I know this may seem a bit of a slam dunk question to some of you but please hear me out...

I really do not think that it is and these are just a couple of my observations why it isn't.

In most societies and developed countries the governments of these countries (ie japan, norway, sweden, etc...) get involved if one religious ideology starts to try to 'push down or hold back' (for lack of a better saying) another religion.

There have been many accounts of this in Japan. (I'll try to find some in a bit and link some of the english translated stories if I can find them.) Only to have the government step in and kind of quell these disturbances to put everyone back in check.

Now, the US doesn't seem to do this. It seems almost 2-3 times a month I read about what's going on back home and there are always stories of Fundamentalist so and so targeting ___________ (insert religious belief there) because they don't conform or agree with religion #1s thoughts and practices.

How can we as americans let this happen? I remember reading a story prolly a little while back now how fundamentalists targeted Ft. Hood in Texas because they allowed for a wiccan chaplain and gave wiccan soldiers an area to hold thier rites and rituals. Why can't our government step in and protect the rights of all of our people equally when they're being oppressed in such a flagrant manner?

I guess what I'm really trying to ask here is if, the US was indeed a land of freedom of religion, why does our government turn the other cheek when one ideology is flagrantly drug through the mud, stifled and the like by another ideology? Instead of ensuring that everyone has an equal playing field when it comes to thier beliefs.

I really don't want this to turn into an XXXX religion is full of crap and XXXX religion is good type of thing I would just like some insight and see something maybe I'm overlooking...

thanks for reading

Thus is the sorry history of American protestantism--declaring other protestants and always declaring the Catholic Church as some kind of anti-Christ/false prophet. Just because there are orgs like Ministerial Alliance doesn't mean that there isn't interfaith fighting. They unite only when there's a perceived common enemy--the current boogieman is "Secularist Humanism", another "religion" in their opinion--and when not thus united, attack each other.

These rotters are tolerant--as long as you're one of their kind, they'll barely tolerate you (not embrace you). If you're perceived as this Secular Humanist thing, or a gay, or a pagan (and that still includes Native Americans in that pigeonhole), or a Muslim, then you're NOT tolerated.

Tolerance is NOT, I submit, an entitlement program for the intolerant.

__________________
I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
HuffPo's Off The Bus campaign coverage project....Off The Bus Blog

Nor is it something at which you excel.

__________________
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." ~Ronald Reagan

And you promulgate a significant falsehood (as in breaking the Commandment prohibiting False Witness) when you presume to know me at all.

I will say--and repeat as often as necessary--that I don't tolerate the intolerant. If you're one of those people who even so much as hold even a SET of religions as more sacrosanct than another (and Abrahamists of the Christian and Jewish persuasion are particulary activist at their practice of just such vile discrimination) they are correctly characterized as intolerant.

No more tolerance should be afforded these people than they afford to others, including gays.

__________________
I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
HuffPo's Off The Bus campaign coverage project....Off The Bus Blog

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with what you said, but I'm quite certain that people being sanctimonious and having a "Look-at-all-the-big-words-I-can-use" attitude are all right in my book!





Not really, you sound annoying.

To all religiofascists, undoubtedly I am.

And that's just fine with me.

__________________
I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
HuffPo's Off The Bus campaign coverage project....Off The Bus Blog

As an atheist, they all sound equally stupid to me.

Course, I believe anyone should be free to believe what they want.

Religiofascists? Making up words now? well, i have one of my own: you are a religiofascistmisanthropist. Now, getting back to the point of the argument, if you are pointing fingers, why don't you point at your own, psuedo-protagonist self, and realize that in aiming your selfproclaimed antifascist gun at specific religions, you become what you yourself hate: a judgemental critic.

__________________
I'm moving to Canada

Mr-Soviet