Advocatus Atheist

It is often preached from the pulpit that America was founded as a "Christian Nation." Perhaps worse than the blatant fallacy behind this is that so many people buy into it. However, to anyone who has spent a little time investigating the matter, the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation is unequivocally false. It is not really a claim which needs to be refuted since, the simple fact of the matter is, America was the first country founded on the principle that all religions deserved equal respect and none deserved unrequited favor. The Christian doctrine of exclusivity was, to the minds of the founding fathers, incompatible with their loftier principles of a united republic, a United States. The vision they had was one of an autonomous nation where your religion was just one part of what defined you--but at the end of the day--each and every citizen, man or woman, could proudly call themselves free--they could call themselves--Ame...

Visiting America after having lived in Japan for over half a decade was both unusual and familiar all at the same time. Some things have changed. For example, the medium sized drink has become freaking gigantic. The large size drink is ludicrous. And now they offer even a larger size! Barrel sized 72 oz. drinks are sold at gas stations now. All the food has advertising that it is 99% sugar free. Or is reduced fat or less salt. But all the food is like 99 times bigger--so it really doesn't seem to matter. It all is about the same as full sugar, salt, or fat because your eating a hundred times more than you ought to. I did enjoy all the new Vitamin Water flavors though. That was new to me. When I left the states there were no Vitamin Water drinks... let alone an entire rainbow of flavors to select from! Some things stay the same. There are tons of fat people. Probably from the huge soda drinks and amount of pop they drink. Americans still prefer to talk out loud on their cell...