads them. Just look at the insane responses I get. I know exactly how to push the buttons of Christian fundamentalists and throw them into a panic. Many will not respond to me because they know that I will destroy their arguments and they’ll have nothing left to believe in. This is my intention. Christians see the very arguments that convinced them to believe and the arguments they use to force their beliefs on others totally refuted, ridiculed and mocked. This makes many of them very leery of using these arguments to evangelize because they are afraid their prospective target might know how to debunk their arguments. When they use them anyway, they are fully aware that the argument is false and that they are in effect, lying for Jesus.
You said: I respect your right not to believe in Christianity, however, putting all Christians into one group is like Michele and MzEllen putting all liberals into one group. There are many Christians that do considerable good in this world because they believe in importance of the Bible that stress helping others, such as Matthew 25.
Boris says: I have made a clear distinction between moderate Christians who have no problem with modern science and fundamentalist wackos like Michelle and the Reformed Christians who insist on continuing the 2000 year long Christian war on science.
You said: I do not belief Michele or MzEllen are evil. I wish they were more open to other people’s opinions, exploring facts behind their beliefs, and did not attack people that disagree with them. There are very few people that are really evil. I do not think President Bush was intentionally evil, I believe his intentions were to bring democracy to the Middle East;
Boris says: Evil people don’t know they’re evil. They think they are doing the right thing. Adolph Hitler was a devout Bible believing fundamentalist, creationist Christian who loved Jesus. He killed 11 million non-Christians simply because they did not love Jesus. Hitler roasted those who disagreed with him just like Jesus supposedly does. This proves that good and evil are truly subjective. Hitler did not know he was evil, he thought he was stamping out evil. He thought atheism was evil so he stamped it out. “We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933 [This statement clearly refutes modern Christians who claim Hitler as favoring atheism. Hitler wanted to form a society in which ALL people worshipped Jesus and considered any questioning of such to be heresy. The Holocaust was like a modern inquisition, killing all who did not accept Jesus. Though more Jews were killed then any other it should be noted that MANY ARYAN pagans and atheists were murdered for their non-belief in Christ.]
So Michelle and the other Reformed Christians are truly evil people, the worst people on the planet. They don’t know they are evil but like their dear brother Adolph they think they are doing good. And don’t kid yourself about Hitler. Most evangelical Christians supported Hitler before the war and many in this country still think he was doing the right thing. I believe Michelle and MzEllen and many other Reformed Christians secretly admire Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

“Tom Daschle withdraws his name from nomination”. As he should have. It was no accident that he didn’t pay the money he owed.

Boris, again, thank you for portraying atheism as something that is embraced by mean-spirited, unemployed people like yourself. You are driving people to Christianity in droves. Keep it up.

I am the one bitterly complaining about getting cut out of federal insurance after I dropped the state health insurance risk pool.
Totally out of the blue a doctor calls me day before yesterday. I’d never heard of him. I live in Texas, he lives in Ohio. He offers me free treatment. I check him out. He’s not planning to grind me up into hamburgers for visiting space aliens. He’s a legitimate doctor. He arranges for me to have tests done in Texas and says we can go over the results by phone. Then he in fact arranges the tests and pays for them. That in the last 18 hours.
I am stunned. And blessed.
So what does my experience, which I’m having trouble wrapping my head around, have to do with good policy.
First of all, I would want any national policy to allow for unexpected acts of charity and goodwill.
And, MzEllen, I have to admit I wasn’t thinking of quite the same people as you, I see your point on welfare. I guess the way I’d put it is, I don’t mind walking up the steps to get to the door if there’s just a door when I get there.
My recent experience is really the result of conniving personnel policy, not bad health policy. The insurance program I was in was proposed by then-Governor Bush, believe it or not (although Texas was not the first state to adopt such a program, I think). I remember saying at the time that whatever else I’d say about Bush, I’d give him credit for the Texas Health Insurance Risk Pool.
And much was said about Bush. I was present, by the way, when the now-deceased Reverend Charles Merrill picked up a literal bullhorn from the pulpit and announced “Governor George W. Bush, listen to me, the United Methodist Church opposes capital punishment.” There’s two sides to the religion thing.
Sorry to be so fuzzy in this comment. I haven’t suddenly become a Republican. My own intelligence has been sharper on other days. But here you have it.

Driving people to Christianity in droves? Are you kidding me? Can you explain why 2000 Christians leave the church every week, 1500 pastors leave the faith every month and 3500 churches have closed their doors every year for the last 30 plus years in America alone? The opposite is happening and you KNOW it. 80 per cent of Christian college students reject their faith sometime during their college years. As usual the statistics prove you incorrect. Intelligent people are not all of a sudden going to become superstitious science denying Bible believing morons based on anything I say. There is way too much information available to the general public on all the discrepancies, scientific and historical inaccuracies, lies and pure nonsense in the Bible now. Only uneducated, ill-informed frightened people like you still by into such retarded superstitions.

Boris as an atheist, I’m curious where you get your concept of good and evil? Since nature is all you have, a kind of ‘what you see is what you get’, how did you come up with the idea that there is good and evil? You won’t find good and evil in nature, nor will you find kindness and compassion. It’s survival of the fittest. The weak are either left behind to die or sometimes eaten by the strong.
As an atheist, you are in an unusual position. You have no logical reason to believe in a right and wrong. That concept comes from a religious worldview, not from an atheistic one. That’s not to say that atheists can’t be moral, they can. It’s just that they must borrow ‘morals’ from some other worldview and call it their own.
You’ve labeled a large number of people as ‘truly evil’. And I agree with your choice of a few of those. But, what ultimate truths are you using to determine this? After all, in order to know what evil is, you must also know what good is, and have a comparison for it. In nature the lion kills to survive, it’s neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’. For an atheist, the concepts of right and wrong are reduced to a personal preference and as you stated above, are ‘truly subjective’. So if morality is based on personal preferences, then any point of view is valid. Even the ones you disagree with.

“Sorry Robert, that’s not true. These are some of the dumbest bottom feeders on the planet – we call them Reformed Christians – and they believe everything they hear on Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh show. They’re not intelligent. Don’t pander to them by stroking their egos and pretending “oh we’re all smart, we can have a civil debate”. It was that last “civil debate” that allowed the Republicans to torture innocent people.”
I’m not a Reformed Christian (surprise, surprise). I come from a family of them, however. Missionaries to China, Princeton professors (no offense, Trinity folks), highly intelligent, and deeply disturbed–which is not to say all Reformed Christians are. My relatives at least enjoy stimulating debate, and, frankly, I was usually the one who got really ticked off with the disagreement.
They did do some things that were just plain wrong. An uncle of mine who had tenure at the University of North Carolina got into teaching freshmen just so he could fail Black students and un-integrate the university back in the 60′s. They didn’t exactly hate Hitler, although they towed the line by doing all the things Americans were expected to do in their time. But they were who they were, and the younger ones, are who they are.
Hmm. Maybe some of the Reformed has rubbed off. Anyway, how they perceive themselves and how they are perceived really is quite different, but one should be careful how one judges.
As for the suggestion “Would you like others on this blog to make some noise on your behalf? I am passionate about the health care issue.”
Yes! Yes! Yes! And thank you. My answer showed up in a mysterious way. You might be providing the answer for someone else.

