Kicking atheist ass

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:55:46 -0500, in alt.atheism
"Mark Earnest" wrote in
:

"bobandcarole" wrote in message
roups.com...
"There are no atheists in foxholes"

There are no atheists.

Atheists believe in God, but just believe in what he is, rather than what
people say about him.

Please tell me how I believe in a god.

Some people call themselves atheists, but they don't even know what the word
atheist means.

People use words that they don't understand to try to sound impressive.

Tell me what I believe.

On Jul 28, 2:45 pm, bobandcarole wrote:
"There are no atheists in foxholes"

U.S. backs churches in atheist fight
July 19, 2007

BY DAVID ASHENFELTER

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The U.S. Department of Justice has waded into a legal brawl between a
national atheist group and the Detroit Downtown Development Authority,
which pledged $734,570 in grants to three historic churches in a major
downtown face-lift in time for the 2006 Super Bowl.

A federal judge in Detroit is expected to rule soon in the case, which
could have national implications as to what role the government has in
helping to preserve historic churches.

Advertisement

American Atheists Inc. sued Detroit's DDA in U.S. District Court last
year, saying the grants violated the constitutional separation between
church and state. The DDA pledged the money to the churches as partial
reimbursement for improvements the churches made to their properties.

"The churches should be paying for those projects, not taxpayers,"
American Atheists President Ellen Johnson told the Free Press last
week. She said the projects amount to public support of religion.

But the development authority, the churches and their recent ally, the
Justice Department's Civil Division, say the funds, which the churches
haven't received, don't involve Bibles, prayer books or religious
indoctrination -- only grants that enabled the churches to participate
in a program that helped downtown property owners spruce up their
property. They compared the grants to communities providing police and
fire protection for churches.

"It's been nightmarish," said the Rev. Kevin Turman, pastor of Second
Baptist Church in Greektown. He and other pastors said that without
the grants, which were due more than a year ago, the churches have
been forced to renegotiate loans, pay more interest and divert funds
from church projects.

The decision is expected to come soon from U.S. District Judge Avern
Cohn. The Justice Department said an adverse ruling could jeopardize
future national preservation grants to historic churches.

Justice Department lawyer Kathryn Wyer told Cohn that the federal
government has long recognized the importance of preserving national
historic church sites. In 2003, she said, the National Parks Service
awarded the Old North Church in Boston a $317,000 grant to restore its
windows.

The church, occupied by an Episcopal congregation, was made famous in
April 1775 when its sexton displayed two lanterns from the steeple to
warn American Revolutionary War patriot Paul Revere that the British
were advancing on Lexington, Mass.

"Federal bricks-and-mortar programs serve important secular interests
in preserving our national heritage and in providing tangible
assistance after major catastrophes," Wyer told Cohn in court papers
in April. She declined to be interviewed.

"Detroit's program, while on a smaller scale than these federal
programs, similarly serves the important purpose of bringing a
downtown area back to life," Wyer added.

American Atheists Inc., a New Jersey nonprofit founded in the 1960s by
the legendary late atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, sued the authority
in April 2006, after learning of the grants to Central United
Methodist Church and St. John's Episcopal Church on Woodward near the
Fox Theatre, and Second Baptist Church on Monroe.

The churches used the grant pledges to obtain $1.7 million in loans to
repair their building facades and parking lots and make other
improvements. Property owners were offered 50% reimbursement -- up to
$150,000 for building facades and $30,000 for parking lots -- to
improve their property. The grants, totaling $11.5 million, were
designed to generate $23 million in improvements.

"We agreed to provide assistance to the churches, not as churches but
as property owners," said Art Papapanos, vice president of the Detroit
Economic Growth Corp., which is affiliated with the DDA. "We didn't
differentiate between whether it was religious, political, private or
government entity."

Authority lawyers argued that the church projects complied with U.S.
Supreme Court decisions allowing governments to award grants to
religious organizations if the grants don't advance or inhibit
religion or result in religious indoctrination.

The atheist group was joined in its suit by Steve Walker, a political
science professor at Wayne County Community College, and Dennis
Vatsis, a Detroit lawyer who lives in West Bloomfield.

