The book they are giving to Rush--"Happiness Digest"--is a book that was originally titled "Steps to Christ" and was written by Seventh-day Adventist founder Ellen G. White, a proven false prophet. See: http://www.nonegw.org/ The book, and Seventh-day Adventism and Ellen G. White in general, teach a false gospel of salvation by faith plus works and deny the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. I hope this group is not able to suck Rush into their cult! More info can be found at my website also: http://www.cultorchristian.com/

It must be so comforting to every believer, of every religion that exists, or has ever existed, that they are, or were, the possessors of absolute truth based on squat. If ever there was an occasion where this god creature could show its love for its children (especially the minorities Limbaugh hates), it could touch Rush's heart in a full fisted grasp and send him straight to their supposed hell, and even that would be too good for him.

Hey Robert
Same for you my brother

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes listening to Mr. Limbaugh knows he doesn't "hate minorities". He hates the victim mentality that minority groups are taught. He also knows the best way out of victim status is to learn, grow and work your way through it. He has stated numerous times that the evils perpetrated against some minorities are real and horrific. But to wallow in them and take the socialistic view that the way to overcome them is by making everyone else change is counterproductive and. in fact, destructive to society as a whole. Listen to him. You'll see.

Mike Bonin - I get it, Rush doesn't hate minorities, he just hates everything about them that isn't Lily white Right-wing. I've listened to him long enough to know where he is coming from and if you are defending this racist sack of, you know what, then I must assume you are made of like material. Rush Limbaugh is a diseased mind that infects other diseased minds, and we can only hope his penchant for consuming bakeries gets the best of him, the sooner the better.

I beg to differ about Ellen G. White. This black woman is inspired of God. She predicted the 9/11 event and has given the Adventist church some invaluable health information such as predicting that smoking causes cancer long before the research proved it. Her book Diet on Counsels and Food can save lives and if the advice is followed would virtually put doctors out of business. I truly believe that she had a deep connection with God. Unfortunately, the recent revelations that she is a black woman has caused upheavals in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Many blacks feel as though the church has failed to leave the pre-civil rights era and has a dismal record on race relations. Many of our leaders are solid supporters of the beliefs of Rush Limbaugh.

Rocky Twyman, Founder
Pray at the Pump Movement

Robert Littel, it is clear that you have never listened to Mr. Limbaugh for even one minute.

In addition, your apparent politically correct narrow-mindedness as evidenced by your tired rhetoric makes you the true intolerant bigot, not Mr. Limbaugh.

Only a doctrinaire Right-wing buffoon could call someone who constantly argues for the rights of all citizens, health care for all, the redressing of a system that has been corrupted to the point where 1/2 of ALL the wealth (power) in the country sits in the pockets of about 4000 individuals (leaving the other half badly distributed to the remaining 315,000,000 of us), and the enforcement of the Separation Principle of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, so that not only are the rights of believers protected, but also so that the rights of non-believers can be protected from abuse by over zealous and intractable believers, as being a " true intolerant bigot". Rush Limbaugh, and anyone who thinks he makes sense, is a brain dead idiot, who hasn't a clue about what this country is supposed to represent.

Robert, I Love Ya!!! LOL
I couldn't have said it better.

Only to add that if these praying folk really want to do something worthy, how about they pray for our troops, those innocent Afghans and Iraqi's who are caught up in bush's orchestrated and planned slaughter?

Ah-men

Please remove my comments from this blog.

Rocky Twyman

Rocky,

Actually, even the White Estate admits that EGW never predicted 9/11. Also, most of her health nonsense is actually harmful, besides being doctrines of demons according to the Bible (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5). None of her health "predictions" came before these things were already widely known--including smoking being harmful/cancer-causing, which was already known decades before. See the book "White Washed" by Sydney Cleveland.

As for racism, Ellen White herself was a racist. See: http://www.cultorchristian.com/egwbigotry.html

The first nuclear bomb dropped on us and even non believers will be praying for Rush to be president. Of course our president (if he is still in office) would say, "lets not Rush to jump to conclusions."

Clay - As long as you insist on hanging it out there like a fish sausage at a cat sanctuary, you are going to have people accusing you of extreme stupidity. Have you no clue at all?

Nice speech Robert and I'm sure in your deluded yourself that is what you are doing. You are every bit as much of an intolerant bigot as Limbaugh. I still remember you saying if you had your way you strip out the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. You would have religion banned and you treat anyone of any beliefs as intellectually inferior and not worthy of respect. If you had your way religion would be banned. You've already time and time again said they aren't. That makes you a bigot. Unlike Limbaugh who's a right wing one you are a left wing one. You NEVER have countered anyone who disagrees with you without petty and childish insults and personal attacks. Your left wing rhetoric is nonsense and you have NEVER backed any of it with actual factual information. You calling anyone an intolerant bigot is the pot calling the kettle black.

ravensfan - I don't think religion is worth the powder that would be needed to blow it away, that, of course, is my opinion. Also, I don't think it is something healthy that should have any role on taking away freedoms from people who do not share your strange beliefs. Do I believe that the world would be a better place if everyone pulled their collective heads out of the sand, (or other dark places) and faced our ever mounting problems from a rational perspective? Of course I do.

