I can't speak for everyone here, but I do know this: I have never been discriminated by on the grounds of religion, nor have any of my friends, nor have any of my family, half of which is American. This does not mean that it doesn't happen, only that it hasn't happened to me or the people I care about. That is in part why I'm not threatened by anyone's religion. The other part is that I don't give a rat's ass about other people's beliefs, as long as they don't get pissy with me over them. I feel we will have to disagree on the other two issues. The first is because I truly do feel that, at least in the majority of the Western World, there is a place in the society for each and every belief structure. Furthermore, while I will conceed that anger is a proponent of social change, I feel that the anger displayed thus far is of a more personal nature, and thus has no place in this discussion. I believe it to be anger borne out of hatred, or at least prejudice, which is entirely unproductive. Religious reform is going to take a hellishly long time to complete. It's a lot like feminist, racial reform, and the abolision of slavery in the USA. It takes awhile for it to take. But I do feel that it will happen. So just sit down, have a pepsi, and take a page out of Phil Jackson's and Joe Torre's manual for Zen-inity. You'll feel a lot better in the morning. Alex ----Original Message Follows---- From: Frank Mayhar <frank at exit.com> Alex Nixon wrote: > Canada, actually. Hey, it was a rhetorical question (I was thinking maybe Europe, but Canada may also be better than the US in this respect). > But that's not the point. I'm saying that there's enough of a place in > society for Atheism that it's pretty foolish to be angry about it. This is where I disagree. I don't think that there's very much of a place in society at all for atheism. > Maybe I didn't make myself clear: I consider questioning to be great and > productive, but anger and hate over religion is neither. I disagree with this, too. Hate may not be productive, but anger can be _very_ productive, as an agent for change. -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus