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 Orlanth wrote:
Hair colour is a skewed way of looking at it, because absent isn't a colour, but it is a style.

Yes, I know that once you change the statement it reflects your belief that atheism is a religion. However, the statement was already just fine the way it was.

- It relies on the faith based idea that there is no God.

No it doesn't. It relies on the faith-free idea that there is no credible evidence for the existence of god or the truth of any religion.

- It has components of all the facets of a major religion, including fanaticism, doctrinarianism, martyrdom and saintdom.

It really doesn't.

There is not so much difference.
"We're not going to talk about God", uses the collective we and makes demands of everyone else, that is militant atheism.

This is just laughably wrong. Not talking about god does not imply any position on the existence of god or the truth of any particular religion. It simply says "we're not going to discuss this subject". We're not going to talk about reasons to believe in god, we're not going to talk about reasons not to believe in god. If you believe in a god then nothing in your belief is challenged. The only religion that suffers any loss at all from this position is the kind that has an obsessive need to constantly tell everyone about how wonderful their god is and recruit new followers.

What atheists extremists want to do is to remove all reference to God from schools, which is a totally different thing from preventing the proliferation of religion.

Even if this were true (it isn't) what's your point? You don't have a right to have elements of your religion in schools.

The specific withdrawal is notable and noticable. By removing religious art from schools raises the question as to why. Educational subject material is most often redacted due to error so it places an error label on religious works.

This is simply not true. If we don't talk about the results of last night's baseball games in math class that doesn't mean that baseball is an error*, it just means that it's a subject that shouldn't be discussed in math class. And let's not forget that this "extremist" policy of removing all religious works entirely would include removing atheist art/literature/etc. By your argument this would mean that the policy is also applying the "error" label to atheism.

*Of course baseball is an error that should be corrected, but this is not the evidence for it.

Here you are not criticisng the work presented, you are criticising the belief system of the teacher assuming, without evidence, that because they are religious they cannot assess students work impartially.
That is just blatant unwarranted discrimination.

No, I'm making that assumption based on the fact that the teacher brought their personal religious beliefs into the classroom instead of keeping them private. And I'm not assuming that they necessarily will be unfair in their grading, I'm saying that a student might believe that this could happen. The line of separation of church and state has to be enforced based on the worst-case assumptions, we can't wait until there is conclusive evidence of a problem before finally stepping in to do something about it.

Also, if you think I'm being unfair to the poor teacher, perhaps you should read the OP's recent posts in this thread, where they explicitly state that "he mentioned his religion in context with the opera."

If you take the reaction tom this school performance and replace atheism with Islam and no-God with Mohammed and the reactions we are seeing would be plain as day for everyone.

Except that's not a valid substitution because it would be a case of promoting one religion (Islam) over another (Christianity), a clear violation of separation of church and state. That's not at all the same as saying "keep your religion, whatever it is, out of your classroom".

 CptJake wrote:
Faith: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/faith

Pretty sure that definition fits exactly what I meant.

Yes, your definition, specific to religion, is different, BUT that definition is secondary/based on the first, with the subject of the 'complete trust or confidence' being in 'God exists'.

At least some of the atheists I have met have absolute faith (complete trust or confidence) God does not exist.

... Well it IS a thread about religion tangents, is it not? That's why i ran with the accepted lexiconical usage of the word having more to do with "religious / spiritual belief" than "trust".

Your definition fits, but I would daresay within the context of the thread / conversation, it fits less well than the other definition, which is why I used it, but this is splitting hairs I suppose.

I enjoy that the only worthwhile thing you found in my post was definitional differentiation. It's all good though, I am not out on a crusade of any kind, i just wanted to make a couple minor points.

Today we went to a mandatory assembly on alcoholism, where a few people and the superintendent spoke on DUIs. When the superintendent mentions he is glad that he didn't injure anyone or else he would have gone to prison, he says" It was only by the grace of god! I said god!(hand motion in my general direction, not sure if intentional) that no one was hurt"

Ugh. Not sure if paranoid or if they really are out to get me….

If they are, talk to the ACLU. They can take up your case of harassment.
Never take anything lying down.

