For several days, I resisted the temptation to look into this discussion. I figured (correctly) that much of what would be written would be drearily predictable, and (incorrectly) that it would quickly run out of steam.

As time went on and the list of responses grew so exponentially, I finally yielded to temptation and started reading. It's taken a couple of days to work my way to the end; you all have been writing in new stuff just about as quickly as I can read!

A couple of observations:

On separation of church and state: Yes, no one agrees more readily than I that sectarian religious issues and disagreements have no place in secular public discourse. Most of us here, theists and atheists alike, seem to agree on this, and also seem to agree that there are way too many fundamentalists out there who threaten this boundary.

However, every citizen has the right and indeed the duty to follow whatever moral imperatives that he/she truly believes when acting in the public arena, as a voter or even a candidiate or officeholder. Whether said convictions are "religious" or not is beside the point.

Years ago, as a young adult, I joined with many others in various acts of civil disobedience in support of the moral convictions that racial discrimination must be eradicated, and that conscription into the kill-or-be-killed arena of warfare (especially, undeclared warfare) must be resisted. Many of us involved in these movements acted out of some kind of secular-humanist set of values, but just as many if not more were deeply involved in one or another religious tradition. How many names of ministers and priests, etc., do I need to drop to illustrate this point? Let's see, Martin Luther King, Dan Berrigan, Desmond Tutu...

Today's situation, where the most fervent exponents of moral resistance to civil authority generally espouse positions with which I do not necessarily agree, is somewhat problematic. I cannot be persuaded that abortion, however distateful, is morally equivalent to killing a human being who has been born ~ but I understand how it is that someone else might hold the opposite opinion, and I recognize exactly how and why such a person might feel morally obligated to act upon his/her convictions.

I simply expect that today's fundamentalist protesters observe the same rules about civil disobedience that were expected of us "new-leftists" 40-some-odd years ago: (1) only nonviolent civil disobedience carries any moral authority at all, and (2) every participant is expected to proudly and willingly accept whatever punishment the civil authorities decide to dole out.

In other words, to cite the most extreme example, holier-than-thou egomaniacs who murder doctors are nobody's moral superiors. Not only are they obviously guilty as sin, they set back their own causes.

If and when I observe people with whom I disagree to act upon their convictions in a responsible and civilized manner, I understand exactly where they're coming from and grant them my grudging admiration, whether or they've been the least bit successful in modifying my viewpoint or altering my own convictions.

On another related note:

I think that there is a more meaningful distinction between believers in a spiritual dimension ("theistic" or not) versus flat-out nihilists than there is between believers in God and non-believers. As pointed out above, Buddhism and Taoism are more accurately classified as "non-theistic philospohies" than as "religions," because even though they promote study of tne mysterious Unseen, they do not generally believe in petitional prayer or the possibility of miracles. For adherents of these spiritual systems, "prayer" or meditation is the activity of aligning oneself with spiritual truth, not a request for intervention on the part of a supernatural personality. Nothing more than a matter of "getting right with God," to rephrase it in familar western/Christian terms, and not really so alien a concept for believers.

I am equally comfortable feeling commonality with that type of "non-theist," with agnostics and "seekers," and with the vast majority of reasonable and charitable non-fundamental religionists. On the other hand, I find myself absolutely at odds with those who deny the existence of anything they can't see with their own eyes, just as irrevocably as with the smallest-minded, most puritanical, most fundamentalist literal interpreters of the Bible, or the Koran, or whatever hard-and-fast rulebook to which they've sworn allegiance.

Oh yeah, one more thing: to everything Little Hawk has written here, Amen. (And to much of what many others have said, too; I don't mean to slight anyone. But LH seems to be very much on the same wavelength as I am when it comnes to this kind of topic.)