<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> C. G. Estabrook wrote: <blockquote type="cite" cite="midPine.SGI.4.10.10309022221500.272230-100000@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu"> <pre wrap="">I think Nathan's got it right. The village-atheist tone of some of these posts is getting a bit shrill. Remember that the form of Christianity espoused by, say, Tom Delay (an heretical form, I'd say) is held by only a minority of US Christians. Others take quite different positions, as is noted by (of all people) Noam Chomsky -- who thinks that all God-talk is incoherent, but points out, e.g., that Christian churches and church groups were far more active than the soi-disant Left in opposing the Reagan wars in Latin America. --CGE </pre> </blockquote> Chomsky has also praised the courage of people like the Berrigan brothers during the Vietnam era, as has Howard Zinn.  And sure, let's hear it for Dorothy Day while we're at it.  That's all irrelevant in the present context, and anyway, the Christian left is far less influential than the Tom Delays of this world.  (I leave it to others to decide who's heretical and who's not).  The people who instigated the ten commandments brouhaha are far more representative of the public face of Christianity in the US today. Jerry Falwell's not shrill?  Pat Robertson's not shrill?  Richard Neuhaus isn't shrill?  How about Cardinal Ratzinger?  These people and hosts of others like them intervene in public affairs all the time, differing from other political actors only in their "objectively disordered" pretensions of speaking on behalf of an alleged deity when they espouse their reactionary views.  They are entirely legitimate targets for ridicule and abuse. As for the theatrical display of wounded feelings by those who object to sectarian symbols being excluded from secular spaces like courthouses, we USers live in a country where there appears to be a house of worship on about every third streetcorner, where you can't start a football game without a public prayer, and where it's de rigueur for aspirants to public office to proclaim their fealty to religion whenever possible.  It's not as though there's any shortage of conspicuous piety.  Notwithstanding the many fine religious folk there are and the many fine things they do, when it comes to the cretinous Judge Moore and the equally cretinous demonstrators who gathered outside his courthouse, I say Chuck Grimes had it right:  fuck'm.  And ecrasez l'infame. Jacob Conrad </body> </html>