Marcus,
You said: Boris as an atheist, I’m curious where you get your concept of good and evil? Since nature is all you have, a kind of ‘what you see is what you get’, how did you come up with the idea that there is good and evil? You won’t find good and evil in nature, nor will you find kindness and compassion. It’s survival of the fittest. The weak are either left behind to die or sometimes eaten by the strong.
Boris says: Oh you are very wrong about survival of the fittest and have exposed your ignorance of science. In short, the empirical facts indicate that most humans are moral animals whose sense of right and wrong conflicts with many of the teachings of the great monotheistic religions. We can safely conclude they did not originate at that source. If human morals and values do not arise out of divine command, then where do they come from? They come from our common humanity. They can be properly called humanistic.
A considerable literature exists on the natural (biological, cultural, evolutionary) origins of morality. Darwin saw the evolutionary advantage of cooperation and altruism. Modern thinkers have elaborated on this observation, showing in detail how our moral sense can have arisen naturally during the development of modern humanity. We can even see signs of moral, or proto-moral behavior in animals. Vampire bats share food. Apes and monkeys comfort members of their group who are upset and work together to get food. Dolphins push sick members of a pod to the surface to get air. Whales will put themselves in harm’s way to help a wounded member of their group. Elephants try their best to save injured members of their families.
In these examples we glimpse the beginnings of the morality that advanced to higher levels with human evolution. You may call animal morality instinctive, built into the genes of animals by biological evolution. But when we include cultural evolution as well, we have a plausible mechanism for the development of human morality – by Darwinian selection. It seems likely that this is where we humans have learned our sense of right and wrong. We have taught it to ourselves.
You said: As an atheist, you are in an unusual position. You have no logical reason to believe in a right and wrong. That concept comes from a religious worldview, not from an atheistic one. That’s not to say that atheists can’t be moral, they can. It’s just that they must borrow ‘morals’ from some other worldview and call it their own.
Boris says: I have just turned your argument on its head. As we can see from an examination of the empirical evidence, God cannot be the source of commonly accepted morals and values. If he were, then we should expect to see evidence in the superior moral behavior of believers compared to nonbelievers. Even if you deny that any discrepancy exists between the behavior and what is taught in their scriptures, the empirical fact that nonbelievers show themselves to be no less virtuous provides strong evidence that morals and values come from humanity itself. Observable human and societal behaviors look just as they can be expected to look if there is no God.
You said: You’ve labeled a large number of people as ‘truly evil’. And I agree with your choice of a few of those. But, what ultimate truths are you using to determine this? After all, in order to know what evil is, you must also know what good is, and have a comparison for it. In nature the lion kills to survive, it’s neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’. For an atheist, the concepts of right and wrong are reduced to a personal preference and as you stated above, are ‘truly subjective’. So if morality is based on personal preferences, then any point of view is valid. Even the ones you disagree with.
Boris says: Not true again. The universe has no concept of our human ideas about good and evil. We have common morals and the word “moral” itself implies that there are basic moral absolutes. These morals are humanistic though, as I have meticulously and completely proved with this post.

Boris your logic is flawed. When morality is just another personal preference driven by the will of the current majority, no basis for ethics is possible. Even one of your own fellow atheist and evolutionist, scientist Richard Dawkins, who has been described as one of Darwin’s most ardent followers, stated when confronted with the though that nature was a moral vacuum and that our best impulses have no basis in nature, he replied…”‘All I can say is, That’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth.” When it comes to nature, are we to believe you or him?
It is ironic that you would bring up the “religion” of humanism. One humanist described morality as something that is “not discovered; it is made”. So with no absolute basis for morality, then again, it falls to personal preference. Your preference may not be the preference of your neighbor, just as it stands to reason that your town’s preference many not be the same as the town nearest you. So which do we adopt, yours or theirs? Some Greek’s believed that might equals right, do we adopt that? We cannot gauge the moral level of the human race without some absolute basis for morality. A whole cannot determine morality for the part. Otherwise, at one point in human history, slavery would have been deemed as good. Mass suicide would have been deemed a ‘good’ in at least one town I can remember reading about. Child sacrifice would also have been deemed as a moral good by some societies. If humans are the sum of all things, then morality is as shifting as the sands.
If science is the only sure method of finding truth, then what scientific experiment told you that?

I do not know the statistic, but I am assuming the majority of Christians believe in evolution and the best medicine possible, except for many that are against embryo stem cell research.
My liberal side believes: “A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law “with the consent of the governed,” and protection from arbitrary authority.”
“In general, the belief that it is the aim of politics to preserve individual rights and to maximize freedom of choice.”
The above statements have a major impact on how Obama views abortion, gay rights, etc. Obama was a Constitutional Law college teacher for several years. The Constitution is supposed to provide equal rights and religious freedom, which includes no religion.
Even though I disagree with a literal interpretation of the Bible and I believe in evolution, it is Michele and MzEllen’s Constitutional right to believe anything they want.
“with the consent of the governed,”
Michele and MzEllen have the right to do anything that is legal. They have the right to ask elected officials to consider their beliefs when legislating. As Christians, they should not attempt to influence voters with misstatements or false information. Christians have an obligation to ensure they are not spreading gossip by researching information through more independent sources before stating them as fact.
If someone does not agree with Michele and MzEllen’s beliefs, they have the same rights to work with elected officials, etc. I do object to buying a politician’s votes. The United Methodist Church does considerable lobbying; however, they do not donate money to any politician.
Boris – you are very good at pushing buttons, but I do not think you are changing the beliefs of very many people. Most people that are called evil and stupid are not going to listen what you say.
It seems you would be more successful at achieving your agenda by approaching individuals with more moderate to leaning left beliefs or other nonbelievers. Another example is Martin Luther King, he sought a peaceful method to end discrimination that was far more successful than violence or inflammatory rhetoric.
Obama being elected as President of the United States is a clear indication that people are moving away from the right and people did not want a continuation of the Bush administration’s breach of laws and our Constitutional rights.
The percent of Christians to the total population has significantly declined. I cannot help but think part of the decline is caused by the some Christians being turned off to Christianity by the hypocrisies of many Christians.
Robert said, “There is a fundamental difference in how the two arguing sides view the possibilities for the world. Conservatives start with certain assumptions, and liberals assume there are no assumptions.”
There is considerable support that people are born with a set temperament that is influenced by environment.
Seeing or not seeing the “possibilities” is strongly influenced by nature. Either to get along in the world or by conscious choice, many people learn to understand their unnatural side. According to the guess of an expert in the field, I have the same personality temperament as Obama has. INTJ – estimated to be about 1-2% of men and .5% of women. Exploring possibilities and seeking “what works” is a major characteristic of INTJs. Another is being the most confident of all types, which is often mistaken as arrogance (sound familiar for Obama). The best part for being President is “knowing what you know and more importantly knowing what you do not know.” The results is being open to other opinions because there might be a new possibility that we do not know and being confident enough to say, “I screwed up.”
It is often frustrating to hear many Republicans continuing to push the same agenda that has repeatedly failed. For example, trickle down wealth and deregulation that did not work. What we got was considerable trickle down debt and a widening of the difference income between the “haves and have nots.”
I think the individual(s) that sold peanut butter that they knew was contaminated with salmonella are evil or mentally deranged. It is my opinion that people that steal from others without a desperate need for money are evil. It is amazing how many wealthy people steal through “white collar” crime.

