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Originally Posted by Saya
Nationalism, functionalism and xenophobia are just as present there and not everything can be traced back to religion, such as the aversion to helping your fellow man and having a two tier healthcare system. They try to use religion I think to justify that but there's a weak leg to stand on if there ever was, normally they just say its against the american way and socialist are evil, in true Cold War mentality fashion. Dr. Jesus didn't hand out any bills.
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Nationalism, functionalism, and xenophobia may be entirely divorced from religion, but almost MORE times than not, it's the religion that augments these anti-social behaviors so that it looks less ugly. All of a sudden, you're not a demented asshole for shits and giggles, you have an excuse, a holy one. A pardon from the one most high.
Why not just plain old take the bible in its entirety, put the goods of it in a vacuum, use that, and discard all the rest? You know why? Because even moderates would FEEL to some degree, that editing the bible to that state would be too presumptuous at changing THE WORD OF GOD.
I don't think that fanaticism can be easily battled with a perfectly opposing force. If you're going to be a moderate Christian or moderate anything, then really, you of all people have a DUTY to curbing the blood thirsty barbarians from retarding our society back to caveman behavior. Essentially, if a militant Atheist actually preached killing the religious, I would speak up against it to the point that it turned them into nothing more than a silly joke. It is almost an obligation for the decent moderates to keep their views from being used as a god damned weapon. You want to be a good, moderate theist? So be it. Take your religion back from the clutches of evil fucks.
Maybe this has already been done in places of the world, but it hasn't been done in America. Christianity, in the state that it is in within this country IS potentially dangerous. It permeates our social policies, it is constantly trying to be put into our courts, our money, our laws and sadly enough, it succeeds. It motivates policies that aren't reasonable, but divine. Honestly, without religion backing it up, what does the religious right have to stand on?
I'm not saying that religion is the entirety of the evils that are done in this country, but I'm willing to bet that a shit load of it is because it is in our policies or it augments non-religious bullshit such as "It's totally AMERICAN to be Christian".