rob

I'm a total atheist, but I still pray sometimes. It's funny. Almost always during some sort of traumatic event. The last time was during a really technical descent in a bicycle race. I laugh about it afterwards. A friend of mine in that race was catholic, wears a cross and everything. During the descent, I asked him if his god would look out for me even though I don't believe, and he thought about it for a moment and said, "probably not." I loled! Anyway, there was a moment in that race I found myself praying to whoever. It certainly gives you an existential crisis afterwards when you end up surviving Anyway, my point is I think our brains are wired to head that direction.

I can dig why some people are into god. I'm OK with it. Probably, it's human nature. I just can't understand why they're SO SURE. I mean, no room for doubt? At all? Really? Weird. Especially given the subject matter, and how "unprovable" it is, how could you still not harbor any single rational doubt? I don't get it. Seems dangerous.

You're wrong on that. He probably did believe in "god" (really more of a Spinoza's sort of god by most accounts of his private letters, rather than a traditional deist-type personal god) but he certainly never said that E=MC2 was proof of it. And even if he HAD said it, so what? What if he said chocolate was better than vanilla, is it? Citing Einstein seems to be a popular way to avoid independent though. "Well, even Einstein agreed with me...." -- really just another form of religion.

Yeah, my district must be stricter than yours -- my son's math teacher was not allowed to deviate from the elementary curriculum at all and actually (privately) recommended that I teach my kids proper division and multiplication of large numbers at home, on my own, but to remember to tell them they had to do it the "Everyday math" way when they sent in homework and did tests. Totally insane. Anything that allows teachers more independence from the district sounds like a great thing to me, is this what charter schools are for? But I see signs around my neighborhood saying, "don't be charter fooled" so I'm suspicious. When it comes to education, at this point I trust no one. I'd be interested in your opinion once you read up on the legislation. I asked two of the teachers I've worked well with and they both said the problem was that charter schools still have the same curriculum requirements as public schools, so anything gained? Good on you for taking matters into your own hands, sounds like you have your own challenges, too

My point was that my local district has been fucking me in the ass so long, their opinion isn't really compelling to me anymore because so many of their other opinions seem retarded. Didn't mean to start a whole "teachers are underappreciated" flame war

Oh god, see this is the problem. Im not trying to attack teachers or complaina bout their pay or anything like that but i have the temerity to complain about my children being abandoned by my local school district and suddenly its circle the wagons time to defend teachers For the record, i think teachers should be paid more and i didnt mean to sound anti-union per se (im not). i suppose I don't know much about the inner workings of the district as much as i should but what i do know is that my children have been subjected to years of fat, ignorant and rude teachers that seem uneducated themselves, handing out retarded assignments and, as far as i can tell, are teaching my children out of a handbook. There have been some excellent teachers, too, but for the most part even scheduling time to talk to them one-on-one is impossible, ive had one teacher tell me she "doesnt do that." I don't know anything about your school district, but my children's education is really being impacted by terrible administrators and terrible teachers who may be the minority but make significant impact regardless. There seems to be no way to get rid of them as far as I can tell (they're still there) and anyway it wouldn't matter because the curriculum itself is broken (everyday math? Fuck that shit) and nobody in the system seems to even want to work with me in a partnership, it's more like an educational feedlot. Moo Maybe I'm unfair to blame to unions, I'm just a parent and honestly all I know is the end product that I'm receiving, which is a travesty. I'm definitely not anti teacher, I always vote to give them money and the few good teachers my kids have are a great resource to me as we join forces together to educate my children. Wish there were more like that, and I wish they had the freedom to teach their own way rather than saying "sorry it's the curriculum. I hate it too but have to use it" (his own math teacher's words) Peace out!

Please show me one data point PROOVING there is no tooth fairy. I guess that means we should all be tooth fairy agnostic? By the way, agnostic does not mean 50/50 chance either way, or that you "don't know." You could be 99.5% sure there is no god and still call yourself agnostic, because hey -- .5% is still greater than 0. You should read The God Delusion by Dawkins. If anything, it's an excellent treatise on things like agnosticism, pantheism, Spinoza's "god," and what it means to be an atheist. You dont seem to understand what being an atheist is.

