I'm a long term atheist, I don't believe that bullshit for a femtosecond.

But I have a good idea how many religious people "think".

My apologies for presuming more than I should have. And you're likely on the mark about this, or at least the way some people salve their consciences.

didn't try to get Giuliani excommunicated? He married, divorced, remarried and thumbed his nose at the Church by received Holy Communion at the papal Mass. Serial adulterers are OK with her. The pedophile priest on Giuliani's staff (staph?) is Ok with her. Voting against SCHIP, which could conceivable save lives now and in the future was OK with her.

If heaven is to be populated with the ilk of Lopez, let me go somewhere else.

And it truly stumps me when fundamental Baptists (for example) seem to pay more attention to TV preachers, and their interpretations and accretions, than to the Bible they are supposed to follow.

As Paul Dirks noted, read the Gospels with a naive eye and they appear to cast doubt upon religion as actually practiced in this day and age..

Hence the need for "spiritual guides" to teach you what the Bible really and truly means..

Otherwise a naive reader of the Gospels might actually make the dire theological error of believing that Jesus actually meant what He said.

What a disaster that would be, Christians might actually have to look out for their fellow man rather than simply condemning him as they greatly prefer to do.

Somehow, the policies of ours which result in the greatest obliteration of innocent human life -- or its complete degradation -- are totally drained of any moral component. And the entire playing field of "moral issues" is thus ceded to religious hucksters like Lopez and her political comrades as they openly support the most morally grotesque, and irreligious, policies imaginable

Not much to add here; I agree with a whole, if heavy, heart on these matters. Some solace may be taken in from the facts that the laity in the Catholic church do not always follow their more conservative or compromised leaders. Not all Catholics are Catholic League voters. Unfortunately, liberal Catholics have been bullied, threatened with being denied communion, and they have not been given a platform for dissent in some parishes. Liberal Catholics, however, have some options and data points that show they aren't alone. See Catholics for Choice: (link also in sig) http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/politics/keypubs.asp

No problem, I didn't make myself all that clear..

I went round and round last week with a fundie relative of mine about the Christ's injunction for His followers to "turn the other cheek".. She basically interprets it as they get one free slap and after that you are to take them out like Dirty Harry would.

I literally heard her say "But Jesus never said to just stand there and take it".

These people want their revenge and no damn book, good or otherwise, is going to stand in their way..

I think it would be wise to keep in mind that we're talking about the American Catholics and not Catholics in general. While I can't speak for any other strain, I do find that the Canadian brand of Catholicism is alot less incendiary than the American one.

I dunno...I could be way off, but that's how it's felt to me - Catholicism in America is way more politicized than in Canada, and it has led to a caricaturization of what it means to be a Catholic - no gays, no abortions, and that's pretty much it.

As usual with these "everything-is-wonderful-in-Canada" myths, this is oversimplified and not really true. The Catholic Church was extremely active and vocal in opposing gay marriage rights in Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/01/16/calgary-bishop050116.html

Calgary bishop wants government to act against gays

Last Updated: Monday, January 17, 2005 | 8:43 AM ET

CBC News

The government must suppress homosexuality and other behaviour deemed to hurt the family, Calgary's Catholic bishop says.

"Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the state must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good," Bishop Frederick Henry said in a pastoral letter.

In the next paragraph, he suggested such acts are evil and rejected the idea that private acts are nobody else's business. "An evil act remains an evil act whether it is performed in public or in private."

The letter was read to Catholics in southern Alberta on Sunday.

See also here -

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E6DB133BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63

I think it would be wise to keep in mind that we're talking about the American Catholics and not Catholics in general.

Moreover, we're talking about lay people, not official representatives of the Church.

Have we heard the Pope, any Cardinals, Bishops, etc. talk about nuns voting habits? You may get an occasional priest spouting off, but they come in all shapes, you also may hear an occasional priest spout off supporting socialism or supporting peasant rights in Brazil, etc. It's not necessarily representative of the church's views.

But these RW screeching voices only claim to represent the Catholic church. I don't see K-Lo as the voice of Catholicism (nor American Catholicism), nor is Laura Ingraham, nor is Bill Donoghue and I think they should be called on it and I'm glad Glenn is pointing it out.

These people are the paid voice of a wedge of conservative Republicans trying to make their issues mainstream. Sometimes I even doubt their support for the pro-life and anti-gay causes that get them supposedly so fired up, because I have no doubt these same people would be lining up to support the pro-choice/pro-war Guiliani (as another poster pointed out).

The American Roman Catholic Church is very different from the Church in Europe, or in other lands. It is the people and what they think that will ultimately run any church. Many Americans in the Roman Catholic Church are war-like and can find war-like passages in the Hebrew Testament to justify their ideas.

The Baptists are not different; the man in the pew wants war so the pastor gives him sermons that justify his desire to see us kill others.

After all, the government and the Church are in the same business --- they both sell fear.

Pity is, many people think religion and spirituality are the same thing.