How does the religious right treat atheists? Last I checked, atheists still have the right to marry. Last I checked they have the right to have their child educated in public schools. Atheists weren't blamed for 9/11.

The religious right has a lot of enemies, or in any case a lot of people they perceive as enemies. As an atheist you are merely one of any number of different groups of people who are regularly demonized by the extreme right. As a 'liberal' and a 'liberal Christian,' as a believer in evolution, as a scholar of the Bible, as a player of violent videogames and watcher of violent movies, as a transsexual and a feminist, as a theologian and historian, as a free-thinker and friend to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Christians, blacks, Native Ameriacns, gays, lesbians, people in open relationships, drug addicts, divorcees, vocal women, metrosexual men, and every other variety of person you can imagine, I am seen as an enemy to the Christian right before I even wake up in the morning and get the opportunity to indoctrinate their children into my twisted liberal lifestyle. You think you've got the monopoly on oppression? Give me a break. Are you aware that people during the Inquisition were not killed for not believing, but for believing in the wrong way? Heretics and Jews and Muslims have always been on the receiving end of Christian oppression. Atheists never were because as long as you showed up for Mass once a week no one gave a damn about what you actually believed.

So, if you're trying to invoke my sympathy for your wretched condition, I'm afraid all I can offer you is my condolence for being put through the same crap that all people go through. Everyone is an enemy of someone. Sitting on your computer in your comfortable house or apartment or office, sipping your overpriced coffee or New Age drink, I should think you would at least be self-aware to realize that people like you (and me) really are not that bad off at all. There are people in the world and in this country who are still being denied their civil rights and liberties because of intolerance. Unless you happen to be gay or trans or handicapped, you're probably not one of them.

My entire point is that this finger-pointing of who's being oppressed the most and who's doing the most oppressing is not accomplishing anything for anyone. Christians who get into fights with atheists over God and evolution do so on absurd grounds, and atheists who take the bait and use tired cliches about a belief system they don't understand are just the same. I am friends with atheists and Buddhists and Jews and gays and Republicans not because I agree with the finer points of their theology but because it has occurred to me that when it comes to this strange life of ours, we are all stuck on the same boat, and hitting each other over the head with oars is going to accomplish much less than discovering what we have in common with each other and moving on from there.

Well, it's true that there are many denominations that have no problem with evolution. Didn't the Vatican recently confirm that it believes evolution is part of God's creation and plan for the world? I think he was referring to our creationism being part of our American culture because America's culture has uniquely created a form of religion that relies not on the government to sustain itself, but on its own ability to stir up enthusiasm from whoever it can lay its hands on. American religious fundamentalism seems to be unique in that sense, and unique to our culture. Most other forms of Christian fundamentalism have taken their cue from America.

All the joys you associate with atheism are quite similar to the joys of being a member of any facet of society which does not ascribe to fundamentalist views. You're clearly not well-acquainted with mainstream religion (Lutherans, Episcopalians, Cooperative Baptists, etc) if you think that all religiously-persuaded people believe in some pie-in-the-sky daddy and fire-pit hell. If you were actually inquisitive about things you didn't know or didn't understand, it would have been easy enough for you to find that out by simply asking any liberal, progressive, or moderate religious person of any stripe. You seem happy enough to rely on your own ignorance of what religious people are actually like, though, and instead of dealing with them directly you seem happy enough to leave the matter up to your own version of God... your opinions and prejudices. I yawn in the general direction of your glorious atheist existence and your ignorant belief that you've freed yourself somehow from your own human ignorance of other people.

I think it was Voltaire who said God is a comedian playing to an audience too scared to laugh. And I think Garrison Keillor said "God writes a lot of comedy the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny."

Those quotes seem to sum up most of what's been accomplished here!

That churches don't pay taxes is a clear cut violation of the first amendment and giving them this in fact does amount to non-religious people funding church activities as this revenue must be made up elsewhere.

Someone clearly didn't pass their 9th grade civics class. The First Amendment provides that no religion will be given special considerations over any others, not that religious establishments in general won't have special provisions of their own.