Paul - Yeah, that's the trouble with words, and it's the main cause of most of these wrangles on Mudcat.

I guess I would call those people you are referring to (Southern Baptists and Islamic fundamentalists) as "religious fundamentalists" or "religious extremists of our time". Mind you, I've even known a fair number of religious fundamentalists who were totally nice and harmless people, although I did not share their simplistic views of God, history, and reality.

I usually take issue with people on Mudcat when they launch threads attempting to demonize an entire general category of people...in other words, they see it strictly as "the guys in the white hats, and the guys in the black hats". It's usually not that simple. In fact, it's almost never that simple.

What point is there to trying to give organized religion the sole (or the primary) blame for the existence of "good people who do bad things"? That was the premise I objected to at the start of this thread. I consider it an extremely inaccurate, biased, and unfair premise. That's why I am here posting on it at all.