Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President

gerrysteele writes to point out a recent post to the Dilbert blog, in which Scott Adams discusses the atheist ascendancy in America and rationalizes the need for an atheist leader. From the article: "Ask a deeply religious Christian if he'd rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don't seem so bad lately. I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates."

andlinux

[perler]

you mean something like AndLinux [gp2x.org]?

PAT

Re:How is this news?

[diegocgteleline.es]

You don't read Scott Adam's blog a lot, do you? Scott Adams is all about parodies and is always laughing about something, specially about the people who takes seriously what he says. His proposal of Bill Gates as president is just yet another funny post of crazy ways to be president of the united states. Just a small example:

"As a political candidate, I would advocate some sort of tax rebate to subsidize Internet porn and Kleenex for single men between the ages of 18 and 35. That way all the potential rapists can more easily afford to exhaust themselves at home. I'd have graphs and charts to make my argument that no other policy would be as effective. My slogan would be "Deal with the root cause." I would call it my Yankee Doodle plan.

Re:Not compatible

[Alaria Phrozen]

I've been told the US is a net _reducer_ of pollution. Ie has a LOT of land, and most of it is still covered in forest. Sure the coasts are crammed with people and everybody thinks it's one big rutin' tutin' pollutin' shitbag, but what about the whole middle part with all the trees and forestry?

I live in Missouri and the acid rain is pleasantly absent. Which I also hear is better than parts of Europe...

Re:Not compatible

[jmv]

Consider that the US produces ~25% of the world's greenhouse gases. I don't think its trees can remove anywhere near that proportion. From what I heard (but I could be wrong on that one), the US has enough land to sustain only about 1/10 of it's population considering its current way of life.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

>You don't read Scott Adam's blog a lot, do you? Scott Adams is all about parodies and is always laughing about something, specially about the people who takes seriously what he says. His proposal of Bill Gates as president is just yet another funny post of crazy ways to be president of the united states.

I think you read even lesser of his blog. He blogs seriously on Sunday. And 19th of Nov. 2006 is a Sunday in Christian calendar. (don't know if its not in an atheist's)

Re:Obligatory

[empaler]

Well, seeing as one of the cornerstones of Communism is shedding the imperialist opium of religion, I'd venture yes, it's a bit Soviet-ty.

Re:End of faith

[MartinB]

One could get in to a discussion about OT versus NT but a quick look at e.g. Leviticus will reveal a whole bunch of 'laws' which most modern Christians choose to ignore yet others which they hold to be absolute truths to live their lives by.

The thing is, that the OT/NT discussion is the key here. The NT thing is that loving God, and loving other people fulfils the entire OT law, without the specific list of items.

Now many evangelicals like to pick and choose from the specific list according to their own tastes/prejudices, but you're right, to be consistent, one should go the whole hog, as Christianity doesn't actually have a concept of big sins/little sins - a sin is a sin is a sin (pace Catholicism). But they don't like it when you point this out, as much of it is clearly absurd to western society. As are the bits they like to pick out. One good exposition of this is the one from the The West Wing [bewarne.com]:

"I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?"

        "My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?"

        "Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?"

        "Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?"

But just because some people like to pick specifics from a menu doesn't mean that this is at all an accurate, authentic description of Christianity.

Re:M$ jokes aside...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jefferson, one of the original Republicans

The Republican party was founded in 1854 [wikipedia.org]. Jefferson [wikipedia.org] died in 1826. You really need to qualify this statement, lest people be confused. Jefferson was part of the Democratic-Republican [wikipedia.org] party which is totally unrelated to the Republican Party of today. In fact, the Democratic-Republican party evolved into the current day Democratic [wikipedia.org] party.

The War on Terror had been going on as well (we had troops flying over Iraq and on the borders since the cease fire of '91.)

Planes flying over Iraq from 1991 to 2001 does not constitute a "War on Terror".