I have also said innumerable times that you are free to believe any silly stupid thing you wish as long as you do not use the coercive power of the state to shove your delusional beliefs on all the rest of us. The Establishment Clause, and its Separation Principle, are the only safeguards in The Constitution that exist to protect us from the abuses you would be comfortable heaping upon us, so I find it not only vital, but in need of strengthening, as it seems vulnerable to assault by the forces of superstitonists like yourself.

You have always proven yourself to be most put out by anyone who has the temerity to challenge accepted dogma, taking any criticism of religion as a personal attack against you. This is typical of those who are delusional enough to think the posses absolute truth derived from myth and superstition, as their very superiority over lower evolved life forms is dependant on association with an invented higher being, to which they attempt to identify and eventually join, in the equally improbable after-life. Your problem is that you cannot tolerate those who deny your particular form of ego driven chauvinism and you seem to have no problem reducing all your opponents (out of context) intents, into a diatribe of lies, like that spun in your last comment. You are marginally more clever than Clay, but every bit as ignorant and deluded. As always, you have my profound pity, because you are never going to think outside your narrow, shallow limitations.

Robert – I’ve studied rationalism and it supporters and critics. One of the more interesting criticism comes from someone not even a member of my own faith Mahatma Gandhi “Rationalists are admirable beings, but rationalism is a hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is worship of a stick and stone believing it to be God.” Wouldn’t a logical & rational person look for areas of agreement and work to build up rather than tear down? Why spend so much time insulting and attacking others? Wouldn’t it make more sense to look for areas we agree on and work to improve the world?

Funny I seem to recall supporting the Establishment Clause every time it comes up. The Establishment Clause’s purpose was also to protect religion from Government interference that narrow minded people like you would advocate. You also said the establishment clause was a mistake and should have been left out. Maybe your memory isn’t as good as you think. I’ve never advocated anything on religious basis. You just like making that empty allegation to divert attention from the issue at hand. You mention it more than I do in secular issues. You have burned into mind a stereotype about those who believe and your posts reflect it over and over again. That’s why you accuse me of lies. To you any statement that doesn’t fit into your stereotype is a lie. It couldn’t be that your view of religious people is wrong so it must be me who is lying right.

Explain how calling me ignorant and deluded not a personal attack. That sure wasn’t an attempt to pass on your enlightenment. You also suffer from persecution complex for your beliefs. You do more talking about having your values assaulted than most evangelicals. Here’s a suggestion check the insults at the door and try engaging in conversation and debate without attacking or insulting even if you vehemently disagree. You may find be surprised how much more good comes from constructive talk as opposed to destructive talk.

ravensfan - If religion is as I state, "the end result of a failed search for truth by a very shallow mind, provided any search was ever made in the first place", then the term delusional is not a derogatory term, but an accurate description of the mental state of one who could hold such childish, illogical and debilitating (note Clay's grasp of reality as an example) frame of reference. It is not my fault that the majority of Humanity has fallen into the cesspool of institutionalized superstition, nor do I have to respect the fact that they have been bought off so easily (and cheaply) in what, by all logical definitions, is nothing but a pack of fairy-tale lies.

The existence of institutions that mandate that they are the arbiters of ultimate truth, based on the accumulated myths and superstitions of their less than literate ancestors, will ALWAYS foster the extreme, be it individuals who set off bombs to kill other Humans in the name of their gods (suicide bombers of Muhammad, or clinic bombers of Christ), or entire societies, where like minded practitioners kill each other over minutia (Iraq, Ireland to name two).

Religion is no longer a positive value. It may provide a panacea to an individual who has no problem abrogating their duty to use the highly evolved (though not high enough yet) brain. It is being used as a political tool and the battles they are choosing to fight are being waged in areas difficult to counter, because they do not exist. You cannot reason with a suicide bomber, because he doesn't see his act as the end of life, just a step into a higher plane. One cannot offer him a choice because the one he has been offered (though totally bogus) is much better than your alternative, in his feeble mind. Clay is just one voice in his head away from becoming this type of freak and our society is full of Clays, being pumped up by the rubbish that is religious belief. To argue that we must find accommodation with the institutions of a belief system that are always going to generate zealots and always act as an anchor dragging on the bottom, when we should be at full sail in our effort to survive the mess we have made of the planet, is absurd and must be identified as such despite the best efforts of apologists for this travesty to silence it. You may continue your counterattack and you may impress some shallow minds, but the truth will not be silenced by the likes of you.

Robert – What makes it derogatory is that you are saying anyone who doesn’t share your views is of shallow mind and therefore delusional. Your opinion isn’t fact or truth. You just push a different one. You also seem to be under the notion that all people of faith are the same. The source of the problem isn’t religion but human beings. Religion has been misused in the past by those trying to justify some form of cruelty or silencing of foes. The flaw in what your view is you don’t see the real cause which is the vices of human beings. If you had your way and religion was eliminated tomorrow people would still find reasons to kill and commit terrorist acts. They would simply justify them another way. It isn’t religion that generates them. Religion is used by them as justification. That’s the flaw in your thinking.