"I have nothing against these churches, but why would I want to
subsidize them with my tax money?" asked Walker.

Added Vatsis: "I'm just tired of working 60 hours a week to fund these
government schemes to dole out my tax money, particularly when we have
a constitutional prohibition against it."






Not good to kick any ass...atheist or theist.

Once ass starts getting kicked the ass kicker is subject to getting
their own ass kicked when the tables turn.

Much better to offer peace to others than an ass kicking.

.....my discussion of this topic from an earlier post.


http://groups.google.com/group/alt.p...006812a06f9ddf




Take care,


V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2

"bobandcarole" wrote in message
oups.com...
"There are no atheists in foxholes"

The Associated Press reported that in the last moments before Tillman died,
another soldier was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, and Tillman said,
"Would you shut your [expletive] mouth? God's not going to help you; you
need to do something for yourself, you sniveling -"


--
Denis Loubet

http//www.io.com/~dloubet

bobandcarole wrote:

"There are no atheists in foxholes"

Actually, there are. The military allows official designation of atheist symbols on
headstones. They also allow the use of the Wiccan symbol for practitioners of that religion.


--
And the Thought of the Moment (TM) is:

English is a funny language. A fat chance and a slim chance are the same thing.

(Brought to you by SigChanger. http://www.phranc.nl)

"Free Lunch" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:55:46 -0500, in alt.atheism
"Mark Earnest" wrote in
:

"bobandcarole" wrote in message
roups.com...
"There are no atheists in foxholes"

There are no atheists.

Atheists believe in God, but just believe in what he is, rather than what
people say about him.

Please tell me how I believe in a god.

Do you believe in truth? in justice? in brilliance of thought? in
perfection?
Then you believe in God, whom is all these things, and others.


Some people call themselves atheists, but they don't even know what the
word
atheist means.

People use words that they don't understand to try to sound impressive.

Tell me what I believe.

You are an atheist, and an atheist believes in God. They just believe in
what God is, rather than what men say about him.

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:58:22 -0500 there was an Ancient "Denis
Loubet" who stoppeth one in alt.atheism

"bobandcarole" wrote in message
roups.com...
"There are no atheists in foxholes"

The Associated Press reported that in the last moments before Tillman died,
another soldier was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, and Tillman said,
"Would you shut your [expletive] mouth? God's not going to help you; you
need to do something for yourself, you sniveling -"

Now THAT'S a Ranger!
--

Douglas Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:14:48 -0400 there was an Ancient Dionisio
who stoppeth one in alt.atheism
bobandcarole wrote:

"There are no atheists in foxholes"

Actually, there are. The military allows official designation of atheist symbols on
headstones. They also allow the use of the Wiccan symbol for practitioners of that religion.

More importantly, "atheist" is allowed to be used on official
documents in the DD-201 file and on a soldier's dogtags.
--

Douglas Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

In News ,, Dionisio at
, typed this:

bobandcarole wrote:

"There are no atheists in foxholes"

Actually, there are. The military allows official designation of
atheist symbols on headstones. They also allow the use of the Wiccan
symbol for practitioners of that religion.

Atheists have a symbol? That's a new one on me. How do you symbolize
that which is not?

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:45:44 -0700, bobandcarole wrote:

"There are no atheists in foxholes"

There are ONLY atheists in foxholes.

Nobody who believes in an all powerful "god" that will protect them or
"call them home" to paradise is going to be cowering in a foxhole, afraid
for his life.

Every person in a foxhole is an atheist.

Every.

Single.

One.

--
Mark K. Bilbo a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
------------------------------------------------------------
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing
it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
- H. L. Mencken

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:55:46 -0500, Mark Earnest wrote:

"bobandcarole" wrote in message
oups.com...
"There are no atheists in foxholes"

There are no atheists.

That's right, nobody's here in alt.atheism. You can leave now.

--
Mark K. Bilbo a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
------------------------------------------------------------
"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards,
witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling
from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical,
absurd and primitive stories, and you say that *we* are the
ones that need help?" - Jon Stoll