Taking a long view toward religion and Republicans, which is the most

[heidler1]

dangerous to the USA? To the World? IMO religion has every right to claim the position.

Yeah Republicans want to use religion to gain power. Exactly like the politicians currently in Iraq and here in the US.

Yeah * isn't smart enough to see that he was/is playing with uncontrollable power in Iraq.

Both * and a whole lot of so called religious people were/are willing to put our soldiers in harms way to surely die and be wounded in a war over oil/religion.

The Christian Religion went along to get more power through * to push their religion and a 2000 year old book, taken literally, on the World and the US in particular.

* will eventually be gone, but religions power will remain a very big problem throughout the world for the foreseeable. The combination of admitted desire for more influence along with the sucker factor in the faithful is way more dangerous then * ever was.

[sarcasmo]

1. Exactly, I always bring up the fact of the many similarities between

the Christian Taliban and Muslim Taliban. The whole Religious thing is just plain SCARY to this Atheist.

[rzemanfl]

2. My mother told me that my imaginary friend couldn't go with me

to kindergarden. I left him behind then and forgot about him. All people who think their benevolent imaginary friend will save their ass from impossible situations or reward them for ritualistic behaviors scare me. People who think their imaginary friends want them to kill people who have different imaginary friends really really scare me.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. One man's imagination

is another man's reality.

[az chela]

3. This has always been a warring planet

More people have been killed because of religious beliefs than any other way.I once read that the earth is the ash can of the universe and now I believe it.
If religion was taken off this planet it would be so much more peaceful!!!!

[applegrove]

4. People being "used" is the most dangerous. The "Users". Lots

of walks of life fall into that category these days.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. Religion is one of the major threats to humanity and the world, yes..

[InaneAnanity]

6. Religion allows people to do stupid things

War in Iraq?? Sure, if I die I'll go to heaven.

Global Warming?? Who cares, God has my back.

Muslims?? Fuck them, they're burning in hell anyway.

Atheists?? Who cares if their votes are fairly counted. They're going to be sodomized by the devil for eternity anyway.

National debt?? Who cares, I have Jesus!! And Jesus will have my children if/when our debt paralyzes the economy.

Seperation of church and state?? That's stupid, it's keeping Jesus away from His world.

Abortions?? They're the devil's work. All women who get pregnant accidentally deserve to be punished with their child. Fuck though, there's no way I'm paying extra taxes for foster parenting once abortions are illegalized. Debt's fine by me.

Spying?? Who cares, god is spying on me anyway. The heathens don't like it because they reject god's spying, but since I embrace god I'm used to spying. I expect it.

[Goblinmonger]

23. Sodomized by the devil

:woohoo:

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. Being a religious person and

relatively harmless, I prefer to call it fundamentalism. "Religious" is way too broad a brush.

With that caveat, I agree with everything you said.

[varkam]

22. Fundamentalism is too narrow a brush...

I would say more secularly minded religious folks are harmless, but beyond that...well....

[IsItJustMe]

8. Imagine all the people, living like they should....... remember

Religion has always been used, by leaders of nations, to do their bidding from the beginning of time as far as I can tell.

Yet the majority of religions preach love and peace.

To me, its not religion that is the problem, its the people.

[heidler1]

10. Sure it's the people. Sure the leaders are people. Sure * is a people.

Sure the faithful follow the leaders who love power. Sure some of the leaders believe that God talks to them. Sure the faithful love leaders that are close to the same God that they have faith in. Sure the followers trust these guys. I defy you to grasp what they are really up to. Sure man by nature is self serving. If * is an example of what believing does to ones mind NO THANKS.

I keep wondering if there are any Atheists who bought the * line? I strongly suspect that damn near all of the original 70%+ who bought this Iraqi war crap were religious and mostly US Christians. It is good that one small segment of the population are not prone to believe BS. It would be wise to listen to the nay sayers next time. I suppose if there was money in it some would suck along.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Objectivist Libertarians

They are as staunch atheists as anyone in this forum.

When it comes to power-hungry bastards doing evil, religion usually isn't the deciding factor. It just makes the path more slippery -- kind of like Astro-Glide.

Sadly, it also isn't contraceptive.

--p!

[IsItJustMe]

12. You may have a point there. It may have to do with faith as compared to

reality fact based thinking. Ever notice how aggravating it is to argue with a person (particularly about religious matters) who just believes things because that's the way it is suppose to be.

It's like talking to a brick wall. It use to drive me crazy but throughout the years I have Finlay learned to shrug my shoulders and move on.

What hurts most though is that we all have people that we care about that fits this mind set.

[heidler1]

13. You get it. Many of these people are exceptionally nice in social ways.

What makes the wall so hard to penetrate is many believers do go way out of their way trying to bring hope to the world around them. For me hope and contentment come from internal confidence. IMO building on personal confidence is the path to follow, but I see that many feel it is out of their reach. Compromising the reachable with ones confidence/abilities leads to contentment. It's a lot like Nirvana and many people do it without ever hearing about Nirvana.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Yes, one of my brothers

Really.

[charlie]

20. There's no shortage

of gung-ho atheist War on Whatever types over at FreeRepublic.

Aside: I always find it stupefying that the notion that contentious, impolitic atheists are all of the Left is allowed free rein, when it only takes a click to have a gander at the Randroid rudeboys at FR.

[unschooler]

14. The power of Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. is already more than

the cooler heads in the republican Party can control. Watch the abortion battles over the next few years. If democrats don't get back into power soon, we're going to see some huge changes in the status of reproductive rights and of women in general in the U.S..

[heidler1]

15. The Republicans like the way it works in Mexico. Keep the poor very poor

let the few rich people own everything.

[unschooler]

16. True. But even they are being driven more than they would like by the

fundamentalist power centers they've been cultivating for the past 25 years (ask Harriet Miers).

[unschooler]

17. It's the combination that is truly frightening.

A bunch of snake-handlers sitting around the Florida panhandle singin' songs isn't much of a threat to anyone except their own friends and family. The same guy sitting in the Oval Office (or "controlling" gigantic voting blocs) is terrifying.

[heidler1]

21. It's enough to make you wish * would find some fat cheeked sweetie

to mess around with in the oval office and quit messing with world problems that require a lot more reading and comprehension than * is capable of.

[NMMNG]

19. Religion, hands down

Fundamentalist religion in particular.

[Goldensilence]

24. fundamentalist christianity and capiltalism

the worst marriage ever.

[LaurenG]

25. Religion is the most dangerous!

Scary and painful and deadly.