wrote:
> Wow, great discussions.  One thing that nobody mentioned is the
> catholic church's complete disregard for the biblical exhortation to
> allow no man to intervene between you and god.  Sorry, I don't remember
> where it is but it's in the area concerning the rivalry between the
> pharisees and sadducees.

It would be very nice to know where you're getting this from.  
Scriptural interpretation is tricky business at best, and even harder 
when you can't even tell us what piece of scripture you're referring to.  
On the other hand, I could point out that Jesus told Peter (and later 
extended to all the apostles) that "whose sins you forgive are forgiven 
in the Kingdom of Heaven; whose sins you retain are retained in the 
Kingdom of Heaven".  That's not really reconcilable with an absolute 
"it's you and God and no one else" dogma of modern Western Christianity.  
Unfortunately, we often read into scripture what we take into it from 
modern culture, and it takes a certain discipline and care to see what 
the Bible is really saying to us.

So if you can say what piece of scripture you're referring to, it might 
be possible to consider what the context is of that piece of scripture 
and what it's really saying.  Certainly it's not denying what's already 
clearly affirmed elsewhere.

> Re: Matthew Johnson's comments
> < gang of militant anti-religious 'liberals'>>

> Ironic that you would say that when Clinton was a protestant christian
> and Kerry was a practicing catholic.  Not an atheist in the bunch. And
> your assumption that Kerry lost b/c catholics were aligned against him
> is ridiculous and simplistic. Do you really think he lost b/c of the
> catholic vote? That's a new one on me.

Since the last election was fairly close, it's easy to take any factor 
and blame it for the result.  For example, if John Kerry had received 
the same part of the Catholic vote that Clinton did in *either* if his 
two elections, and all else remained the same, then John Kerry would 
have won at least the popular vote.  However, the same could be said for 
any number of demographics, so Catholics are not particularly special 
here.

As for the Democratic Party, it would be hard to deny that it's the 
party that best protects the interests of atheists, and therefore 
atheists are generally overwhelmingly Democrats.  However, there is a 
certain public opinion filter that says that presidents must be church-
going Christians (preferably white male Protestant Christians, in fact); 
so any serious presidential candidate is at least nominally a Christian.  
Some are more serious about their faith than others.

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