Posts by Stephen Judd
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all the lesbians you can carry.
Yeah, fight for the right to bear dames!
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I/S: the issue isn't whether public officials should always obey the law -- obviously we can imagine circumstances where ones moral duty is to disobey. The question is whether there should be consequences for disobedience. Eg in the case of the judge in a criminal case who can't impose the correct sentence out of personal moral convictions, that judge might have to surrender the office, or recuse themselves. The pharmacist who won't dispense pills might have to find another pharmacist or face professional sanctions.
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Suppose a judge was against the death penalty, should she/he be forced into sentencing someone to death? I say they shouldn't.
I am strongly against capital punishment, but yes they should, absolutely. If you take on the responsibilities of an office, and you can't exercise them on grounds of conscience, leave the office.
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The point is if you have a dedicated group who really want to be a faith community, you're going to get tax breaks. The bummer is that atheism doesn't really lend itself to that kind of organisation
i agree with both those statements, but the original claim was that this would be fair, as long as the atheists could form similar organisations.
You then say something which I also agree with:
The bummer is that atheism doesn't really lend itself to that kind of organisation.
which I think undercuts any claim to fairness.
When it comes to this issue, we can agree to disagree, but I doubt the law will be changed in any near future because most people are fine with it.
An accurate summary of the state of affairs, but not in any way evidence of fairness.
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The bulk of charity work, such as food banks and city missions are run by the churches. Look at the Salvation Army for example.
Properly constitued charities are already tax-exempt. There is no reason why the Salvation Army's food bank would not qualify.
Provided all religions can access it, along with say the Secular Humanist Afternoon Tea Church, it's a fair system.
Anything that really included the Secular Humanist Afternoon Tea Church (incidentally after the schism over the acceptabiliy of coffee we heretics have formed our own group) would simply be a tax break for social organisations, and we already have structures for nonprofits that would meet that. Otherwise, you're privileging groups that have some belief that they feel strongly enough to meet about and meet some vague criterion of seriousness. What about the First Celtic Rastafarian Kirk of Hamilton, for example?
In other words, it's not fair. It's a jackup whereby promoters of absurdity are subsidised to further promote it, and then justify it by pointing to how successful they are, and please don't let anyone else into our club, because they're absurd, not like us.
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Count yourself lucky they were just peddling microbes and vitamins.
I find it profoundly irritating that people who were made to study chemistry and microbiology every year of their degree peddle this crap. Either they believe the woo (depressing ignorance and gullibility, testimony to the lack of efficacy of a university education) or they don't (depressing hypocrisy, testimony to the broken nature of health model in NZ).
Part of the problem is that in NZ Pharmacy's main purpose is as a dispensary for free drugs for the government - it's hard to make a profit doing that.
If the state had to pay pharmacists a bit more in return for them not fostering the spread of ignorance around the country, it would be money well spent.
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Must....exercise....restraint....
Just pop on over to the other thread. And how DO you feel about spatulas?
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half-baked asseverations
Percy was a liar
Percy was a pest
So they gave him a one way ticket
And packed him off to Jest
Where many a true word is spoken -
Eddie, Rich: I think David M is referring to this sentence:
"Many people who condone smacking their children say that it should only be done lovingly, but Straus’s research shows that the link between corporal punishment and masochistic sex is greatest when the parents are warm and loving."
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"That is a damn good rejoinder, sir."
Only if you have prejudices about which orientation is natural...