tvashtarkatena

The influence of fundies waxes and wanes, but they've always been stalwart opponents of enlightenment principles as embodied in the bill of rights. The only way to minimize the harm they can do is to keep religion out of government.

Strawman alert. Yawn

Even weirder: "we grew out of it". Is the learned mr Coe, who diligently monitors so many blogs, unaware that christians are attempting to narrow the definition of rape to exclude sexual abuse, statutory and date rape in congress as we speak as part of their abortion funding bill? Grew out of what, exactly?

Awesome. Send pics. I'd love to see it.

Lulz

Too bad it didn't work.

You gotta love a president who hires Pinkertons to do his dirty work in this day and age. Old school. Our kinda guy.

I googled The Girl with the Draggin Tattoo and, man, I'll NEVER make that mistake again.

We're not going to get rid of the fundies. I so wish we could, so we would progress unimpeded and face the challenges ahead armed with reason rather than superstition. But we're stuck with them. That's why we need to bolster our existing body of law to keep all religious belief completely out. No faith based initiatives. No religiously driven abortion restrictions. Nada. Our most fundamental amendment demands it.

The human misery promoted by fundies comes in many forms. Death (the death penalty and wars in this country, both strongly supported by the Christian Right) is only one measure. Repression of women (does your rape qualify for an abortion? Being debated RIGHT NOW), gays, minorities, free thinking, science, and the arts - just a few areas under attack by the Christian right for, oh, the past 2 and half centuries or so. We are not a Christian nation, and we never were. We are a pluralistic, secular humanist nation - we wrote that down so its easy to remember.

Lots of it - but if simple repression was the answer we'd have seen a proportional number of Arab secularists, etc detonating themselves in Western discos. We haven't. We'd also be remarking upon the complete absence of suicide bombers originating from Muslim communities in liberal western democracies, but we aren't. We'd probably also see the propensity for engaging in acts of suicide bombing against civilians decreasing with wealth and education, but if anything, we're seeing vastly more doctors, engineers, and relatively privileged individuals than we are bedouin goatherds engaged in terrorism. Finally - we'd also see an equal propensity for such violence across all belief groups who have been subject to sustained political repression, and we aren't. If this was any other ideology - people wouldn't have such a difficult time connecting the dots. Unbelievable. Your implication: Egyptians don't feel repressed because they're not blowing themselves up? It's called patronizing. Perhaps Egyptians might be as complex as we are. Perhaps their desires for self determination aren't so very different from ours.

Yemen's Ali Abdullah Selah's not gonna run again. Get a few folks out the in street and suddenly the job of autocrat isn't so enticing...

You're wrong Rudy, this is about the only forum where you're SUPPOSED to be able to do that. This isn't your wrestling team, its more like your 4 year old daughter's tutu wearing soccer club. blame his Finnish background. pikku sotilas. A good friend of mine is Finnish and he's... ...dour and grouchy, too.

What, you got a mouse in your pocket? I'm employing the royal 'some'

Evangelism may have inspired a bunch of country boys to sign up, but limiting its effect to merely that misses its much larger effect on federal decision making at the highest level - it has been a key booster in our push for war and ever greater military spending, much of which is offensive in capability.

Some of us were a bit suprised by his response (don't agree on the bitch slap nature of our advice, but whatev...), that's all.

i'm curious how this "violent" religion you speak of becomes so non-violent here in the US. could it be because it isn't simply about the religion? Yes, pretty much completely non-violent, as compared with evangelicals and the policies they support...at least in this country.

Lots of it - but if simple repression was the answer we'd have seen a proportional number of Arab secularists, etc detonating themselves in Western discos. We haven't. We'd also be remarking upon the complete absence of suicide bombers originating from Muslim communities in liberal western democracies, but we aren't. We'd probably also see the propensity for engaging in acts of suicide bombing against civilians decreasing with wealth and education, but if anything, we're seeing vastly more doctors, engineers, and relatively privileged individuals than we are bedouin goatherds engaged in terrorism. Finally - we'd also see an equal propensity for such violence across all belief groups who have been subject to sustained political repression, and we aren't. If this was any other ideology - people wouldn't have such a difficult time connecting the dots. What a load of hypothetical crap. We outsource our violence, to the state and its machines, or to proxy states and theirs - suicide bombers are do-it-yourselfers. The methods differ, the violence, and the religiously inspired philosophies that inspire it, are the same - both strongly encouraged and celebrated by the fundamentalists on both sides.

The claim that all moral systems that ground some of their precepts in supernatural claims are equally likely to promote violence and repression is every bit as ridiculous as the claim that all political ideologies are equally likely to do so. No one in their right mind would blather on about the fundamental equivalence between fascism and pacifism, but there seems to be a surfeit of erstwhile progressives that are willing to indulge this kind of patent nonsense when it comes to religions. Their fundamental doctrines are not all the same, they promote vastly different ethical norms and behaviors, and these have an enormous impact on the way that people who subscribe to them behave. It's not ridiculous given the historical evidence. Take our own history. Our Christians were the strongest supporters of slavery. They continue to this day to be the strongest supporters of the repression of women, denigration of science, suppression of free expression, discrimination against gays...in general, the violation of our fundamental principle of the separation of church and state. They have been THE largest and most active enemy of the secular principles on our Constitution.

In short, hope lies in secular humanist democracy. Egypt, and here. The place doesn't matter.

Such xenophobic comparisons have an agenda: our cult is better (more reformed, is it?). In reality, theism promotes repression by squelching individual self determination. Only liberal secular humanist beliefs and institutions, such as our wholly secular constitution, protect us from the tyranny of god-based absolute authority.

Your lumping all of Islam into one sect and implication that calvanist fundies HAVE reformed belies your cultural bias and ignorance of both religions.

A third or more of the military is evangelical - a group that strongly pushed for these wars and continues to push hard for an ever larger, ever more offensive military. I'd say they'vE ben blowing a few things uP. Your cultural blinders hide this broader, morE objective view however.

Gotta lovE the 'where was ur hope when we invaded Iraq?" line. Colonially taped together country dEstroyed by hated western emperial invasion = 6000 year old society. Both brown and Muslim tho! Bigotry n ignorance under the guise of 'creative analogy'. Lol.

They kill one way, we kill another. Lots of innocents dead on both sides but inthe end the USA started both these wars in response to nothing more than a criminal act. Jays is an tired, transparent jingoists trick: omit one sides body count...and falsely blame the victim of our invasion. A real favorite of sociopaths thrOughout history when attempting to delegitimize more objective voicEs of reason. Appeasement! Isn't that the usual line jay?