“Religion is no longer a positive value” So you are saying that loving your neighbor or enemies is no longer a positive value. What about lying, stealing, killing, and helping those in needs. Those are all part of Christianity and many other religions as well. What you do is focus in negatives and dismiss or ignore the positives. Somehow I hardly consider the view that only those who share your atheist views are the only ones worthy of respect says that much about atheism. It really doesn’t make you any different from Clay of those like him.

What is an anchor to civilization isn’t religion, but those who refuse to find ways to accommodate those who think and believe differently. A case can be made that your refusal to acknowledge that all people should be treated respectfully and only those who abandon religion deserve respect makes you as big an anchor as anyone. I don’t mean that as a personal attack and if you take it that way I apologize. It is meant to get you to see that the real stumbling block isn’t faith, or lack of it. The real stumbling blocks are things like greed, selfishness, dishonesty, pride, wrath, anger, intolerance. Those are things all of us possess to some degree and all of us need to work to rid ourselves of. In talking about silencing truth aren’t you doing what the very same thing you attack religion over pushing an ultimate truth. I don’t want you silenced, but what makes your opinion truth?

ravensfan - I attack religion because I attack entrenched stupidity, I attack that which stands in the way of our being able to slow down population growth (religious breeding contests), I attack any effort by religion to take away rights, subjugate women, and paint a false picture of the world. You state that if religion was gone, we would find other reasons to hate, which no doubt is true, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, lends itself so well to marshaling hate, and retributive behavior against those on the other side of any issue, than religion. To rally a population to any cause, it is easier if you can tie it to absolutist chauvinistic unchallengeable beliefs that go to the core of our ingrained programmed desire to always be right about everything. Religion is a lie, which you cannot deny short of producing this god of yours, and religion has always been a tool for social and political control. Any lie that becomes the central core of any society will turn that society into a reflection of the worst aspects of that lie. We are on the edge of a takeover by the most extreme segments of our least flexible religious traditions and it is all being orchestrated by an autocracy that thinks it can control this beast once it is unleashed. We will no more be able to have the more moderate religious segments of our society be able to reign in the extremist Christians than the moderate Muslims are able to reign in their extremist elements. I think it would be in all our interests (as in the whole world) if religion was suppressed to the point where it never gets into a position of political power, with dramatic and public punishment for anyone who kills in the name of any god. Your defense of the "good" in religion, is like lauding the taste of the mushrooms that only grow in hot cow dung.

And Robert, Ravensfan would say, show me where in the Bible does it say that the masses have to be controlled or that women have to breed or that homosexuals have to be condemned--it is never religion to the religious--it is the misuse of religion by humans--the religious always have an escape valve--question them why they hate homosexuals-boom--we hate the sin and not the sinner--question why they would take away a woman's right to control her own body and her reproductive system-- boom--a deep respect for all life from inception--the sanctity of the entire creation of this god creature--question why why we should all worship this god--boom--otherwise there would be no sense of right or wrong--no distinction between evil and good--no human conscience at play--no morality--and all perverse behaviors of the religious--question that--boom--those are aberrations--people who indulge in extreme behaviors are really not Muslims-not really Christians--not really Hindus--no siree--they don't belong with the truly religious--they don't reflect poorly on the holy books--a religion should not be judged based on the viciousness of its loudest proponents--in short the religious will always find a way around every argument that will hang them. Admission of guilt is not a religious strength. Something else will drown humanity anyway if religions do not do it--so Ravensfan seized by a case of mighty big illogic, says why not religion?
Religion Ravensfan is no more than fraud perpetrated on humans by humans--it is a power play of the priestly class since the beginning of civilization--a great way to keep the masses genuflected, sweating, anxious, terrified and mumbling for mercy and a marvelous ploy for the ruling elite to play and plunder while the masses pray. That you would be a banner waver for such crass idiocy Ravensfan is utterly disheartening because you are by no means a mean intellect.
Ravensfan Anon

Robert - You can spout all the nonsense you want at the end of the day what you can not escape is all you said is nothing more than an opinion. You can make all the attacks you want it doesn't change that fact. I'm not about to yet again point out the laws and logical fallacy flowing through that diatribe as it is a waste of my time. You are far too committed to your own dogma to think beyond it. By the way nationalism has also been used through history as a means of galvanizing hate. I'm sure you will attempt to somehow blame that on religion as well. The reality is you have your won religion too Robert. Yours is rationalism and you doggedly promote it and attack others as well as any religious zealot. Like I said you are the anti-clay.

Anon - Like Robert you go on a long diatribe as though something more than your own opinion. I hate to rain on both yours and Roberts’s parade of rationalism and atheist dogma but all it is nothing more than your opinion. Both of you are entitled to believe whatever you wish just don’t expect everyone to go along with your jaded views. Well at least you don’t rely on the same level of appeals to ridicule, ad hominem arguments, fallacies of relevance, and appeals to ignorance that he uses.

