Found this in another forum...

Harvey Firestein! This says it all.

Pass this link around....
http://www.inthelifetv.org/1402_player.html


Only thing is when he says "my country, my government", when I say something like that, the religious always say it is theirs (Christian majority and all)and I should kneel or get out. How do you answer them?

make for the automatic accession of authority? If the majority votes for theft to be legal, it doesn't make it right. That's why we have both a numerically based house of congress and a region based house of congress, to ensure that the rights of the minority would not be trampled by the tyranny of the majority. The Framers were smart about that and put in a "system of checks and balances" to ensure that those who did not have the numbers would not get destroyed by those who did. Since several of the Framers were from groups that were both dissident and numerically smaller than the majority, they were very careful about such things as freedom to dissent. (Think Quakers, Catholics and Huguenots.)

There has never been a true religious majority in this country. Catholics are the largest Plurality at 22%, followed by Baptists (17%) and then the Non-religious (16%). And really, if they think they can get the hard-core Catholics that still don't eat meat on Fridays to sit down at the same table as the no-drinkin', no-dancin', no Pope of Rome Baptists and agree on religious issues... I have some lovely swamp land I'd like to unload.

"Christian" is not a majority. There are hundreds of different sects, and while they might agree on a few doctrinal issues, the thing they don't get is that as soon as they get what they think they want - a Christian nation - they'll find out that they didn't want it after all because the likelihood of their specific doctrine and dogma being adopted as law is directly related to the number of members their church has and the amount of money they can funnel into a political campaign. Thus, the wealthier, more liberal Episcopalians are far more likely to get their views and voices heard and accepted than the store-front, independent, Church of Jesus the Provider of Fish and Bread that made canned salmon part of their communion. Quakers learned this a long time ago when we were still English colonies, and have been active in keeping religion and government separate for a very long time.

This has been the best means for me to explain how separation benefits the religious as well as the non-religious. What I've had to do to use it, though, is to really learn what each sect believes and holds most dear and what is abhorrent to them. That usually means asking a lot of questions about theology and using lay terms. As an atheist, I find that I tend to know more about Christianity and theology in general than most Christians do. Sad, huh?

Pcat

and want us to sit through altered pledges, not to mention prayers at public meetings.
For cripes sake, at our state democratic convention, I had to sit (and stand, and sit) through not 1 but 3 prayers...Xtian, Muslim and Jewish, as if they thought they were hitting ALL the bases. Nauseating, especially when I know that the "other side" was invocating all over the place too.

By the way, wasn't Harvey great?

I sent it to everyone in my e-mail mailbox. I let them know that what was said in that clip was what I believed my entire life, including the time that I was forced as a child to participate in the Catholic Church BS.