1. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #114207 by mocular on January 21, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Epinephrine wrote:

Before I met intelligent, interesting, and friendly Americans I pretty much thought they were typified by people like you [Summer Seale].

Unfortunately, you are correct way more often than you should be about many of my countrymen. They seem to think that torturing bad people is fine. What they cannot grasp is that committing torture (true torture, not some legalistic definition) makes you bad no matter what the torture victim may have done or might do.

I've also noticed that it's the religious folks (predominantly xian in my interactions) who are usually the most likely to approve of torture - especially when it's Muslims that are being tortured.

Thanks for giving us Americans a break. We are not all idiots, but there are plenty of idiots among us - how else could Bush have been elected.

2. Is God poison?

Comment #30878 by mocular on April 10, 2007 at 8:13 am

"..merciless schoolboy-level mockery of religion."

I must confess that this is the hardest point to argue when discussing TGD with those notorious moderates who freely admit that the extreme writings in the Old & New Testaments are not literally true. The fact that they "know" that these easily mocked passages are not literally true makes it easy for them to dismiss the actual point of the mockery - that any belief in a religion founded on such inane ideas is absurd.

They are still somehow able to embrace a religion that is populated, even controlled, by people who do believe in the literal interpretation of such nonsense. I find this infuriating in the extreme.

If Hitchens' approach causes the moderates to reconsider their positions and not quickly dismiss his arguments as "schoolboy-level mockery of religion", that's a real benefit. However, based on my own experience with moderates, I won't hold my breath.

mocular