Has the RRS considered sending a representative to one of the US 2008 Presidential General Election debates to ask a question?
There are 3 presidential debates this year, the second of which is a town hall forum in which voters can ask questions on ANY topic. This debate takes place at Belmont University, the largest Christian university in Tennessee, on October 7, 2008. This would be an excellent forum to start a dialog concerning atheists in America and their growing presence as an accepted/unaccepted minority.
I was thinking it would be great if the RRS could get some representative(s) to attend the debate and ask questions regarding separation of church and state, atheism acceptance in America, addressing the contradiction of whether or not the President's confession of a particular set of religious beliefs are a private matter or whether they daily influence his/her decision making abilities, etc. There are a ton of possibilities here.
This is what I would ask:
Previous presidents have reflected on the role of citizens who confess no religious beliefs, especially those who do not believe in the existence of a God or Gods. In 1987 President George H.W. Bush said of atheists, "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." As President, how would you address the tacitly accepted discrimination of atheists and nonbelievers in the America of 2008?
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda
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oh, I would pay to see that (if I had any money). I hope something of the sort can be arranged!
Though I wonder if the question would get up to the candidates.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Bush never said that.
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=13314
I suppose it is possible that he never said that, we have to take a journalist's word, who wrote for American Atheists news journal, and who definitely has a bias towards the issue being discussed. That snopes site had a lot of contrasting viewpoints and by no means was the opinion you quoted the only one regarding the authenticity of this matter. Richard Dawkins refers to this actual quote in the God Delusion and says perhaps it can be taken with a grain of salt. That being sad, I would suggest you take it from the horses mouth, and check out what he has to say about the claims against him, which I feel, he has made a fairly decent rebuke of the charges against his lying. Specific corroborating evidence contained in the presidential library confirming the meeting of Sherman and Bush as well as letters submitted to President Bush and responded to by his legal counsel concerning that meeting are presented. Here is a small snippet from the page, which should be read in its entirety to understand the whole story.
"The letter from Mr. Murray to the Members of Congress is from a file identified as White House Office of Records Management, Subject Code RM, Document Number 157715 CU. This document is a letter that Jon Murray sent to every Member of Congress on February 21, 1990. In this letter, Mr. Murray describes the news conference that I attended, quotes exactly the conversation between Mr. Bush and myself, and then states:
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda