butswana

<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,45116,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,45116,00.html</a>

Krieger

Yeah!

<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020208/ap_on_re_us/bible_classes_ruling" target="_blank">http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020208/ap_on_re_us/bible_classes_ruling</a>

*cheers!*

atheist_in_foxhole

Good!

tdaschel

The identities of the parents who sued have not been disclosed. A branch of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit First Amendment organization, was also a plaintiff.

...thank you, Dan Barker. guy was a circuit riding evangelist before he found Darwin / he even wrote a book about his Journey. and now? he still goes from church to church, only now they're Unitarian. another slee.lie? nope / his schedule is on line:
he's hitting UU congregations in the mid.west, in arizona. i could care less if they take religion out of the schools, but they're not being very even.handed about this, no. our modern education system is based on Deweyism (that's john, not frances' late preacher father) / he signed onto The Humanist Manifesto (as did Zappa, but i tend to forgive artists most anything), which in itself is nothing turrible but, Hey, he saw The Public Schools as a useful tool for combatting the effects of parents, especially religious contamination. y'all think i play fast and loose with terms an' labels - Unitarian, Atheist, Free Thinker, Skeptic, etc - but they group themselves
together on the net by way of webrings such as Internet Infidels (yes, embracing an 18th c. tendency and a 19th c. mythology is so.trooly radical...). Robert Graves said if you want to cut through the b_llshit of sorting through religions, Follow the Symbols. the Unitarians' is a Lamp inna Circle / anybody have a look at the cover of
Sagan's terminal work Demon Haunted World? Prometheus Books of Buffalo figures in as well. it is, in short, a comprehensive, well.organized Belief System that falls under the umbrella of Religion (dermot has, quite rightly, pointed out that Everything does, but i'm intending it in the narrow sense that "these f_cking organizations" use when they start bitching about bibles and graduation prayers). dammit, stig can tell you
that i'm not much of a Jesus Cheerleader, going entire weeks without mentioning him to other people (the "in vain" stuff don't count, right?). i just get sick of the Arrogance of a religion receiving special treatment by virtue of its Arrogant claims (i.e., "oh, it's not religion, it's TRUE" / that statement alone tosses their faith among all the other "primitive superstitions" they routinely sneer at).

atheist_in_foxhole

Dan Barker is great. He once devoted his time to spreading the gospel with Xian music, but now he makes atheist/anti-religious music that's really quite hilarious (<a href="http://www.ffrf.org/music.html" target="_blank">click here and scroll down to see some of his work)</a>.

As for this Bible class controversy, I read that some fundies in TN tried to steal the court records so that they could find out the name and address of the family that filed the suit. Hmm...I wonder why? Perhaps they want to spread some Xian love in the form of harassing phone calls or worse.

[ February 09, 2002: Message edited by: atheist_in_foxhole ]</p>

tdaschel

...okay, so the Irrev. Dan is spreading a different gospel, but a gospel nonetheless. if i, for example, set out to spread Islam through the hills of Southern Appalachia, i wouldn't pretend to be Objective. actually, i'd steal a page from the Free Thinker's Playbook[tm] and claim that i was trying to return this country to its [Muslim] roots. a stretch? not really: before said Hills were peopled by Ulster Detritus, there was supposedly a "Moorish" substrata (the Melungeons, an imaginary people regarded as "tri.racial isolates" by Skeptics[tm]). according to various masters of Sufi Gossip, Freemasonry was the West's expression of Sufism (the point of contamination being in Jerusalem during the crusades). fact is, you can sell people Anything if and only if they're willing to Buy (tho' a good pitch never hurts!). as for the sorry business of poking around in court records, i guess they need to take some lessons from the Scientologists!

Serena

.... I'm sorry, but I didn't understand a word tdaschel said. Would anyone mind clarifying to me just what the heck he's going on about?

- Serena

hezekiah jones

I have no idea, but I must say I found the expression, "Ulster Detritus" rather spiffy. He must be a Papist.

tdaschel

...jeez louise, the original post first appeared on a Brian Wilson messageboard, but the board.admin said, "we like you, tim, but the thread you chose to drop into (i.e., "did Brian really mean it when he called Van Dyke Parks a 'butthole'?") probably isn't the best place to get a thoughtful response." yes, the bWilson board, like so.many other cybergroops, is essentially a tree.house complete with passwords, secret handshakes and a lingo all its own. but, Hey, the concept of Free Thinking is intriguing, but sometimes when i've had a few, my thoughts become Too free...

anyway, this was just an (ig?)noble experiment. what did i learn? that you all are people too! very reassuring (i think). in any case, those of you in Cleveland, be sure to come out to The Barking Spider on March 9th (and Cambridge's Kendall Cafe on the 11th). Providence is still unsettled, but the venue is The Met Cafe.
may the Impersonal Force be with you!
Tim

Serena

Ah, I see. So it isn't just moi. His latest post doesn't make any sense to me either. Perhaps one day I shall figure it out. Maybe. (And if he shows up again, would he please, please clarify his posts? Seriously.)

- Serena