Oh. I've splained a lot, not just in those posts. You must not have read a lot of what I've said over the years... and I had explained my personal horror stories previously.

And of course expremism is worse than middle-of-the-road-ism, but even without all the death and dismemberment, denying evolution hurts all American schoolchildren. Replacing historical and biological fact with religious dogma hurts all American schoolchildren. Demonstrations at funerals that Yay, your loved one should be dead because there are gays in the military hurt all service members and all their families, and that's the christians. The unavailability of abortions hurt all women and all families, not just those who can't get the abortion they nd their medical practitioners have decided would be best for them and their families.

And that's the regular, run-of-the-mill, mainstream American christians. None of that is considered "extreme" by modern standards.

My crusade, as *you* call it, isn't against religion, nor even against faith. BUT - those are the only things that can make good people do evil things; nothing else would work.

My argument has always been against those who try to justify their faith with rationality. It's faith, people, you have to take it on faith. As soon as you start bringing logic and intelligence into it, you are out of the realm of faith and should stop spouting dogma. THAT is what I fight - the mirage that faith in dogma is rational.

Without dogma, you couldn't HAVE religious extremism, and without religious esxtremism, you can't have good people doing evil things.

The people who flew the planes on 9-11 were god-fearing, loving sons, fathers and brothers, who believed what they were told in the absence of evidence. They were happy and comforted by their faith, and looking forward to their virgins in the next life. No, that was not a victimless crime.

Where do you live that you think you have never been personally hurt by dogmatic belief? 9-11 didn't hurt you? The Holocaust didn't hurt you? None of the planes being blown up or assassinations or the North ireland bombs have affected you in any negative way? Don't you know any women terrified of getting pregnant since they could never have an abortion? Know any men terrified of getting someone pregnant since they (the someones) could never have an abortion? Know anybody killed by a drunk driving teenager, since puritanical laws prevent the moderate daily drinking with meals that is known to be healthy and does not promote the binge drinking that gets you drunk in the first place?   Again, what planet do you think you are living on? How can you just ignore all the harm and say well, it isn't touching me?

Name me one extremist about anything who wasn't motivated by dogma.

One.

How can you even get to an extreme of sensible intelligence? What is the extreme of thoughtful inquiry? MAD THINKER! RUN! They might draw a pointed conclusion!

And sorry, no, you don't understand how I feel if nobody you loved dearly was ever killed by religious dogmatics.

Nor do you understand what I write if you think that I am against religion rather than against the idea that belief without evidence should be as *respected* as rational, thoughtful and intelligent pondering.

Especially in the school system. Man, that chaps my ass big time.

And I was against dogma long before any of this happened, except the Holocaust. I have never thought it made any sense to pretend that any grownup's belief in the supernatural made enough sense for me not to laugh at it, although for politeness' sake, before all this other nastiness, I was willing not to. Now, I consider it less polite to pretend it's OK than to laugh at the silliness, as it rationally is considered.

Luckily, Mom was an atheist who did not consider herself jewish anyway, since her family had been secular, so at least I didn't grow up knowing she was a Holocaust survivor. That only came out when I was about 17.

So both the christians who murdered my mom's secular family and the moslems who killed dad were after people of other faiths, and got secular atheists instead.

I have many friends of faith who are good and kind and know full well that their faith is faith-based, not rational, and who can't say why they still believe. No problems there. Since they aren't buying into the dogma but instead into the deity, they would be hard to pursuade into terrible actions based on what radicalizers claim the diety wants.

Without that rational thought, though, you are wide open to that radicalization. I mean, why not? It's what authority says your deity wants, right? Who are you to argue with that, unless you are allowed to think?