Every religious display on government land that’s dismantled, every request that references to God be taken out of our Pledge of Allegiance or off our currency are seen by them as little less than treason.

Absolutely. And more “proof” that the end is near because – see! all this persecution!

But because not enough people are praying to God to make George W. Bush less of an asshole, God won’t do it.

Wow. God is kind of an asshole, isn’t he?

My thoughts exactly. I always get a kick out of it when people claim that prayer cured their cancer or whatever. So are there people who die of cancer, get up to Heaven, and God tells them, “Well, I really wanted to cure your cancer, but not enough people were praying for it. Sorry”?

What’s the deal? Does God need prayers to recharge his miracle batteries (amusingly, this is the case in the PC game Black & White), or does he willingly place a person’s fate in the hands of others? In the former case, he’s not omnipotent; in the latter case, as said, he’s just a straight-up jackass.

I definitely agree that the “end of the world” frenzy adds to the problem, as does any attempt to wrest illegal violations of chuch/state from their hands. The 1950s were a huge, huge set-up for this kind of entitlement, as Eisenhower curried lots of favor with Christians in several ways, including establishing the National Day of Prayer and stamping “In God We Trust” on our currency.

The delusion that this is supposed to be a theocracy is so embedded that any secular attempts to challenge church/state problems is seen as a dangerous attack. Most Christians aren’t used to having things taken away from them, and they really, really resent it when it happens. Every religious display on government land that’s dismantled, every request that references to God be taken out of our Pledge of Allegiance or off our currency are seen by them as little less than treason.

In short, this doesn’t excuse Christians for acting like victims despite being in a position of power and majority, but it does explain where some of that groupthink comes from, from a historical perspective.

Exactly. And then you add onto that the idea that the end of the world is nigh, and that it will come with extreme persecution of Christians, and the result is utter paranoia.

I saw a quote from an Iowa pastor pushing Huckabee on his congregation. It said something like (paraphrasing): “This country is desperately, deeply in need of moral Christian leadership!”

And I thought, wait a sec, I thought we’ve had eight years of “moral Christian leadership” – that was one of Bushs’s biggest appeals to my Christian friends who voted for him. And so why exactly are we in such a *&^&*(%& mess!? Hasn’t god been guiding our Christian leader well?

To think one man is responsible for the war and the problems we face in our nation is about as foolish as to not believe in the power of prayer.

No argument here.

To be fair though I can’t blame religion for the war in Iraq. Not when there’s all that oil to steal those poor people to bring democracy to.

Sarah H. said,
…he decided that Christians – already hated, even by the Jews – would make a good scapegoat, and so the official party line was that Christians were responsible for the trouble…

Early Christians weren’t just persecuted because they were suspected of epic arson. The Romans truly believed that their gods punished entire cities for harboring heretic minorities; to anyone who took the pantheon seriously, the mere presence of Christians did represent a clear and present danger.

Atheists can never make peace with those who believe they are at risk of divine retribution because of our skepticism. It’s not a matter of intolerance; it’s a matter of theology. We have no standing to challenge their interpretations of their scriptures, so the best we can do is hope this kind of thing doesn’t catch on. If it does, no amount of “friendly atheism,” as wonderful an approach as that is when dealing with moderates, will avert conflict with the extremists. Sorry, Hemant.

God could make George W. Bush less of an asshole.

God wants to make George W. Bush less of an asshole.

But because not enough people are praying to God to make George W. Bush less of an asshole, God won’t do it.

Wow. God is kind of an asshole, isn’t he?

I swear. This is the last New Year’s Day that I try to cure my hangover with stupid.

P.S. So who do we pray to to make God less of an asshole?