To these eyes, this is the defining challenge of our age: to break the taboo on criticizing religion.

In this supposedly modern era, ancient superstitions hold a troubling power, as evidenced by...

* Bush's "Crusade" (his term) in the Middle East, and the Religious Right machine that installed him in the White House

* The intractability of both sides in the Arab/Israeli crisis

* Islamist terrorism around the world, including the Iraqi Civil War started by our Christianist president

* Domestic Christianist terrorism, such as abortion-clinic bombings

* Institutionalized child rape by Catholic priests

* The "I'm a believer" kabuki dance every major political candidate is caught up in, at the expense of rallying around once-cherished values like reason and the separation of church and state

Yes, it's gauche to criticize faith. And desperately, desperately necessary.

Criticizing faith and its excesses is not the same as demonizing its practitioners. Superstition and shared myth are pretty much fundamental to humankind. One can hate the sin of religiosity and still love the sinner.

However, in an age of mass communications and weapons of mass destruction, we need to be willing to admit when religion isn't all bake sales and Kumbaya.

Ultimately, the suspension of reason and criticism creates grave risks to society, as does the suspension of checks and balances in a democracy.

As long as there's a blank check for those who let hokum trump logic, we're in for a world of hurt. This is probably the most inconvenient truth of all, and odds are not in favor of our species being willing to accept it.

1. I'm running a "Bible Study for Atheists" at http://bs4a.blogspot.com. We're in Exodus right now, and this book is chock full of often-gratuitous torments levied by YHWH against the non-Hebrew occupants of the Middle East.

In Exodus 15:15, for example, Jehovah's messenger Moses pronounces that "all the inhabitants of Canaan (Israel) shall melt away."

Is this what we should be basing our policies on? As a "(Judeo-)Christian nation," is our mandate to melt away all the Palestinians? Does God give us any leeway on this?

2. I heard Mike Gravel's "explanation" of his health-care plan on Mike Malloy's show. He seemed to be talking nonsense. Ron Paul's libertarian dream for America completely defunds the safety net, eliminating virtually every social program. Yes, they're not de facto crazier than the people who marched us into the Big Muddy, but I'm not sure I want to give them a de facto clean bill of health, either.

Even if the directive is understood as "all Palestinians shall flee in fear" that's -- to paraphrase Monty Python -- no basis for our system of government.

And how about the series of times that God hardens Pharaoh's heart to ensure that he won't let Moses' people go... and then punishing all the Egyptians (even the slaves and animals) with horrific plagues, until he makes Pharaoh go after the Israelites -- and then drowns his whole army, horses and all?

Or Exodus 12...

29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

We're going to win a lot of hearts and minds Crusading away with our Good Book, aren't we?

Those of us who never gave a rat's ass who wrote Primary Colors.

Beltway inside baseball is, of course, the mark of a true grownup.

As noted in a previous comment, her last name is "Power," not "Powers."

More substantively, in her piece, the following bullet point deserves serious (as it were) scrutiny:

The United States has not talked directly to Iran at a high level, and they have continued to build their nuclear weapons program, wreak havoc in Iraq, and support terror."

This is impressive. Not only does she ratify the unproven GOP talking point that Iran is wreaking havoc in Iraq (a neo-con claim which alternates rapidly with the claim that all the havoc in Iraq is from Al-Qaeda), she purports that Iran has an ongoing nuclear-weapons program. I don't believe that even the Bushies have made this claim, even if they suspect (not unreasonably, perhaps) that Iran's atomic-energy program is a cover-story for weapons work.

Obama, for all his considerable virtues, has a very bad habit of ratifying GOP talking points, especially regarding "partisanship" and "moral (read: religious) values," as noted here: http://www.correntewire.com/why_was_there_only_one_set_of_footprints_obama_was_carrying_god_again

My lastest gripes about Obama ratifying GOP "bipartisanship" and "moral values" talking points here:

http://tinyurl.com/3cm4zb