LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY 1400scale)

This is an older piece that was linked to here last month, I believe, but with Joe Bageant's "Left Behind" article referred to a few threads down, I felt it was timely to bring it up again:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-endtimes22jun22,0,5277604,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines



We need to remind ourselves sometimes how dangerous these people can be, and not just to personal freedoms in America.

To them, Christianity is not about following Christ's example and teachings as a means to live in harmony with others. It's about a vengeful Messiah (or Mahdi, depending of who you ask) swooping down like Rambo to wipe out their cultural and political enemies with extreme gory prejudice, while they get to watch gleefully from the heavenly VIP lounge.

But when real armed conflict ramps up in the Middle east (and I suspect we ain't seen nothing yet), the Western World is gonna be dragged, kicking and screaming, further and further into it. And make no mistake, most of mainland Europe WILL side with the U.S. and Britain, whether it wants to or not; increased threats of terrorism (genuine or otherwise), dwindling petroleum reserves, and fundamentalist votes will make sure of that. With Russia and China's ties to Tehran, this has the very real possibility of escalating globally, whether anybody here wants to admit that or not, and in the nuclear age this is not an option.

But when their precious Rapture and Second Coming doesn't go down the way they want, and more and more rationally-thinking people clue in to the fact that religious wack-job radicals are deliberately trying to steer the planet towards Armageddon and the near-extinction of our species by means of a prophetically-influenced World War, disease pandemics aggravated by religiously-motivated "Abstinence-Only" family health programs, ignoring vital Climate Change science because it doesn't jive with literal Biblical interpretation, and increasing public sexual abuse scandals by priests and ministers, public support for freedom to practice religious beliefs will plummet catastrophically.

They are laying reasons to dispense with organized religion completely (or, at the very least, public expressions of it) at the world's feet, because I can't see how fair and democratic societies can outlaw dangerous religous groups without restricting ALL organized religious associations.



The actions and motives of the authoritarian Religious Right place all forms of freedom, security, peace, and religious expression at risk everywhere, including their own.

Just my opinion.