MzEllen,
There is not an easy answer for health care, but it is becoming a crisis for considerably more people that has to be addressed. The cost for emergency room treatment is passed on to all of us.
In the olden days, many men worked at the same company for most of their career. The company provided health insurance upon retirement, which included the spouse. More and more companies are not offering health insurance at retirement. People accuse the drug companies for overpricing, which may be true in some. I know someone that works for a pharmaceutical company that explained how many years of research it often takes to produce a sellable drug. They might spend many years on a drug that never makes it to market.
I know cost could be reduced by better and shared technology; however, it would need to be a forced solution that goes against capitalism. If the same software were used, there would be an economy of scale savings. Obama is strong about a national medical database, but having worked in the information security field for many years, I shutter at the thought. At the same time, it would reduce my social security number at being at multiple doctors offices, which also frequently require drivers license numbers. I know of an instance of identity theft from someone that worked at a doctor’s office, which means paper information can be just as insecure. As I said, no easy answers.
Welfare – I completely agree that people need to do everything possible to work for their own support. A thousand years ago during my first career, I worked for a state government as a caseworker for four years. The first three years was determining ongoing eligibility for people (women) with dependent children. I went to their home to do the approval or disapproval for reaching assistance.
Overstated and believed by most people.
It is my opinion that most women do not chose to be on public assistance and especially that they have more children to get additional public assistance. The extra amount received was not close to the cost of food, clothing, etc. for the additional child. In fact, the only way to survive on public assistance was to lie, live with someone else (not the father), or live in public housing. The public housing where I live was gross and unsafe.
Most of the women believed the “happy ever after” no need to pursue an education or career. They believed the man loved her and would do what was right. Many of the women were divorced and the man could not be located. Some of the women were so far behind from an inferior education or a home that did not encourage doing well in school that finding a decent job and paying for daycare was impossible. I never read the details, but heard that public assistance was reduced during the Clinton Presidency. I was happily married, but went back to school for a career that would enable me to support myself and my children if necessary. I never wanted to be in a position of depending on someone else for my financial survival.
Death penalty – as Robert said, the United Methodist Church does not believe in the death penalty. I do not have statistics, but it seems many Evangelical churches are not against the death penalty. We believe that the Bible examples of Saul to Paul and the man on the cross next to Jesus shows that everyone has the potential to be redeemed, including murders and other evil people.

“No, it’s “pork” if it fits the definition.”
by that definition, “faith based initiative” spending is pork. in fact, it’s the worst kind of pork, because federal money goes to specific religious institutions (has any atheist organization received federal funding? any hindu or buddhist groups?) that have been allowed to discriminate in who they hire and pay with that money.
acorn doesn’t have a political party affiliation litmus test for those they hire. nor do family planning organizations. in fact acorn doesn’t just register only democrats either.
and just what do conservatives want out of this package? additional tax cuts (on top of bush’s tax cuts that helped to dig the hole we’re in). let me explain this to you: giving me $1000 or even $5000 in tax cuts will not save my job. and should i lose my job, i will loose my house in a matter of 6 months or less; i won’t be able to afford the incredible medication that my wife takes to keep her rheumatoid arthritis in check. i’m not the only “middle class” breadwinner in this situation. the middle class is on the verge of collapse and some piss-ant tax refund won’t stop it. corporate tax cuts won’t help either. they need to sell their products and services to people who have the job security that allows them to buy, instead they would use the money to pay debts, pay CEOs, but not to save employees.
keep people in their jobs. keep people in their homes. shore up health care costs.
let’s not forget that republicans don’t have a majority in the halls of d.c. anymore. there’s a reason for that. i’m all for sharing ideas, but republicans got their 1/3 of the package in pointless tax cuts already.

Your Name,
You said: Boris your logic is flawed. When morality is just another personal preference driven by the will of the current majority, no basis for ethics is possible. Even one of your own fellow atheist and evolutionist, scientist Richard Dawkins, who has been described as one of Darwin’s most ardent followers, stated when confronted with the though that nature was a moral vacuum and that our best impulses have no basis in nature, he replied…”‘All I can say is, That’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth.” When it comes to nature, are we to believe you or him?
Boris says: No one follows Darwin anymore and most of what he wrote has been thoroughly revised. If you had actually ever looked at Darwin’s book you would have seen right in front that it was incomplete and in need of much future revision. Fundamentalists try to paint Darwin as some kind of lone cult leader when Andrew Wallace and several other scientists simultaneously discovered evolution by natural selection.
You said: It is ironic that you would bring up the “religion” of humanism.
Boris says: Humanism and atheism are NOT “religions.” Humanists do not gather together once a week and sing, shout, scream and listen to someone preach scream some more and throw their hands in the air. Humanists do not need strength in numbers to bolster insane superstitions. Religions are based on a belief in magic and magical beings. Humanism is based on a belief in humans, not fairies and magic. Religion now has such a bad name in modern society Christians claim that their particular intellectual perversion is not a religion at all but whoever disagrees with them must be following some sort of a religion. You are only fooling yourself.
You said: One humanist described morality as something that is “not discovered; it is made”. So with no absolute basis for morality, then again, it falls to personal preference. Your preference may not be the preference of your neighbor, just as it stands to reason that your town’s preference many not be the same as the town nearest you. So which do we adopt, yours or theirs? Some Greek’s believed that might equals right, do we adopt that? We cannot gauge the moral level of the human race without some absolute basis for morality. A whole cannot determine morality for the part. Otherwise, at one point in human history, slavery would have been deemed as good.
Boris says: I’m glad you brought that up! Slavery provides another example where the Bible hardly forms a model for our modern free societies. The Old Testament not only condones slavery but actually regulates its practice! Jesus had many opportunities to disavow slavery. He never did. St. Paul reaffirms the practice: Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and give satisfaction in every respect (Titus 2:9). Christendom and Islam have a long history of authoritarianism with little disposition toward individual freedom and justice. Nowhere in the Bible can you discover the principles upon which modern democracies and justice systems are founded
You said: Mass suicide would have been deemed a ‘good’ in at least one town I can remember reading about.
Boris says: Yes, thanks for bringing that up and disproving your own point for me. Do you always shoot yourself in the foot like this in debates? That town was Jonestown, an evangelical Christian community.
You said: Child sacrifice would also have been deemed as a moral good by some societies. If humans are the sum of all things, then morality is as shifting as the sands.
Boris says: The religions of the world have laid claim to the role of arbiters of human behavior, and their leaders continually decry the moral decay they claim to see in society. They insist they have the right to tell the rest of us what is right and what is wrong because they have a special pipeline to the place where right and wrong are defined – in the mind of God.
The implication is that atheists and humanists are somehow undesirable members of society; people you would not want to invite into your house. According to highly unsuccessful lawyer Phillip Johnson, non-believers actually think humans came from monkeys (no one thinks that), which is the source of many of the “evils” of modern society, including homosexuality, abortion, pornography, divorce and genocide – as if the world had none of these before Darwin came along.
However common may be the view that religion is the source of moral behavior, what do the data say? I have seen no evidence that non-believers commit more crimes or other anti-social acts in greater proportion than believers. Indeed, some studies indicate the opposite. According to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Christians make up almost 80 per cent of the prison population. Atheists make up 0.2 per cent. It is to be admitted that these data are not published in a scientific journal, but I think it is safe to conclude that the godless do not fill prisons. Published studies do indicate that a child’s risk of sexual abuse by a family member increases as the family’s religious denomination becomes more conservative, that is, when the teachings of the scriptures and other doctrines are taken more literally. Similarly, the probability of wife abuse increases with the rigidity of a church’s teachings pertaining to gender roles and hierarchy.
But do not let me rely solely on sociological statistics, where correlation does not always imply connection given all the mitigating factors. Even observers from the Christian side have expressed dismay that the current dominance of evangelical Christianity in America has not translated into a strengthening of the nation’s moral character or the characters of evangelical Christians themselves. In an article in Christianity Today, theologian Ronald Sider lamented: “Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most ‘Christians’ regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.”
The Judeo-Christian and Islamic scriptures contain many passages that teach noble ideas that the human race has done well to adopt as norms of behavior and, where appropriate, to codify into law. But without exception, the fact that these principles developed in earlier cultures and history indicates that they were adopted by – rather than learned from religion. While it is fine that religions preach moral precepts, they have no basis to claim that these precepts were authored by their particular deity or, indeed, any deity at all.
Perhaps the primary principle upon which to live a moral life is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” In our Christian-dominated society in the West, most people assume that this was an original teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. For some reason, their preachers, who surely know better, perpetuate this falsehood. In fact, the Bible says Jesus himself made no such claim. Here’s what was actually written, according to the Gospel: “So, whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law of the prophets” (Matt 7:12 RSV). Indeed, the phrase, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” appears in Leviticus, written around 164 BCE.
But the Golden Rule is not the exclusive property of a small desert tribe with a high opinion of itself. Here are some other, independent sources showing that the Golden Rule was already a widespread teaching well before Jesus:
* In The Doctrine of the Mean 13, written about 500 BCE, Confucius says, “What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others.
* Isocrates (c. 375 BCE) said, “Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others.”
* The Hindu Mahabharata, written around 150 BCE, teaches, “This is the sum of all true righteousness: deal with others as thou wouldst thyself be dealt by.”
The call to “love your enemies” precedes Jesus and does not even appear in the Old Testament.
* I Treat those who are good with goodness. And I also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. I am honest with those who are honest. And I am also honest with those who are dishonest. Thus honesty is attained (Taoism. Tao Te Ching 49).
* Conquer anger by love. Conquer evil by good. Conquer the stingy by giving. Conquer the liar by truth (Buddhism. Dhammapada 223).
* A superior being does not render evil for evil; this is a maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct. One should never harm the wicked or the good or even criminals meriting death. A noble soul will ever exercise compassion even towards those who enjoy injuring others or those cruel deeds when they are actually committing them – for who is without fault? (Hinduism. Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 115).
Yahweh spoke to Moses and said, “Exact the full vengeance for the Israelites on the Midianites. Afterwards you will be gathered to your people” (Numbers 31:1). A superior being does not render evil for evil; this is a maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct. According to Hinduism and atheism Yahweh is definitely not a superior being, virtuous or a noble soul. Religion therefore, is merely a matter of opinion.
You said: If science is the only sure method of finding truth, then what scientific experiment told you that?
Boris says: What other avenue do we have to find the truth about things? Believing ancient superstitions held by animal sacrificing primitives? I reject the notion that science has nothing to say about morality. Preachers tell us that any universal moral standards can only come from one source – their particular God. Otherwise standards would be relative, depending on culture and differing across cultures and individuals. The data however, indicate that the majority of human beings from all cultures and all religions or no religion agree on a common set of moral standards. While specific differences can be found, universal norms do seem to exist. Anthropologist Solomon Asch has observed, “We do not know of societies in which bravery is despised and cowardice held up to honor, in which generosity is considered a vice and ingratitude a virtue.”

