Should I mention that the country with the most striking separation of secular and religious power is Turkey, which is at least 97% Muslim? Should I mention that Iranians are inclined to not trust the US and the UK because of a century of intervention in their domestic politics–how would you feel if Iranian cash threw a US election? Angry? Yeah, well, so do they. Do you have the wits to identify the many major schisms in Christianity, versus the single primary split in Islam (which wouldn’t even exist in Christianity, because the Council of Nicea imposed a greater uniformity on early Christianity than any force at a comparable point in Islamic history)? Can you even identify how Christianity forced itself out as a dominant political force in France, Quebec, and Spain? Would you be surprised to know that Palestinians, Iranians and Iraqis as respective groups DO NOT have long histories of extreme religiosity, to the point that their current identification with a militant Islam is largely the manipulated product of disastrous American involvement? We created a lot of the mess; what we didn’t create ourselves, we very often enabled.

In the UK, Islam is beginning to evolve as another tradition, but a very homegrown tradition rooted in the culture and not the bogeyman some “christian” wingnut wants to paint it as. Same is true in Canada.

I’m atheist. My primary concern about religion–ANY religion–is that it stays away from my or anybody else’s genitals or brain. I have as many issues with ignorant Christians (I’ll let the example of Northern Ireland stand here) as I do with ignorant Muslims (too many examples to list), ignorant Shintos (Japan is incredibly racist), ignorant Hindus (BJP–thanks for embedding idiocy in Indian politics), and ignorant Jews (I’ll be happy when the wingnut “settlers” give up their US and Canadian passports and STAND ON THEIR OWN). That’s just a start. Nobody gets a pass if they have dirty hands, and we all do. You’re not offering anything as a constructive solution, and a constructive solution at this point involves religion being subordinated to a civil state. Is that what you want, or just some boorish and ignorant finger-pointing? I don’t need to impose atheism on believers–if my influence leads them away from religion, that’s what they were ready for anyway, but it’s not for me to make that choice for somebody else. Not if I stand by my espoused beliefs.