DigitalShadow

The constitution was written mostly be Deists and based on enlightenment principles, not "Christian Laws."

How is that freedom to you? What about my freedom to not have people peddling religion public schools? How are you any less "free" simply because public schools aren't openly religious? You are free to teach your child whatever you like at home, but your "freedom" doesn't get to dictate what EVERY child is taught at public school.

Do you honestly think that would help in this case?

To me this is less about the racism and more about teaching the kid that killing other people is OK which is incredibly dangerous to the rest of society. While I think that teaching your kid racism is disgusting, I don't think it should warrant having your kid taken away. Teaching your kid to kill other people on the other hand does warrant having your kid taken away.

That article does a horrendous job of representing any scientific viewpoint. While it is an important scientific find, it does not really "revolutionize" anything. The media, the History Channel, and a few scientists looking to become famous have been hyping it as a changing everything because they want to make money. Most of the scientific community see it for what it is, an interesting part of our history that gives more insight to the early evolutionary tree of primates. Darwin never had a theory of the origins of life, only the theory that natural selection caused the change of organisms over time and even with that he only had a very rough understanding of how it happened. Darwin didn't even have a mechanism for these changes since there was no concept of DNA or genes at the time. The spontaneous origin of life is also interesting, but completely unrelated to the theory of evolution which only deals with how organisms change over time. However, if you would honestly like to learn about some of the recent research on the spontaneous origin of life rather than a mocking summary, I suggest this article: How RNA Got Started / Science News While I suppose these sections are interesting from a historical point of view, they really have absolutely no bearing on modern science or the modern theory of evolution. If the article truly wanted to compare religious theories against evolutionary theories, focusing on Darwin is silly and misleading. I am no more a "follower of Darwin" for finding evolution to be a well supported scientific principle than I am a "follower of Newton" for finding calculus to be a useful tool. While Darwin may have gotten the ball rolling, he only had a primitive understanding at best of what he was theorizing. No scientist today believes Darwin had the complete picture and single-mindedly follows the "teachings" of Darwin as this article seems to ridiculously imply. In the 100+ years since his original research scientists have fleshed out the theory and has independently found supporting evidence across many different fields of research. If you want to completely dismiss this wealth of scientific knowledge, you are welcome to, but claiming it call came from Darwin is simply wrong.

I feel pretty much the same way, but did not want to start a debate here so I'll leave it to you :)

I had no idea you were so prejudiced against left handed people

As a technically "Latino" male, I will say that your ethnicity doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your cultural experiences. I'm half Mexican, speak maybe 10 words of Spanish (most of which you can find on the menu of Taco Bell), and have never felt discriminated against in the slightest. While I do think that cultural diversity is probably a good thing in the supreme court, I don't think ethnicity is necessarily related and furthermore I think that flaunting your ethnicity to make yourself seem more apt for a position is ridiculous and counterproductive to eliminating the silly racial boundaries that exist today. With that said, it could also be the case that she has the wisdom to be a supreme court judge regardless of her occasional stupid comments (we all make them sometimes) and it is ridiculous to judge her entirely on a few statements. As a minority, and a liberal I will say that I do not approve of that particular statement though and it does not instill confidence.

I take it you don't use antibacterial soap then?

If I won a large sum of money somehow I would quit my current job, but start my own software company instead. I don't think I could ever quit working altogether because my brain never stops trying to solve problems and I would quickly be bored to death.

That could very well be the case, but if his parents are expecting him to live by the moral code of a religion he doesn't believe in, I think they have some unrealistic expectations and are setting themselves up to be hurt. Eventually they will have to come to terms with the fact that their son has chosen a different path in life, in fact they may even have already come to terms with this. I don't think he should intentionally flaunt things his parents disapprove of, but hiding them or even stopping them altogether only prolongs the inevitable. If his parents feelings are hurt by their son being true to himself, in my opinion that is their problem to work through, not his.

It sounds like your husband probably got mildly caught up with having someone take notice of him, but that he quickly realized it wasn't as innocent as he thought and did the right thing. The other woman sounds a bit like a stalker, but it's hard to tell with only hearing one angle of the story. "Researching someone on the net" sounds disturbing when you put it like that, but could be as simple as looking at your facebook page. I would suggest you and your husband continuing to distance yourself from this woman and that you should be thankful that your husband isn't the kind of guy who would have an affair if given the chance.

