Saying religion isn’t respnsible for atrocities is …….. (flips through dictionary). I’m going to go with blind. You are familiar with witch burnings, Aztec human sacrifice (bastards give solar power a bad name) and of course, sanctioning slavery. It is important to note slavery has nothing to do with intolerance, only a callus disregard for other human beings. Fortunately having it given the stamp of approval from the almighty makes it okay.

All new comments are held in moderation until they can be reviewed. If they aren’t spam, they get approved.

If you care to study the Soviet proclamations in regard to religion, you will see that they were militantly atheist, regarding religion as an enemy of the proletariat.

If you bothered to read the post that you responded to, you would find that neither religion nor atheism is at fault for the atrocities imputed to those ideologies. It is intolerance that is to blame.

Atheism in itself doesn’t kill people, as demonstrated by many peace-loving atheists. Christianity in itself doesn’t kill people, as demonstrated by many peace-loving Christians.

All the examples of atheist intolerance and atrocities happen to be totalitarian communists.

South Carolina’s Constitution of 2006 holds that atheists cannot hold public office. Is the US a “totalitarian communist” state?

Nice try, but no good.

Intolerance is not the sole property of communists. Dawkins does a fine job of being intolerant, and he’s a fan of democracy, last I checked.

Unfortunately, I don’t really have anything else to add, because there isn’t really anything in your last response I disagree with.

I feel threatened by fundamentalist Christians, not because I hate Christianity, but because I know that, were fundamentalist Christians to come to power, they might very well enact laws that are anathema to me.

First, let me state that the view you have expressed has been expressed by others, and when some of those people expressed that view, they did so in an inaccurate way. I have heard it said just today that Christians want to impose their morality on others.

Reagan was a Christian, and one of the most laissez-faire presidents we have had. Most Christians support the separation of Church and State.

One glaring exception to that would be the fundamentalist Christian opposition to gay marriage. I’m sure there are more.

How do we deal with this? I deal with it the same way I deal with the Leftist attempts to impose their morality on me. I oppose it. But I am not going to impinge upon their freedoms.

For example, in Seattle – a very Liberal city – the Liberal politicians put laws into effect which pretty much shut down strip clubs. Regardless of your personal feelings on strip clubs, it cannot be denied that banning them is impinging upon the rights of both patrons and employees. It’s imposing one’s own morality on others.

Another case of morality legislation is the “pornography as a civil rights violation” laws. Noted feminist Catharine MacKinnon campaigned for laws to be enacted which made pornography illegal. Although the law was challenged and overturned as unconstitutional, many Liberal Feminists did support this encroachment on our freedoms.

Come to think of it, Liberal Leftist social planning has stripped a lot of Americans of a lot of rights.

We cannot react to intolerance with intolerance, because that is the problem to begin with.

It seems people want to impose their morality on others. You can’t wear fur without somebody throwing ketchup on you. You can’t eat meat without some vegetarian calling you a murderer. You can’t drive an SUV without some crazy lady accusing you of killing the planet. You can’t earn a decent living without some people accusing you of “exploiting” your employees and being a greedy and / or evil SOB.

So, yeah, I think it’s human nature to want to impose one’s morality on others. That is usually balanced out by the value of individual freedom. But I think the mindset today is against individual freedom, and toward collectivist morality. The Right thinks they know what is best for us, and some of them want to legislate that. The Left also thinks they know what is best for us, and several of them are ready to legislate it.

The victim here is tolerance. Tolerance says, “yes, people can make bad choices, people can believe untrue things, but they have every right to believe wrong things and make bad choices, as long as they do not impinge upon my the freedom of others”.

Intolerance says, “we know what is right and we are going to make laws to force you to do it”.

The atheist petition in the UK to criminalize the sharing of religious beliefs with one’s child. That’s intolerance. No different from Christian intolerance or Islamic intolerance.

I’ll edit your response if you don’t mind to mark the quotes as such. Is that okay?

And I want you to know that I do appreciate your taking the time to respond. It’s hard to have a discussion without people who take the time to respond. I just might not be able to respond for a day or two - super busy - and I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate your input.