The repeated “//” in your comment may be the problem. Not sure.

Because I will be tied up, I will be unable to provide a satisfactory reply for a couple of days.

So I will leave you with this thought. I was an agnostic for more than 35 years. I now think I was stupid to deny God. Although I thought myself smart and wise, I know now that I did not base my disbelief on knowledge. Instead, I based it upon pride and stubborn, willful ignorance.

Many Christians believe this is an era without miracles. After the Apostles spread the faith, they believed miracles were unneeded. Based upon my own experience, I think that conclusion wrong. There is at least one miracle that continues until this day. It has sustained Christianity since Christ’s first coming. We call this miracle the Holy Bible.

It was when I read the Bible that I was once again slowly drawn back to the faith of my childhood. When I contrasted my own beliefs with the wisdom contained in the Bible, I knew then I had been a fool.

Anyway, I will reply more fully in a couple of days.

//”Since I fail to see where I have asked anyone to hate anyone, I do not see any reason to reply directly to last question. I think is suffices to point out that the proposition upon which the question rests is straw. So I will let the wind blow it away.”//

It is not a straw man argument. I did not say you encouraged hatred of secularists at all. I said that the depiction of secularists as foes in a culture war implies malice and hostility, and in many cases, hatred. In a war, instinct causes those embattled to dehumanise their enemy. The Bible justifies such an attitude, if you read Psalm 14:1-3, which states clearly that those who deny the existence of god are not only stupid, but they are “corrupt” and “do abominable deeds.” This argues that all atheists are immoral idiots. In the second paragraph of my comment, I asked you a simple question in response to the above premises: “Do you really think secularists are to be hated and reviled?” The reason I asked this is because that is the prevailing attitude among Christians, according to Gallup polls on American attitudes towards atheists. The polls indicate that atheists are the “most despised minority” in America. My point is, a simple “no” would have sufficed, and I would not have pressed the issue any further.

//”I have no quarrel with secularism. What I oppose are secularists who would impose their secularism (i.e., their belief) upon the rest of us.”//

This is perfectly acceptable, so long as Christians return the favor. Though I don’t believe that is the primary motive of secularists, I’m certainly agree with this notion. It is foolish to try to change someone’s personal beliefs, and really, isn’t of anybody’s concern except the believer himself.

//Jefferson said nothing, however, about protecting the state from the influence of religion. If any person wants to pray or praise God in public, for example, they have that right.//

Barack Obama stated it well. The role of faith is important in government, but its role must be limited to personal values and morals. We must discuss policy in secular, universal terms. We must rely on the facts, on reason, instead of faith when we draft our policies.

It comes down to this. I don’t care if you pray in school; I care if the school forces me to pray. I don’t care that people are praying and worshiping in public, so long as they aren’t allowed — even encouraged in some cases — to harass or threaten me when I choose not to participate. I don’t care that someone says “god” in public, I do care that policies, both foreign and domestic, are being justified on religious instead of logical grounds (e.g., Prop. 8 in California).

//These secularists would disguise what they do even from themselves. They call neither their beliefs nor their faith in their Truths religion.//

The reason we do not call it religion is because it is not. Religion is based upon faith which by definition is irrational; science is based upon evidence and repeatable demonstrations of “why this seems to work in this way.” To say that science is based on faith is utter nonsense.

//No. They would have us excuse their tortured logic as science. Yet science itself provides no basis for believing in unfounded Truths or forcing others to do the same.//

Frankly, I don’t see how you’ve developed the idea that science somehow forces one to accept it. In fact, the basis of science is questioning, investigating, finding evidence, and providing logical proof about a theory. The key word here is evidence. The reason we give authority to a scientific theory is because it has been reviewed and approved by the most intelligent minds on earth. The grounds for legitimizing its authority is reason, not faith.

The difference between religion and science is this: Religion takes what it believes to be truth, elevates it to the point of holiness, and never questions it again. It says to its followers, “This is the truth, and you must not question it lest you be a blasphemer or heretic.” Science does not believe in absolute truth, it believes in what is the most compelling and reasonable theory of how the universe works. If a repeatable demonstration can be given, if tangible evidence is present, if the math and logic works out, then it is accepted as a theory. (N.B. That is why scientists get really pissed when one says that evolution is “just a theory.”)

//Government derives its powers through the application of force. If government exercises the force of its powers morally, it is because the People impose their moral and religious beliefs upon their government. Because government acts in our name and exercises deadly power, it is utterly reckless for the People not to impose their moral and religious beliefs upon their government.//

This assumes that morality implies religion, and that religion implies morality, which are both false. Those assumptions can be rendered invalid by a single moral atheist, and a single immoral religious person (e.g., myself as a moral atheist, and a priest who molests children as an immoral religious person). The idea that religion must be incorporated with policy is therefore false.

//In our era, when we have spread the footprint of government far beyond the imaginings of the Founders, it has become imperative we impose religious wisdom upon our government. But that has not happened. Too many Christians have been derelict in their responsibilities//

It sparks my curiosity that you first seem to support the separation of church and state, and then go on to say that it is the responsibility of Christians impose their religious views upon the state…

Based upon the premises given in my response to the previous statement, there is no compelling reason why there is any imperative for religion to get involved with the affairs of the state or to be given any legitimacy within the realm of policy. The change in the role of government, to a federalist system, means that laws passed by the federal government affect everybody in the nation. This, in fact, solidifies the opposing notion that religion should NOT be incorporated with government because of the number of people that it will disenfranchise: all of those who do not subscribe to that particular religion’s doctrine. Passing laws justified only by means of so-called “religious wisdom” which from what you’ve written paragraph which only applies to Christians, instead of those based on reason and logic which applies to everybody, is ridiculous. How does this not contradict your suggestion that one should not impose his beliefs on others? Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that only apply applies if you’re not a Christian…

//Instead, we have many who would use government to force their supposedly more logical and rational thought processes upon others. These same people would make the practice of secularism the state religion and eradicate “religious” practice from an increasingly huge public square.//

Secular propositions have no god or scripture to find truth, and therefore look to reason and evidence. The track record shows that the latter brings us closer to truth than the former ever will. Because secularism is NOT a religion, the very suggestion that they are trying to make it the “state religion” is nonsense. That is exactly what they intend to avoid at all costs. The Christian fundamentalist front on the other hand, would seek to have Christianity the ultimate authority in policy (i.e. the “de-facto” state religion). Secularists do not worship reason and evidence, and they do not claim to have absolute truth (as stated before, no scientist will ever say, “this is absolute truth”). Unlike fundamentalist religions, if the evidence proves science wrong, the scientist will go with the evidence and abandon the discredited non-truths. (Evidence of Christian fundamentalists who do exactly the opposite lies in the Young Earth Creationism pseudoscience, and evidence of their motives to make Christianity the ultimate authority comes in attempting to force school districts to teach such pseudoscience as real science.)

//Such religious freedom as that which Cyrus offered is fragile.//

Fragile perhaps, but it does not refute the fact that it has absolutely no origins in Christianity. Even the religious freedom we see in the United States today is not a product of Christian principles, but rather, those of the period of Enlightenment. It is those very principles which we secularists seek to retain, the idea that reason and logic — not Yahweh, not the Bible, not religion — is what legitimizes authority. What frightens us is that we’re going down a slippery slope, and that is why we fight so viciously against the strengthening influence of fundamentalism, especially that of the Religious Right.

Again, I must emphasize, it is not an attack on Christians, but rather, fundamentalism. It is not an attack on personal religious belief, but rather, the attempts to pass religious belief off as reasonable policy.