I wouldn’t be so arrogant to presume anything about me my friend. My choices came after considerable soul searching and looking at many other possibilities including that which you and Robert so fiercely proclaim as the ultimate truth. The only thing I’m seized by is how truly lacking compassion both you and Robert really are. Like any good politician you focus only on those minute things which support what you believe then talk about them ad nauseam in order to make your case. The strange thing is neither you nor Robert have even come close to giving me a good reason to consider your beliefs or should I say lack of beliefs?

ravensfan - Neither Ravensfan Anon or myself, make the claim of possessing "Ultimate Truth". We have gone out of our way to illustrate that the ultimate truth is at present, and until we evolve to point where we (as in all of Humanity) have earned the answer to that question, unknowable. We support the idea that it is most proper, and undeniably logical and rational, to admit to our limitations, and continue to search for the truth.

What gets in our craw is that their are people like you, who have no clue as to what is the "Ultimate Truth", who are intent on making your invented form of it, every-one's ultimate truth, or at least suppressing any one from criticizing the ridiculousness of your much touted beliefs, while furthering their spread even further. You have been lead off the evolutionary path by an anomaly in the informational flow, that is a rational dead-end. Religion, is a wall at the end of a cul-de-sac of misunderstanding that has stopped Humanity's intellectual growth, in its tracks. The sad part is that you have nothing left but to try to drag us down to your level by making our considered observations as vacuous as the gods upon which you squat. You have chosen to stay on the bus as it heads for an abyss, don't blame us for not hopping on.

Robert – What makes your statement hypocritical is your continued idea that people who believe in God are somehow deluded or of inferior intellect. You operate with the bigoted and arrogant notion that only atheist admit their limitations and search for truth. As I said before your opinion regarding what I believe is just that yet once again you state it as some sort of fact. I’d certainly call that someone who believes he has an “ultimate truth” at least about God anyway. I know you don’t have any others your arguments on health care and politics more showed that.

What gets in your craw is anyone who doesn’t share your narrow minded view of the world. I don’t recall seeing people ever try and suppress anyone’s right to speak. That’s just your persecution complex coming through. What stops humanities intellectual growth is those who believe their views, beliefs and dogmas are the only ones deserving of respect. Only someone supremely arrogant would talk about someone else dragging them down. Sorry to break it to you but you are at the same level as everyone else so all I did was try and open your eyes and mind to that. Actually you have it backwards as usual. You are on the bus people like me got off a long time ago. Now were are calling to you to get off and you mock us while sitting on that bus speeding towards the abyss. The only thing I blame you for is being a narrow minded bigot who treats everyone who disagrees with him disrespectfully and an inability to make logical arguments.

ravensfan - You are starting to sound like the child that just repeats everything you say back to you, until you want to scream. It is no good, and only a symptom that you are running out of ideas. Your attempt to make me wallow in the mud of delusional double-talk and absurdities, in an effort to lower the bar so that you are somehow on a par with people who don't base their lives on superstitious fairy-tails involving infantile god concepts, is ludicrous. Congratulations, you become more like Clay every day.

Robert (anti-clay) - I figured your only response would be more infantile insults. Why don’t you try making a case for your opinions? Your basic argument in a nutshell is no one can prove to you God exists therefore he doesn’t. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional and somehow inferior. I’d hardly call that a convincing argument for your beliefs or why anyone should take you or them seriously.

ravensfan - I believe that people who believe so much based on so little, who then want to spread those baseless beliefs to the rest of us by infecting all aspects of culture and interpersonal relationships are, ".. delusional and somehow inferior". It is not my fault that you are so shallow that you have to subscribe to such mindless crutches to give your life meaning and I sure as hell, don't like the spill-over that occurs while like minded superstitious fools try to make those imperatives, my imperatives, especially when they seem to have no problem using the coercive power of the state to do so.

Robert - Much of what you said applies equally to you and many of your fellow atheists as well. Unlike you I don’t take offense at someone trying to respectfully engage talking about what they believe or don’t believe. I agree the state shouldn’t be used to force any religion or atheism on anyone. However, you mistakenly mingle religion with values that belong to several or people in general. For example regardless of your position on abortion or gay marriage I’m sure there are people on both sides from most faiths and even atheist. Not only religious people had a different view than you on the subject. So your calling someone lobbying for their view on issues like that unconstitutional are incorrect.

Nice try ravensfan, but no banana for you. When faced with a prima facie argument that you cannot refute, you always go for the muddy the water tactic to try to marginalize the charge against you, by absurdly claiming your opponent's argument is as stupid as yours. That, of course, is to be expected from people whose ethical and intellectual building blocks are made out of smoke.

Robert –Your previous post had no prima facie argument or so there was nothing for me to refute. This new one also contains no such argument. Your other post started out “I believe”. Clearly that makes it your personal view and not prima facie unless you are claiming your beliefs are sufficient enough proof regarding the intellectual state of all who believe in God. If you believe that then it is you who are the delusional one. Don’t repeat the tired old demand for proof of God. I’m not biting on your negative proof fallacy, and I’m not trying to convert you Robert. Your mind is far too closed to anything except your own dogma for me to make any argument you would even consider.

