Occupy movement, how about adding this to your list!

I really appreciate all that Occupy movement is doing and am 100% behind the 99%! When my husband and I were discussing the issues and demands, he had a great idea of what the movement could actually DO, and since he doesn't write, I'm doing it in both of names.

How about coordinating a national repeal effort of all the Congresspeople and Senators who are abstructing the efforts to help the 99%! Let's take what Wisconsin started and take it to all the states. I think this would give the Occupy movement a really tangible thing to go DO! Lets have real action to get these middle class hostage takers out!

Get money out... I agree

People here, in the US, wonder how you can run for office if you don't have money or how can we change the current system!

Well, this is a very difficult thing to accomplish here, and it will take tremendous changes in the constitution and how elections are done here.

First, I think primaries would have to be eliminated as well as the electoral college. There actually are more than two parties in the US, and yet there are only two primaries, as though the other parties don't even need to be considered! Any person who wants to run for office would have to complete a registration as they do now, and be given a pre-set amount of public funds to get his/her campaign off the ground. There need to be time limits on how long candidates can campaign and I would say that they can raise some money from their supporters, but again, that would need to be limited as Buddy Roamer suggests, to a small amount and given by individuals only!

Each candidate would be given free tv spots, equal for each, and participate in debates until the time of elections. And in the end we all vote and select the candidates we want. Instead of primaries, we would have another vote for those that potentially tied.

Simple! No super pacs, no corporate donations, limit campaign times, and $$!

Also, then we may need to do like other countries that actually have multiple party systems to have coalitions to be able to get things done together.

And finally, lobbying should be made illegal, period!

Our politicians need to spend time governing and not fund raising and sucking up to lobbyists.

What Evangelicals and Atheists Have in Common

Jethani's purpose is to train pastors and is obviously afraid of us Atheists! If he paints Atheists as a movement to be feared, it will give him ammunition in promoting his own agenda. And it warms my Atheistic heart that his writing this article demonstrates that we Atheists are making some of the religious crazies nervous! Good for us! We need to voice our side with fervor because it is the religious right, the Evangelicals, that caused the blurring of separation of church and state and to discrimination against those of no faith! And yes, we have unabashed contempt for the unsubstantiated belief in the supernatural and intolerance, ignorance, and brain washing by religion as it leads away from growth of human potential! Tentacles of religiosity reach many aspects of our lives. We who are anti-religious, need take extraordinary measures to be heard above their noise. We have to speak out against government shoving religion down our throat starting with the "pledge of allegiance" to having our president be sworn in on a Bible! Jethani makes this oxymoronic statement "some within New Atheism are proselytizing their beliefs with the fervor" without the understanding that we have NO BELIEFS in the supernatural or invisible beings. We are not an organized religion like his customers. Atheism is no belief in theism. We thrive toward understanding the universe through education, science, reason, not unsubstantiated beliefs! His premise of Atheism as a belief or fundamentalism is completely false, making this entire article false!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I thought we really had separation of church and state!

City Councilman Bothwell in Ashville, North Carolina is an Atheist! His conservative opponents want to enforce a NC constitutional provision that disqualifies officeholders "who shall deny the being of Almighty God." which was included when it was drafted in 1868 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmS49f5wC7XKFjiS8tDTo3wv67hgD9CHCN2O0)

This is one more instance of discrimination based on non-religion! Words fail me!!!

We need to be more secure with our own abilities!!

Yes, we are here just because... that's it, no deity to manage things! Physics, chemistry, biology, those provide explanations for why things are the way they are... it's not sad or happy, it just is, religious people need to get over this continuous self-importance and accept it, use the brain that evolution provided you!

Faith in a deity and religion give those "believers" the excuse for not taking personal responsibility. When you score a touchdown, you're the one who did it, not god, and if you loose the game, it's also you!

We have our own abilities to do fabulous things, create great things like art and solve complicated problems! Philosopers since early days have been tackling questions of ethics and morality, not god! We don't need anything more than our minds, really!!

Let's not be so totally insecure that we need to give away our own power and assign the responsibility for our own greatness to something based on superstition!

Religion = propaganda

"Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels." Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, 1996

I think that most people would agree that the term PROPAGANDA has negative connotation, and it's usually associated with political influencing of the citizens.

But religions use propaganda in far more insidious ways. They use such terms as eternal damnation of one's soul (well, first they make you believe you have a soul) to influence masses of people to attend their events where they influence them some more in various ways to give up control of their own lives and submit to their authority!

I think that if we started calling Religion Propaganda, maybe people would at least stop to think about what they are doing before they choose to be so influenced... Oh, what am I saying, it won't happen.... It was a nice thought though...

Why Vatican must fall!!!

I have just watched this British Panorama report on BBC about the extent of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, and it made me nauseated! I have to admit that I have paid some attention to this problem over the last few years, but it wasn't until I just saw this report, that I really "got it"! Apparently the church has been fairly successful at the cover up and this policy of keeping thing quiet and out of the public view as much as possible!

What I find truly appalling is that the current pope, former cardinal Ratzinger, is the one who initiated and put into practice this policy of cover up of sexual abuse by the priest as a formally documented decree called "Crimen Sollicitationis" which spelled out how to keep these issues quiet, and even provided a punishment of excommunication for not following the policy! So, is this why he was chosen as Pope? Because he's the one who is now still the keeper of this policy?

The Catholic church is by far the largest institutions in the world, over 1 billion people strong, which, in their own words, is only responsible to god, and so can act, as the former DA of Phoenix points out in this report, as mafia in their cover of their crimes! I suspect this makes them feel pretty invincible.

And they continue to get money from all those people who come to their churches and bring their children to Catholic schools... and the abuse continues! They prey on the poor, illiterate, people who have no way of defending themselves!

I am so sickened by this that I can't even seem to write this very coherently, because my mind is just spinning with futile anger at how an institution based on superstition has such enormous power and influence that it can get away with world-wide perpetration of such hideous crimes, and still continue to have followers and continue to have them provide the financial support to continue this circle!!!

How do we, people of rational minds, make this stop? How do you fight this type of power structure? How to you reach out to over billion people world wide and convince them that they are victims of one of the greatest scams ever? And that they are the ones also responsible for these crimes by supporting the church with their donations!