Reply #42: The sad thing

[Mythsaje]

is that while it's not all that difficult to see and understand the value of strong religious values when it comes to following a path to peace, it's equally easy to see how dangerous religious sentiments can become if channeled by the wrong people. Unfortunately, the dangerously religious, the fundamentalists, have become the most vocal proponents of using religion as a form of political expression--or, using politics as a means of religious expression.

I doubt that any clear-thinking person would argue that this isn't a dangerous thing, and a road that's fraught with the potential for terrible calamities.

Our founding fathers came here carrying the memory of the horrible religious conflicts that exploded across Europe, wars that used religion as an excuse. Their desire to see America free of such conflicts has been lost in the "culture war" particularly propagated by the Religious Right.

Religion is a double-edged blade. It can heal, but it can also destroy. It simply depends on whose hands it rests in.