Why does religion poison a democracy ?

There is a fundamental conflict between democracy and religion. God is a king, not a president, and we are his servants. In a democracy, we are not servants but self-determiners. There is no place for the self-determined in a pre-determined world where God reigns.

The trouble is the U.S. is the reigning world power and it has decided that democracy is the only civilized way to run a country. Regardless of those countries traditions, Iraq, for example. As a result, this kind of democracy wipes out their history and tradition. Arrogance at its finest.

See how you feel about his an interview with Richard Dawkins

What are its negative connotations? (referring to religion on humanity)

A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

But you don't do that if you just know your holy book is the God-written truth and the other guy knows that his incompatible scripture is too. People brought up to believe in faith and private revelation cannot be persuaded by evidence to change their minds. No wonder religious zealots throughout history have resorted to torture and execution, to crusades and jihads, to holy wars and purges and pogroms, to the Inquisition and the burning of witches.

What are the dark sides of religion today?

Terrorism in the Middle East, militant Zionism, 9/11, the Northern Ireland "troubles," genocide, which turns out to be "credicide" in Yugoslavia, the subversion of American science education, oppression of women in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and the Roman Catholic Church, which thinks you can't be a valid priest without testicles.

Fifty years ago, philosophers like Bertrand Russell felt that the religious worldview would fade as science and reason emerged. Why hasn't it?

That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the U.S., and not in the Islamic world. We're seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don't subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle.

Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

Does religion contribute to the violence of Islamic extremists? Christian extremists?

Of course it does. From the cradle, they are brought up to revere martyrs and to believe they have a fast track to heaven. With their mother's milk they imbibe hatred of heretics, apostates and followers of rival faiths.

I don't wish to suggest it is doctrinal disputes that are motivating the individual soldiers who are doing the killing. What I do suggest is that in places like Northern Ireland, religion was the only available label by which people could indulge in the human weakness for us-or-them wars. When a Protestant murders a Catholic or a Catholic murders a Protestant, they're not playing out doctrinal disagreements about transubstantiation.

What is going on is more like a vendetta. It was one of their lot's grandfathers who killed one of our lot's grandfathers, and so we're getting our revenge. The "their lot" and "our lot" is only defined by religion. In other parts of the world it might be defined by color, or by language, but in so many parts of the world it isn't, it's defined by religion. That's true of the conflicts among Croats and the Serbs and Bosnians -- that's all about religion as labels.

The grotesque massacres in India at the time of partition were between Hindus and Muslims. There was nothing else to distinguish them, they were racially the same. They only identified themselves as "us" and the others as "them" by the fact that some of them were Hindus and some of them were Muslims. That's what the Kashmir dispute is all about. So, yes, I would defend the view that religion is an extremely potent label for hostility. That has always been true and it continues to be true to this day.

How would we be better off without religion?

We'd all be freed to concentrate on the only life we are ever going to have. We'd be free to exult in the privilege -- the remarkable good fortune -- that each one of us enjoys through having been being born. An astronomically overwhelming majority of the people who could be born never will be. You are one of the tiny minority whose number came up. Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one. The world would be a better place if we all had this positive attitude to life. It would also be a better place if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment.

democracies and religions are built upon different sets of values.

for religion there is a sacred dogma which to adhere. in this, there is total certainty and it can not be negotiated.

in democracies, negotiations are absolutely necessary.

one does not allow dissent, the other does.

any wonder why religion corrupts democracy?

Religious people frequently value their religious dogma over the ethical responsibilities of their position.

Democracy is some American product that Middle Easterners don't want to buy. How absurd.

It doesn't. You are simply an anti-religious bigot. While the Constitution states in crystal clear terms that the government is to be kept totally free of religion, and I personally agree with that completely, nonetheless, your postulate is easily disproven by the fact that most of the Founders of the US were extremely religious men.

I think any religion mixed with the government will poison a democracy.

I don't like whats happening with the religio-government structure in the USA today.

But to be fair, it would be just as bad if any religious leaning had too much influence and power in the government.

That's a beauty of the USA: There is supposedly separation of church and state.

Democracy is about freedom of choice. If a religion is mixed in with a democracy, it isn't a democracy anymore, you've just lost a lot of choices and it becomes more of a theocracy.

One thing you have to give to USA: They'll pretty much allow you to worship any religion you want in the privacy of your home. No inquisitions, etc.

Just don't put bumper-stickers on your car about it, or it might get vandalized.

