>>>OTOH, please count the number of times in the history of UT when an atheist zealot trolled around spewing his views right in the middle of an unrelated thread.
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>It's statistically easy to show that if religion is mentioned, especially the Catholic faith, bigoted and atheistic outpourings are the norm, both here and on the wider internet. Basically if you're in a democracy and not a Catholic, what does it have to do with you? Find an article about the new Pope and check out the comments and then show me any technical or secular news that receives religious attention of that caliber.
I have a theory that virulent anti-religiosity ( even beyond anti-clericalism) has some of the same etiology as aggressive homophobia.
I find it quite easy to ignore, eschew or disbelieve without feeling a need to defame, silence or eradicate, but I think there are those who fear contamination by the very presence of something that might resonate with feelings of longing or guilt within them :-)
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