I did make a charge that it is you who muddy the waters as you put it by trying to take issues and frame them solely as religious. That way you can avoid discussing them in legal and political terms. Using the very tactics you accused me of you ignored it and went to your typical ad hominem arguments.

Regardless of what you think there is nothing prima facie about anything you’ve said. You have made plenty of bare assertion fallacy arguments. Get over yourself Robert everything you have said is the as you see it through your own twisted paradigm and nothing more.

ravensfan - Belief based on demonstrable fact is valid, and I am as certain as can be that belief based only on the desire for something to be true is invalid and quite generally rubbish. That is why Atheists lay no claim whatever to possessing absolute truth about ANYTHING, unless it has been shown by a preponderance of substantiating proof that it is true. What is it that makes you deny the FACT that what you believe (which you are perfectly allowed to believe, as long as you don't go ramming it down every-one's throat) is based on NOTHING by myth and superstition. That is a fact that cannot be denied by anyone who has any kind of a grasp on the concepts of reason and logic.

You demand the right to beliefs that have no rational basis and at the same time, you demand to be treated as if these beliefs are rational, in the face of those (acting in a rational and logical manner) who dare to say they are not. It would not even be a question for discussion, if religion wasn't making so much of an effort to impose their narrow perceptions of reality on the rest of us, and as long as they continue to do so, idiots like you are going to have to whether the backlash.

Robert – Using your logic truth isn’t obtained until something is demonstrable. Following along on that logic no discovery ever made was valid until it became a demonstrable. Do you have any idea how illogical and incorrect that is? You do lay claim to the ultimate truth that God is nothing but myth and superstition. You also lay claim the ultimate truth that all who believe are somehow delusional and mentally inferior and that the only way to true enlightenment is atheism. None of those views are “beliefs based on demonstrable fact” therefore using your own standard they too are not valid. You operate with the biased and flawed assumptions that in order to think using reason and logic one must abandon their faith. That is nothing more than atheist dogma and myth. What one believes and ones ability to grasp logic and reason are not mutually exclusive. An atheist has no better or worse a grasp on them than anyone else.

I personally have never demanded anything. All I have tried to do is show you your owm illogical and irrational beliefs. What I have said from the beginning people of all views and beliefs deserve to be treated with respect. Calling people delusional and mentally inferior is not rational or logical. I’ve made more rational and logical arguments then I care to count and you never respond with rational or logical rebuttals. What makes you think that your juvenile insults present any meaningful backlash to anyone? All they do is belittle you and your own beliefs. I’ve never come across an atheist yet who could generate any kind of backlash that did anything other than make me laugh at them or feel sorry for them you included.

ravensfan - Such is the mind of those who can accept myth and delusional wants for truth. You are as pathetic a creature as Clay, only you have yet to accept that fact. In the grand game of understanding, both you and Clay are at the starting line, he with no legs and you with only one.

Robert - Yet again instead of a logical response you make a personal attack. It's always easy to tell when you don’t have a logical response that's when you do nothing but make personal attacks. It's rather funny you call me deluded when you make no logical argument for why your views should be taken seriously. You shouldn’t talk about Clay since you are no better. I may not agree with much of what he says, but at least he doesn’t use the ad hominem logic and appeals to ridicule that you rely on.

ravensfan - I'm pretty much sick and tired of dealing with you on any level. You want your cake and you want to eat it too. No matter what argument is made, it isn't enough for you and then you badger until your opponent slaps you back. Next you feign personal assault and get all self righteous in your standard ploy of claiming to be the victim of hate because someone won't kiss your butt and acknowledge that religion is anything more a huge con, that is being run against people, much the way a heroin dealer does to hook an addict. It is not my fault that you have been bought so cheaply by institutions of delusion and superstitious belief. That is your problem and my only concern is how your stupid beliefs affect the rest of society when you apply them to the rest of us. Religion is what it is, a fraud, and should be treated the same way that any con to sell swamp land in Florida, or everlasting life in a make believe reality should be treated, as a criminal action, UNTIL YOU PROVE THAT RELIGION CAN DELIVER THE PROMISED GOODS, which you can't.

Robert – Enough for me would be a logical argument devoid of childish name calling and ad hominem logic and appeals to ridicule. I’ve never once tried to argue the existence of God since I conceded long ago no argument would suffice for you. Everything you said violates the basic logic. It’s your usual nonsense devoid of any logical statements. I’m sorry if the truth of that makes you sick. You seem to be the one with the problem. I’m not whining about what you say as you just did. What you believe is your business. But if you choose to hold them out as facts or truth then be prepared to have it challenged. If it bothers you that much don’t respond or do something about it. Give anyone a reason to consider that what you say is more than the views of an atheist spewing his own dogma.

ravensfan - Do you ever address the allegations, no, but you do respond every time in an effort to shut down those who stand for the rational position. The argument is meaningless to you because you cannot defend the religious position, so you won't even try. Instead you pound away at the messenger, trying to denigrate them so that they will either give up and go away, leaving the field to you, or who, in the heat of dealing with someone as recalcitrant as you, slips in a comment or word, that you can latch onto to further your tactic of playing the victim of personal attack. It is a clever ploy when you have no case, but it is still just a cheap attempt to wave your hands in the face of the argument so we won't notice it doesn't have any legs. Your throwing the term logic around as if it is I who have raped the concept is laughable and little more than an attempt on your part to make the central point of the argument against religion lose all its meaning. You are a piece of work.

