Reply #107: So, what constitutes this 'elitism'? What constitutes this "view that they

[Warren DeMontague]

(religious and spiritual people) must necessarily be on a lower level of intellectual or psychological development if they believe in God?"

What members of the "left", you know, that "We" need to purge ourselves of, have expressed that? Where? Can Rabbi Lerner provide some kind of backup? Because, you know, FOX NEWS says that there's a "War On Christmas".. Bill O'Reilly says that "Secular Progressives" are waging a war on the poor, persecuted religious folks in our society.

And here's Michael Lerner, someone I've agreed with on a bunch of things, echoing utter right wing bullshit, full of AM radio buzzwords like 'elites'. WHERE are these 'disdainful leftists' running around laughing and mocking these poor, fragile, people of faith? Funny, I can't seem to find them. Sure, we're told it happens here on DU all the friggin' time, too... But no one ever seems to be able to back these claims up, or when they do, it's invariably with a link to a thread about fundamentalist beliefs on global warming or attempts to teach creationism in public schools.

Meanwhile, the SF Chronicle ran a story just a few days ago about atheists 'coming out of the closet'..

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/20/MNGV3HBONH1.DTL

As is duly noted in the article, "You can be elected as an openly gay politician in this country, but you can't be elected as an openly atheistic one"

Who is persecuted, here? Who is liable to be descriminated against?
... Yet, the noise machine drones on, it is 'people of faith' who are being 'ridculed' by these mean old leftist secular elites.

Well, I'll tell you what I think the problem is- you have certain people of faith (even here, as has been demonstrated time and time again) who go absolutely fucking bat-shit CRAZY when someone dares to publicly and unapologetically state "I don't believe in God".

You know, we're okay-- as long as we keep our mouths shut about that sort of thing.

Here's a news flash- the whole POINT of a belief or a belief system is that you think you are right, and presumably, someone who disagrees with you is wrong. Shit, personally, I don't even think "atheist" begins to cover my ever-evolving system of semantic maps by which I make a pathetic attempt to describe 'reality'.. I'm certainly not a strict materialst, I'm probably more of a Discordian Taoist who thinks words fail miserably when trying to describe the infinite or the ineffable. But for the purposes of the inane, lowest-chakra fucking political debate in this country, I will gladly count myself in the "Atheist" camp, because I certainly don't believe in anything remotely resembling the notions of "God" promulgated by the big western religions. (I don't believe in Zeus, either- but for some reason people aren't automatically supposed to be divided into Zeus-believers and Zeus non-believers)

So, anyway, if I don't happen to believe in your interpretation of "God", I can be nice about it, but if you're as thin skinned and hypersensitive as some of these believers apparently are (Leonard Pitts: That's not persecution, it's a Persecution COMPLEX), the only possible way I can ever avoid making you feel like I think you are intellectually incorrect on at least one issue is if I keep my mouth shut about my views on the universe.

Which is, I guess, the whole point. But I wonder whow strong any 'faith' can assert to be, (especially in a country where so many claim to believe) if it constantly recoils in spastic terror when confronted by any public assertion of a differing view.