rukus

Great debate lads, just passed and hour at work catching up. (Abdul & Diego are out at a meeting )

kovalenkov

I agree with Ollie on that Jeffs, Jims and Bobs. We work with American customers almost on daily basis. And no matter if Jeff, Jim or Bob is CEO of the company, guess who is in the IT department doing all that technological things? Personally, I have met one Manjulah, Ishaque, Pablo etc. I do have to say, I came upon one Simon in the recent period, but he is more of an exception that confirms the rule.

As far as that Germany's experience being unique, I would have said no. But the refugees do not try so hard in lands they do not treat as "promise lands". Here you will find Russian handball players that can speak nearly perfect Slovenian in 6 months, and Serbians, Croats and Bosnians that are here for their whole life and can't say a sentence in valid Slovenian language. Why? Because they don't have to. They know we understand them, so they just don't try.

Athesim is another subject, I would like to address. I consider myself as atheist. I was baptised, but never visited catholic classes in the afternoon. Sure, I've been to some masses. I have also been to my friends wedding. However, I don't believe in that stuff and hence, has nothing to do with me. I don't mind a person being religious as long as he/she leaves me alone with it. I don't try to promote atheism, so they shouldn't promote religion. The only thing I believe in is my own knowledge and my own abilities. Period. You can call that religion if you like, but that in the end is your problem.
Nobody ever claimed that atheism is not a belief system. Sure it is. But so is goign to the bathroom or watching television or playing FM. Call that religion then, if you wish.
Also, I would like to state, that I don't mind religion. What I do mind is the Church. Not a church as respected member of this board, not church as in building, but Church as an institution. Exploiting someone's beliefs in god or heigher being to your own good. Sure. And convincing people to vote for a political party that suits you. Nice.
There are actually areas in Slovenia (and I am sure we are not the sole example), where you HAVE to donate money to the Church. Otherwise, at the next mass, you get chastised by a priest. It doesn't matter if you have no money, you have to pay, or your neighbours will never offer a hand in assist. That I hate, that I despise and that is what I am fiting with every inch of my body against.

Dr. Hook

I think Kov, that we should clear something up. We were talking about recent immigrants to the U.S. There are a lot of established U.S. citizens with heritages and names that are not the standard European names. So it is very possible to encounter Diegos and Vijays and Dats and whomever that are as American as any Jim, Jeff, or Bob. I can walk into any IT department (my brother is a JIm/jeff/Bob who runs one here) in my city and find almost all Americans, not recent immigrants. I teach at a university. There is a small handful of recent immigrants- one teaches geography, another sociology, and a couple in the business faculty. The rest are Americans. I once worked in the operations dept. of a large commercial bank. Not one of the my coworkers was a recent immigrant unless you count the cleaning crew. Check any accounting firm or law office in the U.S. or any other occupation that requires higher education and you'll mostly find the same thing. To be sure, there are some Chinese and Indian immigrants working in our high tech industries, and my school gets a small percentage of mostly Asian students in the business, CS, and engineering colleges, but they aren't even close to the majority.

re: the religion thing. You believe in your own knowledge and your own abilities. I don't call that organized religion, but you also had to get that knowledge from somewhere. The knowledge and abilities you have acquired now form your worldview and dictate your actions as a moral agent. That is quite different from going to the bathroom which is merely a necessary function of biology. The fact that you need to urinate doesn't imform your personal beliefs and principles. Those beliefs and principles, just because they come from something other than an organized religion does not make them different in nature from beliefs and principles derived from religion.

Now, here's a shocker: I happen to agree with you ; no one should be forcing anyone to believe anything. The point I am making is that by exclusively teaching evolution as the origin of life, which by its very nature is atheistic, schools ARE promoting atheism in the exact same way opponents of ID are saying that it promotes religion- because the only logical conclusion you can draw from evolution theory, and "big bnag" is that there is no God, and we are products of random chance. So again, what is the difference between the two?

kovalenkov

ffs hook, you agree with me? :eek: Don't let it happen again!

Perhaps only hi-tech industry is filled with immigrants. Perhaps you don't even call them immigrants any more, since they are already born in the US. That doesn't change the fact that I met only one person with english name. In 8 years.

Sure, the bathroom was poor example, but just look at FM. You believe that your team is capable or total shyte. You believe you will get promoted / achieve midtable obscurity / get relegated. You believe tons of stuff, but you can't call that religion.

As well comparing science to religon is a bit out of line. Science is based on facts, while religion isn't and never will be. Evolution is a fact, proven in mid 1800s. Now it is up to religions all over the world to overthrow that. Haven't seen any efforts though.
Also that big bang theory is still a science fiction. Nobody can prove nothing. They are gathering some evidence by expansion of the galaxies and the fact that they are driffting apart, however, they are some time from explaining exatly how that happened. Also there is a small matter of explaining where did that mass that exploded came from.
Therefore, I woudln't say schools promote atheism. Schools promote knowledge. What you choose to belive is your own thing.

