...of course I've read The God Delusion. I try not to comment on things of which I'm ignorant, because that's hypocritical. I actually respect Dawkins quite a lot, because he's got a great intellect and at times he's quite ecumenical about things like spirituality and culture and has even made statements about being open to scientific exploration of the paranormal, which I think is fantastic. Open-mindedness is what it's all about. But then he confounds me by (and this is how I see it) getting too into his atheist rock star persona and bashing religion in media appearances and such. Plus, if your book is called The God Delusion, that's pretty loaded. You don't have to be a Ph.D. to surmise that the author is accusing people who believe in God of being delusional. That's a pretty crass insult.

I'm an author, so I understand the need for provocative titles. Just saying.

As for angry atheists vs. doormat atheists, why do those have to be the choices? Of course you shouldn't let yourselves be marginalized, but I think the "culture war" thing is overblown. As a journalist I monitor the media pretty closely, and I've missed the "war on atheism" thing. On the whole, I think you're in a passive, indirect battle: forces in the culture are trying to take us to a dominionist, fundamentalist place that's pretty crazy and scary, and that excludes people who choose not to believe in a Deity. OK, that's ugly. No question.

But I'll say it again: no group ever won its fight by getting in the other guy's face and telling him he was a delusional, primitive idiot. Educate the public about atheism. Do good things to show the less-enlightened that non-believers can be just as humane, giving and loving as believers, and sometimes moreso. Fight against ridiculous campaigns to teach ID. But stay above the muck. Avoid the silly attacks on nativity scenes and crap like that; it makes you look petty. Take the high road. Be strong, noble, reasoned and intelligent and prove to the "atheists aren't patriots" crowd that you're better than they are. But don't harangue and insult. All you do is prove them right when they say you want to kill religion.

You may want to, but you never will. EVER. EVER. It's too ingrained in us. But at least in your lifetime you can end atheism being the new homosexuality.

Have we elected a president with a brain or integrity yet?

Oh, it's still 2007?

Damn.

Word to the unwise, Georgie Boy, when you're done sucking Exxon-Mobil off, you might want to gargle before you clamp down on Chevron's yogurt cannon. Nobody likes petroleum breath.

This movie illustrates yet again what a towering accomplishment was Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Films like "Compass" and "Lion/Witch/Wardrobe" are testament to the fact that throwing the GDP of a small nation into CGI effects does zero to engage an audience. The genius of Jackson's films was not just that he instructed every person working on them to treat them as long-ago history rather than fantasy. It was that his first priority was to create living, breathing, flawed, fearful, brave, confused, hating, loving beings who cared about each other, lost things, lost their way and dared to hope. To paraphrase the Salon review of "Fellowship," that's the greatest special effect of all. It's a shame that so few filmmakers remember that.

Every insane, completely divorced from reality sentence that comes out of the mouths of idiots like Hunter (the joker from my state who wanted to turn the nearly-100% pristine Channel Islands into a hunt club for veterans) just drives the spikes in a little deeper for the public: Republicans are completely off their rockers.

It's a sweet time to be an independent. The GOP's top White House contenders are a born-again nutjob, a would-be tyrant whose only trump card is to keep repeating "9/11," and a Mormon who couldn't get the evangelical vote if he nailed himself to a cross. Add wackos like these and their vile beliefs and you have a recipe for 50 years with the Repugnant Party as the political equivalent of the Toledo Mud Hens. Minor league, baby.

This is classic behavior of the delusional Christian right. It doesn't matter if you ACT like a Christian--you know, love thy neighbor, help the poor, turn the other cheek--as long as you say you're a Christian. We've seen this with Dubya his entire presidency: on one hand he talks about his faith incessantly and is supposedly a "good Christian man" to the 300-pound lady waddling out of Wal-Mart, while on the other he illegally invades countries, supports torture and rapes the environment while ignoring millions without health insurance. But it doesn't matter, because he TALKS a good game of being a Christian.

Huckabee is no different. He's obviously dangerously naive and deluded by his faith, to the point where a single pastor's endorsement carries more weight than a police or corrections file containing the expert opinion of cops, lawyers, judges and psychologists. And this man wants to be president? What would happen if an NIE landed in his lap with 99.9% bulletproof evidence that Iran was no threat to the U.S., but one influential minister whispered in his ear that God had told him the U.S. should nuke Tehran? Can you say holocaust?

Until Christians actually practice the values they purport to revere, I don't want another of them setting foot in MY Oval Office. As Gandhi said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."

Well said, Laurie, and in clearer language than I used. You make the point exactly.

...for the inevitable troll LW who moans that letting an 11-year-old persist in belief in Santa is tantamount to child abuse.

C'mon, let's get it over with.