There's nice illustration of the threat to American culture that Christians like Pence pose to American culture. Notice that "American" didn't even make the list. The man puts his Christianity first, political ideology second, and party third, and he is a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Here's another quote that illustrates just how entrenched Christianity is in government and politics, and how antithetical to Americanism it can be:
- "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."- American President George H. W. Bush
Muslims simply don't have the ability to harm American culture like that.
I notice that nobody has tried to make the case that Muslims are an equal or greater threat to American culture than Christians. Instead, we have seen a series of deflections mostly to terrorism, but also to homophobia in the UK and Zionism.
And nobody has tried to rebut the case made by several of us that Christianity indeed does pose the greater threat, unless you consider the claim that Christians fundamentalists don't have institutional power a rebuttal, one easily refuted just by noting how many of them hold high political offices, including Pence.
I guess that that discussion is over.
Last point: We saw yet another example here of faith based thinkers demanding support for a position that contradicts the one that they hold by faith, then ignoring the evidence presented. I commented earlier that there is never a burden of proof with those unwilling to cooperate in the process. Proof, or evidenced argument, is for those that care about evidence - those that will consider it all, consider it impartially, are able to distinguish a sound argument and conclusion from a fallacious argument, and are willing to be convinced by a compelling argument. That's the essence of critical thinking and open-mindedness.
Once again, we didn't get that. What we got was the faith based thinker's way of evaluating evidence. It is not used to arrive at conclusions, but to support unjustified beliefs by sifting through it, identifying and emphasizing the parts that you think support your faith based belief, and dismissing out of hand or outright ignoring the rest.
There is never a burden of proof when dealing with people that process information like that. The motivation to provide the evidence and argument has to be something else. In my case, it was the pleasure of crafting the argument, and sharing it with people who are willing to think from evidence to conclusion rather than vice versa. Some of those quotes might have come as a surprise to some.
