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"Everyone, including atheists, practice or believe in a "religion" or set of values that constitutes their view of the world and each deserves the respect and freedom to hold those beliefs. We can only get along if we practice civility toward one another. Disagreement with Palin, as I do as well, does not justify making fun of those who subscribe to a particular faith."

"But respect for religion should not preclude us from making fun of someone who is completely, and almost always, WRONG about the facts of her religion, and the history of our country."

"I agree with you that people have an innate right to believe in or practice any religion they want. I do NOT think that every set of beliefs — be they religious, political or whatever — is deserving of respect or freedom. For example, most sane people can recognize Scientology for the crock of bullshit that it is. I would defend anyone's right to believe the tenets of that religion but that wouldn't mean I respect them or their goofy faith. Same goes for Mormonism, Catholicism, etc., which, in my view, lie along the same continuum of crazy. Some beliefs simply cry out to be made the butt of jokes."

"Really? What religion in your opinion does not "lie along the same continuum of crazy"?"

"Buddhism looks relatively sane from an outsiders point of view. Otherwise they all seem to have strongly irrational beliefs. I just don't buy the whole "invisible man in the clouds" scenario or monkey gods and past lives."

"But surely it is incumbent on people who hold certain beliefs to actually have some knowledge of what they believe in. It's not necessarily Christianity that's being made fun of here - it's the ignorance of people who yell and scream about being Christians while having no knowledge of what Christian ideas might actually entail. The early Christians would have called them Pharisees."

"I agree in principle, as long as people practice their faith in private and do not bring it into public affairs. But we are only talking about this woman because she came very close to the vice presidency of the country, and it is a highly dangerous notion to allow our public officials to curry political support among the populace by openly espousing their religious beliefs. This is not Iran. There is simply no place for that in this country."

"To say that everyones views, no matter how whacky or uneducated need be respected equally is ludicrous. That is just not how society works... We reject idiotic views of entire groups of people all the time... History books or rife with examples......."

"Oh yes it can Sir! Being a person of faith literally announces the world that you are happy to take an a great amount of views without any evidence to back them up. Remember that faith starts when observable evidence run out and it doesn't deserve respect."

"That's an extremely close minded and arrogant thing to say, while you may disagree with a persons beliefs, to disrespect a person for not thinking like you is such an ignorant thing to do. Now i'm not a heavily devout christian, and I don't take much of the bible as literal fact, but the teachings of Christianity and most other religions do have their merits. Contrary to what a lot of people think that their holy books say, most preach tolerance, forgiveness, and kindness. And if everybody lived the way that Jesus did I have no doubt that the world would be a nicer place. And before someone cites a line from the old testament in response to me, i'm not talking about the old testament, i'm talking about the teachings of Jesus. Teachings that say we should not condemn each other for being different or for being sinners. What the bible has taught me is that It doesn't matter if you're black, white, gay, atheist, or have even killed somebody, we should treat others with compassion. And that includes not condemning others for what they believe"

"Faith is just a way to continued believing in a "lie"...Think about how we teach our children to believe in Santa Clause...One day the children find out it is not true...But because they get gifts they are happy to play along...But the Church is just looking for a way to get money out of everyone to keep funding the "lie"...That is sad...I know the true benefit of Church is community, but would it not be better to have it under the truth of todays social beliefs..."

"I think that The Bible promises that Jesus will one day return to Earth at which time He will judge the living AND the dead! Wow...that's a big job, but nonetheless, I am certain that Jesus did not request that His followers help Him out by doing as much judging as possible prior to His second coming (third if you're Mormon, right?) He simply left us with the message...'Love God The Father with All your heart; and Love Thy Neighbor as you love yourself. (Neighbor means enemy, those people that tend to piss you off, that's hard to do. Easy to love our friends and family, no need to tell us that. We're instructed by Him to place our negativity (hatred, anger, vengeance, greed, jealousy, ad infinitum) place this baggage at the FOOT OF THE CROSS. He said..."Drop all that hateful bullshit.." (of course I paraphrase) Sorry, I got carried away."

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