It's the night after the first performance, so this is irrelevant already, but this was an important chapter of my life unfortunately, so I have to vent somewhere. I can't sleep anyway, so why not. So far people have moved from hostility to just ignoring me, I guess that is better. About two weeks ago, the opera group took the stage from south high school(it was paid for with school money) and claimed it as their own. I mentioned it to my parents and got the whole"what the hell is wrong with you, you already ruined enough people's lives" mixed with Christian Murica land speech. They made an agreement to not support the opera anymore, and they donated school property, and they went back on their word. Recently a news article interviewed Mr Richard, and apparently he picked the new director for the opera because he wasn't allowed to supervise it anymore. On a happy note, only 25 kids out of 46 are still doing the opera. Some kids from choir apparently didn't like the message either, based on what I have heard, but most of them probably were just busy.

I am thinking of going to see a therapist. Considering I am writing this a. 3 am, I think there is something genuinely wrong with me. I also kind of hate some of the people who did this- Richard, the principal, the superintendent, some of the meaner bullies- which is really a wierd feeling for me- I typically don't feel very much at all, kind of a blunted effect. I have also started having a hard time sleeping, and I am really obsessed with this production still. I can't get it out of my head! It is ridiculous, I know, but I wonder if I have some minor PTSD or something?

Anyway, I know this is a selfish post, but I needed somewhere to express myself.

Are they using the school as a venue? I know over here, that's really very common, and not something you should care about.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:


I am thinking of going to see a therapist. Considering I am writing this a. 3 am, I think there is something genuinely wrong with me. I also kind of hate some of the people who did this- Richard, the principal, the superintendent, some of the meaner bullies- which is really a wierd feeling for me- I typically don't feel very much at all, kind of a blunted effect. I have also started having a hard time sleeping, and I am really obsessed with this production still. I can't get it out of my head! It is ridiculous, I know, but I wonder if I have some minor PTSD or something?

If this was so traumatic to you that it gave you PTSD, seeing a therapist may be a good move.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It's the night after the first performance, so this is irrelevant already, but this was an important chapter of my life unfortunately, so I have to vent somewhere. I can't sleep anyway, so why not. So far people have moved from hostility to just ignoring me, I guess that is better. About two weeks ago, the opera group took the stage from south high school(it was paid for with school money) and claimed it as their own. I mentioned it to my parents and got the whole"what the hell is wrong with you, you already ruined enough people's lives" mixed with Christian Murica land speech. They made an agreement to not support the opera anymore, and they donated school property, and they went back on their word. Recently a news article interviewed Mr Richard, and apparently he picked the new director for the opera because he wasn't allowed to supervise it anymore. On a happy note, only 25 kids out of 46 are still doing the opera. Some kids from choir apparently didn't like the message either, based on what I have heard, but most of them probably were just busy.

I am thinking of going to see a therapist. Considering I am writing this a. 3 am, I think there is something genuinely wrong with me. I also kind of hate some of the people who did this- Richard, the principal, the superintendent, some of the meaner bullies- which is really a wierd feeling for me- I typically don't feel very much at all, kind of a blunted effect. I have also started having a hard time sleeping, and I am really obsessed with this production still. I can't get it out of my head! It is ridiculous, I know, but I wonder if I have some minor PTSD or something?

Anyway, I know this is a selfish post, but I needed somewhere to express myself.

Have you considered getting a job?

 Frazzled wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It's the night after the first performance, so this is irrelevant already, but this was an important chapter of my life unfortunately, so I have to vent somewhere. I can't sleep anyway, so why not. So far people have moved from hostility to just ignoring me, I guess that is better. About two weeks ago, the opera group took the stage from south high school(it was paid for with school money) and claimed it as their own. I mentioned it to my parents and got the whole"what the hell is wrong with you, you already ruined enough people's lives" mixed with Christian Murica land speech. They made an agreement to not support the opera anymore, and they donated school property, and they went back on their word. Recently a news article interviewed Mr Richard, and apparently he picked the new director for the opera because he wasn't allowed to supervise it anymore. On a happy note, only 25 kids out of 46 are still doing the opera. Some kids from choir apparently didn't like the message either, based on what I have heard, but most of them probably were just busy.

