The Price of Atheism

[f stop]

This family sued the school. The case was settled out of court.

How do you find an impartial jury for a case like this?

[Starcrash]

"...could be Santa Claus is comin' to town. Watch out for a society built like that." Great defense of atheism! [he said sarcastically]

That video made atheism look pretty awful. It looks old, too... how recent is it?

[Julius]

(16-03-2013 11:37 PM)Starcrash Wrote:  "...could be Santa Claus is comin' to town. Watch out for a society built like that." Great defense of atheism! [he said sarcastically]

That video made atheism look pretty awful. It looks old, too... how recent is it?

I missed it....what is the point?

Thanks.

Julius

[f stop]

(16-03-2013 11:37 PM)Starcrash Wrote:  It looks old, too... how recent is it?

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?c...i=scholarr

[DLJ]

Starcrash,

Youtube date is 2007 and it mentions God Delusion as a recent best seller.

Then, 91% believers

Now, 20% 'none'

Everybody sing... "For the times they are a-chay...ging."

[f stop]

(17-03-2013 02:58 AM)DLJ Wrote:  Starcrash,

Youtube date is 2007 and it mentions God Delusion as a recent best seller.

Then, 91% believers

Now, 20% 'none'

Everybody sing... "For the times they are a-chay...ging."

Depending on which survey you cite the number seems to range from 1% to 20%. Whatever the source, I think the reported number is lower than reality. What's the return for declaring yourself? You simply don't get brownie points for being a non-believer. It's not a plus on your resume. Candidates for public office flaunt their religion. A candidate who declares himself an atheist may as well start writing his concession speech on day one.

[Starcrash]

(17-03-2013 12:07 AM)f stop Wrote:  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?c...i=scholarr

This reveals a lot of important information that was left out of the video. If you haven't, I would suggest reading it (it's rather short).

The Lord's Prayer, while it is clearly a first amendment violation for the school to lead, was "led by students, and only participated in by students". Second, the girl was not actually "kicked out of Hardesty school". She only received one real threat from a former student, and could return to school at any time. In fact, she implied this in the video when (near the end) she said that she had gone back to school for a couple of days and met a new student who had heard cruel things about her.

This isn't very similar to the Jessica Alquist case, which is probably why it had such a different outcome. Also, f stop, I might add that just the heading of the summary is all that you need to see to know that it was decided in a district court, which means that it wasn't a jury trial ("However, the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial does not apply in state courts, where the right to a jury is strictly a matter of state law") in response to "How do you find an impartial jury for a case like this?"

[f stop]

(17-03-2013 10:16 AM)Starcrash Wrote:  The Lord's Prayer, while it is clearly a first amendment violation for the school to lead, was "led by students, and only participated in by students".

It's been a while but I think that in the O'Hair case SCOTUS ruled that, due to peer pressure, giving students the option of non-participation was insufficient to justify prayer in public schools. This case has the added wrinkle that the school claims that the teacher did not initiate the prayer. The question remains whether the teacher should have stopped it. I think the court erred. There is a good possibility that the decision would have been reversed on appeal, but since the case was settled out of court and the terms of the settlement are not public we will never know.

(17-03-2013 10:16 AM)Starcrash Wrote:  I might add that just the heading of the summary is all that you need to see to know that it was decided in a district court, which means that ...it wasn't a jury trial... ... in response to "How do you find an impartial jury for a case like this?"

So how do you find an impartial judge? The defendants in Kitzmiller v. Dover claim the judge was not impartial, and they may be right.

[HU.Junyuan]

Atheist is quite a minority in the U.S. Lucky to be born in China.