You cannot have a case where one group gets a seperate legal system to another group simply because of its religion.

People must have the right to equal recourse to the law, including civil law. That Sharia law is indeed sexist, is only a minor consideration on this principle.

If the law is not applied to all members of society equally, then what of the person who proclaims that, upon suffering spinal damage from someone rearending his car, he now has the right to have that person's spine damaged? After all, "An eye for an eye..."

While I respect the quiet atheists right to not join the fight, I kind of wish they would get out of the way.

You don't have to be an active atheist, you don't have to argue for it, but if you are actively supporting a religious institution even though you think it is a bunch of bunk, you are a liar.

And you aren't lying because you think it does good. You are lying because you want an easy life and know exactly what it would mean to go public.

And thus I view those atheists with more contempt, than I view the honest theist, who actually believes and says so.

The trouble with do unto others is...

Those Republicans are kinky bastards.

The Christian God is a guy who murdered all of Egypt's first born children, after hardening Pharoah's heart so he would have an excuse to do it.

He ordered the Israelis to kill off all of the inhabitants of Israel when they invaded, and then later ordered Saul to kill all the Amelkites. Saul, lost God's favour when he missed one.

He handed Job over to the Devil in order to prove a point (That Job was in essense, a giant pussy) and win a bet. This resulted in Job's family either being murdered, or sold into slavery. Of course, Job got a new better family at the end of it, which I am sure would have been a comfort to his old family.

He couldn't just forgive man's sins, he had to have his son die a horrible, painful death to do it. You or me? We could just change our minds in a manner that wouldn't send Gandhi to hell and let guys like Timothy McVeigh into heaven. God? His son has to be nailed to two planks of wood.

And that isn't even getting into the whole story of him holding grudges against people for what their parent's did.

Faith is not belief in action.

It is belief without evidence.

Go get a lump of coal. Woohoo, you are holding a piece of dark matter. Very mysterious stuff, this dark matter (Also known as stuff that happens to be black.) There is a lot of stuff that happens to have a dark colouring in the universe.

Aside from that: Science starts with an hypothesis based upon observed phenomena and then tries to prove that hypothesis. Once is becomes suffeciently proven it becomes a theory or a law depending on its scope.

A theory, in scientific terms is an overarching concept, while a law tends to deal with details within a theory.

To call science merely a series of guesses is to expose not only that you do not know what you are talking about but that you are stupid besides.

Stupid because you are assuming that the very computer you are typing that statement out on was built using simply guesswork.

That is directly opposed to scientific thought. It was not science that prevented doctors cleaning their hands, it was superstition, in part based on the only religious culture in the world to not have any basic codes of cleanliness (Christianity.)

Just because someone is a scientist, or a doctor does not mean they are purely and totally free from superstition.

It is an article of faith. If people don't convert they are automatically damned to hell for all of eternity - which is the basis of being "Saved."

With atheism, there is not being "saved" involved. It is a question of who is factually correct.

Yeah, Christianity really argues in favour of cleanliness, that is why Monks were such smelly individuals right up until the 19th to 20th centuries.

And all of those superstitions about bathing making people weaker - that were peculiar to the Christian world.

Seriously, go read up on some history before you come here trying to call people ignorant.

Judaism has a cleanliness standard, Christianity does not. It is one of the fundemental differences between Christianity and Judaism, (And hence why Christianity is the only religion without a standard of cleanliness) along with differing dietary requirements, and there being no injunction against hybridisation in Christian belief.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/11/30/dirt_on_clean/index.html

1: Never buy an opaque investment plan. If your broker is unwilling to tell you what you have invested in, it is because most of the money you are investing with that broker has either gone into overheads, or the broker's back pocket.

2: Look around and think for yourself. If you see big problems coming in the housing sector, act accordingly. If you just follow what the experts say you are a sheep, and will be fleeced accordingly.

3: Don't always follow the herd - if you do you are a lemming and will end up following the herd over a cliff.

What is all amounts to? Be informed and think for yourself.