OK, am I the only one scared out of my mind by this chapter? Scalia saying that god is visible in the work of our founding fathers, but not in our more recent politicians? Q: Hey, Anthony: Tell me, what year do your devinely inspired eyes tell you that the lord stopped caring about the good 'ol U. S. of A? That congress can't tell the difference between cloning humans and extracting cells? That the enlighenment, the age of reason, is downplayed because we are apparently too poorly educated to actually reason well?

Drs Gould and Dawkins agreed that it was not wise for real scientists to debate cretinists in public because the fact of the debate, rather than the content, was used by the cretinists to make themselves look "mainstream". Neither was shy about taking on any and all comers, including each other, in print.I don't see anything wrong with staying generally on topic but I don't see any need to be obseesive about it either. And I didn't see this thread as an "argument", it looked like a civil and appropriate discussion to me. All four premises... that atheism will eventually predominate, that it never will, that it would lead to more divisiveness, that it would lead to less... are plausible scenarios both important and interesting. If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Yes. But too much of this discussion has degenerated into nothing about the book...look at the preface thread. There are other forums for this. I want the book discussions I lead to be quality discourse on the book...so when the authors come to chat, people know what they wrote!Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

There is a duplicate chapter 12 thread with two posts. I copy them here:Megaerra:Re: Scalia's speech-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacoby opens the last chapter of _Freethinkers_ with a discussion of Antonin Scalia's speech "God's Justice and Ours", delivered to the University Of Chicago Divinity School in January 2002 . Justice Scalia's speech starts about 1/10 of the way down the page. I've included the speech at the bottom of my message.Seems to me that Jacoby misrepresents Scalia's message by quoting him out of context. For example, from his statement that the Constitution is "not living but dead -- or, as I prefer to put it, enduring. It means today not what current society (much less the Court) thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted." She claims that this leads to the conclusion that, for example, "courts should be free to hand down death sentences for grand theft auto, the modern equivalent of horse theft." But that isn't Scalia's point. His point is that the judge's job is to interpret the law *as it was written*. It's the *legislator's* job to adapt the law to fit modern sensibilities. So if, for example, the death penalty is to be restricted or terminated, it should be the legislature that enacts new laws on the subject, not the judiciary who reinterprets existing laws.Another interesting statement from Scalia's speech: "Thus, my difficulty with Roe v. Wade is a legal rather than a moral one. I do not believe

LanDroid:This part of Scalia's speech seems dangerous.Quote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------It seems to me that the reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should be not resignation to it but resolution to combat it as effectively as possible, and a principal way of combating it, in my view, is constant public reminder that

I wasn't that impressed with the final chapter, since it mainly consisted of stuff I've seen before.

Perhaps...but the rest of the book opened my eyes to much. And a repetition of things we know, in times such as these, may not be a bad thing. Restate and reaffirm the goals of a secular mission.Did you like the rest of the book? Any insights gained? For me, Jacoby introduced me to some important people and made me realize how much more important some people were in the freethought movement.Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Jacoby had a major impact on my view of history. Prior to reading this book, I had decided that the U.S. Revolution was a bloody waste . . . what, after all, would be so bad about being a British citizen? A right proper democracy they are these days. Now I see the U.S.A. as more special and more worthwhile - in general I am more comfortable being a patriot now than I was before. If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984