Here’s a question: how many $40 DTV conversion boxes could be purchased with Tom Daschle’s delinquent taxes?
Here’s another (for those polite folks who think that the coupons for the DTV boxes belong in the “stimulus package”) – actually two.
If it’s a “dire” situation…and congress has to act now, why is it vital that millions of dollars be spent in a bill that hasn’t even been passed yet…in which the majority of dollars won’t be spent this year…why is it vital that coupons be in this bill for something that we’ve known about for years?
How many $40 boxes could be purchased with $650 MILLION dollars? (over 16,000,000)
How many people in the United States still don’t have either digital TVs or the boxes? Do you think it’s 16,000,000?

Julie you said: Boris – you are very good at pushing buttons, but I do not think you are changing the beliefs of very many people. Most people that are called evil and stupid are not going to listen what you say.
I would like everyone to notice that these two: marcus February 5, 2009 1:10 PM and Your Name February 5, 2009 3:33 PM had their best arguments against atheism turned on their heads and completely refuted. I proved that Christianity stole all of its morals and ethics from other places and that God cannot possibly be the source for morals and ethics. Morals and ethics have evolved just like everything else does. They were not put in place 6000 years ago by the Christian sky wizard. Julie, if you don’t think these two clowns will be highly upset, frightened and angry when they read these posts check out their responses. They’ll either run and hide or come up with a ridiculous, superstition laden bunch of nonsense which I will mock and ridicule as I did their last posts. Come to Papa boys.

Boris, you really don’t have a job, do you?

Ah.
Reading the back and forth between the beleaguered Boris and those offended by him, I think here’s the thing.
There are people who find their religious beliefs to be of great value and who defend the “true faith.”
There are people who find their religous beliefs to be of great value but who believe God can do just fine without their help.
And there are people who find their religious beliefs to be of great value, as Boris obviously does, and who defend the “true non-faith.”
Personally, I am in the second category. The beauty of the First Amendment is that it allows for the other two categories, too.
There is a fourth point of view that would likely offend everybody. So Boris is right and “the other side,” whoever that might be, is also right. So there was a revelation from God, but to suppress it, fiendish leaders of ancient times appropriated beliefs from other, earlier religions, and slipped them into the holy book. God gave the Bible, but humans subverted with false religion, to encourage no-religion.
(That isn’t precisely my own view, by they way. But for argument.)
There are those here who would say that when you arrive in the pits of hell, then you will know we were right (not too many, however). But I tend to think any religion, or non-religion, that makes you angry to defend is not where you really ought to be.
You are entitled to think otherwise.

Plus, you haven’t disproved anything. God made man as a moral creature when he was first created. People can sense this within themselves, and other religions have tried to explain it, but we only reached full understanding of it with Christ.
And no, I can’t “prove” that any more than you can disprove it. You can beleive what you want, but put aside this silly notion that you can “disprove” it just by disagreeing with it loudly and rudely.
I now command you to waste at least an hour composing a long, bloviated response to this. Do it now!

Another theme in this thread is the scandalous expenditures of public funds.
All I am going to try to offer is perspective.
For all the poverty, misfortune, and loss we have in our country, as a whole, we are unbelievably wealthy. We are so wealthy that if we really wanted to treat our national debt like a mortage we were going to pay off, we could chip away the principle at $15 a person per week.
But most people would say, No!, No!, that’s another $240 a month for my family to pay!
And I’d counter, the country as a whole produces nearly $200,000 a year for every 4 people.
Sounds to me like we got some people sittin’ on a lotta loot. And we know it ain’t us. So, like the fellow named Robert who got featured in the NY Times comments today, I’d say:
The public does not want executive pay capped. The public wants the executives capped.
And indeed, far more than we have discussed has to have gone horribly wrong.

“the country as a whole produces nearly $200,000 a year for every 4 people”
THE COUNTRY doesn’t produce one thin dime. INVIDIVIDUAL CITIZENS in the country produce an average of $50K per year. Some more, some less, depending on their productivity, and, to a far smaller extent, luck.
If you’re going to randomly categorize it, why not just say “Brown eyed people as a whole produce $X per person” or “People in green shirts as a whole produce $X per person”
“Sounds to me like we got some people sittin’ on a lotta loot. And we know it ain’t us”
You make less than the average of $50K per year? I suggest some additional training or education.
Why don’t you just cut to the chase and admit that you think Lenin, Stalin and Mao were brilliant, and we ought to adopt their wonderful system?