From what you have said it does sound like it would be a good idea to be honest with them and not actively try to hide aspects of your life, but at the same time I don't think there is a need for you to be overly forthcoming about details like your virginity (my parents wouldn't care but it's still not something I would like to discuss with them). I think that if they haven't already disowned you, they probably won't disown you over these things, but you probably know your parents better than any of us and what they can handle.

The purpose is apparently so that you can point at the people who vote against it and say they have the exact opposite view of the bill because they voted against it regardless of their reasons.

Yeah, I heard about that a while ago. That story is disturbing on so many levels.

Haven't seen the movie, so maybe you could clarify the question a bit more?

I agree for the most part but in my opinion the legal boundaries of "freedom of religion" are very clear. People have the freedom of religion and can believe whatever they want and even do whatever they want in accordance with their religious beliefs as long as it doesn't break any laws. For example, if your religion requires human sacrifices, freedom of religion does not mean your religious beliefs can absolve you of murder charges. I do think that this case is further defining the rights of the parents vs the state but I don't think religion has anything to do with it. If it is illegal for them to refuse treatment in this situation it should still be illegal regardless of what religious beliefs the parents hold. The only real question here is whether it is legal and/or ethical for parents to be able to refuse medical treatment their children in life threatening situations. In my opinion it is not ethical and even though I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure it's not legal either since 13 is not old enough to give consent on these matters even if he were literate enough to read what he was signing.

Actually I've just read some other articles on the subject and it is not even clear whether he has a learning disability or what that disability is. I think it was inferred that he has one since he is 13 and can't read, but since he was home schooled it is entirely possible that his parents may not have even attempted to teach him how to read.

I agree that there are many cases where food storage would be useful, but there are also many cases where it would be much less useful, such as getting laid off when you don't completely own a home. I admire the preparedness of many people who have food storage and think that in general it is a good idea, but in my own personal current situation I believe the best option is simply to save away as much money as I can rather than food since I believe there is a much greater possibility that I will run in to financial trouble and wish I hadn't spent all that money on food storage. So basically given the choice between food storage and financial savings (since I can't really afford both), I prioritize saving money first because it is more likely to come in handy, but I do plan on having both eventually.

I don't think that is the case. It sounds like the kid does not understand the dangers he is facing and from his statements he thinks that chemo is what would kill him, not the cancer he currently has. I would be willing to bet that it is his parents who told him this and he is not going to believe a doctor over his parents.

The boy has a learning disability, can't read and has apparently been told by his parents that the chemo would kill him. I don't think there is any question that this kid is not in a position to make an informed decision on the matter and his parents seem perfectly content to continue ineffective alternative medicines and would probably let their son die because of their faith in those alternative medicines.

From what I can tell from the article the boy had one treatment of chemo therapy, that shrunk the tumor but the parents refused any more subsequent treatments opting to use "alternative" treatments and now the tumor has grown again and the child is complaining of severe chest pain. Is it a parents right to let their child die? The "alternative" treatments are obviously not working since the tumor is growing rather than shrinking so by letting the parents continue with it you would be basically sentencing the kid to probable death. No matter what the parents believe religiously or otherwise, if it is clearly endangering the child, the law will have to intervene. If it were some parents religious belief that children don't require food or water, would it not be right to go against the parents religious beliefs and give the child a chance at living?

Large evolutionary changes happen very slowly, especially in species like humans that take around 20 years to reproduce and start a new generation. We can observe small evolutionary changes in action though on organisms like bacteria and viruses that have a very short life span and reproduce very quickly. That's why you get the flu every year rather than just once and why you are told to take all the antibiotics you were prescribed even if you are feeling better or you might give rise to a resistant strain of bacteria. We are in fact still evolving, but all of recorded human history is a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms so it is not surprising we have not noticed large changes in the human species over this time. If you never had a science teacher who would answer your question, you probably never had a competent science teacher. Sadly that is not uncommon.

No, I'm telling you that you and that guy share a great-great....great-great-granddaddy

That's my point. Either way it is firmly rooted in faith, whether you "feel" the holy spirit guiding you or simply accept that its there.