"The real issue with these people is not their specific faiths. It's their addiction to thinking they are right. It's an addiction to believing they have a corner on the market of truth. In other words, it's an addiction to a "made-truth," that is, to a belief that the truths they've created in their minds are indeed absolute truths and that everyone else must be made to believe in the same truths lest they perish. ...

"CHRISTIANS ARE BEING PERSECUTED"

Ever hear the phrase, "You can dish it out, but you can't take it"? That's what's happening when Fundamentalists use this statement. They have been on the attack for years now, trying to deny rights to homosexuals, trying to outlaw abortions, trying to keep women from obtaining equal rights, and trying to impose their own morals - many of them non-biblical - on the rest of society. Non-Fundamentalists are finally fighting back by speaking out against their campaigns, their media onslaughts, and their mistaken notions of truth, and the Fundamentalists don't like it very much. They can dish it out, but they can't take it. So when people of good conscience stand up for their rights, Fundamentalists cry foul - they claim they are being persecuted.

Fundamentalists see this "persecution" as biblical proof of being on God's side. It's not. Their so-called persecution is merely the rest of society defending itself from their attacks.

esus was not the uptight, judgmental founder of Fundamentalist Christianity. He was radical. He was compassionate. And he was forgiving. Rather than thumping people over the head with the Old Testament (the New Testament hadn't been written yet), he spent much of his time standing up to the Fundamentalists of his day. In Matthew 23:27 he said they were nothing more than "whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." And isn't that so true. These are people who claim their made-truths come straight from the Bible, and yet they don't even know what's in it. They wear a facade of righteousness, and yet they sin by adding their unfounded doctrines to the Bible. They like to condemn others for living in sin, and yet they are blind to all the sins they simply ignore or write off as irrelevant.

You don't have to let them get away with it. The next time they launch an attack, stand up for your beliefs, stand up for your rights, and fight back with their own words. Or rather, fight back with God's own words. "

Good reading. I so needed to read this tonight. I've spent the last 3 days trying to argue with a powerful brick wall about an issue that to me should be so clear - equal opportunity for children of all religions. Yet, I hit a brick wall....and a hysterical 'You people are trying to take the Christ out of Christmas!' WTF - I can't deal with these mean ass people.