I don't care whether people believe in God or not -- as someone said,
most people believe lots of foolish things, including me no doubt -- so
if my friend Peggy wants to believe in Jesus, fine. but I don't want to
pay for their schools, I don't want my child to have to say their
prayers or listen, in public school, to their abstinence-only garbage,
and I don't want their doctrines running my personal life, whether its
my right to a divorce or my right to read books about gay history in the
public library. >>
But I do care. False ideas have unpleasant consequences, no matter how nice or pleasant or sympathetic the carrier may be. The strange thing about the U.S. is how many people cling to bizarre beliefs about Jesus, Moses, etc. etc. compared to Western Europe. The state is secularized, yet the political culture is saturated with religious piety. Surely this is not unrelated to the overwhelming conservative nature of American politics.
Dan Lazare