This is why Westboro Baptist Church is a joke

[kandrathe]

A view which does not involve a God is, by definition, going to be atheistic, in the literal sense. The null case is special - you can't treat it identically with positive hypotheses.

Superfluous is not the same as incorrect. Nothing can demonstrate, in the strictest sense, that God does not guide evolution. But the evidence can (and does) demonstrate, to paraphrase Laplace, that we have no need of that hypothesis. You do not have to choose between A and B. However, there is nothing about A (biology) that requires you to believe B (theology).

Perhaps textbooks do not need to point this out. It is, however, a critical juncture in the history of science, and also a correct explanation of the intellectual history.

Even if your religion overtly contradicts biology, there is no constitutional requirement that you must believe everything you are taught in school. If your religion teaches you that pi is equal to 3, you are free to do so, and to teach your kids thus. But you have no grounds for complaint when they fail their geometry test.

But... The flip side of establishment is free exercise. The government should not be telling the people that their religion is superfluous either.

You seem to be confusing the Greek crisis with the American one.

The US has a macroeconomic crisis triggered by a financial crisis. Government finances are fine - the US can borrow at fine rates, debt service occupies only a middling place in the budget, creditors are all being paid without issue, taxation is low-to-moderate. The problem is not, therefore, any of the following: Nonpayment of taxes, handouts for poor people, the Iraq war, tycoons exploiting loopholes. These things are bad, but they are not why the US economy is in crisis.

Greece (and to a lesser extent, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy...) is having a *debt* crisis, created by fiscal problems (the origins of which are multiple and debatable.) That is a different issue, requiring different solutions.

Sure. I'm grouping all the western democracies economic woes together, and their conditions and crises are variable.

These things do not much resemble one another.

In the US we've managed to slow down the free fall, but we are still in a relative decline compared to the past two decades. I think if we can figure out how to balance the equation between taxes and entitlements, and trim out some of the most cumbersome corporate regulations we'll snap back on track, and we'll lift Europe out of it's slump as well. My biggest concern is still energy. Without a consistent, cheap and abundant (infinite) source of energy we cannot sustain the productivity of the past.

I've been giving Mr. Cain's $9.99 plan some thought.