Robert – All I commented on was your arrogant assumption that only those who believe as you are worthy of respect. You can’t defend any position to someone who has already made up their mind as you have on the subject of God. Regardless of what you say your multitudes of posts justify every comment I have made about you. I find it rather funny that you complain about me “pounding away at the messenger, trying to denigrate them”. That’s actually a great description of you. You even admitted I wasn’t worthy of respect. Not once have I ever said that in regards to you or any views you rant on about on this forum. There is nothing logical in this post or any other you make. You attempt to use as I’ve said countless times already appeals to ridicule and ad hominem in the hopes of doing to me the very thing you accuse me of doing. You’ve made no argument against religion except that I can’t prove God exists therefore unless I can He doesn’t. That itself is a logical fallacy. It’s obvious that you can not make any argument without personal attacks. Your problem is you want religion stamped out and to do so would require you to be able to prove God doesn't exist. Since you can’t you do the only thing you can do attack those who believe and their religion. You like any bigot assume all people who believe are the same and make generalized assumptions about us. For all your talk of enlightenment you are one of the most unenlightened minds I’ve ever come across. Not because you choose to reject God, but because you are too narrow minded to accept and treat with respect anyone who doesn’t follow the same path as you.

ravensfan - When have I EVER said that religion is anything but a cheap fraud, with NO basis for its existence outside of the false comfort it gives to people while being fleeced by the churches for the recommended 10% they want to extort in exchange for everlasting life, a product they do not have, cannot show exists and cannot deliver until the fleeced victim is dead. Religion is the ultimate con, that is tax free and protected (mistakenly) by the government and perpetrated by hucksters and true believers who are so ignorant, or stupid (see Clay) they cannot conceive that an alternative argument could have any validity. It is a fear based panacea, fed to children before they can walk. " Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake...", is a cruel form of indoctrination that no child should be exposed to until they are old enough to understand the reality of death. So, why do you think that I, or anyone, should show you, or anyone stupid, ignorant, or freely choosing to participate in the con any kind of respect to it or them, at all? Religion in all its forms is archaic and obstructionist in a day and age when reason and logic are the only things that can allow us to deal with the complicated problems facing us, rather than sticking our heads in the sands of superstitious delusionalism. The faster we can get this rotting dead albatross from around our necks, the better.

Robert – Thanks for proving me right on everything I said about you. Sorry to tell you that God is going nowhere. You can make all the insulting and disrespectful comments and personal attacks you like. All it does is make you look more and more like the unenlightened one. You remind me of like a child throwing a fit because he doesn’t like what his parents tell him. Your biggest problem is you make the completely flawed assumption that religious belief and logic are mutually exclusive. Isn’t rather funny you keep accusing me of trying to silence you and here you are saying “The faster we can get this rotting dead albatross from around our necks, the better.” That sure sounds like someone trying to silence someone. Before you make that accusation against me next time go back and read both our posts and count the number of times you have made such statements. Then find where I ever made one similar. The problems of the world will never be solved as long as extremist like you, Limbaugh and others arrogantly spout such vile hate and bigotry on a regular basis. That’s as you put it the “rotting dead albatross around our necks”.

ravensfan, or Anonymous (you keep forgetting which moniker you are using, as if using two in the same forum is honest) - Why do you think that my free admission that I find your unsupportable beliefs to have any real meaning is such a surprise. I have always been honest about everything I allege and that it is supportable by conclusions based in reasoned thought and the weight of all evidence? Your continued effort to paint me as a wild-eyed animal spewing hate against something sacred should be mitigated by the fact that NOTHING is sacred and what you demand I respect is nothing but a huge con perpetrated against Humanity as a form of social control that is based on nothing but made-up lies.

The game you are playing is now so obvious that even people who sympathize with your twisted view of reality can see that all you are trying to do is shut down anyone who makes the credible argument that challenges those beliefs. You say your god creature isn't going away and that is perhaps true, because absurdities have a tendency to be carried forward by those without the ability to recognize what is absurd, but you can rest assured that the only way you are going to stop people from challenging the absurdities you wish to be the central core of Humanity's beliefs, will be to kill us. Anything short of that will fail and any attempt to carry that out will be resisted with more than equal force.