Robert,
I agree that the majority of Americans are extremely wealthy, especially compared to some countries. I have also seen a generation change in spending habits, especially since the widely availability of credit cards and other available credit.
During my childhood to teenage age, most mothers stayed home with their children and people lived in modest houses.
I stayed home with my children for their first several year and their self-employed father had flexibility to help with their care. We purposely purchased a house that would allow us to live on one income, although my husband was doing more than a full time job. We had nicer homes than our parents, but we also benefited from the inflation in home prices.
The women I worked with that were a generation behind me were buying nicer homes, cars, and furniture, etc. I purchased garage sale furniture and clothes for my children, but not the younger generation. Women were also moving into higher income jobs.
My son’s generation had companies sending them credit cards with large pre-approved credit without even knowing if they had a job. They were also use to having a higher life style than I had as a child when every penny mattered. My son’s generation and people in other generations became over extended.
The available credit during the last few years, especially for mortgages, caused major problems. Some people were stupid, but more were poorly advised. I could not imagine why anyone was getting an adjustable rate loan since interest rates were very low compared to the 10% to 13%, I experienced.
Now for a major issue behind our current financial crisis – credit default swaps (CDS), which were the straw that broke the investment bank’s backs. The CDS value is estimated to be between $60 trillion to over $100 trillion. The problem is no one knows for sure because Republicans and some Democrats decided in 2000 that regulation would stifle the market. It is impossible for me to imagine how they could be so stupid considering the long history of fraud. There were financial frauds in the 90s, including John McCain’s associated Keating Five that taxpayers are still paying the dedeth of the “white collar” crooks that make big donations to Congress.
CDS are also referred to as derivatives – check Wikipedia. An excellent explanation for people that do not understand CDS is on NPS. Go to their website and search on “Michael Greenburger.” The date was about April 2008.
The CDSs were the major cause in the increase in oil prices that started dropping in July 2008 because Congress started pressuring the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to do their job. The gas prices dropped significantly when the announcement of the financial crisis and investment banks, plus AIG, ran out of money. The traders no longer had any money to trade CDS.
If there had been adequate oversight of CDSs we would not be in a dire crisis.
Several big names associated with do not regulate include: first and foremost Alan Greenspan because everyone thought he knew everything. Others that took up Greenspan’s ideas include , Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, Treasury, not sure about the current Treasury secretary. Former Senator and Chairman of the Banking Committee, Phil Gramm, snuck a 300 page do not regulate into an 11,000 page must pass appropriation bill a few hours before Christmas break. The bill was written by Wall Street attorneys with funding from the Goldman Sachs and other big names, plus Enron.
Phil Gramm received considerable money from Enron that used CDS to control the cost of electricity in California. Someone finally figured what Enron was doing, which resulted in major economic losses. Phil Gramm did not run for reelection, he should be in prison.
Congress has known about the CDS issue since Enron, but did nothing. Since 2006, the Democrats in the house and Senate started having hearings on the price of oil. They were told by Michael Greenburger and others that “speculators” (traders that never intend to take delivery of the commodity) were causing an artificial increase in the price of oil. The problem for Congress was the many supposed experts did not agree on the cause. The ones against regulating CDSs told Congress they would severely harm the economy.
It was not until July and August that Congress, mostly Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), started pressuring CFTC to do their job. She held up the permanent nomination of the Acting Chairman, who helped write the offending 2000 legislation. Sen. Cantwell also consulted with an expert that helped find the Enron problem. His analysis determined supply and demand was not the cause of the increase in oil prices.
The CDSs were more than our gross national product, which means Robert may need to reduce the “country as a whole produces nearly $200,000 a year for every 4 people.” Since the late 90s our economy has been based on gambling that no one regulated, with the amount increasing each year. The major loss in the CDS market was trading (betting) whether people with subprime mortgages would or would not default on their mortgages. Goldman Sachs bet they would default and made a profit of $7 billion dollars in 2007, which is the reason they are still afloat. Most of the other investment banks and AIG voted that people would not default.
The current stimulus bill is similar to the debate over CDS, one side says it is good and the other side said it is bad. Supposed expert economists have different opinion.
I personally think the Republican idea of having the bill based more on higher taxes is a bad idea, especially the tax cuts for the bigger businesses. They did not trickle down Bush’s last tax cut. As Obama said, the U.S. needs to reinvent its self. We need to become a country that produces something of tangible value, as we did in the past, which could potentially increase exporting of US products. If we could design and produce cost effective alternate sources of energy, we could possibly have a good product to export and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We need to be creative. Job creation is crucial.
As to pork in the bill, I think everything should be cost justified to support how specific items would help the country. I have watch members of Congress make big generalities about pork without ever justifying “why” the pork is not stimulating for the economy.
I have read guesses that the next amount of money going to the banks will be over a trillion dollars

ZZ
Just saying I haven’t proved anything just won’t fly. Unless you can show exactly what it is I haven’t proved and why I haven’t proved it then you’ve said nothing, as usual. So you are correct that you cannot prove anything but incorrect that I haven’t proved anything. I proved that human morals and ethics do not and CAN NOT come from any God, religion or holy book but rather are a product of both biological and social evolution. Unless these statements are refuted with evidence and not arguments they stand as proofs. I don’t notice anyone even trying to refute what I wrote including the two blowhards that challenged me with their tired and worn out arguments against atheism. At least they challenged me. All you do ZZ is make inane comments, which expose your lack of education and superstitious nature.

Boris, I doubt that either one of us will convince the other, but a last note to you. Copying paragraphs from books does not lend any support to your illogical arguments. You have not refuted that humanistic morality shifts as society changes and is not based on any ultimate truths. You have not refuted that morality cannot be seen in evolution or in nature. You have not refuted that atheists must borrow their morals from other worldviews. As well, you have not only failed to prove that morals came from no god, you have further added evidence that they in fact did.
No one follows Darwin any longer? Since this month of February is a multinational celebration of Darwin and his theories, that is enough to refute your claim of irrelevance to the scientific community of today.
The sad truth is that many who call themselves Christian are nothing of the sort. Those in Jonestown may have called themselves Christian but they were not followers of Christ which is plainly evidenced by their deeds. Christ was silent on slavery? It is not logical to imply that silence means acceptance. After all, if the concepts that Jesus put forward were followed, then slavery could not exist. Paul and Slavery? Most critics of the Bible don’t care about the culture and context of the time in which the story was written, as is evidenced by your superficial quoting of its verses. Paul is commanding us as followers of Christ to be Christ like in every situation we find ourselves in. Being a slave did not negate the fact that they were to be followers of Christ even in that situation. Christians in prison? You have conveniently left out the fact that the numbers you quote are from 1925 and could not be substantiated even then. Not to mention that even now, many inmates become Christians after they have been imprisoned. And as I have stated before, not all people who call themselves Christian are actually followers of Christ. If a man calls himself a Frenchman, but neither he nor his parents were born in France and he’s never visited there, then his claim is false. This is just as true for those who call themselves Christian but fail to follow the precepts that Jesus laid down for them.
Commonality of morality among different civilizations: Your list of quotes from various people considered wise by their peers is excellent. Because it’s exactly the thing one would expect to find when looking for evidence of a creator. You would also expect to find similarity in other things as well such as catastrophes or great historical events, and we can see that in the Biblical flood story and various flood stories of different cultures. The commonality you hail is none other than the Creator, who has revealed Himself to his creation from the very beginning, although some cultures have corrupted the stories as they were handed down.
You need to revisit your statements on evolution. According to current evolutionary theory, random chance mutations acted upon by natural selection is the mechanism that powers evolution and not just natural selection. It is an amazing leap of faith to believe that everything we see around us is the product of random information losing mutations and natural selection. It is akin to the belief that a tornado can pass through a junkyard and by random chance leave behind a 747. In many ways, the belief in evolution is as much a religion as humanism, regardless of your denial of it.