I am thinking of going to see a therapist. Considering I am writing this a. 3 am, I think there is something genuinely wrong with me. I also kind of hate some of the people who did this- Richard, the principal, the superintendent, some of the meaner bullies- which is really a wierd feeling for me- I typically don't feel very much at all, kind of a blunted effect. I have also started having a hard time sleeping, and I am really obsessed with this production still. I can't get it out of my head! It is ridiculous, I know, but I wonder if I have some minor PTSD or something?

Anyway, I know this is a selfish post, but I needed somewhere to express myself.

Have you considered getting a job?

Clap.... Clap.... Clap....
/end thread

I have been working about 7-8 hours a day on learning 3ds max, so no.

 Frazzled wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It's the night after the first performance, so this is irrelevant already, but this was an important chapter of my life unfortunately, so I have to vent somewhere. I can't sleep anyway, so why not. So far people have moved from hostility to just ignoring me, I guess that is better. About two weeks ago, the opera group took the stage from south high school(it was paid for with school money) and claimed it as their own. I mentioned it to my parents and got the whole"what the hell is wrong with you, you already ruined enough people's lives" mixed with Christian Murica land speech. They made an agreement to not support the opera anymore, and they donated school property, and they went back on their word. Recently a news article interviewed Mr Richard, and apparently he picked the new director for the opera because he wasn't allowed to supervise it anymore. On a happy note, only 25 kids out of 46 are still doing the opera. Some kids from choir apparently didn't like the message either, based on what I have heard, but most of them probably were just busy.

I am thinking of going to see a therapist. Considering I am writing this a. 3 am, I think there is something genuinely wrong with me. I also kind of hate some of the people who did this- Richard, the principal, the superintendent, some of the meaner bullies- which is really a wierd feeling for me- I typically don't feel very much at all, kind of a blunted effect. I have also started having a hard time sleeping, and I am really obsessed with this production still. I can't get it out of my head! It is ridiculous, I know, but I wonder if I have some minor PTSD or something?

Anyway, I know this is a selfish post, but I needed somewhere to express myself.

Have you considered getting a job?

Please do not ever say this to a person who comes to you saying they are exhibiting signs of mental illness. Seriously, do not ever say this, it can only complicate things and make the person feel worse.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
It's the night after the first performance, so this is irrelevant already, but this was an important chapter of my life unfortunately, so I have to vent somewhere. I can't sleep anyway, so why not. So far people have moved from hostility to just ignoring me, I guess that is better. About two weeks ago, the opera group took the stage from south high school(it was paid for with school money) and claimed it as their own. I mentioned it to my parents and got the whole"what the hell is wrong with you, you already ruined enough people's lives" mixed with Christian Murica land speech. They made an agreement to not support the opera anymore, and they donated school property, and they went back on their word. Recently a news article interviewed Mr Richard, and apparently he picked the new director for the opera because he wasn't allowed to supervise it anymore. On a happy note, only 25 kids out of 46 are still doing the opera. Some kids from choir apparently didn't like the message either, based on what I have heard, but most of them probably were just busy.

I am thinking of going to see a therapist. Considering I am writing this a. 3 am, I think there is something genuinely wrong with me. I also kind of hate some of the people who did this- Richard, the principal, the superintendent, some of the meaner bullies- which is really a wierd feeling for me- I typically don't feel very much at all, kind of a blunted effect. I have also started having a hard time sleeping, and I am really obsessed with this production still. I can't get it out of my head! It is ridiculous, I know, but I wonder if I have some minor PTSD or something?

Anyway, I know this is a selfish post, but I needed somewhere to express myself.

Have you considered getting a job?

Please do not ever say this to a person who comes to you saying they are exhibiting signs of mental illness. Seriously, do not ever say this, it can only complicate things and make the person feel worse.

Are you saying another Dakka poster has a mental illness?

Well, he did self-diagnose PTSD....

Ok, I'll bow out in case you're right and not crack a joke.

I think that as the situation in the OP has been resolved we can put this one to bed.

Stay safe and healthy Dakkanauts !