Robert - I had another post were I forgot to use it. I thought that was the only one I guess I was wrong. What you find my beliefs is up to you. The reason I comment as I did is your need to insult and treat people as somehow inferior to you solely on the basis of what they believe. I’m not painting you as anything. You do that quite fine on your own. Funny how you complain about me calling you’re a wild-eyed animal and then you make a statement that only someone acting as such would make talking of resisting with force. The only one who has ever talked about ending anything is you about my beliefs or religion in general. I’ve never once said you don’t have the right to yours or that they should be extinguished. I’m not surprised that you would mention force. Despite your attempts to paint yourself as some sort of reasoned rational logical thinking person NONE of your posts support that. Actually faith is already at the central core of humanities beliefs that’s what really bugs you. You want to push it out in favor of your own. So nothing is sacred? Even if I didn’t believe in God I’d find that statement reminiscent of a cave man. So you are saying human life isn’t sacred. That very statement is why your narrow minded beliefs are rubbish. Its that sort of thinking that will in the end bring down humanity the sad part is you are either too stubborn or too stupid to see it.

ravensfan / (Fake)Anonymous - Considering your very own unChristian beliefs regarding the maldistribution of health care by the corporatists, you always stand up for, your attitude about the sanctity of life is very much in question. I am always amazed (and suspicious) of anyone who purports to have doctrinaire religious beliefs and doctrinaire political beliefs, that are diametrically in opposition to the goals of each other, and who will stand in support of each and both in the same breath. It explains a lot about your twisted perceptions and outlook on those critical of either, or both, of your peculiar world views.

Robert – What exactly is un-Christian about wanting a health care solution that actually provides health care without bankrupting the nation? The problem is your misguided and completely arrogant notion that your single payer concept is the answer. For someone who refuses to put his faith in God you seem quite willing to put in a system which has never been proven to actually control costs. The only reason it seems diametrically in opposition as you put it is because you lack the humility, compassion logic or reasoning capacity to realize fixing health care, or anything else, is much more involved than simply creating a new problem to fix an existing one. You buy into the narrow view of the far left and see the problem as corporate elitist and the rich controlling the government. You ignore the other side unions, trial lawyers and other left wing groups. As long as those like you on the left and your opposites like Limbaugh and Beck on the right are ignored and the majority in the middle makes its voice heard nothing positive can be accomplished. I’m sorry to say you are part of the problem not the solution.

ravensfan - What is unchristian is allowing people to be excluded, denied heath care, or suffer and die because it does not fit into the profit structure of insurance companies which is paid to stockholders who provide nothing to health care. Evidently, stockholders welfare takes president over the lives of patients in your Christian interpretation of not being your brother's keeper. You are a dispassionate hypocrite, a liar and a fraud. As a heathen, I am more of a Christian than you will ever be.

Robert – That might be true if YOUR solution were the ONLY solution. In you’re your arrogant and narrow view single payer is the only solution to the problem. That might be true if the only problem were the insurance companies. Since the problem is much larger than that your solution is like putting a band aid on a severed artery and expecting it to hold. I have never opposed reform simply stupid reform which doesn’t solve the problem. I also challenged you on numerous occasions to make a convincing argument how your solution would solve all the problems. Your response was your usual mix of appeals to ridicule and the rhetoric of the extreme left. I actually wish you were more of a Christian that I am then you might actually be able to make a compelling argument devoid of insulting people who question your views. When you prove your system can fix all the problems I’ll support it. When you can make a compelling argument without appeals to ridicule and consequences as well as liberal propaganda I’ll actually consider it. Until then save it for the less informed who might swallow it.

Robert - That Anonymous is mine.
ravensfan

ravensfan - I have never said that there weren't other problems that should be addressed in the dispensing of health care and all of them need attention, but as long as the insurance industry has even the smallest hand in the process, it will be corrupted. If, and I believe this to be so, we must get the profit motive out of health care, because it always short changes the patient in favor of a dispassionate stockholder, then there is no other choice but the one-payer-system. You have yet to come up with an alternative that would accomplish that outside of insurance control, and because that control demands that people suffer and die in favor of profits, I find your defense of it to be most unchristian.

I would also like to know what this "liberal propaganda" is that you keep referring to. I would think that looking for ways to provide health care for everyone in a non-usurious way, would be more in the touted Christian tradition, rather than bleeding them dry and hanging them out to rot methods now being supported by the Right side of the political equation .

Robert – There are many possibilities for reform. There is regulation of the industry. There is the creation of a limited government program similar to what is done in Maryland to cover those who can not get insurance. Others and myself already ran down this and you summarily dismissed in favor of your single payer plan. The major flaw in your plan is your assumption that for profit must always equal corruption. Also that profit is the only reason people are denied coverage. Cost is the reason and guess what any nonprofit or single payer system would still have that problem. Without addressing cost all you are doing is exchanging dispassionate insurance company for dispassionate government. Eventually in order to contain costs it would also start restricting coverage options. Stop with the people die for profits rubbish. You can’t prove that point only speculate on it. I’ve never said the government may not have to control the process in the end that may be true. That isn’t the same as government run and based on the governments track record with Medicare to even suggest it could do the job is laughable.