Also, I would like to add, that many scientists where not atheists. Gallileo Gallilei was religious person. Da Vinci was religious person. The fact that these people are known as atheists is because the Church (again the institution and not our respectable member) was threatened by their discoveries and their teachings.
But don't you think for one second that the same research hasn't been done by Church itself. It is a known fact that catholic church had evidence that Earth is round and not the centre of the universe and is rotating around the Sun long before Gallileo said: "E pur si muove". However, they kept teaching about Earth being centre of the universe in the early 20th century as well.

iamthequinn

Wild guess ... stab in the dark ... but you're a Christian, yes? Or you believe and have a faith in something. And Kallinan too, no doubt. It's only religious people who make the claim that atheism is a religion. They (somebody who is religious, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim) don't seem to accept that other people can live their lives without something to govern their choices in life so they start to try and draw parallels to justify atheism. I remember having an arguement with my ex-mother-outlaw (she was a devout Catholic) about atheism. She looked at me in a sad (patronising) way and said "it must be hard to live your life with such a great hole". She couldn't accept that I didn't believe in God so she decided that an absence of belief in something meant there was something missing from my makeup. And thats where religious people start thinking that atheism is a religion. Calling atheism a religion isn't for my benefit: it's comforts those with some kind of faith. It puts order in their lives. Not mine.

Atheists, contrary to your claim, have no belief system. We disbelieve in God much in the same way we disbelieve in the tooth fairy or Father Christmas. There is only one thing which each atheist agree on, and that's there is no God. After that, each and every one of us is different. Yes, they have a moral code, but everybody has a moral code, be it one influenced by the rules of a religion or one influenced by life and the world around. I'm sure there are many uber-right wing meat-eating nazi atheists. I have absolutely nothing in common with their lifesyle, their moral code, etc. I only agree with them that there is no God. How can that be a religion?

Church

I had a similar experience years ago and my answer to that was " I just don't need a crutch to lean on." My mother's (devout catholic) friend was shocked. I am sure that the priests preach about how those not of the faith must be helped as they have something missing form their lives.

Even so, I have never criticised anyone for their faith and still endeavour to live my life by the basics ethics of all the main religions as that seems like common decency to me.

wewak

amen to that church

gfairbairn

I agree with you totally and had a similar experience when I had the unfortunate experience of living in Misery (Missouri) sorry to any one from there !!

Religion causes more problems than it fixes, no offense to anyone that is religious, it is your choice. But most of the world problems would be non existant without religion.
I had a similar experience years ago and my answer to that was " I just don't need a crutch to lean on." My mother's (devout catholic) friend was shocked. I am sure that the priests preach about how those not of the faith must be helped as they have something missing form their lives.

Even so, I have never criticised anyone for their faith and still endeavour to live my life by the basics ethics of all the main religions as that seems like common decency to me. </BLOCKQUOTE>

gfairbairn

Damn these quotes!!! Messes that one up. Anyways, I had a similar thing while I lived in Misery (Missouri). Crazy out these in very rural town where the church is where you go to meet women and hang out. I still say that religion causes more problems than it fixes. Most of the worlds problems would be non-existant if there wasn't any religion. No offense to anyone, I have no problem with it. But man does it get in the way of living.

Pangaea

I do have a problem with religion for the mentioned reasons above. There are many good things in religion, and let's not forget that that Jesus character got his name because he opposed the Romans. He became a hero figure locally, and we know that word-of-mouth-games tend to get way over-exxagerated. Play that game for 2000 years, and we have something pretty far fetched. Anyway, I don't have a problem with the stuff Jesuits preach in Latin-America for instance. Many deal with the severe problems of poverty and stuff like that. It's when the Church as an institution uses people's belief in the goodness of people to take advantage of these people, that there is something seriously wrong. Religion has become a tool of the powerful along the "split and conquer" school of thought. It is seriously bad news. As fairbairn said, the world would be a much better place without religion. Religion is irrational by nature. People are being tought to not think for themselves but take the word of the bible as the only truth. This is where science comes in. To compare evolution with religion is strange, to say the least. Evolution is based on a proven theory, hence knowledge. Religion is based on lies and irrationality. But as in every indoctrination system there are strands of truth. There was a flood in Persia, but it was not a world-wide flood. It was fairly local. This the Church used and exaggerated. There are a million examples like that. Literally I'm sure.

I consider myself an atheist. Atheism means we don't believe in a supreme being that created mankind and the animals in the form of a "God". I also don't believe in flying Pink Elefants floating around the Earth in some kind of hidden dimension. Is this a religion too? The "disbelif of flying Pink Elefants around the world in a hidden dimension"-religion? Atheism is basically the disbelief of a comletely irrational thought and being. Quinn's explanation makes sense, and perhaps that's it. Religious people just can't comprehend that other people don't believe in some divine creature.