Great column, Todd.

Echo: Great column.

I second Jack’s endorsement, Todd. In an ancient world where torture was commonplace, military victory granted the victors the “right” to rape and plunder, and where you worked to kill your enemies, Christ’s messages of “love your enemy” and “turn the other cheek” were truly radical, and worked to better humanity.

However, you should also be troubled and disillusioned about the prejudice which continues to be directed towards atheists. Look at how destructive sectarian differences within the christian faith have been politically: you don’t have to go too far back in this nation’s history to see evangelicals promoting prejudice against Roman Catholics, and Mitt Romey’s Mormonism disqualifies him for the presidency in too many eyes.

The nineteenth century saw Joseph Smith being lynched; Brigham Young implicated in the Mountain Meadow massacre; a Boston mob sacking and burning an Ursuline convent next to Bunker Hill.

Susan Faludi argued in her book “Stiffed” that Bill Bright began the Campus Crusade for Christ as a means of channeling college student energy into an acceptable, fundamentalist direction. Unless that organization has changed its doctrine, it drilled its members into accepting a literal interpretation of the Bible as the only correct one, pronounced itself “non-denominational” while dismissing other types of christian faith as “sects,” and taught a version of apologetics which had nothing to do with discovering and respecting differences in faith, but everything to do with “conquering” opponents in an argument. Those are all characteristics I see in modern “political” evagelicalism.

My Christian faith is very important to me and I have always been an adamant supporter of the concept of separation of church and state. I’ve always said that I don’t want the state interfering with my church and the best way to do that is to keep the church from interfering with the state.

There is nothing wrong with the church influencing the way people in power think about various issues. Indeed, that is good. We need to maintain an important distinction between the church influencing the way people, including politicians, think and the church attempting to direct influence the state.

As an FYI, Welton Gaddy’s excellent weekly radio show, “State of Belief” used to be carried on Iowa Public Radio and I was a big fan. It’s too bad they no longer carry that show.

Good column Todd.

There is no need to worry about the entangling of religion and politics. God has been dead for quite some time. God has become a mere myth used as a facade to cover up the origin of personal viewpoints by the pseudo-enlightened.
People need to be concerned about the influence the military industrial complex and the corporate oligarchy has on politics. They are much more scary than the so called ‘demonic’ forces the religious community tries to rally us against.
Don Quixote wasted his time charging at windmills. Now Todd is wasting his time charging at the religious righteous who participate in politics. …and the real enemy goes unnoticed.
Of course, Todd’s salary comes from the Mainstream Media that is beholden to the corporate elites. Like other members of the 1% they all mislead us.
What, me worry about the influence of religion on politics? I won’t be misdirected from the true problems and I hope you aren’t either.

Seems our editorialist made a good choice in his subject matter. The “subject” did a very good job of giving the writer all he needed to make a secinct argument using his own words. One of those, this thing writes itself moments! they don’t come often, but do make easy reading and writing.

Quality piece; thank you. I do belive it resonates with a majority of the populace.

On the other hand if the electorate choses not to support a canidate or some optional government service it is clearly within their right as citizens to oppose them regardless of the basis for their view. I believe Patrick Henry phrased it well, defend the right to speak, even if I disagree with the point.

You don’t get to remove religion from the public square. If that’s the point. If I were writing this article I would remove socialism and progressive thought from the public square rather than religion because I disagree with them.

Rick Perry’s ad says libruls say faith makes people weak. He would make a great president, dividing us even further. Why didn’t he say exactly which branch of which faith makes you stronger? That comes later folks. After he’s in a position to load railcars.

In terms of dividing, I don’t think there can be much said for anyone at the moment. You don’t have to look to far to see who now is approving of “Homeland Security” who used to be a “Constitutional lawyer”, and somehow I have to doubt even that. Granted Repugs haven’t been above board, but that is to be expected, but acting like a lame duck right out the shoot, wasn’t what I expected of the man who promised all sorts of things and delievered on nothing. Truly what we have here is really the lesser of two evils, and our choice isn’t much better. Obama has eased us into this situation when he didn’t use the two house majority he had from the start and lost even that because he didn’t deliever. Having someone in who will push for all the wrong things, is probably worse than having someone in who pushes for nothing and puts his teeth in things that are part of what the right wing wants. Best I can offer is a third party someone who will break the deadlock, but no one will but their faith in anyone who odds makers don’t give a chance to, always looking for a “looser” winner.

” You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Now that sounds to me like a reasonable thing to say, when given no other thing to believe in people do cling to their guns or their religion and they do try to find someone else to blame for their unfortunate situation.
Bringing successful people down ? I’d say he would like everybody to contribute to these United States with their taxes and tax increases, and that includes the wealthy who have been getting a pass lately because they are suppose to be the job creators, but who have created no jobs throughout the Bush administration and have yet to perform now. That says to me if you aren’t going to do what needs to be done, you don’t deserve the tax cut you were given. Pony up the cash so someone else can get the economy moving and reduce the red ink. It certainly isn’t about borrowing money to succeed, its about finding the money that is already available and Republicans not helping to get it. So put the blame where it is needed. Which of course is where there is a lot of blame needing to be put, and where the gridlock begins and ends, in the republican hands. If you got to find someone to hammer on, they are pretty deserving of the honors. Even in 2010 the GOP wouldn’t compromise and they even recanted what they did offer so whats the point of trying to compromise with them? A look at the health care bill that didn’t pass is a prime example of offering them everything and getting nothing for the effort. I recall 60 different things the Republicans got for changes on the bill and not one voted for it even when the Democrats had the majority in both houses. That is what you get for reaching across to compromise. Had I been the person sitting in the Whitehouse I would have done a Johnson. A long talk with every Democrat who was opposed and gave then the riot act, pass it or you won’t see one red cent in your district for the rest of your term. Then headed for a vote and not given the time of day to the Republicans. That is exactly how we got Medicare through, a straight up ram rod deal and how the Republicans voted didn’t matter, the votes were there, the deal was done.