Ted Rall for June 16, 2014

Brilliant indeed Mr. Rall. Intelligent cartoonist without the keyhole of bias. One of the best here.

Its not the job of any institution secular or religious to save stupid people from themselves. She should have learned to save better. Because I am sure if she was an atheist she would still be dead broke.

Oh. A Rall ‘toon I can empathise withAlthough my daughter’s school is a state school and secular, they have Religious studies 2 hours a week (the RC church is still quite powerful there). One can opt out and this we have done.Recently the parents of my daughter’s classmates who attend these religious studies (read: ‘Christian liturgy’) protested that the teacher was giving a ‘too literal’ explanation of the creation of earth.Hmm.

The believing in a god or gods is mostly harmless.The difficulties come only if some “Homo Stupidens” mean to tell you how you have to believe. And it doesn’t matter if that is some kind of church or your Iman or Rabbi. It is amazing how many of them all over the last 2000 years mean that they know what any kind of god want. In some religions that is ironically also a kind of blaphemy because if you understand gods will, you have to be on the same stage – but as human they obviously can’t. ;o)

I know of a woman who’s active in her church. Her husband suffered from PTSD from the first Iraq war, refused treatment, self medicated with the drink, and refused treatment for that. She eventually told him she wanted a divorce. He responded by blowing his head off with a shotgun in their bedroom. Her church responded by providing her family with counseling and a place to stay while church members gutted her bedroom down to the studs and completely redid her bedroom. Members of the congregation chipped in to pay for all of the building materials and carpenters provided their services for free.While I’m an atheist, I found their generosity very inspiring.

As far as I am concerned, people can believe in any religion that suits them. What I find totally intolerable is when they try to force their beliefs on other people, then they are the Taliban!

The most general form is, ‘Believe in exactly the same fables I do, or I’ll kill you.’

I do not know if all religions were created by men/women, however the Muslim and Mormon religions were for sure. But I do know many people go to extremes with their religion. Maybe the only religion created by God, is the one that wants all his creations to get along and respect one n other. Yes, Jesus never started any religion.

One of the reasons for this is that liberalism is a religion in itself. It’s ok if people believe in the 30% of their faith that agrees with liberalism, but anything more than that is hateful fundamentalism that must be demonized.

Personally, I prefer the Pak Protector Cult over all the rest. At least it’s rational.

Wow! This is probably profound to people who worship Rall.

"Sounds like the “secular” part doesn’t apply anymore now that “religious studies” have gotten Christianity under the door.

“anymore”…? Nah, the RC church has always had its foot in the Austrian door.However, my wife supports a group that is demanding that the RC’s privileged access in many spheres of Austrian society, supposedly meant to be secular, is revoked.

The problem with America, as Rall demonstrates here, is that it is (similarly with Europe) “post-Christian.” There are public nods to faith here in there based on the fumes of religion, but very few people are motivated by faith compared to the former years. There are still quite a few pockets of 6000-year-old Earth, Second Coming, Antichrist-ruling-the-world fundamentalists around the country, but they are probably only about 15-20% of American Christendom.

This article defines religion and then discusses it with relation to Marxism and Liberalism:-http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=19-04-022-f-I agree with the writer that there are some on the left who do not treat liberalism as a religion but I do not share the author’s optimism that they are a numerous group.