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[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Where the heck did that come from? He said "God given rights" - that could be any god of any religion. If you have such a problem with someone believing that there is a god, you should move to Seattle.

Why does it have to be a god at all? Why does a god have to intrude into the discussion?

To answer your question, where my comment came from is my frustration at seeing a discussion of board policies degenerate into a religious statement that was used to close out the discussion by, in essence, telling anyone who disagrees with the concept of a god-given right that he is wrong. The problem I had with that statement is not that Clayton believes in god--though that is the canard that the religious often resort to when confronted with the intellectual problems of the belief-based underpinnings of their arguments as to secular issues--but that he asserted a so-called natural set of rights which he postulated derive directly from a divine being as the basis for his intellectual position in a discussion of what subjects should be allowed to be discussed on a baseball card chat board.

As for your commentary, first, I am not sure what Seattle did to merit your apparent disdain--I've never been there--but I guess I can take your word for it that it somehow sucks sufficiently to serve as a destination for people with whom you disagree. Just how bad is Seattle? Are you saying that all non-believers are to be concentrated in Seattle? To what purpose or end, if I might ask, should we be exiled to that terrible place? Surely, it cannot be just to prevent us from posting on N54; although I've not been there, I assume that Seattle has internet service and people who live there could in theory post to N54? Is that wrong? Can anyone from Seattle stand up, JoJo Who style, and let us know that a person's a person, no matter how Seattle-based?

Setting that issue aside, yours is an interesting and [in my view] logically challenged position to take. What you wrote in essence is that if I do not believe in god I have to go to a place that you presumably find distasteful or unwholesome. If that is not what you meant to write, by all means please clarify your position. If, however, I have accurately deconstructed your statement, then I have to ask whether you also agree that I can with equal validity hold the opposite view, namely that if you have a problem with someone not believing in religions or gods maybe you should move to somewhere like Tehran? If my suggesting that you go to Tehran because you are not an atheist is a problematic concept for you to swallow, perhaps you should rethink your statement.