Comment 1:—
Major Boo-Boo:   When anyone says "Christians think . . . ," you can be sure that whatever follows will be a statement of belief or opinion that may or may not be held by the majority of Christians, but definitely not by all! There is a wide spectrum of beliefs held by those who consider themselves to be Christians. A popular mistake is to try to lump them all into one category. To me, the test of how close someone comes to being what I would consider a real Christian is how closely they follow the teachings of Jesus in the four Gospels and conduct their lives in a manner consistent with those teachings. When, in a religious discussion, if a "Christian" spends most of his or her time quoting from Paul's Epistles*, from the Old Testament, and from the Book of Revelation instead of from the Gospels, my eyes start to glaze over.

*There are some "Christians" who could more properly be call "Paulists." They tend to be kind of cranky, hard-nosed, and hung up on other people's "sins."


Comment 2:—
The word "fascist" is highly emotional for almost everyone who hears it. It conjures up images of black uniforms, swastika armbands, marching in goose-step, the sharp knock on the door in the middle of the night, and the specter of dark cells or concentration camps for anyone who dissents—or at the whim of a government official, or because some neighbor has denounced us, or sometimes for no discernable reason at all. It is a term that is extremely and especially offensive when applied to politicians or a political movement with which one agrees. Nevertheless, fascism has some distinct characteristics that are fairly easy to identify if one takes the time to look, and it doesn't necessarily conform to the trappings usually associated with it, such as the uniforms and jackboots.

I do not believe that George W. Bush or anyone else in his administration considers himself or herself to be a fascist. I do not believe that the United States is a fascist country. Yet! I do, however, feel that we are moving in that direction. Benito Mussolini's comment, which I quote above, about the relationship between government and corporations sets the definition of fascism, and to a large extent, in the United States, at the present time, corporations and government are the same people.

This list has been posted before, but I strongly suggest you to read it, observe current events, and judge for yourself:

Here.

Especially relevant to the present discussion regarding religion, I call your attention to characteristic number 8.

Don Firth