102 Comments

"American voters have made colossal mistakes."

--- unfortunately true.

--- but how many of these mistakes were promoted and supported by American clergy?

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trump comes to mind

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Just Trump? Vietnam, Iraq, South-and Central America, Afghanistan, the "war on drugs", ..... ......

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If these kkkhristain had supported the "war on poverty" with the same funding as they gave the military, maybe it would have succeeded. We need to spend the money we used on war toys on the American peoples.

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And one of the biggest mistakes was voting for Trump, someone who I wouldn't be surprised if John O'Conner supported in the last two elections.

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deletedJan 8, 2022·edited Jan 8, 2022
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"...He's SOOOOO ironic in his blather that he should be rusting just by the O2 in the atmosphere and aligning to the local Earth Magnetic Field. ..."

ISWYDT ;-))

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God-based?

OK. I choose Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom.

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I choose Loki...as long as Tom Hiddleston is his Earthly rep!

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I choose Quetzalcoatl.

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Someone's bound to choose Dionysus/Bacchus. :)

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I don't want to be a dolphin

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I choose Apollo I like the spelling all alphabetical.

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There is nobody like St. Mary Jane, hallowed be her name!

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Apollo is also the one god that retains the same name in both Greek and Roman mythology.

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deletedJan 9, 2022·edited Jan 9, 2022
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Yeah, it's a lot of working sacrificing all of those people to him, especially now that the cops won't accept the need to keep the sun from disappearing as an excuse or am I thinking of some other Aztec gods?

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In fairness I'm not sure that would be a good idea either. The ancient Greeks believed in a lot of stupid things as well, and Athena in all of her "wisdom" did nothing to stop that. Strange how all gods for supposedly being better than humans always seem to endorse the same things their followers do at the time they were "discovered"

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Jan 9, 2022·edited Jan 9, 2022

It was just a bit of snark that I was throwing in O'Connor's face.

Humanity is far better off without gods.

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Sure, still the Greek pantheon is so much more entertaining and fun than the "Abrahams Three"

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I choose Cthulhu; the scariest fictional[0] god.

0: Well, they're all fictional but some are officially fictional.

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At least we know he lies sleeping beneath the sea.

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I don't think you would want Cthulhu to be real, or any of Lovecraft's creations to be real either. There's a reason the genre is known as "Lovecraftian horror"

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I wouldn't like /any/ god to be real - the best of 'em seem to behave like spoiled toddlers and I'm instinctively anti-authoritarian. Any universe in which any god exists is horrific.

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How about Ninkasi?

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I choose the god of the One Commandment, AKA, Rascal.

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Jan 9, 2022·edited Jan 9, 2022

Homer, who may or may not have existed as the person who wrote "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" and who may or may not have been blind, was a writer of poetry/fiction that included gods (again, assuming that he was that Homer). Including the equally-fictitious Athena. She has as much blood on her hands as YHVH: namely none, as neither were ever real.

(Homer was said to be real, but that he was "an obscure, prehistoric oral poet whose compositions bear little resemblance to the Iliad and the Odyssey as they have been passed down")

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Well he's about as good of source for information on Athena as the Bible is for Yahweh / Jehovah. I also don't think he was ever said to have been "pre historic." If he was, how could he have written anything that was attributed to him? I mean, anything that's prehistoric is before the invention of writing.

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“… after the the American Bar Association unanimously rated him “not qualified” in the areas of professional competence and integrity.”

Naturally, that was seen as high praise in Oklahoma.

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That's called 'raising the bar' in Oklahoma.

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deletedJan 8, 2022·edited Jan 8, 2022
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The bottom is clean now. They had to start excavating the manure pile.

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Manure is useful and has a purpose, not so Okrahoma rethuglikkkans.

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One year ago, Christian extremists literally tried to overthrow the government. Every damn day, Christian extremists try to pass laws against people they hate. Christian extremists are, even now, conducting a massive campaign of voter suppression with the goal of ensuring that they can't ever lose a federal election again. Christians routinely get lighter sentences for identical criminal charges, just for being Christians. Christians literally control every branch of government in every state in the entire country, and the federal government besides.

But here's This Fucking Guy with his hot take, bravely standing up to proclaim: "Godlessness is destroying America!"

Yeah. Because *we're* the problem, here.

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They must protect their shrinking privilege no matter what the cost.

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I had no influence on where I was born, I'm, however, very, very glad that I wasn't born anywhere in the "Bible Belt", or "Bible Belt" adjacent territories.

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At least they still allow one to escape when they become intelligent enough to see what is around them.

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It's truly amazing that so many unquestionably accept a god with no proof, a book with unknown or questionable origins, mythical stories, and more as their basis and foundation for morality and in this case social structure. A book no less that condones or endorses slavery, has been used to defend bigotry, misogyny, and create outcasts of countless types of people. In it's earlier versions it creates death penalty situations for minor offenses, such as picking up sticks on a certain day or cursing ones parents.

And all this for a deity which supposedly is omniscient and omnipotent but yet hides from everyone on earth on a daily basis, has left no real evidence of ever existing, and either is or chooses to remain absent.

If any other person put forth the claim that our entire legal system should be based on a mythical being they just knew existed and had imbued in their hearts what was right and wrong, with no evidence, they would be laughed off the stage. But do the same with a being that almost all had been indoctrinated with as children and unquestioningly believed in from their first memories as a child, it is just accepted by many as fact, it goes over just fine.

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That's why the definition of "delusion" specifically excludes religious belief in a deity.

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"O’Connor said a God-based country isn’t one in which “everybody is forced to believe the same thing. It means we acknowledge that there’s a God who has values and endows us or imbues us with those values..."

So, not a country where we are forced to believe the same thing, as long as we are all forced to believe that God exists, and that it is HIS particular God. To O'Connor, atheists shouldn't be allowed to be Americans.

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You can be any kind of Protestant you choose.

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They allow him because he s sufficiently fascist.

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Wow!

Wow!

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Given that a "God-based" justice system can't seem to cope with child abuse even to the extent of reporting it to the police, it would be a waste of time. And this man is a waste of space.

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"...and I submit to you that that's God the Creator."

Assumes facts not in evidence. Fail. Let's see solid, credible evidence for your claim, O'Connor. Otherwise, we dismiss that claim without evidence.

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The American Bar Association has already categorized him as lacking in integrity. I presume credibility is also included in that assessment.

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Oklahoma ranks 43rd Overall as "Best State to Live In." It also ranks 48th in Health Care and 42nd in Education. O'Connor's an example of why.

With those kinds of numbers, it looks like his friend in the clouds isn't doing Oklahoma a ton of favors.

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There they could show patriotism, striving to be 1st in Education and Health Care, striving to be among the best 'States to Live in'.

Flag waving, loud mouthed anti-intellectualism, discrimination, bigotry, political violence, and bible thumping are not signs of patriotism, but symptoms of a profoundly sick society.

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If good old anti-vaxx Gov Stitt and the Qhristian nationalist led state legislature have their way we can get those numbers up, all the way to 50.

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And maybe even all the way up to 60!

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Jan 8, 2022·edited Jan 9, 2022

"I can tell you right now, there's no such thing as an ideal godless America."

Hey, O'Connor: I can tell YOU right now, there's no such thing as a god.

Oh, and the mostly Deist founders thought that a secular government free of religious power was pretty ideal.

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And one of them furrineers.

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And of course he attacked socialism without specifying which of the many types of socialism he's speaking of (including Christian Socialism). Nor does he understand the aspects of socialism found in this country even though they benefit Christians as much they do anyone else.

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He's probably not opposed to socialized roads, socialized policing, or socialized fire departments. Not when he needs them, anyway.

Or, who knows- maybe he would be, if they were described as such. None of these nitwits can articulate *why* they think socialism itself is bad (much less socialism for the one single issue at hand). I almost got a MAGAt to oppose their own military pension until they caught on to what I was talking about and shut down the conversation. After all, it's the buzzword that matters, not the substance.

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But SOCHULISM!!!

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They have their own definition that does not come anywhere close to what it really means.

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A God based justice system ? Let start with adultery.

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I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was caught cheating on his wife at some point.

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His head offends me; can we cut it off?

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As long as you're not on holy ground.

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Haven't they punched a lot of holes in the ground of Okrahoma?

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No, we don't want to stoop to his level of "critical thinking"

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News flash, O'Connor...

The dominant religion in the American government by far is Christianity. You whine about the state of America, yet you and your religion are everywhere in its halls of power. Guess we get to blame Christianity for the country's ills you're so concerned over.

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And have more baseness for our claims that his religion will ever have.

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A God-based system, like in the Old Testament, where people were put to death for victimless crimes like blasphemy, apostasy, homosexuality, and working on the Sabbath?

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Far too much church in affairs of state and it hurts people. Republics tied to official religion, ie. Iran or Israel, tend to be bad for the people. Retribution is supposedly reserved for God, but has wormed its way into the justice system (3 strikes laws anyone?) while fallible humans debate angels dancing on pins.

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They're also much more likely to be pro death penalty.

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