One time, on LSD, I had the personal experience of reading minds. I was SO SURE it was real. My point is, be careful believing something when your only evidence is subjective feeling. Many people KNOW homosexuality is wrong, for example, and no amount of data points will convince them otherwise. Humans are wired for this kind of shit, and you need to be wry careful about that sort of thing. Question yourself more than anything else, because your brain will lie to you and trick you. It's how fundamentalists are made -- they KNOW and nothing will persuade them. It's anti-science, anti-reason, and is really dangerous. Feelings are the absolute worst kind of evidence, for anything. Be skeptical! Cheers, man. You seem OK, so I want to look out for you and keep you from a deadend path I myself barely escaped from. Belief and wonder at thr possibility of God is fine, but when you start saying that no amount of data points can change you because of how you feel, I'm worried.

The Seattle schools math curriculum, for example, is terrible as my ass. But it sounds like public charter schools would have te same curriculum requirements as dictated by the district. So, what do I gain? Sigh.

My biggest concern is that the public charter schools would effectively be a funding cut for the regular public schools. As pat said, why not just fix the regular public schools? Oh wait, teachers union. It's a tough nut to crack. I wish I had money for private schools, my kids are struggling.

Wasn't this bill co-sponsored by a democrat (petigrew). I could give fuck all what the teachers union thinks (sorry Ivan) and they seem to be the only ones against it?

I call Bullshite. How can one say it takes no "faith", yet have no scientific proof (can't proof a negative)? I'm sure in your case, your right. because your mind is not open beyond your own ego (based on your persona here). You have FAITH that you are right and everyone else that believes in God is a sucker (paraphrasing). Call a spade a spade. Atheism takes believing in something you can't proof (faith by definition). "faith" is the belief in god or teachings of a religion. Since atheism don't believe in god, there is no "faith". Faith is also believing in something without proof. Atheism is about needing proof to believe the existence in god. Since none exists (short afterlife experiences and feelings about the nature of the world are not proof), we have atheism and so atheism is not faith based. belief in god requires faith because there is no evidence belief in science requires no faith. Science believes in only things that can be proved. The day that a bigfoot is put in a cage or a skeleton found, science will believe in bigfoot. A simple visit from the almighty would be enough evidence too but are we not worthy enough a occasional sleep over from Daddy? You can parse words but you are still assuming something to be true when it can't be verified. Call it faith or non-faith but it still requires a belief, even if that believe is in nothing. It is the non-faith religion for the non religious. The existence of the tooth fairy cannot be proven or disproven, either. That does not mean there is a 50/50 chance, though. I'm certain te tooth fairy doesn't exist. And Santa Claus. Aren't you?

I'm not sure what I think about this initiative yet but I'm pretty sure charter schools are not private schools. Though, certainly public schools will lose money when kids switch to charter schools. Which might be enough reason to oppose it.

1240 is about charter schools, not voucher systems. Isn't it?

One time I had faith a girl really, really liked me. I was certain (you know, because faith). Turns out, she didn't. There's faith for you.

I have faith that the tooth fairy is real, so he must be. That's how faith works. It's awesome cause it makes people believe stuff for no reason. Like republicans and trickle down economics.

I've been close to death only a few times (hey, I'm young) but those are the times that solidified my atheism. There's nothing out there, we're fucking alone. it's better to just accept that. Life after death? Sounds awful. This one is bad enough

Oh, I see what your meant. Lol, why am i suck a dick? Lol I don't get it.

Yup, I'd say that's a logical and well-reasoned umbrella defense of all alternative medicines. Good job, I'm convinced! I'm gonna go buy some magnets, now. Palmer was super into them, too

Chiropractic is amazing, if their self-taught spiritualist founder could cure deafness with a simple spinal adjustment I'm sure they can handle your SI problems in a "snap" (see what I did there?). But you might need to come back at least once a month for the rest of your life. Wait, you have insurance, right?

sure, he's pretty vocal about how much america sucks. sounds like canada to me

Also, stay away from chiropractors

Doesn't he live in Canada?

damn you beat me to it

stony....stonier!