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Read other letters about this article
it appears that the original topic is so trivial that the vacuum it opened up pulled in the gamut of irrelevancies that has ensued.
So mote it be.
Myself, I initially got involved when someone made an astoundingly cheap shot at Christianity, followed up immediately by a commentor pontificating (and I believe that term to be entirely appropriate) that religion is the most malevolent and bloodthirsty force on the planet.
Anyone who lays the full responsibility- or even the primary responsibility- for the election of George W. Bush on Christians and Christianity is making an indefensible and easily refutable claim based on nothing more than popmedia hype- hype that they've chosen to buy into uncritically, because it accords with their preconceived personal agenda.
And those who seek to shift the blame to "religion" for the 20th century wars and genocidal atrocities committed by admittedly atheistic political movements, cults of personality, and tribal conflicts is indulging in a spurious and inaccurate redefinition of the term "religion"- moving the goalposts so that they don't have to reassess their own thinking on the matter.
My personal observation of the political behavior of "non-religious" humans in this society is that their thought is very often marked by appeals to authority based on their idealization of human thinkers; that they very often approach politics with an unwholesome fervor, demonizing their adversaries and ceding an excessive amount of personal power to their favored leaders, typically fated to play out either as uncritical loyalty or bitter disappointment; that notwithstanding their avowals of strict rationalism, many of them embrace various superstitions, fetishes, and taboos that comprise sign-specific traits in their self-selected social/subcultural niche; and that many of them subscribe to the twin mythologies of a golden age of humankind before the curse of religion spread across the land, and of the millennnial age to come, when the religious impulse is forever banished from human consciousness.
Good luck with that.
Party on...