Interestingly, the head of George W. Bush's church came out early against the Iraq war. Bush avoided a direct confrontation, and pressed forward. So while its interesting the religious groups do have influence, which ones are they? Not exactly Bush's church.

But the above is a digression.

Any religion will poison a democracy, whether that religion is Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Hebrew, Conservative or Liberal Christianity, Satanism, whatever.

Yeah well if not for religion the US may never have been started...

Brandon


Excerpts from:



The Founding Fathers Were Not Christians

by Steven Morris, in Free Inquiry, Fall, 1995 (If you want to complain about this article, complain to Steven Morris, who wrote it)

"The Christian right is trying to rewrite the history of the United States as part of its campaign to force its religion on others. They try to depict the founding fathers as pious Christians who wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, with laws that favored Christians and Christianity.

This is patently untrue. The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments.

Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestos encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the war of Independence:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
From:
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9 (Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY)



George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a universalist who denied the existence of hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.
From:
George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX)



John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"

It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
From:
The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.



Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, said:"I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac" and wrote:
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."
From:
Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History by Fawn M. Brodie, p. 453 (1974, W.W) Norton and Co. Inc. New York, NY) Quoting a letter by TJ to Alexander Smyth Jan 17, 1825, and Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams, July 5, 1814.

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to J. Adams April 11,1823)

James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution, was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
From:
The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43 (1979, McGraw-Hill Co. New York, NY) quoting a letter by JM to William Bradford April 1, 1774, and James Madison, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Joseph Gardner, p. 93, (1974, Newsweek, New York, NY) Quoting Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by JM, June 1785.

Ethan Allen, whose capture of Fort Ticonderoga while commanding the Green Mountain Boys helped inspire Congress and the country to pursue the War of Independence, said, "That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words." In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally "denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian." When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the judge asked him if he promised "to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God." Allen refused to answer until the judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those "written in the great book of nature."
From:
Religion of the American Enlightenment by G. Adolph Koch, p. 40 (1968, Thomas Crowell Co., New York, NY.) quoting preface and p. 352 of Reason, the Only Oracle of Man and A Sense of History compiled by American Heritage Press Inc., p. 103 (1985, American Heritage Press, Inc., New York, NY.)



Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, said:
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.
From:
Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404, (1972, Newsweek, New York, NY) quoting letter by BF to Exra Stiles March 9, 1790.

Speaking of the independence of the first 13 States, H.G. Wells in his Outline of History, says:


"It was a Western European civilization that had broken free from the last traces of Empire and Christendom; and it had not a vestige of monarchy left, and no State Religion... The absence of any binding religious tie is especially noteworthy. It had a number of forms of Christianity, its spirit was indubitably Christian; but, as a State document of 1796 expicity declared: 'The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.'"



The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy Hysteria.
The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to the Senate, and each Senator received a printed copy. This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was required by the Senate, but only the third time a vote was unanimous (the next time was to honor George Washington). There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in three newspapers - two in Philadelphia, one in New York City. There is no record of public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.

Religion cannot poison a true democracy.
If it's a democracy, then it is government by the people.
In such a case, religion can only affect the government
insofar as it affects the people.

Urgh i feel everything i say is rejected.

Simpler terms what does history teach us of why pilgrims left england and came to america.

Did it have something to do with religious oppression rem hearing that in HS

This has some truth.

So (painting in broad strokes) they supposedly came over to USA, and when it came time to set up the government, one thing they supposedly did was to make sure that there was separation of church & state.

And while that attempt had mixed results, I think most reasonable historians agree that at least the USA moved past having one national church that was intimately hooked up with the government (like Church of England or something).

But the religion thing still bled into things some. Even though probably one denomination didn't control everything for years and years.

But for example, it says "In God We Trust" on our money. Why does it say that? And on our money of all things?

It doesn't say "In Satan We Trust" on our money.

And how is a patriotic atheist or agnostic or Buddhist or something supposed to feel when they are forced to use money that says "In God We Trust" on it? Isn't that sort of forcing someone's religious ideas on them?

Is our God money? Some say it is. We worship money. The national religion of USA is money.

And I guess we won't even get into the practice of having someone take an oath on the Bible in a US government courtroom. What is that?

Pledge of allegiance: Force kids to say "One nation under God"

There is no doubt religion is mixed in with our government.

But I'll go out on a limb and say there is more separation between church and state in the USA than in most large nations prior.