Marcus
You said: Boris, I doubt that either one of us will convince the other, but a last note to you. Copying paragraphs from books does not lend any support to your illogical arguments.
Boris says: Ad hominem attacks are the best you can do? In just saying my arguments are “illogical” you have again said nothing. What is so EXACTLY illogical about them? Name it and claim it. What books? Name ‘em and claim ‘em. Strike one.
You said: You have not refuted that humanistic morality shifts as society changes and is not based on any ultimate truths.
Boris says: Before you can claim that something is based on ultimate truths you must first prove there even ARE such things as ultimate proofs. Your argument assumes its premise is true beforehand so it is no argument at all. Strike two.
You said: You have not refuted that morality cannot be seen in evolution or in nature. You have not refuted that atheists must borrow their morals from other worldviews. As well, you have not only failed to prove that morals came from no god, you have further added evidence that they in fact did.
Boris says: If I had actually failed to do any of these things then you would happily tell us all how this is so. But I DID prove that YOUR religion has borrowed ALL of its ideas including those about morals and ethics from more ancient and secular sources. And my proofs stand until you can do more than make unsubstantiated claims. Strike three. You’re out!
You said: No one follows Darwin any longer? Since this month of February is a multinational celebration of Darwin and his theories, that is enough to refute your claim of irrelevance to the scientific community of today.
Boris says: Darwin should be celebrated. He was one human being who contributed probably more to the advancement of science and the doubling of our life spans in the last 120 years than anyone else. But science has disproved much of what Darwin wrote and NO ONE relies on ANYTHING he wrote anymore. Science has marched on way past Darwin’s day. Strike one.
You said: The sad truth is that many who call themselves Christian are nothing of the sort. Those in Jonestown may have called themselves Christian but they were not followers of Christ which is plainly evidenced by their deeds.
Boris says: Sure and Christians still try to deny that it was evangelical Christians who murdered 11 million non-Christians simply because they did not believe in Jesus, or that World War II was Hitler’s attempt to Christianize the entire world.
You said: Christ was silent on slavery? It is not logical to imply that silence means acceptance. After all, if the concepts that Jesus put forward were followed, then slavery could not exist.
Boris says: The Old Testament condones and regulates slavery and Jesus went along with the Old Testament as I showed. If Jesus is God and God wrote the Bible then you’ve got yourself quite a predicament now don’t you? ROFL! Give up because you’ve lost this particular argument TWICE now!
You said: Paul and Slavery? Most critics of the Bible don’t care about the culture and context of the time in which the story was written, as is evidenced by your superficial quoting of its verses. Paul is commanding us as followers of Christ to be Christ like in every situation we find ourselves in. Being a slave did not negate the fact that they were to be followers of Christ even in that situation.
Boris says: I do not believe that Jesus, Paul or any other apostles ever existed. Where’s your evidence that they all aren’t inventions of the Bible since history knows not a word about ANY of them?
Christians in prison? You have conveniently left out the fact that the numbers you quote are from 1925 and could not be substantiated even then.
Boris says: No, I have conveniently cited figures from the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 1997 which if you do the math Christians are about 1000 times more likely to wind up in a federal prison that are atheists. Do the math.
You said: Not to mention that even now, many inmates become Christians after they have been imprisoned. And as I have stated before, not all people who call themselves Christian are actually followers of Christ. If a man calls himself a Frenchman, but neither he nor his parents were born in France and he’s never visited there, then his claim is false. This is just as true for those who call themselves Christian but fail to follow the precepts that Jesus laid down for them.
Boris says: This is a nice way to explain away all the atrocities Christians commit. Oh, they killed people so they can’t have been Christians. No dice.
You said: Commonality of morality among different civilizations: Your list of quotes from various people considered wise by their peers is excellent. Because it’s exactly the thing one would expect to find when looking for evidence of a creator.
Boris says: No way dude; another statement with nothing at all to back it up. I showed how our constantly EVOLVING morality and ethics look just as they should if there is no God. Again you’ve said nothing. When you keep saying nothing you earn the name “Blowhard.” And now you have.
You said: You would also expect to find similarity in other things as well such as catastrophes or great historical events, and we can see that in the Biblical flood story and various flood stories of different cultures. The commonality you hail is none other than the Creator, who has revealed Himself to his creation from the very beginning, although some cultures have corrupted the stories as they were handed down.
Boris says: Oh please. The flood story in the Bible is the most indefensible bunch of nonsense there is. Science and history show it to be a fairy tale. But they don’t have to. Ever heard of common sense? No, your religion is an affront to common sense according to Thomas Paine and the rest of our Founding Fathers, Paine’s biggest fans.
You said: You need to revisit your statements on evolution. According to current evolutionary theory, random chance mutations acted upon by natural selection is the mechanism that powers evolution and not just natural selection.
Boris says: Why should I revisit evolution? I studied it at a Christian college decades ago where they still teach it and had been for decades when I went there. Perhaps YOU should revisit any CHRISTIAN college or university of your choice and you will see that these CHRISTIAN colleges, ALL of them, are teaching evolution and common descent along with Big Bang cosmology, geology and all the other science you don’t believe in and have been for decades. How do you explain this?
You said: It is an amazing leap of faith to believe that everything we see around us is the product of random information losing mutations and natural selection.
Boris says: That’s right: distort the facts of evolution right off and prove your ignorance of it too. I love this! Science doesn’t operate on or require faith. Debating with a creationist like you is actually really easy, because you only have a few standard arguments, and haven’t come up with any new ones for some time. These standard arguments have been published time and time again, and a practiced creationist can handily draw them like a six-gun at the drop of a hat. The problem for you is that so have the clear refutations of these stupid creationist arguments. All of your arguments are silly in their wrongness and easily debunked, and since I’m prepared in advance, it’s easy to beat down any creationist with a quick verbal body slam. I’m not going to change YOUR mind, since creationists do not base their opinions upon rational study of the evidence. But other people will see you’ve clearly lost the debate.
You said: It is akin to the belief that a tornado can pass through a junkyard and by random chance leave behind a 747. In many ways, the belief in evolution is as much a religion as humanism, regardless of your denial of it.
Boris says: This is the old “747 in a junkyard” argument. You people parrot each other without checking the literature that easily debunks your stupid arguments. How likely is it that a tornado would go through a junkyard, and by chance, happen to assemble a perfect 747? The same argument was made centuries ago by William Paley, except he referred to the exquisite design of a pocket watch, and pointed out that such a thing is so complex and delicate that it had to have been designed from the top down by a creator. This argument is simply reflective of ignorance of the extraordinary power of evolution’s bottom-up design mechanism. Once you have an understanding of multigenerational mutation and natural selection, and also understand how structures with irreducible complexity evolve, there’s nothing unlikely or implausible about evolution at all. In fact, genetic algorithms (the computer software version of evolution), are starting to take over the world of invention with innovative new engineering advances that top-down designers like human beings might have never come up with. Bottom-up design is not only probable, it’s inevitable and nearly always produces better designs than any intelligent creator could have.
I would ask any creationist to tell me when science has ever had to revise one of its theories in the face of claims from Bible believers? Wanna give that one a go Marcus or was this beat down enough for you?

