Agenda - Hawke'S Bay Regional Council: Fill & Download for Free

Just answering the text of the question, Erica Friedman's answer is the correct one - the Family Research Institute cannot be taken seriously as a source of scientific knowledge because they have been repeatedly flagged for posting discredited research and unsubstantiated claims.However, responding to the current question details:"Since they openly admit to be looking for evidence of the things they believe threatens the traditional family. Should their research be considered or simply dismissed for being too biased?"I want to make it clear that it is not the "agenda" that is the problem - it is the failure of their research to hold up in light of scientific scrutiny.As Alex Schamenek noted in his answer, we should hold all research -- whether it is from the FRI or Stephen Hawking ... or from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force -- to high standards of scrutiny. In fact, you'll find little in the way of scientific research that isn't (pick one: published, funded or conducted) in part by one person or group with a personal stake in getting certain results.

A weighted voting system would not be a democratic system. That doesn’t necessarily mean it would be “bad”. It would be pretty much decided by whoever set up the system, and one has to be skeptical of the agenda of whoever that is.The main factor is deciding who gets the extra votes, and why? I suppose the Democrats would want to weight the votes toward minorities (perhaps to the point they are “50–50” with non-minorities), and Republicans would want to weight the votes toward those who pay more taxes. I would suspect the agenda of either of them.Even a “merit” based system has its flaws. Who decides the definition of “merit” and how much weight should they be given. Many might agree that Stephen Hawking has some “merit”, but how much? Does Barack Obama have merit? Does Donald Trump have merit? This could get politically corrupted very quickly!Of course, if I could dictate a weighted voting system, I would gladly do so… starting with giving myself 1 billion votes and everyone else a total of 999,999,999 votes! Good luck getting anyone else to agree.

Did the paralyzation of Stephen Hawking make him reject God and become an atheist?No, Stephen Hawking had the good fortune to have been born and to grow up in a first-world country that has a high standard of education. He didn’t become an atheist but rather he had no reason to become a theist. Religion tends to get perpetuated in third-world countries because of their low standards of education, and in those parts of first-world countries that have similarly low standards of education. Children unfortunate enough to have been born and to have grown up in such communities, where critical thinking skills are low on the agenda and religious beliefs are high on the agenda, are effectively in a cultural trap since people are inclined to believe what they have been indoctrinated to believe by their community. They have too much to lose by dissenting.