First off, thank you so much for your support of AIM and powwows. Greatly appreciated it.

Our drum is a family drum, which has two women on it, but man oh man, the idea of women on the drum is so controversial to some Indians I don't want to sidetrack this too much, lol.

There most certainly are Christians who have committed atrocities, but then again, there are many Christians who have done a lot of good. Atheists often either ignore this or dismiss it as false. To take this stance, you must believe a fundamentalist fire-breathing Evangelical is identical to a Mennonite, a Quaker, an Episcopalian, etc. Again, lumping a group together is not a fair way to look at things. It's plain and simple lazy thinking. The Onion sells those coffee mugs with "Stereotypes are a Real Time Saver". That applies here.

My response to the beefs atheists have:

- They have not confronted the right as Christians....

Well, there are Imams who preach against Al Quada violence, some American Muslim organizations have issued statement condemning terrorism, and.....wait. I'm sorry, for a second there I thought I was back at freerepublic.com debating a conservative on all Muslims as terrorist supporters. Easy to do, given your stance and theirs are quite similar.

Anyway, try doing a search on Anne Lamont here, for starters. Yeah, many Christians do confront the right. Barack Obama, anyone?

- Two, their ideas lead to accomodating magical thinking in society, which has concrete social impacts.

You are doing way too much all or nothing thinking when it comes to religon. If a person holds "magical thinking", whatever you mean by that, it is also possible to celebrate reason. Most moderate Christians believe in God, worship God, and apply these beliefs in their everyday life without forcing them on others or destroying science. Don't mistake the loudness of the fundamentalist with the quiet existence of those among us who respect other's beliefs. I personally take a very Hindu stance in that all religions have value and are right for the particular person who practices them (the Hindu extremists that kill others is a textbook example of how fundamentalists are farther from the basis of their religion than an agnostic).

Besides, sometimes these concrete social impacts are crazy dangerous stuff like volunteering at soup kitchens and ministers joining MLK in Selma.

Finally, at those powwows, you did notice the "magical thinking" going on there, right? Should we as Indians stop that? Remember, along with religion the government and others wanted us to stop with our reverent "magical thinking" about certain lands and just go with the reason found in gold mines, etc.

- Three, on a philosophical level, they are just plain wrong. Idealism is a dying philosophy. And I don't mean idealism in the sense of 'believing in good things' I mean in the sense that what is the most important is what cannot be tested or observed, only believed. I.E. there are no material roots to these ideas, yet they are more real than reality.

That sort of stuff leads to creepy things like BF Skinner disregarding the effect of love on human behavior because love can't be measured.

And what is reality? Not to go all existential on you, but when is a flower just a flower? I have a very strong interest in weather, I am a bit of an amateur meteorologist. I can tell you all about the dynamics involved in thunderstorms, why lightning forms, how hail forms, etc., until your eyeballs melt out of your eyes due to boredom. But I also appreciate the beauty of that storm, the emotion it brings, and yes, feel thankful that the Creator has given me this. I simply believe you can have it both ways, and I truly feel sorry for people who disregard science as "Devil's work" and those who believe that I am irrational for thanking God for rain.

And one more thing to think about - what we now declare as ironclad reality, reason, with all sorts of proof - how certain are we of it? Scientists argue over what is "true" all the time. For all the arrogance Richard Dawkins shows, I think it would be funny to put him in a time machine to 500 years from now and have him give a presentation to whatever major scientific organization is around then. Not on religion, but on science and his areas of expertise. One wonders if there would be snickering, eye-rolling and comments like "faster than light travel impossible? What is this rube talking about, that stuff was proven wrong in the 22nd Century."

I will end with something I think we can agree with - when fundamentalists move religion into science, it's square peg into round hole time. The two should never mix, and only bad things happen when they do.

I think a lot of moderate Christians agree on that.

isn't Adam and/or Eve of African body/skin type?

It seems these folks are bigots as well as idiots.

Thanks for your follow up. I've got this funny feeling like I disagree with you on a point or two, but can't quite put my finger on what it is. Despite that, though, I think you and I are basically on the same page about approaching education and what the educational experience has the potential to be for students (at any level, really). I do think you and I probably define some of our terms a little differently, which may be why I'm feeling a little bit like the little dog in the RCA Victor advertisements with my head tilted 20 degrees and that "Huh?" expression, but if I do disagree on some point, I can't figure out what that is and again it may be just differences in terms but that the core of our thought vectors are essentially travelling in the same direction. Or perhaps it's that I had some previous notion and you have changed my mind (or merely presented data which has allowed me to change my mind). Regardless, I won't get this figured out today, but it's a good place to start and it's been a welcome conversation. If I think of more, I'll post again, but wanted to thank you and the others in the forum for the discussion. Hope you have a good weekend.

No kings,

Robert