We can agree to disagree about the degree of hyperbole. The point I was trying to make – more cleary on another thread, is that the Taliban didn't magically appear from thin air. They advocated certain (violent) positions from their reading of their particular holy text and over time gained the power that was needed to become a rather ugly embodiment of barbarism.

Disagreements aside, I was heartened by your posting "I deplore wackos that make my religion look bad. I condemn people who decide that they will be Jesus' avenging right hand, in contravention to every possible Biblical teaching. I am amazed that people can call themselves Christians and violate such basic Biblical principles."

Oh, and Fred Phelps? Well my family knows all about him, given that he and his flock showed up rather loudly and unwelcomely at my father's house, screaming (yes, screaming) about how we were all going to hell because my father had the nuts not to give in to their demand not to pull a comic strip from his newspaper. The strip in question? Believe it or not, it was "For Better or Worse" which had a brief storyline involving a friend of one of the children coming out as gay. And yes, as soon as Phelps stepped into our yard, my father not so gently suggested he better rethink what he was doing unless he wanted his ass kicked halfway to next Sunday…

Being a member of one group does not make you a member of the other.

ON your second point, thank you for being honest. It helps prove my point that you believe that the vast majority of Christians ought to be considered the equal to the Taliban. See, Christians do believe that abortion is a great wrong. They do believe that our nation was founded on bedrock Christian principles. They do believe that we ought to give life the benefit of the doubt in every possible circumstance. In those point, I'm sure that they'd find agreement with the wackos. On those points I agree with the wackos. That makes me, by your measure, American Taliban.

Look, I don't know what gives you the idea that I'm providing cover for the wackos, simply because I won't join you in the hysterical comparisons. I deplore the wackos that make my religion look bad. I condemn people who decide that they will be Jesus' avenging right hand, in contravention to every possible Biblical teaching. I am amazed that people can call themselves Christian and violate such basic Biblical principles.

That doesn't mean that I'm willing to give in to your hyperbole either.

It is very simple. The wackos you deplore are not comparable to the Taliban – Not in the scope of their power, not in their desire to rule, not in their actions against those they do not like, and not in their eventual goal.

You have not, in almost ten posts, demonstrated how they are alike enough to compare. You've tried. You've made pretty poor attempts to defend your hyperbole. But you haven't. Your latest attempt is laughable. I will say this one more, in a different way. There is a vast difference between wanting to make homosexuality illegal in a democratic nation using the democratic process and using totalitarian means to make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. I do not agree with either goal. I'm not so reactionary as to think, though, that the goals are equivalent. They are not.

I stand by my belief that your fear and ignorance prevents you from thinking rationally about this. You own the hysteria and you have too much invested in it to let it go.

Most evangelicals are fundamentalists. I think one of your problems is that you don’t know what the heck either of those terms mean when it comes to religions.

*sigh*

Evagelicals follow Jesus' message. Fundamentalists believe the entire Bible is innerrant and should be followed accordingly.

Well, wow, you stepped right over my point on Phelps. I’ll give it to you again. His other political beliefs are such that he and Bauder would find no basis on which to organize. “We don’t like/hate gay people” doesn’t hold together an organization if you have fundamental disagreements on other key points. Same with some of the others you tossed into that group.

Really? I'll bet ya they both agree on abortion…I'll bet ya that they both believe we are a "Christian Nation"…I'll bet ya they both agree on issues like Terri Schiavo

That's what makes them part of the AT.

No, this is not where we “agree to disagree”, it is where you prove yourself objectively wrong. Even if, and this is a stretch, “they” would throw gay people in jail, “they” are still nothing like the Taliban.

LOL. And see, this is why we will agree to disagree. Wanting to throw gays in jail and make homosexuality a crime makes them worthy of the title the American Taliban. I honestly can't believe you would think otherwise.

Then again, it just proves John's earlier point that it is people like you who provide a cover for these wackos to get away with the shit they get away with.

Well, wow, you stepped right over my point on Phelps. I'll give it to you again. His other political beliefs are such that he and Bauder would find no basis on which to organize. "We don't like/hate gay people" doesn't hold together an organization if you have fundamental disagreements on other key points. Same with some of the others you tossed into that group.

No, this is not where we "agree to disagree", it is where you prove yourself objectively wrong. Even if, and this is a stretch, "they" would throw gay people in jail, "they" are still nothing like the Taliban. See, the Taliban didn't much throw gay people into jail. They threw walls on top of them. They threw them into graves. That's a big difference and I'm not nearly as willing as you to say it isn't. Then again, I'd imagine that, based on your knowledge of evangelicals and fundamentalists, I'm one of the "they" you're so eager to equate to a murderous national government.

I believe, based on my experience, that you both happily drop evangelical Christians into the Taliban bucket, just to plump up your point. It’s disingenuous and laughable.

Evangelicals are fine. It's the fundamentalists who are the problem.

Sure, I’ve heard of Fred Phelps. Did you know that he’s a Democrat who approaches his politics from the left side of the political aisle?

Your point? I'm not a democrat, and I know John's not either, and I would throw Phelps in as a member of the American Taliban as well. Party affliation doesn't matter when it comes to being a religious wacko.

Here’s the thing, DV. These people – the Schaivo protestors, and Fred Phelps, and Mr. Bauder – are nothing like the Taliban. Yes, they say some batshit crazy things, and they put fake bombs on courthouse steps. That is a long, long way from rounding up gays and crushing them to death

Well this is where we will have to agree to disagree. I think they are a lot like the Taliban, and I think they are organized. And you know what else, I think they would try to round up gays and throw them in jail if they could get away with it. Thankfully, a majority of the population isn't insane and thus the nutters are kept at bay.

My point, which I'll make again, is that there is no valid comparison between the Taliban and the fringe people, whoever they are, that you and Cole vilify on a regular basis. I believe, based on my experience, that you both happily drop evangelical Christians into the Taliban bucket, just to plump up your point. It's disingenuous and laughable.

Sure, I've heard of Fred Phelps. Did you know that he's a Democrat who approaches his politics from the left side of the political aisle? There's no way in hell that he and the lone nut from Minnesota, or wherever he was from, would find enough common ground ot have coffee, much less run a repressive government. You want to claim there's some sort of organization out there, at least on the grass roots level, but there isn't and it's fantasy to claim otherwise.

Here's the thing, DV. These people – the Schaivo protestors, and Fred Phelps, and Mr. Bauder – are nothing like the Taliban. Yes, they say some batshit crazy things, and they put fake bombs on courthouse steps. That is a long, long way from rounding up gays and crushing them to death or forcing women to wear head to toe covering under penalty of gang rape or any of the thousands of oter atrocities the Taliban committed while they ran Afghanistan. You say it's an apt comparison. I say that your sense of scale is horribly wrong. I say that you're blinded by hysteria.

The real Taliban wouldn’t have said firebombing the guys house was “probably too far”. They would have said firebomging the guys house, his work, beheading his family and the families of all the cast and crew would have been “a good start”.