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Post by MozMode on Apr 9, 2009 19:27:36 GMT -5
" ... not freedom from" is the pinnacle of lameness. It shows up fairly often. Fundies like it not because it makes any sense, but because it seems to be a witty aphorism. Very Oscar Wilde-ish (although I doubt if that's the comparison they'd draw). What's more, each time one of them utters it he thinks he's being original. They don't realize that it has the intellectual impact of a turd in a punch bowl. Agreed. Anyone who spouts this in rebuttal either has nothing original to say and is just spouting talking points or is really just that.dumb.
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Post by skyfire on Apr 9, 2009 21:05:54 GMT -5
You're mangling the original meaning here. The statement originated with religious types who were reacting to the acts of some rather militant atheist groups who were initiating a series of legal actions to try and have religion completely removed from the public sphere, such as Michael Newdow's efforts to have the Pledge of Allegiance declared Unconstitutional because of the "Under God" phrase. The statement was a way of saying that just because a person is free to choose whatever belief system they want - if they do choose to have one at all - they don't have the right to dictate to others what they should believe, which is what said militant atheists were seen as trying to do to others. Yeah, it sure is militant to not want to be marginalized, and to not have the government painted like atheists aren't really a part of this nation. And if that was the original meaning, we weren't the ones mangling it. I've read on the main page, and heard from people's mouths, those two exact same statements. Remember the Newdow case? He filed suit because he found out that his daughter was saying the Pledge in class. Thing is, once the facts in the case came out, it became apparent that he was suing for his own sake - his desire to see the Pledge declared Unconstitutional - instead of for his daughter's sake (the daughter wasn't offended in the least by the Pledge, and in fact she was ostracized and humiliated by her peers thanks to Newdow's lawsuit). The Supreme Court later threw the suit out on the basis that Newdow wasn't the custodial parent and so given that he couldn't prove serious negative repercussions to his daughter by saying the Pledge he had no grounds to have even filed the suit in the first place. Newdow promptly responded by trying to locate athiests who did have legal custody of their children and having them sue to get the Pledge thrown out, which - if he'd been religious - several posters here would have given him hell for.
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Post by Vene on Apr 9, 2009 21:08:20 GMT -5
Apparently lawsuits are now militant action.
Sky, stop before you hurt yourself.
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