She can’t fool me, I went to vacation bible school once, and learned all about the deadly vanities. You can’t get a harp and join the heavenly chorus if you’re a mean biatch, everybody knows that.

I don’t think she’s a chriastian at all, she probably never read the book of thomas OR the book of baruch by justin. So I’m not too surprised she’s given any hope of holy ends by turning so mean.

(That’s her self-portrait on the last line.)

Some people think they cal call themselves a christian and that’s all it takes to get to the pearley gates with a password, but, not!

I’ve know some genuine christians, and they are, without exception, nice. Really really nice, to everyone, even the witches, er biatches. Our host has been pretty nice, considering, and he claims not to be a christian. But I think I know which midnight train he’ll be on. It won’t be the train Ms Higgens is on, now will it? Nope!

Best of luck, fellow athiest!

This woman should be embarrassed by her behavior.

It is true that being publically atheist can be scary business; discretion is much easier. SO I’m always amazed and titillated when people like you and Sam Harris come out and say what I’m thinking (though you are more eloquent and thoughtful than I). I appreciate it.

I sent my daughters to Catholic school to protect them from the public schools, but I told them, “Don’t tease the Catholics” (who are pretty tolerant, for Christians) and to be discreet.

Funny thing: In Freshman (HS) religion class one day, the teacher asked how many kids in the class were Christian; nobody raised their hand. (He then asked how many were Muslim–one hand raised–and atheist–my kids raised their hands, somewhat nervously.)

So he looked at the rest of them and said, “How many are Catholic?” and all the rest raised their hands.

There was a long pause. The teacher said, “What do Catholics believe in?” Answer: Jesus Christ. And what do you call someone who believes in Jesus Christ? Looong pause as the dawn comes.

The Christian right has so demeaned and debased the public image of their religion that the average kid in high school doesn’t want to be associated with the term — even Catholic kids! To them, “Christian” means “mean right-wing religious bullies,” and that’s not them.

Interesting world, isn’t it?

Those parents are entitled to sufficient information to make informed choices about the very public activities of their children’s teachers–something that for some odd reason seems to offend you.

Actually, parents *aren’t* entitled to make choices – informed or otherwise – about the public activities of their kid’s teachers. That’d be preposterous. I’m a mother. I have NO idea what my religion my son’s teacher subscribes to, if any. She may know my views, but it doesn’t effect how she treats me or my kid.

You’re doing a fantastic job dealing with this nonsense. Keep up the good fight with head held high.

She’s a tricky one, as I’m sure someone has already commented on.

Her wording and verbiage are of such that she’s very careful to not state specifically that she’s calling for you to be fired from your job.

But, her intentions are to guide people that look to the family values supported by the IFI, as narrowly diverse reasons to avoid anything and anyone that doesn’t exactly share the IFI values.

This woman is not about giving advice to others. She is all about a movement to remove anything that doesn’t fit her’s and the IFI’s definition of what’s acceptable for a family value. She’s just riding the legal line enough to not spell in out in plain and simple words.

This is not some sort of back and forth pissing match. It’s a single person who has an issue that someone like Hemant is able to exercise his free speech rights and there is nothing legal she can do about it (but she’s doing her best to dig and find a reason, based on her letters and public emails)

FWIW, atheists should be the least of her concerns for a family values organization.

What I find most hypocritical from Ms. Higgins is how she’s free to make various statements about Hemant, but when Hemant counters those with his own statements, this is not acceptable to her. This is typical of the “I’m right and you are not” debate that is common in the world of religious belief.

Hemant, I understand wanting to defend yourself and your character and you’ve done that very well so far. But defending yourself to a narrow-minded individual falls on deaf ears. This is press for Laurie and the IFI. And until she’s willing to post an email to your readers banning your book, then I say stop giving her more press here. Then she can find another target on the web to satisfy her “focus on negative, nothing positive” way of promoting family values.