Note what the original post stated


And reply


The latter post is neither the point, nor true in the sense it attempts to portray. It fails to demonstrate how concerns about the motives and potential results of right-wing fundamentalist religious people pressing for the expression of their personal faith in secular society is bigotry

Whenever so-called religionists complain about others being anti-religious bigots they are just blowing smoke. Instead, they have been caught trying to jam down the throats of others their particular religious beliefs. They attempt this by using the power of government to codify thru laws the peculiar tenets of their faith and use the government to force non-believers to kow tow to some sort of revealed "Divine Wisdom."

No one here or in the US for that matter is burning down churches, except for right wing racists who burn down black churches. no one nailing anyone to a cross for their religious beliefs, no one is being fed to lions, and no one is denied a job because of their religion. (actually the last is not true, since under the Bushevik administration "faith-based," taxpayer dollar funded initiatives to help the poor allow the religious organizations to discriminate in hiring practices based upon religious faith.) So in fact, there is discrimination AGAINST those who are not of a particular faith, but the bigots are religious people themselves, not the secularists.

So, I really have to hoot when I hear about the big bad secularists discriminating.

The dynamics of the situation is not really that complicated.

The framework of reality from the Religious Right is not open to objective analysis. Either you stand with the Religious Right's idea of God, God's plan on Earth as revealed thru the Scripture, and God's followers or you are against them.

If people are not inclined to agree that religious factors should be incorporated into civil, secular society via codification of laws, they are proclaimed as "bigots."

This push to codify religious doctrines into law is a response from some religious minded people to the disinclination of civil society itself to incorporate the incomprehensible (mysteries of their faith) along with the comprehensible (materialism/rationalism) as necessary constituents of the world.

Those who believe that the world can not be explained merely by the comprehensible, those who cherish the idea of the ineffability of "God's secrets" are often scorned openly as superstitious where only critically established understanding possesses value.

Rationalism rejects "God's secrets" as being ineffable. Rationalism rejects the incomprehensible, and instead yields a world-view without the mysteries of faith. What we have here in their push to de-secularize society is the Religious Right's response to this scorn which it cannot be rebutted rationally, because it is a-rational, a-comprehensible (incomprehensible).

Those of who want to live in a secular, pluralistic society do not wish to force their private spiritual views upon public discourse, nor do they accept the validity of those who do. This rejection of the incomprehensible is not bigotry.

It is rational common sense.

Here is what our Founding Fathers wrote about Bible-based Christianity:



Thomas Jefferson:
I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS,
by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short

Jefferson again:
Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.

More Jefferson:
The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

Jefferson's word for the Bible?
Dunghill.

John Adams:

Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?

Also Adams:
The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 states:

The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.

Here's Thomas Paine:

I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible).

Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the daughters. I would not dare so dishonor my Creator's name by (attaching) it to this filthy book (the Bible).

It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible.

Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy can forgive sins...and you will have sins in abundance.

The Christian church has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in pretended imitation of a person (Jesus) who lived a life of poverty.

Finally let's hear from James Madison:

What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy.

Madison objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress and to the exemption of churches from taxation. He wrote:

Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

These founding fathers were a reflection of the American population. Having escaped from the state-established religions of Europe, only 7% of the people in the 13 colonies belonged to a church when the Declaration of Independence was signed.


http://www.postfun.com/pfp/worbois.html

The premise of America, what the founding fathers tooled together is, as an idea, brilliant. Fantastic. Idealistic. Heroic.

But, what needs to be kept in mind is America is a very young country-- a mere baby among other ancient and foriegn countries. Those ancient cultures have their own guidelines for living life, which may contain a profound worship of some form of God or deity, which is deeply woven into their cultural identity.

Your posts are so long winded as to be essentially valueless. However, I will make a few observations before dying of boredom:


Stating that there are pro-religion bigots does not show that the poster is not an anti-religious bigot. The two issues are unconnected logically. The argument is invalid.


Not if the person or persons they are talking about are, in fact, anti-religious bigots. Unless you want to try to prove that anti-religious bigotry does not and cannot exist, then your argument - that is your unsubstantiated claim - is baloney.


Anyone who attempts to support the passage of any law, is basically ramming his personal beliefs down the throats of those who disagree and don't want the law. A person has as much right to do this as a religious person as another does as a liberal. The only case in which this is improper is if the law specifically promotes religion.

I think democracy poisons religion.


I think so far on this forum i come off as a very christian consertive right ringer

Its is not my problem that you do not have the ability to understand what I write, its your own. Others on site have no such problem.



Once again you are making accusations of religious bigotry simply because others do not agree with you in your attempt to infuse religious dogmas into secular settings by the force of law.

