Really...

Xenophobes and racists can also criticize religion, and often do. You can have a racist that criticizes relevant aspects of a belief system AND hates them because of irrational beliefs about those who generally hold that belief system.

Rational and irrational criticism mix together all the time. One is often used as cover for another.

But until irrational criticism comes into the mix, you can't just say all rational criticism is a pretext automatically because some use it that way. It's not.

Having to deal with all the religiosity of the mainstream...

from the President saying "Under God" in the response to the capture, to the interfaith meeting held by our government, to calls for "prayer" everywhere... it's always sort of surreal to me that such a flawed way of thinking which can lead to exactly these sorts of harmful acts are always invoked so prominently in response to them.

We have criticism...

very specific, relevant criticism of the Bible, the basis of the belief system. Think of it like criticizing a book on capitalism. Nothing about the criticism said the poster was intolerant about any ideas other than their own (have a closed mind in which they will never change their minds no matter what). That requires dogmatism, which religious faiths have in spades as part of their belief system. The religious are used to their ideas being more protected than other ideas, it's a privilge they have, so any criticism is viewed as akin to bigotry to many of them, but this is just their privilege showing.

The concept of prayer is "fucked up" IMHO

but the concept of forgiving those who do bad things to you? Not so much. Course, praying for the guy doesn't equal forgiveness.

Sure, the intentions are (sometimes) good-intentioned, but it's all based on the same flawed foundation of religious thinking and poor logic that can lead to so much harm.

Nothing bigoted about criticizing belief systems nt

DU: Glad suspect given rights; FR: Off to Gitmo!

I won't post links to what is being said at FR, you can go see for yourself, but this is why I love DU and why I'm a liberal.

Strangely enough, FR always seems incredibly paranoid about government taking away their civil rights, but when it comes to certain people, they fall head over heals in trashing those rights and can't see the hypocrisy.

The travesty that is Gitmo, the way it trashes our Constitution, is a continuing problem, and what happened today, under a Democratic administration, shows the contrast of the RIGHT way to handle terrorism.

I think our nation, as a whole (not on FR), has matured since 9/11, and terrorist events like this will hopefully no more lead to the populace giving into fear and paranoia to the point of sacrificing our civil rights and liberties.

We are better than "off to Gitmo", and that is why I'm a liberal

Obviously, you're a bully...

Bullies don't have discussions. They do poke people with sticks though. They do tell people "they aren't worth it". They do try to dictate who belongs where. They do use personal insults in place of meaningful discusson.

Bill Maher trashing libertarians...

Ascribing godlike qualities to myself like "infallibility"...

would make it seem like it's where I think of myself like a god (hence "God complex&quot , but semantics aside, can you show evidence of this? That I find myself infallible? Maybe you can read my mind? What special privileges am I demanding? What belief do I have that is unshakeable? Or are you just spouting random bullshit?

What do you call a person that doesn't address points of discussion, but instead responds with personal attacks? I call them assholes. In a way, they have god complexes, since the "rules" of discussion don't apply to them.

What makes you think I think of myself as a god?

I mean, I don't even believe in gods. This is fun, I'm keeping tallies of all the things you assert and fail to back up.

You still haven't responded to my critique of your blackface analogy, all you responded with was an ad-hom that I hate Muslims, and then when you haven't backed that up, you use another ad-hom that I have a God complex.

Are you going to actually try to back up any of your ridiculous claims? Or is another ad-hom coming?