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I hope for the day when religious mysticism and other forms of magical thinking have evolved out of the human race.
But meanwhile, just because I don't have any interest in participating, I don't really care if other people do so. Even on public property, and to a certain extent even with public money.
So long as I'm not forced to participate, to believe, then go have fun. This is a predominately Christian nation and it will behave as one. When some prick decides to get all upset about "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance the courts don't really have any choice but to say "yeah, it doesn't really belong there." But the prick is still a prick for having complained.
Scott Adams had an interesting observation on his blog a couple weeks ago. He hardly ever gets letters of complaint from people who are offended. He gets letters of complaint from people who are offended on behalf of someone else. Then a few days later he gets letters from the theoretically aggrieved party asking for framed prints of the cartoon in question.
We've worked our way to a strange place in our society where the noblest thing you can do is feel on behalf of other people and the next logical step is acting on those feelings (and acting purely on feelings never leads anywhere good). But we haven't yet reached a place where we are very good at feeling correctly what others will feel.
Every time somebody starts talking by saying "I'm not offended, but..." they should be kicked in the hard before the next word can get out.
Start with "I'm offended..." and you get to finish your sentence. Then everybody gets to call you an oversensitive hyperemotional sissy.
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