>P.S. It's silly to debate religion. I've had political comrades of
>innumerable religious convictions, including fundamentalism. And I've
>known many reactionary atheists. I never conceal my atheism, but I never
>argue it either.
Fundamentalism isn't what we're talking about. As I mentioned, I increasingly meet people who call themselves Christian but refuse to see Catholics, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans -- well, any _denominational_ community of faith as deserving of the right to call themselves Christian. When the rapture comes, Carl (CGE) will not, on their view, rise in his nekkid glory into the cloudy blue sky to sit near the right had of god.
That is not the same thing as fundamentalism (see link below). Evangelicals--a particular kind, natch--advance a distinctly different kind of politics that supports this misadventure in the ME b/c it is supposed to speed the coming Armageddon.
What has changed in the last couple of years is that, more and more, I'm meeting people who, if you tell them you're a denominational Baptist Presbyterian, etc, then you are automatically considered LIBERAL and, thus, the enemy. You CANNOT have values if you are not a "just Christian".
<http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_evangelicalism.html>http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_evangelicalism.html
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling