[extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center

[Brett Paatsch]

Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote:

> In case anyone is interested, this is a relatively new site:
> The Atheist Law Center is your advocate, defending the civil 
> rights of atheists and dedicated to the absolute seperation of
> religion and governments
>
> http://www.atheistlaw.org/index.html

Good idea. I wonder if it might help a bit to have one in Australia.

I don't think we are as quite as religious as the US. No Scopes
Monkey trials or Bible belts etc here. 

I'd be *slightly* biased towards expecting more reasoning and less 
believing from atheists but in the end atheism is a pretty small 
platform and I'm not sure there is sufficient need in a country like
Australia. Parliaments do 'kick off' with prayers though and that
is kind of annoying - like opening up your email application and
getting a dose of Spam first thing every time. 

I wonder if having prayers actually *encourages* people to start
pronouncing their 'beliefs' as if beliefs qua beliefs should count for
anything in social exchanges instead of saying that such is what
they *think* (which implies at least *some* thought and
intellectual processing and some openness to fairly countenance
exploratory discussion and counterpoint). 
 
If cats could talk I guess we'd hear a lot of heart-felt *beliefs*
about birds, mice and dogs. There would be of course nothing
*invalid* about the underlying sentiments so expressed but little
interesting about countless re-iterations of the same 'catty'
summations either. Talking cats might even refine the expression
right down to short pithy imperious sound-shots of approval
or snorts of disapproval. 

Eg. Should we kill all the dogs right away Felix and let God 
sort them out?    "I  bee-lieve  so!". 

Are mice or birds worthy of any respect or any rights Buffy? 
- "I  bee-lieve  NOT! " 

Cats probably wouldn't bother to go on and try and affix long
windy sentences to their statements of belief. They'd just expect
that because they are bona fide *cat* beliefs that in itself should
be enough for everyone that matters. i.e. Everyone that's a cat.

- Brett  8-1