Believers seem to want agreement, and, worse, adulation for their beliefs, too. It’s sickening.

You got it. And that’s why what Newt said — assuming he was sincere and not lying for advantage as usual — is really quite reasonable. If you
truly believe that you and your pals are right about ultimate things and everyone else is wrong, it’s natural to conclude that everyone else should defer to your judgment and do what you say. For someone to then say, “No thanks, I’ll make up my own mind,” feels like a frontal attack, not only on you but on the god who you believe you speak for.

If this is your mindset, then it is quite reasonable and logical to feel persecuted when the world politely declines to revolve around you. This is why they feel so hurt when challenged, since they’re being so reasonable and logical. But – pace Mr. Spock – “reasonable” and “logical” are not the same as “conforming to reality.” If your premises – the fundamentalist mindset – are batshit insane, so will your conclusions be.

I understand that and I think that is true for a lot of liberals but I get tired of hearing radio hosts refer to God as “invisible pet” and things like that. That doesn’t respect people’s real religion.

This is rich. Non-believers don’t respect believers. Give me a break. Believers are all so coddled that they can’t even handle a few non-believers speaking up.

Sorry, but we non-believers deserve to have our voices heard too. Believers get plenty of platforms to air their side. Quite frankly, I’m sick of having to be silent more often than not. Imagine how that feels. Imagine having to bite your tongue over and over and OVER again, every single day of your life, so that you can keep a job, or maintain some semblance of civility when amongst “friends and family.” Just think about that last part–you can’t even state your beliefs around the people closest to you, lest it “upset” them or anger them. Imagine having people attack you whenever you do state your beliefs, even your own family. Or belittle you by saying things like, “Oh, you don’t really mean/think/believe that!” As if you don’t know your own mind.

Imagine having religion shoved in your face every single day of your life (”God bless you!” from a clerk at a store, prayers over a business lunch, etc.), against your will, and you can say nothing, do nothing, about it, because we non-believers must “respect” religious beliefs, while believers care fuck all about what we think.

I don’t hate religion, and I don’t hate believers. But count me among the Christ-weary, as the Rude Pundit calls us. This non-believer is tired of tiptoeing around believers. It seems like it’s not enough to let believers speak while we remain silent. Believers seem to want agreement, and, worse, adulation for their beliefs, too. It’s sickening.

So if we get snippy and sarcastic and make fun of religious belief, well, a lot of pent-up frustration and anger is seeping out, as in feeling like we CANNOT STAY SILENT ONE SECOND LONGER. And any believer who doesn’t like it when we state our beliefs, well, now he or she knows how it feels to be forced to endure what the other side thinks. Trust me, a few minutes of non-believer conmments on a radio station is a tiny percentage (try .0000000001%) of what non-believers endure, day-in, day-out.

Does anyone know about the exact deal that Paul “If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too” Wolfowitz blackmailed the World Bank for?…

one of wolfie’s critics had also had a relationship with a subordinate

Are you all confident that the 2008 elections will be fair?

I think we all need to be involved in the Nov. 2008 election itself. I had an interesting experience. It was the first time I’d ever been working with the Registrar, but I was freaked and just felt like I wanted to be involved to watch for funny business.

Sure enough, I prevented the people who had been in this particular precinct for many years from handing Independent Republican ballots directly to Independents. Turns out there’s a Democrat or Republican Independent ballot. Who’s a guessed?

What these pros I worked with did when an independent came in was to pick up and hand to the R ballot and point to the D ballot. Subtle, but effective.

“Basic fairness demands that religious beliefs deserve a chance to be heard,” he said during his 26-minute speech. “It is wrong to single out those who believe in God for discrimination. Yet, today, it is impossible to miss the discrimination against religious believers.”

Christianists have developed a mythology about how they are a poor downtrodden and discriminated minority. You can hear it every Sunday if you can stomach it. There are all kinds of urban, and rural, legends that they pass around to each other. These legends reinforce their belief in their second class status. They mirror the beliefs of the Sunni’s in Iraq, who also believe they are a persecuted minority. Both populations suffer from borderline personality disorder if you ask me.

Indeed…starting from the urban legend that kids can’t pray in school, or that schools can’t hold after school religious club meetings. But if they do the latter they have to grant access to all religions and SECULAR (i.e. atheist, Wiccan, gay, etc.) groups as well. The schools simply can’t favor one group over another. And kids who pray can’t do it in a manner that disrupts educational activity (so they can silently pray all they want before that killer math quiz).

Almost always schools in the South shut down their access policies ONLY when an atheist, gay, Muslim or Wiccan group of students asks for access. Of course the religious clubs simply wander down the road to their church….and play the “victim”.

Fundamentalist Christians are the biggest non-victim “victims” in the country, I’m afraid.

Then Mr. Gingerich needs to explain this claim that it is “Christians” that are being discriminated against.

One can’t get elected or appointed to major office if one is an atheist. If someone is an atheist or agnostic they have to keep it deeply hidden.

The chances of an open atheist being elected to office in the US is about that of a black being elected Senator in the Jim Crow South.

And it is because of people like Gingrich and his catering to those that fear that a single individual who is actually hired/elected for their competancy rather than by a “religious test” (expressly outlawed by the Constitution BTW) that his claim that Christians are discriminated against is absolutely absurd.

TeddySanFran @ 170

The Mitchell-Agnew Plan, the last-ditch trench in the warfare the GOP had planned for 1972. Lucky (?) for us all, their interference in the Democratic primary process worked as planned, as did their blackmail based on info obtained from Larry O’Brien’s Watergate office. Events broke entirely the GOP’s way, and Nixon won in a landslide.

Bribery has been such an effective tool, maybe that’s why the Repubs want to keep gays in the closet. Can’t control someone who’s out and proud of it.

Nixon commissioned the Rand institute to do a study on the reaction of the American people if the next election was abolished. CBS news carried the story. I have a trick memory, and I know exactly what traffic light in Palo Alto I was sitting at when I heard that story.
If Bush has done so, if he cares, it’s probably classified.

At any rate, just as I don’t see why impeachment is off the table, I don’t see why people so blithly assume there is going to be an election. My bet is on martial law first.

Elliott @ 150

“Because I said so” -George W. Bush

A dirty bomb, or several, would help provide the excuse. One conspiracy theory has it that those chumps that thought they were going to make an assault on Fort Dix were brought in not for plotting to do it, but for refusing to do what the FBI insider was trying to get them to do.

That’s one theory, I don’t believe it and you shouldn’t either, I’m just saying’….

They will find a pretext, even if they have to blow it up themselves……again.