Should Christians be permitted to vote in elections and participate in debates on

[bruce]

social issues? Atheist author Sam Harris: "To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world--to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran boh contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish--is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance . . . . The degree to which religious ideas still determine government policies--especially those of the United States--presents a grave danger to everyone."

Harris says "we can no longer afford the luxury" of tolerating Christian views. Atheist regimes in the Soviet Union and China implemented Harris's idea on a large scale by outlawing Christianity during the 20th century.

Is this a basic tenet of atheism--to refuse to tolerate religion, to disenfranchise believers and exclude them from participation in government?

 

[The Poor Widow]

Every day in here, we read all sorts of posts whose major claim is that Christians are intolerant.
And yet, I have yet to read anything from any Christian that is anywhere close to this.
It would never dawn on me, or on any other Christian I know of, to try to limit someones right to vote or to participate in debates on public issues based on his or her private beliefs, no, not even if s/he is an atheist.
I might not agree with them, but they have as much right as I do to their ideas and their beliefs.
That is what the United States is all about.

Mr. Harris' views are unconstitutional, to say the very least.

 

[♣ Angie]

I read The End of Faith when I was an atheist. It scared me, and I was an anti-theist! How his views don't scare the living daylights out of many atheists/anti-theists around here is what frightens me most of all, though.

He markets hate and intolerance, and fancies it up with exhaustive vocabulary and sensationalism so that hatred and intolerance towards the religious might come off to the reader as something intelligent and justified.

His whole book was like what you quoted. And many atheists/anti-theists around here hail this intolerant bigot as a brilliant intellectual, and monkey his hateful arguments.

He's not as popular as R. Dawkins, but he is part of the big three (Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins) who are the most influential people of the neo-nazi-atheism movement that is rapidly growing today. It's funny how so many atheists around here monkey the "big three" so they can "educate the religious", but then turn around and claim that they don't have tenets of atheism, or a leader.

For people without tenets or a leader, a great many atheists sure behave as though they are on the same mission as the "big three," and are certainly following their orders on a regular basis.

 

[Mike K]

Hello,

So be it but of course, under such circumstances all the Christians would have to be exempt from paying income tax, serving in the military where required and absolved from all other civic duties.

Cheers,

Michael Kelly