usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive_Index/Al_Qaeda_and_Taliban_Atrocities.html

I’ll accept your use of the phrase “American Taliban” when Christian conservatives start committing atrocities like these.

In the meantime, a commitment accuracy would require that you to take back your blatant slander.

I’m an atheist and a libertarian–not a member of the religious right by any definition–but asserting that American religious conservatives are the equivalent of the Taliban is the same as saying that a common bigot is no different from a member of the SS. It’s just not right.

“Do you reside (that means live) in the Bible Belt and pray to Jesus.”

Assuming that’s a question (maybe periods denote interrogatories in CA), the answer is no, I live in New Jersey, and currently go to school in DC. I’m an atheist. This proves that one doesn’t need a deity to realize you’re a moron.

If you want intelligent commentary, it’s better to prime the pump with an intelligent question, not a jumble of ad hominem immaturity.

Your comment/insult wasn’t clever at all. Religious people (from the NSEW) are basically fools and I don’t want to be ruled by them. Are you one of them?

I brought up the idea of breaking up the country so that there might be some intelligent comments. I see that I’m not going to get any, at least not from you. Do you reside (that means live) in the Bible Belt and pray to Jesus. Did you get off on the Passion of the Christ? I thought so!

As to the first question, many Libertarians don’t think it was worth it. As to the second, because the precedent has been set. Personally, I’d be all for it.

“As a Californian, I have little culturally in common with Southerners, I despise their ignorant religiosity and I would be glad to give them their own country. I really have no use for them.”

What aspect of democratic theory necessitates having something culturally in common with your neighbors? Regardless, your condescending stereotyping of Southerners is exactly what they expect from a Californian, and perhaps, why Kerry lost the election in the first place.

“Would we not be safer if we were no longer the sole super power in the world. This is a strong argument (in my opinion) for dissolving the Union in one form or another.”

Simple rhetorical questions–with or without question marks–do not strong arguments make. Do you realize the irony you exhibit when you call Southerners idiots?

Could you fill me in on the connection between religiosity and organizational acumen. I don’t understand the connection.

Mike

I am personally fascinated by the deep cultural link in the US between religiosity and the kind of organizational acumen that runs millions of American businesses and the 2004 election. There is a set of values here that we should respect, emulate, and attempt to detach from the illiberal elements of the right’s political identity.

I no longer get angry, exactly, at people who try to impose their moral conceptions on me (be they mystical or not). It takes too much energy. I do not dispute, however, your entitlement to anger. Go for it. Punch a pillow.

On the other hand, I can recite Christian apologetics with the best of them, but I’m holding fast to my opinion of fundamentalist ideals as backward, simplistic, and dangerous. I’m angry at people who try to impose their mystically-based beliefs on me. Moreover, I’m entitled (and maybe even required) to feel this resentment.

In a later post, Will asks liberals to read a few Left Behind books. I second that suggestion, but for a reason closer to this quote by Nicholas. I have read a few, first simply for the humor value, but the feeling they then evoked in me was what Weimar Jews probably should have felt when Mein Kampf first came out. And what I see in the evangelical blogosphere (e.g. Hugh Hewitt and especially his follower legions) tends to confirm this feeling.

With the massive success of the Left Behind books, American Christians have made their current worldview and goals perfectly explicit. Thanks to these books, I know exactly what they really think about Satan’s servants like me (for example, I have a Ph.D. and don’t believe at all that Earth is a 6,000-year-old center of universe surrounded by firmament) and what they plan to do with us. Especially as their frustration of the rapture being constantly delayed will grow and eventually overflow its weak vessel.

It is also obvious that this anti-reality gang can no longer really be appeased or reasoned with any more than Osama’s gang or the 1930′s Nazis. For those who disagree, please tell me how exactly you would reason with somebody who is psychotic enough to believe that the events of Left Behind will essentially take place within the next few years. Especially now when the re-election of Lord Bush just validated their belief of the coming epic End Times Battle.