“”the country as a whole produces nearly $200,000 a year for every 4 people”
THE COUNTRY doesn’t produce one thin dime. INVIDIVIDUAL CITIZENS in the country produce an average of $50K per year. Some more, some less, depending on their productivity, and, to a far smaller extent, luck.
If you’re going to randomly categorize it, why not just say “Brown eyed people as a whole produce $X per person” or “People in green shirts as a whole produce $X per person”
“Sounds to me like we got some people sittin’ on a lotta loot. And we know it ain’t us”
You make less than the average of $50K per year? I suggest some additional training or education.
Why don’t you just cut to the chase and admit that you think Lenin, Stalin and Mao were brilliant, and we ought to adopt their wonderful system?”
For starters, I grossed $278K in 2006 and $428K in 2007, as an author. I spent $300K in 2008 out of pocket because I chose to take a treatment, that actually worked for about a year, that insurance would not pay for. I was taking a job to get the health insurance that would, incidentally, pay for a treatment that works. Where people who earn money may differ from you, ZZ, is that we recognize the value of earning a little over earning nothing, and have the humility to work at a useful task that pays $30-someodd-K a year as well as one that gets us mentioned in lead articles in Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report. That is where I am at the moment.
And if I had never supported my church or charities or individuals in need, maybe God would have sent a lightning bolt to zap my cash box, or maybe I’d still be rolling in dough. Ironically, my income hasn’t been but about 6 times the national average. That doesn’t mean I 6 times as smart as you. I’m probably smarter than that. I just have cancer to deal with. Does that mean your cells are better than mine? Good for you. Please feel free to keep them.
So you believe individuals and individuals alone earn money, that infrastructure makes no difference? That the country earns nothing? That’s as ridiculous as communism. Perhaps if you yourself were educated you would not be afraid to face the fact good economics does not come on engraved tablets from Mt. Sinai.
Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were brilliant. For that matter, so were Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, and George W. Bush is, too. Nobody rules who is an idiot, although some are smart enough to let you think they are. You, however, probably are exactly what you seem to be.

Marcus
You said: Because it’s exactly the thing one would expect to find when looking for evidence of a creator.
That statement blows up your whole case. Scientists and science and logic minded people absolutely NEVER look for evidence to prove something. Instead they look at evidence and wonder at what it may prove. They let the evidence lead them where ever it may. The hoaxers who identify themselves as “creation scientists” constantly look for evidence to prove what they have already dogmatically accepted as being true and must reject anything that disagrees with their goofy holy book. So go look for your “evidence” to prove what you’ve been frightened out of your mind into believing anyway. Then tell us all how you’re objective. ROFL!

Robert:
“I grossed $278K in 2006 and $428K in 2007″
Well, as long as we’re posting completely unverifiable personal details, I’ll just go ahead and claim that I make $3 million a year making MRI machines in my garage.
OK, yes, infrastructure and policing and the judicial system and all that help us earn an income. I purchase these things with my taxes the same way I purchase shoes or a briefcase. It’s not some free gift from the republic.
“we recognize the value of earning a little over earning nothing, and have the humility to work at a useful task that pays $30-someodd-K a year”
Now we get to it. Your bitterness over your own fallen income makes you despise those who are still successful, and desire to take away their fairly earned income out of mere spite. Not healthy, man. Let go of the hate.

And for anybody still paying attention to the obviously unemployed Boris, no thinking Christian tries to “prove” any aspect of their faith. The Bible clearly states that God is invisible and that faith is required. But that’s no reason not to point out things in the physical universe that agree with the precept of a creator. He’s attacking a straw man.
BTW Boris, thanks for obeying my command to waste your own time. Good boy. Sit.

Scientists and science and logic minded people absolutely NEVER look for evidence to prove something.
Like the “next ice age” (when I was a kid) to “global warming” (in the last decade) to the current phrase “global climate change” – and the political aim of proving that “climate change” is caused by human behavior.

ZZ there is really no such thing as a “thinking Christian.” Dogmas and creeds are a disease of the intellect. At least you admit that your religion requires faith because none of its claims can be proved. Let all the Christians have the nerve to say that and the world will be a safer place.
MzEllen, you’re a Christian so you know nothing about what science is and what science does. POLITICIANS are the people who distort what scientists say, not scientists. No avenue of human endeavor is more open to scrutiny than science. Quite the opposite of your religion huh?

But that’s no reason not to point out things in the physical universe that agree with the precept of a creator.
ZZ, Francis Collins said, “”I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That’s an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as “Why am I here?”, “What happens after we die?” If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn’t convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.”

Francis Collins said, “”I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation.
Boris says: That’s because there is no evidence for anything outside of nature. There’s no evidence for angels, demons, Satan, Jesus, seraphs or any of the other goofy things Christians believe in. But no one is stopping them from blabbing and blithering on about such nonsense. Scientists on the other hand have better things to do.
That’s an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as “Why am I here?”, “What happens after we die?” If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn’t convince you on a proof basis.
Boris says: Just because people ask these questions doesn’t mean they aren’t stupid questions. Why am I here is akin to asking why does 5 equal 5. It’s a meaningless question. HOW we got here is a more relevant important question.
But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion.”
Boris says: Atheists are open to the possibility that there is a God but they don’t go around pretending that anything they see is evidence for a creator the way believers do. Why bother? If there is a God who wanted us to believe in him he would show himself. A God who hides and makes people guess whether he really exists or not and then punishes intelligent, skeptical and good people based on an opinion they held while they were alive, simply because they guessed wrong, doesn’t exist. That God is the invention of sick twisted minds.

“If there is a God …he would show himself.”
Um, he does. That’s the whole point. He shows himself through nature, through historical documentation (the Bible), through testimony of his son (who’s existence is just as well recorded as Julius Caesar’s, etc) and through direct revelation to living people.
None of this is irrefutable because he wants children, not slaves. Faith is definitely required in the relationship, just as faith is required in marriage, in business partnerships, etc. It is a metaphysical concept, not a scientific one. Although as with all metaphysical questions, science can play a supporting role
Some few, bitter people refuse to even consider the question because they’re blinded by their own hauteur. They CHOOSE exile of their own accord. More’s the pity.

MZellen, thanks for that Collins quote. I have his book, I need to read it.

