I don't care what the supreme court says. It's no longer a legitimate institution.

In fact, our entire government is no longer legitimate. They are no different from pirates and mobsters. My only "loyalty" is to do the minimum to keep that mafia off my back.

I think he should be PM of Italy again.

LOL! Sorry Xeno, but your Moses-style proclamation isn't going to convince rational and skeptical people.

The path forward is to make me autocrat of the world. I'll fix everything, no worries.

Key is captain of the imperial guard, so you can all have insurance that I won't go all corrupt on you.

Sounds like a good idea. It's atrocious to force a terminally ill child to live.

Constantinople should belong to Greece.

We need to cut educuation spending. Too many working class people in schools, who then drop out. Higher education should only be accessible to the wealthiest 30%.

Pope Francis

I 100% understand this. Where I live, Pentecostal Churches have lately been pushing the envelope on political speech.

You know, the U.S. may have higher gun-related deaths than some countries that prohibit gun ownership, but I like having the freedom to gun ownership. With proper regulation, I think the higher death risk is acceptable. This left logic of "must eliminate all chances of x happening" is unrealistic and it is an excuse to unjustly restrict freedom.

From 2010 statistics, the U.S. had 11,078 gun-related homicides and 19,392 gun-related suicides.

Big picture: that hardly justifies taking away our freedom to own guns. With this logic, lets stop traffic-related deaths by outlawing motorized vehicles. Moreover, you're more likely to die by unintentionally poisoning yourself than you are by being a victim of a gun-related homicide.

The risk is acceptable, now go away.

Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/1 … 2010-a.pdf

True, but it's not as high as you think. What I meant by violating civil rights are laws that have resulted from, for example, a politician chanting the "tough on crime" line. As a result, laws are passed against victimless crimes, and sometimes public shaming is allowed for the accused of certain crimes before they are found guilty. Of course, I have nothing against criminals being deprived of their freedom when they should be incarcerated for the general protection of society.

Well, I have nothing against religious organizations handing out pamphlets or families praying for dinner. In these cases, there are no unjust consequences to my life. But when, say, a business manager calls his employees to come together and pray before lunch, then my refusal to participate will likely result in me facing unjust consequences.

Well, I meant something more like the government decides to fund and pay for a huge Christmas festival at public square. Not that I don't mind if an independent organization rents the use of a public facility, provided other groups were allowed to fairly compete for that public space.

I agree that we don't want to teach young people that they won't risk STIs if they are slutty just because they use condoms. I think it's important to tell them that they should limit sexual activity to exclusive long-term relationships, and I also believe they should receive accurate information on STIs.

What's dumb is not giving them accurate information on STIs and thinking that telling them about the virtues of virginity and marriage is going to work. And moreover, it's government favoritism because it promotes religious concepts such as "marriage" and "purity." Btw, yes, I am in favor of abolishing marriage as an institution recognized by the state, but I am okay with replacing it with a concept like "civil partnership."

@Yell,

1. The U.S. founders were flawed human beings who weren't omniscient or divinely gifted, and like humans, they often contradicted their own principles by shoving them under the rug, which later became enshrined in precedent.

2. While National Socialism isn't a religion per se, it was not scientific and it had a lot of the same faith-based qualities of religion.

@BeoWolfe,

Keep in mind that I later revised my statement to "regulate religious expression in public spaces," because I realized that I was too hasty in my conclusion.

No, an afterlife does not scare me. For me to accept a belief, it must satisfy the following conditions:

1. Logically consistent
2. Coherent with our best empirical knowledge
3. Empirically testable
4. Parsimonious

Since religious beliefs badly fail these conditions, I reject all religious beliefs. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't express your religious beliefs. What you can't do is coerce or pressure others to participate in religious activities in public establishments (business, education and government), discriminate against people based on their religion in public establishments, have the state benefit or contract with religious institutions, or allow such public establishments to host religious activities in public spaces.

Other objectionable things that need to be dealt with are:

1. Religious politicians and leaders who call Atheists or Muslims evil or un-American.
2. Government funding of religiously-inspired and unscientific policies such as abstinence only education.