There is a lot of that going around. I have a far-too-full house for that very reason. I am retired but all the rest of them (sans my wife) are unemployed as well. Hopefully things will improve soon. What is your area of expertise?

Jonathan got his 1st Muon badge.

Here are a pair of counter-posed Op-Ed articles I wrote to stimulate debate in an online religion community forum. I thought that perhaps some of you might find them interesting.

An Open Letter From A Neo-Rawlsian Atheist To His Religious Friends:
Let’s Keep Faith Out of Public Policy Debates

My Religious Friends,

I write to warn you of a dire and dastardly plot to reintroduce sectarian religious arguments into our public policy debates. This agenda was first forwarded by the religious right by figures such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Recently, Jim Wallis, and a number of other well-meaning religious apologists have responded to the religious right in defense of the liberal democratic values of tolerance and equality so much under siege from the religious right. While we atheists greatly appreciate the advocacy Jim Wallis has done on behalf of the poor and downtrodden, we strenuously caution him to keep the use of religious reasons from the public square.

First, the use of religious reasons in public policy debates violates the spirit of the public square. The public square is supposed to be a place of free inquiry and rational debate, not a venue for blind assertion of faith claims. Participants in the public policy discussion in the public square voluntarily agree to temporarily suspend their religious beliefs because the reasons offered in the public square ought to be acceptable to any reasonable person regardless of their theological presuppositions. Thus, the public square is a space that privileges no theological views, or in other words, a “secular” space. We must be clear here that this secular space imposes the same restrictions upon secular worldviews as it imposes on religious worldviews. Thus, an atheistic argument in favour of a public policy proposal that hinges on the non-existence of God would be equally illegitimate as a Christian argument in favour of a public policy proposal that hinges on the existence of God. To reiterate, reasons provided in the public square should not be contingent on either the existence or non-existence of God.

In addition to the fact that the use of religious reasons in public policy debates in the public square is antithetical to the very idea of the public square, those who advocate in favour of the use of religious reasons must realize that if they begin offering religious reasons in favour of certain policies, these reasons will only be persuasive to those who accept the same theological presuppositions as they do. For example, Christians and atheists have diametrically opposed theological perspectives – while Christians advocate the existence of God and base their lives on the revelation of that fact, atheists equally vehemently deny that very same premise. Hence, if a Christian provides an explicitly Christian reason in favour of a public policy proposal, he actually hasn’t given the atheist a reason at all. He has actually merely given me a justification for his behaviour – a justification which hinges on the assumption of his theological perspective. From the perspective of an atheist who sees no compelling evidence to believe in the existence of the God of the Bible, an appeal to the desires of such a deity are likely to either fall upon deaf ears. A Humanist who hears an argument that turns upon the existence of God does not consider that argument any more legitimate than one that turns upon the existence of the ancient Greek or Norse Gods. Humanists consider appeals to the existence of God as fundamentally no different from appeals to the Greek Gods from antiquity, and hence consider arguments that appeal to their existence and desires ridiculous.

Additionally, do we really want to live in a world in which a sizable percentage of Americans are persuaded more by appeals to their theological views than to appeals to reason common to all people? Should the question, “At what point does the soul enter the human body?” really be a part of the public debate about abortion? We say no! There are already ample places for these debates, including churches, theology classrooms, religious forums, and any number of journals of Christian Ethics, among others. Let’s keep the public square not merely non-sectarian, but avowedly non-theological, neither rejecting, nor admitting the existence of God.

Finally, the inclusion of religious reasons in the public square poses a challenge that many religious Americans would be wise to anticipate: namely, that if religious reasons are introduced in the public square, religion will cease to be treated with kid gloves. Many non-theistic Americans find nothing wrong in principle with religion and have a great deal of respect for people’s privacy and religious freedom, but once religious reasons are advanced in support of a policy proposal, they will (quite reasonably) subject each premise of the argument to careful scrutiny. If the argument is unconvincing unless one adopts a sectarian religious perspective, they will categorically reject the argument, and rightfully so. They will also turn their attention to explicitly questioning the religious dogmas that give rise to the sectarian religious arguments to which they object. Does the Catholic Church really want to have a public debate about whether or not the Immaculate Conception is true? Do religious Americans want their religious dogmas to be subjected to intense public scrutiny? I should think not. Religious Americans might find out that sometimes getting what they want doesn’t turn out the way they wanted it to. Indeed, those who seek to use religious reasons in support of a policy might find out that introducing religious premises actually undermines, instead of advancing, one’s attempts to garner support.

Jonathan --That is indeed thoughtful writing--now tell what you think?

http://shop2.frys.com/product/5837943

Excellent crunching cards.
Get a 4 PCI mobo and 4 of these.