In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> nemesis wrote:
> > Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> >> That is why, in public, I let the
> >> people that are good at this stuff make the statements. They are *far*
> >> better at it. And some, like Greta Christina:
> >>
> >> http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/
> >>
> >> do so with a profound grace and choice of words that often leaves me
> >> absolutely astounded.
> > 
> > looks like a slut and sounds like a slut.  oh wait, she's actually a pr
o... :P
> > 
> > That was a loong rant, sir. 
> Indeed it was. I don't think that helps to get the message across. 
> Perhaps Patrick would also benefit from watching some Marx Brothers 
> movies ;)
> > The thing atheists don't seem to grasp is that they
> > sound just about as annoying and boring in their anti-religion rants as
> > religious fanatics in their convert stories...
> > 
> As just another atheist I'd like to point out that atheism is a religion
 
> too. Many deists think that an atheist is someone who is not convinced 
> that God does exist (or worse: not yet). They are wrong. I *believe* 
> that God does not exist and I mean that in the same way as a Christian 
> or Muslim or whatever believes the opposite. I.e. I *know* that God does
 
> not exit moreover my ethical values are fundamentally based on the non 
> existence of God. If it turned out she did exist after all, I would need
 
> a couple of weeks to rethink my ethics.
> We atheist have no reason to form churches and that means that we have 
> no religious leaders. Sadly that means that our believe is less 
> protected than the church forming religions. That is already subtly 
> noticeable even in the Netherlands. In the US it seems to be much worse,
 
> and under the inspired leadership of the current president it has 
> apparently even reached the level of discrimination. I think that was 
> one of the more important points of Patrick.
> 
Speak for yourself. You are what some of us call "hard atheists", and we 
do consider you as much a believer in unfounded woo as the other side, 
even while you are on ours. In fact, atheists run the gambit from those 
that just provisionally reject **churches**, but sort of kind of believe 
in some stuff that might lead to god, if anyone could ever prove that 
one was believable, to those like myself, who provisionally reject 
**any** gods, both because none of the definitions make any sense, and 
because there doesn't seem to be any valid reason why there needs to be 
one, to those that, like you, insist that there absolutely can't be one, 
which is *not* a rational conclusion. So, you want to claim you are 
religious, on the grounds that your own view is purely emotional, not 
rational, then go ahead, but please, call yourself something else, 
because we have enough problems with the idiots that **want** to insist 
atheism is a religion (never mind that the very definition of religion 
means, "belief in the stuff atheists pretty much all reject as 
unbelievable".), without you giving the wackos something to quote mine 
as some sort of ammunition for why secular views should be rejected 
**instead** of theirs.

But otherwise, you are correct. In the US atheism is literally the 
**last** bastion of bigotry and irrational paranoia for the religious 
lunatics. You are *expected* to be embarrassed about being a racist, or 
any number of other things, and even trying to claim that being black 
makes you lazy, American Indian a con artist, jewish a part of a 
conspiracy to rule the world, or any number of other stereo types, 
**will** get you fired, ostracized and possibly jailed (depending on how 
far you take it), sometimes by people that secretly believe the same BS 
idiocies, since they don't want people to find out they hold those 
views. But, you want to hate an atheist? No problem. You can sue them 
for things that are made up, beat them up, fire them, shun them, lie 
about them, claim they have no morals, claim they are satanists, claim 
they are the single sole cause of everything wrong with the world, etc., 
and no one in a position of authority to stop it will lift one finger to 
do so.

The most recent case was someone sending an email that *mentioned* that 
an author was going to be in town, to talk about their book, which was 
about the invalid science and problems with intelligent design. There 
was no mention in the letter that she supported the views, no mention 
that they *had* to see the author, nothing. Just a statement of FYI, so 
and so will be in town. The problem? Texas, where this happened, is 
currently in the middle of determining if changes need to be made to 
their science curriculum *and* she was one of only about 10% of those on 
the panel that didn't like the idea of including intelligent design in 
the standard, and the **head** of the group is a fundie who believes it 
*should be*. In other words, she was fired because she thought 
discussing the **scientific** merits of the subject was a valid thing to 
do, given that it was science they where discussing, rather than using 
what the majority of the "group" **felt** should be in it as the 
criteria.

Mind you, this is Texas, and it should have been renamed something like, 
"The Holy See of American Fundamentalism", years ago, just to avoid 
confusing it with a state, but... This crap is becoming increasingly 
common over here, and its all driven by a small number of like 1% of the 
population, who are desperate to gain power, so they can prove to God 
that they where true followers, before the "End of Times" gets here. 
They are paranoid, desperate, unethical, immoral, and willing to do damn 
near anything to convert the country (or at least make it more pleasing 
to what they imagine their God wants). As far as they are concerned, 
they *finally* got Gods will right, everyone else is wrong, and anything 
they can get by with is legitimate to making everyone else see the 
light, and I can't help wonder, given their praise of the 911 bombers, 
and claims that America deserved it, what their real long term goal 
might be in trying to add right wing fundamentalism to our standing 
military's *training* to make them soldiers... Given they have already 
tried and failed to convince people to circumvent and/or rewrite the 
constitution to give *them* more power to enforce their world view on 
the country, I can't imagine its to teach them to stand in airports and 
hand out flowers.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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