No one is denying you the right to your religious convictions. If I am wrong all you have to do is present evidence to prove it.

This is in fact exactly what both alkmar(?) and I are referencing when we reject the behavior of religious people who insist they have a right to slam their religious dogma into the faces of others in a secular setting.

You want to be able to run rough-shod over others who do not want to buy what you are selling and are complaining that we are cruel bigots because we reject your offers.

On the other hand some religious people discriminate against people who do not share their religious convictions even as they scream about the intolerance of others, who again are not interested in what you and they are selling.





You got it ass-backwards sport. You are the one who has to prove the existence of it. I do not have to prove that it does not exist.

Again, you are attempting to define the term to best suit your argument, and that is a freedom you have. But you do not have the right to demand that others agree with you, nor do you have the right to declare those who oppose you are anti-religious bigots without evidence.

You seem incapable of understanding that others are in fact not inflicting their own views upon your personal religious practices nor are your personal private rights being denied.






Each of us has a right to support any law we wish, but our adversaries (yours, well as mine) have every right to dispute the basis for such support regardless of the sources. If my support for a law is based upon a secular rationalist/materialist perspective you have every right to deconstruct it using the tools of secular society, viz., rationalism and logic. If you base your support upon your religious conviction then you should expect your dogma to be a part of the debate as well.

Neither mine, nor your positions are outside the realm of criticism by a rational, objective critique. What you want is for others to accept without discussion and analysis any position you have if it is religiously based.

If you keep your religious opinions inside your church no one cares what you believe. But once you cross the threshold of your house of worship you move into a secular world where the projection of your religious faith is open to critique, and when people do critique such "mystical" beliefs with secular rationalism and logic you call them anti-religious bigots.

You can not have it both ways. You can not demand that your positions are above criticism because they are religiously based once you move your dogma outside the church door and into the secular marketplace of ideas.

The argument here is that religiously directed people want to use the power of the collective, i.e., the government to shape the society in the image of their god's desire. However, their positions are not based upon logic, reason or scientific method, but upon unchallengeable sacred texts and little voices in their heads that they call God. This I referenced as the "incomprehensible" or "mysteries of faith" that lie beyond comprehensible, rational analysis.

Let us use as an example that the little voice in your head that you call God told you to be an anti-abortionist. There can be no discussion as to the particulars, because you have Revealed Word to support you. If I disagree, then your eyes I am going against Revealed Word and this is no longer a debate between two people discussing a secular situation, but between one person who has their god on their side against one who does not.

What angers you is that when such positions are critiqued by logic, rationalism, and scientific method, you think that is religious intolerance and bigotry because others do not accept the authority of another person's god.

In such situations, I am supposed to accept it without criticism if you tell me that your god told you that 1 + 1 = 3, and that because of this, you want me to give you credit for 3 instead of 2? That is akin to shooting dice with no marks on the face of the dice and that I am supposed to trust you when you tell me that god told you what marks are on the face of the dice, even though I can not see the marks.

At heart folks like you can not stand it that there are others in the world who do not believe in the validity of your sacred texts nor buy into the little voices in your head you call your gods. Yet it is your ilk who want to use the power of the government to make those people act and think like you do.

You need to get over it. Just because others do not buy into your world-view does not make them bigots.

In fact, it is you who are showing bigotry towards those who do not believe in the things you do. And it is a peculiar feature of religious zealots such as yourself that you accuse your adversaries of "bigotry" when it almost always is done in an effort to obscure your own prejudiced proclivities.

Is that plain enough for you?

Don't flatter yourself. I am saying no such thing. I am saying that when I see posts as long as yours, without even looking at their content, my inclination is to go on to someone else whose posts are of a more reasonable length. I suspect that most people will balk at reading extraordinarily long posts.


All off topic. I had said that the original poster was an anti-religious bigot. You attempted to disprove it by giving an example of pro-religious bigotry. The existence of pro-religious bigots does not in any way challenge my assertion that the original poster is an anti-religious bigot. Your argument was illogical.


You had made the statement, quoted above, that "Whenever" a religious person accuses someone of being an anti-religious bigot, he is automatically "blowing smoke." My answer to your generalization was the obvious one: not if it's true, unless you deny that anti-religious bigots can even exist.


I never said that people who advocate laws compatible with religious beliefs should not have their beliefs challenged. I said that everyone who tries to pass a law is basically trying to ram his beliefs down the throats of people who disagree and don't want the law, and that someone has as much right to do that based on a religious outlook as someone does based on a liberal outlook. For the record, I'm an atheist.