Richard, you know that I am totally opposed to the Religious Right too, but your claims about their true intentions still strike me as a little extreme. Be careful of fear-mongering. I agree that it would be pretty bad if the RR got control of the country, but it’s going a little far to suggest that they would do this kind of stuff. I was a part of the Religious Right for a long time, and I never heard anyone suggest anything like “salvation camps”.

You’ve never seen the Religious Right with unlimited state power either. We don’t know what they would be capable of. What’s that maxim? Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

I don’t think either group (even the extremists on either side) are quite the demons their opponents make them out to be.

That’s true. Thank you for reminding me of that.

But yes, vigiliance is always good!

I really hope I’m being paranoid, but I don’t want to be falsely reassured. So I’ll make no more such statements for now, but I’ll remain “eternally vigilant,” as Jefferson said we must.

Amen, brother!

When I think of fear mongering I think of deliberately manipulating people through their fear the way a demagogue would. To avoid any chance of that in myself I will shut up about this, but we must not be naive about things. There are more holocaust deniers and fewer holocaust survivors every year. Once it is forgotten the chances of it returning against any group increase greatly.

I really hope I’m being paranoid, but I don’t want to be falsely reassured. So I’ll make no more such statements for now, but I’ll remain “eternally vigilant,” as Jefferson said we must.

If the Radical Religious Right seized power it would be a new holocaust. They’d set up “salvation camps” around the country.

Richard, you know that I am totally opposed to the Religious Right too, but your claims about their true intentions still strike me as a little extreme. Be careful of fear-mongering. I agree that it would be pretty bad if the RR got control of the country, but it’s going a little far to suggest that they would do this kind of stuff. I was a part of the Religious Right for a long time, and I never heard anyone suggest anything like “salvation camps”.

Though ironically I did hear a lot of fear-mongers among the Religious Right claim that the secularists were going to do this to Christians if they ever got complete power. But I’m not sure making these kind of accusations about the other side helps either group.

Europe had its bloodbath for centuries. They’re sick of it. But don’t expect the fundies in the U.S. to learn from history.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or so I’ve heard. Unfortunately, they drag the rest of us along too, so we are all doomed by ignorance.

This is another idea I’ve never understood: Some Christians want to see the integration of Church and State. But in Europe, where that has happened, it has led to an increased apathy to religion altogether. It has also led to a rise in atheists.

Europe had its bloodbath for centuries. They’re sick of it. But don’t expect the fundies in the U.S. to learn from history. They either ignore history or they re-write it. If the Radical Religious Right seized power it would be a new holocaust. They’d set up “salvation camps” around the country. Those were called something else in Europe. We’d have to have our own Thirty Years War before disillusionment and apathy set in.

Darryl is right that it would tear this country apart, and that because people are people whoever won would be the oppressors of the losers. It happened in Rome and Europe; anywhere that one belief system conquers another there’s hell on earth. That’s why I disagree with the anti-theist atheists. Their way will bring back the same repeating nightmare. We must find a new way that is not conquest oriented, not about obliteration. If secularism is to replace dangerously irrational religion it must be through attrition over a very long time, using persuasion, positive engagement and attraction by good example. We have to balance patience and effort.

Wouldn’t religious people be better off in places where religion is a private matter?

They could use the closets we are now vacating.