And saying there is good in religion because Jesus and Buddha had some a few moral insights is rather like saying that there is good in astrology because Newton was an astrologer, or that there is good in believing that beans have souls, because Pythagoras believed that. It’s just a non sequitur: people who have good ideas can believe in things that are absurd, and those beliefs remain absurd!

(I think you would be hard-pressed to find moral insights in anything Mohammad wrote. He was a bigot, a racist, a misogynist, a tyrant, and a narcissist; he also committed and condoned acts of genocide. Indeed, the pacifism and passivism of Jesus and Buddha are much overrated; “turn the other cheek” is not a sound political policy in the nuclear age.)

Moreover, I do not think Christians hate atheists because we are too aggressive; indeed, the most vocal Christians seem to hate atheists *qua* atheists, simply because we don’t believe in God, and would continue to hate us regardless of what we said or did. On the other hand, the Christians who would accept us if we were silent, but are offended by our strident words, don’t seem to understand, first, that our words are really no more strident than anyone’s, and often substantially less (Christian: “All atheist deserve to be punished in Hell eternally unless they turn to Jesus.” Atheist: “Christians are delusional, they believe false and immoral things.”); and second, that if we simply remained silent, we would be as complicit as they in the hatred and violence of fundamentalism.

For they are complicit, as is anyone who does not stand against fundamentalism. This means not merely saying (mostly to atheists, not to fundamentalists!), “They’re not REAL Christians,” but actually challenging fundamentalism wherever it is encountered, standing up to defend science—particularly on the modern evolutionary synthesis, embryonic stem-cell research, and anthropogenic climatology—standing up and saying “That’s WRONG; that’s FALSE; you shouldn’t say that, you shouldn’t BELIEVE that.” If all the millions of moderate Christians in the world did this, fundamentalism would have no power. But instead, they do nothing, and then complain when we blame them for doing nothing.

Everyone who is a Christian makes the situation in these schools possible. By maintaining the situation that has arisen insulating religious belief from critical scrutiny, you allow extreme behaviors in the name of the faith to be perpetrated.

This is why moderate Xtians and other believers need to get on board with the program of removing all state support from any faith-based programs. Only rebuilding and reinforcing the wall of separation between church and state will solve this problem.

“Not every one who claims to be Christian is.” This is nothing more than an attempt to apologize for this kind of activity, without doing anything to attack the root of the problem. It doesn’t matter whether they are ‘real’ Xtians or not. They are identifying themselves as such, and therefore are a problem that ALL Xtians must address. Failure to do so is identical to the moderate Muslims refusing to speak out and condemn terrorists who identify themselves as acting because of an Islamic faith.