Witty comments aside, I still think he was a great advocate to have on our side. He was intelligent, rational and an unforgiving debater. He will be missed in the atheist community.

Totally off-topic vjack, but I had to share my sadness at the passing of Christopher Hitchens. I don't have too many people to share it with, so I thought I'd just remark that I think we lost quite the bulldog for atheism.

A little late to the party, but I thought some of you guys might get a kick out of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqRcSaHgHn8

It is my son's commentary on Rick Perry. I think this says it all. Especially his WTF expression.

We've got very talented developers here at my company, but I'm pretty sure an application like this is far beyond the abilities of even my best folks. I'm not even sure it is possible. Christianspeak contains words and phrases that have no equivalent in reasonable, rational language.

You're misanthropic because you give a shit vjack, so take some solace in that. The day you stop caring is the day you should begin to worry.

These people are just plain crazy. They're talking about trying the same thing here in Ohio. I hate to wish ill on someone, but I'd like to see these people be in a situation where they're myopic view of this issue doesn't quite fit so nicely anymore. I'm so proud of the people of Mississippi for pulling this off.

You do realize that the free oatmeal comes with a long diatribe on diabetes.

While I disagree with your premise that atheists look to the government to solve problems (I, for one, certainly do not), I do think you make a valid point on this article stopping a little short.

In fact, I would argue that in most cases people are not consciously looking to absolve themselves of responsibility, but that we have culturally de-emphasized how important it is to understand human behavior and philosophy. While I do not think that people gravitate to religion to avoid responsibility, I think they are apt not to leave it partly because they don't want to burden themselves with the effort involved in deciding whether they had made an informed decision in the first place.

Just as most people are content to work a job that is 8-5 and leave work at work, I think most people are glad to have a "philosophy" (read, religion) that allows them to go home for 6 days and not really have any work to do but pull out a book that lists what you should and should not do.

I'm not suggesting all people who have faith are like this, but I think it is fairly obvious that a vast majority are. This is obviously a much longer discussion that a blog format can really accommodate, but suffice it to say that I think vjack makes some good points, but that it isn't nearly the entire story. I guess that is what we are here for.

"Could this idiot from Texas be even worse than the last one?"

Yep... and more than likely he is. Bush didn't seem to have enough intelligence to piece together an agenda. Unfortunately, his cronies did. This guy seems to have quite the agenda: Let's make the entire country like Texas. With no disrespect to ronlawhouston (I assume you live in Texas) - no thank you.

Excellent post vjack. It was through exercising reason I arrived at atheism rationally. I'm not sure that is the same for all atheists. What I like so much about this topic is that exercising rationality gives you a foundation for how to behave, make decisions, and interact with the world. There is no need for an arbitrary morality when you are constantly looking to behave and react rationally.