Wow, there are really a lot of these! What a great response! Ok, this is the last batch for tonight.

61) Doing My Part for the Left (podcast): The podcast player crashed Firefox and there is no transcript. Update me if you post any text. Sorry…

62) North of Center:

63) Fetch Me My Axe: “Essentially, the child is being asked to have more control over hirself than the adult. And to accept abuse that would be considered an outrage were an adult to do it to another adult (well, all other things being equal, which of course they often aren’t; nonetheless). Which pretty much goes against everything we understand about human development, those of us who’ve come out of the Dark Ages, at least. And then the child grows up; and guess what happens to all that pent-up rage, frustration, terror, grief, unmet needs?”

64) The Jewish Atheist: “Even now, people are trying to rewrite American history to portray it all as the story of the emergence of a Christian nation. But thoughtful people of reason must resist — vehemently and articulately –the natural aggressiveness of religious fervor and orthodoxy, or else we are in for some very bad times. Live-and-let-live is no longer an option. America is a secular nation, of course. There is no question in my mind that the Founders of our country were as close as you could be to secular humanists in the late 18th century.”

65) Midget Queen: “No comment on the fact that they picked Easter weekend for this. I agree with the general sentiment though. I do not and will not agree with any religious group, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Pastafarian or otherwise, taking over and enforcing their narrow brand of faith on everyone. “Render unto Caesar” and all that.”

66) The Daily Pulse: “What do you do when the people you want to caricature, the people so deserving of satire, have a reality more exaggerated and absurd than any cartoon?”

67) Hard-boiled Dreams of the World: “Martha’s relatives are not required to spend their time with Uncle Mert eating Brussels sprouts; they’re free to share their time with Uncle Mert in any way they choose. Likewise, the U.S. Constitution guarantees that every American can spend (or not spend) time with their best friend — even if that friend is a deity — whenever and however they desire. What’s more, Americans aren’t forced to spend time with friends or deities they’d rather not get to know.”

00) Reconstitution: A double-listing. See #25.

68) after the bridge: “me, if i were god, i’d find that to be insulting. that a believer in me thought my powers so weak that i would need man to help me carry out my divine plan and the other part of all of this that would offend me would be the forcing of anyone, ANY ONE, to have to believe in me to be able to survive, to thrive or to just fit in. i would want people to come to me willingly and with love, not fear, fear of a neighbor, a government or a fiery afterlife. … so, if someone out there believes in garden gnomes as the image of the divine, good for them and i hope that at least one of their holidays includes chocolate because i have been to many different religious ceremonies in my life and will hopefully be able to continue to do so and chocolate, to paraphrase b.franklin, is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.”

00) Fitness for the Occasion: A double-listing. See #2.

69) Journeys With Jood (part 2, see also #14): “We are people who normally would not mix, but who wound up in the same lifeboat and there we are. AA has given me tolerance, and some modicum of patience. We have atheists, pagans, Catholics, Liberals, Right Wingers, Christians of many denominations, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, Democrats, Republicans, Doctors, Actors, Welders, thieves, cops, airline pilots, you name it, we’ve got it. And nobody demands that I change my belief or faith to be a member of AA. The ONLY thing I need to get right on a daily basis is to not pick up that first drink. All the rest is commentary.”

70) commander others otherwhirled: See #7. Same post, different place.

71) Pandagon: “Needless to say, it’s sad that it’s even necessary to show that people can be both religious and faithful, considering the fact that the very concept of secular government was supported by religious people in the past who wanted to protect their religions from government interference. But the corporate media and a lot of people nowadays reflexively equate “religious” with “theocrat”. What we need is more people saying, loudly, that just because they pray every day doesn’t mean that students should lead prayer in school, which has a coercive element. Or that your Bible belongs in your bedside drawer, not displayed as a monument in front of a courthouse, signaling to non-Christians that they are considered lesser in the eyes of the law. Or that your religious beliefs about sex and marriage and end-of-life care should have no bearing on the laws governing people who don’t believe like you do.”

72) do not read this blog: “See, this is what happens when people take prayer too seriously. The way I see it, there are two choices: 1) people should just treat the prayers like the meaningless jabber that they are, or 2) prayers of any kind should not be offered in public legislative chambers.”

73) No More Mister Nice Guy!: “But the founders of the US had a very different idea on the proper relationship between church and state. They were all too familiar with the history of long, bloody religious wars in Europe, and the constant petty squabbling between different denominations in America, which they feared could escalate into open violence. And so the Founding Fathers stated very clearly in the Constitution that there should be no established religion and no abridgement of religious freedom. In many of the new states, the majority church opposed the first amendment while minority religious groups supported it, fearing that without it, they would be swallowed up by larger churches. One such group was the Danbury Baptists, who sought reassurances from Thomas Jefferson that the Constitution would protect their rights. … The very first international treaty signed by the United States was the Treaty of Tripoli, which stated plainly: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” This treaty was passed unanimously by the Senate, and there’s no record of any debate or controversy about this unequivocal statement.”

74) Barefoot Bum: “If we examine the ideologies uncontroversially labeled as “religious”: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the like, an obvious pattern emerges: These ideologies say (in a predictive or prescriptive sense) nothing at all about the world of perceptual experience. More importantly, they either say nothing at all about objective reality, or they say things about objective reality (e.g. God really exists) that cannot be publicly determined by appeal to perception. Physical science, on the other hand, is defined in terms of a foundation of shared perceptual experiences[2], and publicly available methods—logical accountability and simplicity—to determine truth from that foundation.”

75) Nonsensical Ravings of Finely Tuned Insanity: “So, I suppose my parting question is just this – which would be more in tune with being a good member of your religion – enshrining it into law and forcing people to worship the same way you do, making loud and public proclamations of your faith (under penalty of imprisonment or death if you don’t), and displaying your faith as conspicuously as possible to everyone, or by doing works that bring about a better quality of life for everyone, regardless of faith? ‘But whenever you go pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’ (Matthew 6:6, NSRV)”

That’s all I can do this evening, folks. More to come.