I have wearied of these public debates over the value of religious belief. The human race has survived many millenia believing in God. Then suddenly in the mid-nineteenth century we get a crop of philosophical knuckleheads who arbitrarily decide the human race cannot progress even one more step without jettisoning belief.

So they offer us Marxism, Communism, and a twisted caste system by Nietzche in which the human race is subservient to a race of supermen. Yuck.

I am not going to make the "atheists caused the world wars" argument. I am just saying that people are selfish and greedy because human nature is selfish and greedy, and a religionless world is not going to change that. Anyone who thinks religion is at the root of evil has a lot more thinking to do about evil.

Instead of fighting over what cannot be settled, we need to tolerate one another. Tolerance is a human virtue. I have real reason to believe people practiced it once, though, in judging the way things are now, it is hard to believe.

I struggled for years over whether I believed in God or not. Finally I simply decided I did and consider the issure settled. I am not going to spend my whole life turning a question over and over. At some point, you decide who you are, and you live accordingly.

I have never seen an episode of the Sopranos. Never. I do not have HBO and refuse to get it just to watch a TV series.

What I don't understand is how a TV show can get more attention from Salon than Iraq has lately. It's just a stupid show. And a Mafia show to boot -- as if we have never seen anything like that before. Do we have to hear about it every single week? Thank God it's ending!

I always disliked Jerry Falwell, but the fact that someone is not decent does not give others leave to be indecent also. Everyone decries the lack of decorum in public debate these days, and then, when the opportunity presents itself to play nice, the hell with 'em. Falwell's death was a slow, easy pitch. You either say something innocuous and nice, or keep your mouth shut. Nothing else is needed. Nothing we can say now will change what Falwell was, or did. Oppose him when he is alive. Ignore him when he is dead. Like I said, be decent.

Dignity is something that every human being has and no other human being has any business taking away. One of liberals' soft-spots is for "death with dignity." And so it's OK to do this? This article says nothing new about Falwell, but plenty new about Salon.

A few months ago (3/1/07, to be precise) Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece about a few posts on the Huffington Post website. The posts complained that a bomb attack in Afghanistan failed to kill Dick Cheney. Although only a very few commenters were involved, the conservative press picked the comments up and used them to abuse liberals for their lack of decency. It is about to happen again regarding this article. Mark my words. You just poured gasoline on the fire.