ZZ falsely claimed: through testimony of his son (who’s existence is just as well recorded as Julius Caesar’s, etc)
What evidence is there for the existence of Jesus Christ exactly? Name it and claim it. Where is this “documentation” you know about but no one in the world has ever seen before? ROFL! Read it and weep:
Evidence that Confirms the Existence of Caesar is Legion
– in stark contrast to the utter dearth of evidence for Jesus!
Unlike the mythical Jesus Christ, we know what Caesar looked like and we have a complete history of his life. In turn, general, orator, historian, statesman and lawgiver. We have words written by Caesar himself and words written by both his friends and his enemies. Artifacts confirm his life and death, as do his successors. Caesar established a style of government – and a calendar – which endured for centuries.
Caesar was an eyewitness to many of the events he describes in his commentaries. He wrote not for posterity but to have an immediate impact on the power players in Rome as he schemed to advance his own career.
The elapsed time between the wars and Caesar’s own writing was a matter of months or at most a few years.
In contrast, the elapsed time between the gospel reports and the supposed events that they describe is at least 40 years for ‘Mark’ and 60-70 years for the other three Gospels.
And just who was witness to that fabulous nativity, 30-odd years before the grande finale?
At the most generous understanding, ‘Luke’ and ‘Matthew’ were recording hearsay testimony a century after angels, shepherds and wise men went calling.
The unembellished truth is that the gospel accounts were written by eyewitnesses to nothing but their own skills of fabrication.
For good reason, based on spatial and temporal proximity alone, historians give more credence to Caesar’s commentaries than to the gospels, no matter how prolifically they were copied.
Contemporary Witnesses to Caesar
Cicero Orations and Letters provide eyewitness evidence of Caesar Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was almost an exact contemporary of Julius Caesar. In Caesar’s struggle with Pompey, Cicero, governor of Cilicia, sided with Pompey but was subsequently pardoned by Caesar.In March of 44 BC Cicero was a witness to Caesar’s murder, though he was not a part of the conspiracy. Following the assassination, Cicero made a series of speeches known as the “Philippics” which called on the Senate to support Octavian against Mark Antony. Cicero’s “Second Phillipics” was an eulogy of Caesar’s conquest of Gaul.Unfortunately for Cicero Octavian reached a temporary rapprochement with Antony, who then ordered Cicero’s murder.Among some 900 preserved letters to and from Cicero are correspondence both about and with Caesar.”… if Caesar does lose his head all the same, Pompey feels only the deepest contempt for him, trusting in his own and the state’s troops…”Cicero to Atticus, 7.8, 50BC.
SallustCaius Sallust (86-34 BC) tribune, provincial governor and supporter of Caesar. His testimony is in a history “Bellum Catalinae”.NeposCornelius Nepos (c100-24): “Life of Atticus”.CatullusGaius Valerius Catullus (c84-54 BC): “Carmina”.Asinius PollioGaius Asinius Pollio (76 BC-4 AD) was an ally of Caesar and founder of the first public library in Rome. He was a source used by Plutarch.VirgilVirgil (70BC-17AD): “Aeneid”.OvidOvidius Naso (43BC-17AD): “Metamorphoses”.
Near Contemporary Witnesses PaterculusVelleius Paterculus (c19 BC-32 AD): “Historiae Romanae”. LucanLucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, 39-65 AD) followed the example of his grandfather, Seneca the Elder – a young contemporary of Caesar – who in later life wrote a history of Rome. Lucan wrote his own Pharsalia approximately a century after the civil war it chronicles, using Seneca’s work as an eye-witness source.PlutarchPlutarch of Chaeronea (45-120 AD) was a Greek moralist, historian and biographer (and priest of Delphi). He wrote his Parallel Lives (matching Greek with Roman lives) during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. He describes in detail the life and assassination of Julius Caesar (as well as Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony). Appian Appian of Alexandria (c.95-165 AD): Civil Wars. SuetoniusThe most famous biographer of Caesar, Tranquillus Suetonius, wrote his Lives of the Twelve Caesars during the reign of emperor Hadrian (117-138). Suetonius was in charge of the imperial archives and in this capacity, had access to some of the best possible information.
In an oddly distorted, negative universe Christian apologists declare that there is “no evidence” for their godman’s non-existence, as if it should be quite natural to believe in the most fantastic, illogical and unsubstantiated claims unless there was evidence to the contrary. If this stance had any viability, why stop at Jesus? Why not believe in Zeus, leprechauns and the tooth fairy?
A favorite tack of the Saved is to affect a yawn, mutter “that old stuff again” and impatiently declare that Jesus’s non-existence is a 19th century rationalist’s heresy long since disposed of by “solid evidence”.
The ringing claim of “more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for any other person of his day” is followed by a potpourri of ancient sources, as if a list made long enough could disguise the fact that NOT A SINGLE SOURCE EVER QUOTED IS FROM THE TIME OF THE GODMAN.
Early non-Christian writers, including the favourite hostages – Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny and Tacitus – are discussed here.
But stepping around the smokescreen thrown up by evidence that early Christians certainly existed (and had a motley assortment of beliefs!), is the evidence for many of history’s greatest heroes and villains really so tenuous?

ZZ blabbed: Faith is definitely required in the relationship, just as faith is required in marriage, in business partnerships, etc. It is a metaphysical concept, not a scientific one.
Boris says: There is a very BIG difference between religious faith in dogmatic superstitions and the kind of faith required in marriages and other relationships. People in relationships are allowed to question their partner, question and adjust their relationship and they can end these relationships without fear of eternal damnation. Christians are not allowed to question anything that has to do with their religion. Religious faith is a disease of the intellect and ZZ you are a prime example of a sick, twisted, demented, delusional mind.
Philosophy asks questions that may never be answered but religion gives answers that may never be questioned. I’ll take my philosophical worldview while you remain mired and bogged down in your religious superstitions that you are afraid to question. ROFL! ZZ you are such a loser!

putting all Christians into one group is like Michele and MzEllen putting all liberals into one group.
Yeah, but, Julie, Christians are all in one group, by definition.
Now let me betray that notion by suggesting about MzEllen that :
We should also make sure that those “safety nets” are not abused. I don’t believe we should be supporting people’s irresponsibility.
Such preoccupation with abuse impedes the benefit. It is the “baby with the bath-water” all over again, a Puritan mindset. Toss out anything with the potential of abuse.
She and michele are identical in this regard.

Moonshadow, “making sure the safety net is not abused” is not the same as “getting rid of the safety net”.
Do we then invite abuse? Or ignore it?

These just aren’t questions I ask.

Moonshadow, are you saying that you trust that the governmental agencies that will be receiving about 1/3 of these HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars to spend them in the way that is intended?
With no questions asked.

“Christians are not allowed to question anything that has to do with their religion”
Oh, baloney. Ever here of “denominations”? Those are groups of Christians with different opinions about stuff.
Boris said: “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Slogan slogan”
ZZ said: “SNORE”

All the different denominations simply prove that the Bible is ambiguous and people cannot agree on exactly how to interpret it. But you are not allowed to question the validity of the stories and dogma in the Bible. Do you believe that corpses came back to life and crawled out of their graves and appeared to many other people? Do you believe that a donkey talked and a burning bush spoke? Do you believe the earth never moves and had vegetation on it BEFORE the sun and moon even existed? If so explain why you believe these things. Then tell us all why you don’t question them. I can’t wait. This should be really good.

Like the “next ice age” (when I was a kid) to “global warming” (in the last decade) to the current phrase “global climate change” – and the political aim of proving that “climate change” is caused by human behavior.
ellen, just because you disagree with the theories, doesn’t mean that scientists are tweaking evidence to fit political aims. conservative republicans may be anti-science, but science is apolitical.
scientists don’t choose the result and look for evidence to fit that result. the evidence speaks for itself. scientists study the evidence and make a hypothesis and theorize. scientific evidence from different fields of study indicates that the theory of global climate change holds true, and there is mounting evidence that indicates the problem is made worse by human behavior. there is, in fact some evidence that taken by itself seems to contradict the theory of global climate change. but there is none that disprove it.
the same goes for the scientific theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, the theory of a very old earth and every other scientific theory. by the way, there are many scientific theories that have been smashed when new evidence was found (flat earth, geocentric universe, young earth, etc.).