And me of no faith.

I have just finished reading "Me of little faith" by Lewis Black. For those who do not know him, he is a comic that had made a movie or two, been on television notably HBO and The Daily Show on the Comedy Channel. He minces no words about various topics and speaks his mind when it comes to religion.

One thing he said in his book struck a cord with me --
"In a land that should take great joy in the differences of its people -- and in the knowledge that those differences are what make us strong -- we generally choose to fear diversity while wallowing in our own stupidity. For a country where so many believe in some sort of God, we seem, as a whole, to have more faith in our ignorance. We seem to find a shared comfort in our fear of those who don't share our beliefs."

I think that's true. I find that Christians tend to talk of love and accepting but when the rubber hits the road, if you don't believe as they do, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Next to being gay, if you say you are an Atheist, then you are the scum of the Earth. You are evil, immoral and not a nice person. I think it would really surprise most Christians that, according to Adherents.com in 2000, the nonreligious/secular made up more than 13.2% of the U.S. population. More than the Jews (1.3%) and Muslims (.5%). If you add the agnostics (.5%) and declared atheists (.4%), that gives you 14.1% of the U.S. population that's not religious. And even more interesting is the nonreligious group is up over 110% from the previous survey. So more and more folks aren't buying Christianity.

Anyway it would be better for all of us if the Christians would back off and let people run their life as they see fit. That doesn't mean we run naked in the streets and forget right and wrong. I think our society has figured that out already and we don't need someone shoving a 2000 year old book down our throat. But Christians backing off? Not a chance!