Choose your misery.

[Lost-in-FL]

You come across a "bagger" friend who is actually not a bad person at all.

She/He goes to church and helps the poor because of "religious principles" as she/he states. She/He tells you that they only want to "take their country back", to live in a republic "under God" not in a place this country is turning into (religiously) because of Obama. She/He says that we are becoming like the USSR. You didn't put too much thought about it. Went home and got in bed.

Now, given the current state of our nation (overall) and taking in consideration world (current and past) events, choose a better choice for you and your family and, only if you like, share why.

Lets say you wake up in 2210. You come to find out that things have become horribly wrong. If you have to live miserably, under which misery would you rather live.


ATTENTION: This is not a direct critique of atheism or Belief systems. It is only a little experiment to explore reactions under worse case scenarios.



HAVE FUN!!!!



Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.
— Albert Camus "The Rebel"

[Warpy]

1. None of the above

State atheism didn't work out too well anyplace it was tried, making the religious more fervid in their beliefs and driving the whole business underground where it flourished because religion thrives on persecution.

A purely secular state with religious freedom would be a better option, but I guess if things have gone terribly wrong in 200 years, none of the alternatives would be attractive.

So I vote NOTA, with a side order of starting an underground effort to overthrow the whole rotten business.

[Scuba]

2. +1

[Demonaut]

28. +1

[Lost-in-FL]

4. I am not going to disagree with you at all...

because you are completely right about that. However, the question is not what we want our country to be but in which state do you think would allow you more "liberties" as an individual, while still living in misery.

That is the reason I did not add "None of the above". :)


Sorry if the way I phrased the question was confusing. I am not very good at it.



:blush:

[begin_within]

3. Separation of church and state.

Religions are supposed to provide spiritual guidance to their followers, not political guidance. But religions seem to be failing to attract new members in large quantities, so they have decided to metastasize into the public sphere and become political action committes, usually in a subtle, indirect way, but sometimes in overt and shocking ways. Public policy and politics should be none of their business.

[joshcryer]

5. Have we learned nothing?

Wow. Just wow.

[Lost-in-FL]

7. Do you care to explain your reaction? nt

[joshcryer]

12. "What misery would you prefer to live in." "The most miserable possible, thanks."

The USSR and Mao's China's brutally killed millions of people, it was, in a word, the worst kind of conditions you can expect a human to persist.

[Lost-in-FL]

16. All right then...

I see your desire to judge me is getting on the way of your capacity to use your logic.

[joshcryer]

21. I am merely being critical of the poll results.

I make no statement about you and indeed find the results quite interesting.

[Lost-in-FL]

25. I apologize for jumping the gun on you.

:blush:

[Lost-in-FL]

6. In which MISERY would you rather be?

We all know what we want in life. That is a very easy question to answer.

However, given certain tools… where do you think you would be more "sucessful" or the least "miserable" while still be able to get around the system and succeed following your current state of mind, your convictions or ideals, opinions, and so on.

The (about to be a failed) experiment is about "liberties" in totalitarian states. Think 1984, occupied France during WWII, USSR, Spain during Franco, etc. Where do you see yourself being "more successful" at attaining your ideals.

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. You lost me at "not a bad person"

I'm sorry, but anyone whose core philosophy is rooted in so much abject greed that they can't either (i) see the forest for the trees or (ii) can, but don't care isn't worth 5 seconds of my time to even find out why they believe what they believe.

Yeah, I'm rather black and white like that.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. State Atheism can mean a couple different things.

It can mean the State has no god, and the state endorses no God or gods, and that's a good thing.

I don't think the state should be in the religion business at all, nor should it dictate the private beliefs or lack of beliefs of citizens.

That said, science should be taught in public schools, for instance. If that conflicts with peoples' religious beliefs, too bad.

[Lost-in-FL]

10. Correct. However, religious sectors point their fingers at the USSR

when speaking of "atheistic" nations. Somehow they seem to forget strictly secular countries like Sweden, France, etc.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. I'm against totalitarianism, period.

I don't care who is doing it or what it's called.

[Lost-in-FL]

17. Have never met anyone personally that enjoyed their life in a totalitarian regime.

Something tells me that people are already thinking that I am pro-Totalitarian.

What can I say? :eyes:

[Warren DeMontague]

19. that certainly wasn't my implication, that you're anything of the sort.

I was just talking about myself. Sorry if I wasn't clear. :hi:

[Lost-in-FL]

23. No problem.

:hi: I apologize for me being a dumbass.

[joshcryer]

13. 70% of Swedes are Luthern, which was the State Church (until 2000).

In that vein that United States has been "more secular" than Sweden since our constitution enumerated a separation of Church and State from its inception (even if it didn't always work out that way).

[Lost-in-FL]

26. You have a good point there.

Our constitution is one of a kind and very "progressive" for that time.

However… my mention of Sweden is due to a poll stating that Sweden's population is one of the least religious in the world.


http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/02/11/5-least-religious-countries-in-the-world

[joshcryer]

30. Yeah, but even the United States meets that criteria (only 20.4% attend Church).

http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#attend

The thing is, it's a lot easier to worship a fake faith and be a hypocrite than it is to have no faith. In one instance you can just do the regular ritual, in the other you are forbidden from doing the ritual. So in that vein mandated atheism leaves no room for faith or ritualistic behavior, if you're caught practicing you wind up in a reeducation camp, etc.

Ultimately though the level of misery is probably very tied to the level of development. Being a Pagan during the Dark Ages was probably not very pleasant!

[FarLeftFist]

14. LOL @ 1 vote for state atheism right-wing. Theeeey're heeeere...

[Lost-in-FL]

18. +1

I just hope that it was done as a jk or mistake.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. I don't understand the preamble about the 'good' bigoted right

winger. At all. So I did not vote. I vote for future free of ignorance and with lots of organic all you can eat places open all hours.

[Lost-in-FL]

27. ...

:thumbsup:

[Lost-in-FL]

29. The preamble that Democratic presidents always want to...

turn the USA into some kind of atheistic-communst country. They don't think of the implications of a right wing theocracy which is as bad.

[Lyric]

20. I voted State Atheism/Left Wing, but what I really mean is State SECULARISM/Left Wing.

I don't want the government to take any position on religion whatsoever.

[joshcryer]

22. That is not a poll option.

[BiggJawn]

24. Not many folks here want to live under a Theocracy.

That's a good sign.

[socialshockwave]

31. None.

I'd rather not live in a country where my belief in God and Jesus Christ are punished - or in one where I have to believe in a certain form of the Bible.