Free Republic

kwick20 postulated: "How do you explain the existence of the physical universe? Evolution?"

Not by the magical actions of an imaginary man in the sky. Nor by the rhetoric of those on earth with a vested interest in maintaining their social positions and personal self-respect based upon their metaphysical collective fantasies. I have far more respect - if not exactly blind faith - for the written works of Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison and Stephen Hawking than I have for the politically edited written record of first century cultists.

Moreover, "The theory of evolution does not require faith or belief. When there is evidence present, a theory does not require faith. Evolution has evidence to support it therefore it does not require faith. It should also be noted that 87% of the population accepts the theory of evolution. While 87% of the population accepts evolution, only 13% of the population is secular. Therefore, even if the entire population of secular individuals accepted evolution, one would have to wonder where the other 74% came from." http://www.geocities.com/atheist_anon/common.htm

You ask good questions, mc6809e. Indeed, how big is the tent? Will they welcome my opinion? Or just my vote?

I hear you about agreeing with MOST of the Republican Party platform. And yes, the left has little if any clue. The same unrelenting logic that caused me to reject superstition has also caused me to vote nearly the straight repub party line in recent years. (I did have to vote against some Republican judicial candidates who where confusing religion with law.)
So many people, falsly I think, confuse atheism with communism and other far-left perversions.

I have stumbled across those republicans whose christianity shrieks with the same shrillness as the Taliban - they seem to grasp neither that no imaginary deity has any appropriate role in public policy nor that religion has no monopoly on ethics or morals. The historical significance of Seperation of Church and state eludes them as well. Indeed, history is rife with religious authority being abused in the most cruel and immoral manner - and shows the Roman Empire's mandatory christianity as having little to recommend it over the Taliban's enforced worship other than christianity's eventual mutation into something less nasty. I doubt Emporer Constantin was the moral superior to Mullah Omar for having forced christianity rather than islam.

I am troubled by Ashcroft's rolling back of privacy rights and by the far right's insistence that the religious dogma of Pat Robertson become the law of the land. I find the "In God We Trust" on our currency a pathetically poor substitute for the Founding Father's "E Pluribus Unum." I sometimes wonder if the religious right wants to kill "E Pluribus Unum" just as much as it wants to push "In God We Trust."

Yet the left often as not panders to the cultists as well. Slick Willie even trotted his womanizing butt to church on a regular basis - even toting a bible. I wonder whom he thought he was fooling.

The Republican party, and its Nonconservative (led amusingly by disaffected jewish democrats) Wing, offers an educated and coherent plan on foreign affairs and economics. I'm just not so sure about the areas of domestic policy so often polluted by religious doctrine.

For instance, in my opinion, if 3000 casualties convinced us to go to war and stay at war, 6000 plus people willing to shade our outdated marriage statues ought to be enough to get us to consider including more people within the law rather than pushing otherwise law-abiding citizens to operate outside of a sodom-era marriage definition. Both parties missed the opportunity to lead here - both parties opted instead to pander the caricature of the "religious" demographic.

But what is the religious demographic? While self-described "atheists" are no more numerous than Jews or Muslims (1%), the sum of atheists, agnostics, no-preference, and don't-know/refused is 14%. And the percentage of those who attend some religious service and label themselves as catholic or protestant or Jewish but don't really believe is considerable. Like 30% of christians and 50-plus percent of jews.

So I guess my point is: Keep the non-faith, brother! Eventually SOME politician is going to figure out that the non-religious/non-believers are worth going after, or at least not offending.

Until then, I guess we just have to shrug off the ministrations of the holier-than-thou and if necessary, cast the occasional non-republican vote just to keep 'em honest.