The liberal propaganda is this people die for profits and illusion of corporate elitist running the nation you spout along with the questionable figures you have used in the past. What bleeds people dry is cost. Insurance companies aren’t raking in double digit profits. Any savings from eliminating profit will more than be eaten up by the additional insured and government mismanagement. In the end it will either cost more to taxpayers than insurance premiums or will result in less coverage. Why do you think most countries that have government health care end up with some sort of private insurance option? It’s because the single payer government program isn’t able to provide quality care at reasonable cost to the insured. You still seem to feel there is only one solution and anyone who opposes it must be in support of the current system. What I want is a solution that provides coverage to all while keeping costs paid out for benefits from escalating the way they do now. If I thought single payer could do that I’d support it. Since I haven’t seen it done it anywhere else, and based on our government’s track record with Medicare and spending in general why would any rational logical thinking person believe that it could be done here?

ravensfan - GIVE IT UP! Health care costs are so high because of the insurance industry. Next time you are in the hospital, take a look at your bill before it is shipped off to be paid by your insurance company. Twenty dollar aspirin tablets and $400. blood analysis that costs $20.- $50. to perform, $6000. totals for one night's stay for observation. What the hell is that? There is no way that an individual paying out of his own pocket would stand for that, unless they were richer than god and could care less. Once the insurance industry got total control, they spread the wealth all the way down the line. Exorbitant rates being paid by an industry using the "shared liability" aspect of insurance to get as much as can possibly got out of the system and "sharing" the rapine fraud with policy holders by charging premium rates that are criminal, justifying it all by blaming the costs that they have driven through the roof. They have not spread the liability across the board, they have spread the rip off across the board. It is as big a con as any organized crime teamsters fraud, only allowed because they own the government. It is time to divorce them from the government and throw their thieving asses out of health care once and for all. The only way to do that is through the one-payer-plan, there is no other viable option.

As of tonight, the Right-wing (not so) Supreme Court has made it easier for the thieves to get their way by allowing them the unlimited ability to spend as much money as they wish to buy more of the government for their own use. We better seize our country back before you Right-wing idiots give it all to the corporations, because they don't give a flying crap about anything but themselves.

Robert – I find your analysis sadly lacking any logic. The reason for the $20 aspirin and $400 blood analysis is much deeper than your narrow vision. Don’t forget that that the government causes sum of the problem with Medicare reimbursement rates. You also ignore the cost of insurance and development of drugs and other technologies as well as the cost for services provided to uninsured and of course both necessary and unnecessary government regulations. In short you place far too much blame on the insurance industry. They are part of the problem not all of it. Only someone buying into myths and rhetoric with no practical experience make such reckless and blatantly false statements and try and pass them off as fact. For someone who claims to be a rational and logical thinker it’s amazing that you so readily buy into the left wing myth that the sole problem is in the insurance industry. Even worse the bigger one corporations own the government. You sound like you’ve swallowed the entire radical left propaganda hook line and sinker. Let me say this one more time for you single payer won’t work and never has worked anywhere to keep cost under control or provide consistent quality healthcare for all. If it did you wouldn’t have private medical operations in countries like Britain. Add to that the REALITY that the US government could never run it properly to begin with and only a blind fool could hold it out as the ONLY option. You might as well give up because even if you could convince me there is no way enough support exists in this country for your solution. If you really want change you need to work with people like me and not attack us.

Actually while I don’t like that decision the law did in fact violate the constitution. By the way labor unions, trial lawyers and other left wing idiots like you will be able to do the same thing. The country belongs to all of us Robert not just those who think as you. It sure sounds like YOU are the one trying to silence those who disagree with you. I tell you what if you seriously want all citizens to have their say then support the concept of a constitutional amendment that would restore McCain-Feingold or go even further to eliminate the influence of both the right and left. Prove to me you really are interested in all Americans and not just your fellow left wing extremists.

ravensfan - I have to ask this because you seem to be focused intently on shutting down the discussion on a program that has no chance of seeing the light of day, especially since the entire governmental system has been handed over to corporate interests yesterday, by the corporate owned Supreme Court? All that is left is changing the American flag to represent the new reality. The blue field will have to have the stars replaced with a white dollar sign and the name of the country will have to be changed as well. The United States of America will have to give way to "The Corporate States of America" and the Constitution will have to be ignored altogether, as there will only be consumers instead of citizens , and their rights will be secondary to the needs of the corporate state. Forget abortion , the corporate state needs consumers and fodder for the resource wars they will have to carry out to keep the pie expanding, so that the masses can get more of a larger pie and not demand the lion's share going into the few pockets at the top. Forget the climate, opportunities abound in the marketing of oxygen in the future, to those who can afford it and to those who can't, well do they really deserve it? The same argument used to deny health care now, can be recycled for that contingency.

Your constant pounding away using the term "liberal" as if it was something one steps in and then has to use a stick to scrape it off their foot, is indicative of where you are coming from, what and whom you stand for and makes you a partner in their crimes. Liberals (evidently anyone to the left of Rudolf Hess in your book), stand for the health and well being OF THE PEOPLE (does that phrase ring a bell?), not just the rich whose, fleshy bottom you seem to have your lips permanently attached to. You are a fraud, a liar and I suspect someone being paid to do what you are doing, because I cannot imagine anyone, with any amount of compassion doing it for free, unless they are demented.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of The Corporate States of America,
and not to the republic for which it once stood.
One nation, under corporate control, class divisible, with Liberty and Justice for anyone who can pay for it.”