Bush has extensive business experience

Indeed, Bush has a long history of business failures. His buddies have bailed him out every time. Now as President, it is the American people that have to clean up the effects of his foolish, simple-minded policies.

the debt/repayment cycle is part of that

We are still paying interest on the Reagan tax cuts from twenty years ago. The annual interest on the Reagan debt is itself sufficient to cover the entire cost of the Iraq war from the time Bush invaded in 2003 to today. Certainly the economy would benefit more if we put several hundred billion dollars into the US economy every year rather than sending it off to foreign investors that purchased US savings bonds.

Re:How is this news?

[Dr. Manhattan]

At least, two books, #7, Richard Dawkins book, and #17, A Letter to a Christian Nation, have atheist overtones.

You forgot "CULTURE WARRIOR" at #3 by noted atheist Bill O'Reilly, and "THE MYSTICAL LIFE OF JESUS" at #13 by Sylvia Browne. Oh, right - the world is so "anti-religion" nowadays. It's actually news that atheists have books that are selling now, but "Godless" by Ann Coulter and "Deliver Us From Evil" by Sean Hannity are, of course, not any cause for special note.

Let me just quote Jon Stewart on this one: "Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely, in broad daylight, openly wearing symbols of their religion, perhaps around their necks. And maybe - dare I dream it - maybe one day there could even be an openly Christian president. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively."

Athiest or Agnostic?

[Spazmania]

I did a Google search for the material claiming that Gates is an athiest and it mostly came back to the following:

Gates was interviewed November 1995 on PBS by David Frost. Below is the transcript with minor edits.

Frost: Do you believe in the Sermon on the Mount?

Gates: I don't. I'm not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis. The specific elements of Christianity are not something I'm a huge believer in. There's a lot of merit in the moral aspects of religion. I think it can have a very very positive impact.

Frost: I sometimes say to people, do you believe there is a god, or do you know there is a god? And, you'd say you don't know?

Gates: In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.

Now, last I heard an athiest was someone who denies the existance of any god while an agnostic questions God's existance. Unless we plan to redefine these words or there is some more significant quote floating around out there, Gates is an agnostic, not an atheist.

Re:WTF is this intolerant bullshit?

[Inoshiro]

Check out this Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]:
""In God We Trust" is the national motto of the United States of America. It was so designated by an act of Congress in 1956 and officially supersedes "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One) according to United States Code, Title 36, Section 302. President Eisenhower signed the resolution into law on 30 July 1956.[1]"

It seems to me that tacking on the motto about 180 years after the declaration of independence is a sign of a religious right phase that started in the 1950s with McCarthy and the anti-red movement, and which kept up momentum by hating the other non-christians once the USSR (the largest declared athiest state) crumbled under its own economic corruption.

I agree with the OP -- this seems to be a phase, and a phase that's getting worse because all the 30-40 year old crazies who grew up at the height of red fever seem to think pushing their beliefs is a federal mandate too.

Re:Athiest or Agnostic?

[Domomojo]

The definitions of "agnostic" and "atheist" are hotly debated. The common definition of atheism being the denial of the existence of gods is inadequate for most people who call themselves atheists. Basically "atheist" should mean the person is a non-theist. In that sense there is no middle ground. Since Gates doesn't have a belief in a particular deity, by that definition he is an atheist. (It's like being pregnant, you either are or you aren't). "Agnosticism" is about knowledge, not belief, so Gates could be both an agnostic and an atheist, just like you could be an agnostic and a theist. What most people think "atheist" means is actually the definition of "strong atheism." I think most people who call themselves "agnostics" by the common definition, are actually "weak atheists". Wikipedia has plenty of information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism [wikipedia.org]

And PZ Myers had a good discussion on the issue in a recent blog post: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/11/freetho ught_tagteam_wrestling.php [scienceblogs.com]

Re:Let's Pass an Amendment

[shaneh0]

Actually, do some googling before you make dumb assumptions.

Every horse race between Bill Clinton and some other national candidate, always shows Bill winning.

Bill Vs. George W, bill wins
Bill Vs. McCain, bill Wins
Just recently I saw a SurveyUSA, Bill v. Hillary.... Bill wins.

And since you offered unsolicited advice, I'll do the same:
Maybe you should spend less time trolling and more time actually thinking for yourself, and you might actually make a good point every now and then.