I usually respond to these things in the comment window, but I figured why waste precious time writing so much that nobody else would see.

Now, I thought maybe I was going crazy, because I have never met anyone to come to the conclusion that I am a  narrow minded and self-righteous religious elitist simply because I believe in God and believe that my god is the real god.

For everyone out there who believes in a god, any god or gods, do you believe that your god is the real one?  Of course you do, you wouldn't be believing in that god otherwise, but please comment and tell Mr. Kurt here.

Check the comment section of this blog to see what I'm talking about:

http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=Defensor&" title="http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=Defensor&" target="_blank"http://www.tblog.com/template...;static=379688

Let me just catch ya'll up.  I say "Considering muslims are a small minority, I like that the only god's name invoked by liberals was Allah."  Fair enough right?  I mean it's a factual statement, there's nothing wrong with that.  So how could saying that make me a " narrow minded and self-righteous religious elitist"?  There is one more question I answered to get me there.

Kurt:  "i'm assuming from your comments about "allah" that you're god is the true god and that is why you were glad that a liberal mentioned allah in his post."

Me: "I do believe my god is the true god, but I don't care if other people don't."

Can anyone else out there make this connection?  Come on dude, this is all you're running off of.  You're jumping the gun a little don't you think? 

Now lets get right back in this thing.

Kurt: "You must just be ill-informed. There are gads of leftist Christians both in the U.S. and even more abroad -- particularly in Central America and South America. There are many, many, many more Christian leftists in Amerca than there are Muslims. I would research the statistics if I had time but this is just so well-known that it shouldn't be neccessary to do that legwork. I've heard this line before that the American press is more friendly to Muslim extremist than to Christianity. You are the one making the assertion so you are the one who needs to provide your evidence. You won't be able to do that because it simply isn't true..."

Yes there are gads of leftist Christians in the U.S., mostly because gads is such a vague term.  I could care less if there are gads of anybody outside the U.S. because if they participated in the "Not One Red Cent" protest, they'd be hurting their own country.  Now I'm not putting it past leftists to do something stupid like that, but they probably wouldn't.

The truth is, the people posting in favor of the "Not One Red Cent" protest are hardcore leftists.  None of them mentioned God.  One of them mentioned Allah.  Say all you want about leftists being Christian but you can't change that.

The radical left is not Christian-friendly.  Do I have to point you to our fellow tbloggers?  Yes there are radical Christian leftists, just like there are republicans in the ACLU or black professional golfers.  Only a fool would suggest that Christians are not significantly underrepresented among the radical leftists.  Because Christians so vastly outnumber muslims in this country, you can't point to raw numbers to prove your point, because we're talking about proportions here.

Me: "I made one little remark about Allah"

Kurt: "Yes, and a very telling remark. It is these little remarks that are markers of your mindset and reveal more about your perspective than you would like it to reveal or that you are comfortable accepting yourself or just plain blind toward."

No, you just don't get it.  It means exactly what it says.  You can claim there is a hidden meaning there, but there isn't.  It was just an observation.  I have made plenty of them throughout my blogging.

Kurt: "Why bother so much with .001% of political views? Hitler is now used by the left in exact same way that conservatives have used the "communist" charge against liberals for decades..."

Me: "Conservatives use communist to mean anti-American and liberals use Hitler to mean genocidal maniac. There's a little bit of a difference. Not to mention liberals, or at least the vocal ones getting all the attention, often are communists. It's impossible for a conservative to be Hitler. That's why being called fascist doesn't bug me too much."

Kurt: "Impossible? Why is that? It is no more impossible for a conservative to become like Hitler than it is for a liberal to become like Stalin! That is just ridiculous statement. It should be impossible for either Hitler of Stalin to ever exists in America. I believe it is, in fact, impossible for this to happen."

It's impossible unless you believe Hitler can come back to life in the body of an American, or that he is still alive and has become an American citizen.  I for one think that is for all practical purposes, impossible, maybe you don't.  I have never called a liberal Stalin.  I've never even heard a liberal called Stalin.  I have never heard Clinton or Carter called Stalin.  Maybe you have, but it's definitely not common, whereas I can't visit a liberal blog without seeing Bush compared to Hitler.

Me: "Conservatives use communist to mean anti-American and liberals use Hitler to mean genocidal maniac. There's a little bit of a difference. Not to mention liberals, or at least the vocal ones getting all the attention, often are communists."

Kurt: "What a self-serving and just plain inaccurate declaration! Liberals use Hitler to mean excessive Nationalism and an inclination toward the use of the military complex for political reasons. Conservatives use the charge of "communist" as a fail-safe attack on anyone seeking to regulate the excesses of corporatism that unchecked due to their protection from true market forces via government favor and, sometimes, via outright government protection from market forces."

I could easily go to the DU, but here's some quotes from fellow tbloggers: (quotes may not be theirs but from articles they reposted, but for our purposes it doesn't matter.)

"Whereas hitler's evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush’s dark side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous." - CheckItOut

"It looks like current administration has studied Saddam, Hitler, and Stalins methods of judicial administration." - DianneMaire

"TIME Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938 was Adolf Hitler [link] ... In 2004, Herr Fuhrer Bushy-boy, the Mass-Murderer is given this distinction for he is truly a Fascist War Criminal of enormous proportions ..." - PatriotActs

Not to mention you got our definition of communist wrong.  When calling liberals communist, it's more often than not about being enemies of the state rather than them being actual communists.

Me: " Saddam was a threat. Imminent threat, not really, even though he was planning attacks on the U.S. However, the only important people to really call the threat imminent were McLellan, who's just a press secretary, and Cheney, who's crazy. We may have been wrong about Iraq if by we you mean Americans and many foreign leaders both for and against the war, not just republicans. We did hold people accountable for intelligence failures, and liberals went crazy because we were blaming the intelligence community for intelligence failures rather than Bush."

Kurt: "You must not have read my statement very closely. I'm fine with our actions in Iraq. Having said that -- your facts are just wrong. Colin Powell and George Bush and Condi Rice made the specific and explicit argument that Sadaam was an "imminent" security threat to the U.S. Why would say otherwise? Heck, you can look up their pre-war speeches easily on-line. Taking out Sadaam and installing a democrocy in Iraq is the centerpiece of the neoconservative agenda. This has been the case since before 9/11. 9/11 gave them just enough opening to fit their plan into the mix under the guise of responding to terrorism. "

I know you're okay with Iraq, but, for the other stuff, link me.  I'd like to know when Bush has ever called Saddam an "imminent" threat.  I know he's called him a bunch of other kinds of threats, but I'd like to see that quote.  As for Condi and Powell, I haven't been following what they've said too closely, but I have never heard them use the words "imminent threat" either. 

I always thought killing gays, lynching blacks, or an M-16 in every home were the centerpieces of the neo-conservative agenda?  Nobody wanted Saddam in power.  Everybody wants, or I should say wanted, democracy in Iraq.  So I wouldn't say that was a neo-con thing.  Iraq was about WMDs.  Yes, we didn't find them, I know.  We would not have gone into Iraq, yet, had we not suspected him of having WMDs.  It was WMDs that justified going in, not terrorism.  Getting rid of terrorist training camps or a terror supporting dictator may have justified having gone in, but it was not our justification for going into Iraq in the first place.  So it wasn't under the guise of responding to terrorism.

Me: "I like your view that people who believe in a god are narrow minded religious elitists. Please, explain how you arrived at this conclusion. But remember, you can only go off what I have said. Absolutely no assuming anything."

Kurt: " I didn't say that people who "believe in God" are "narrow-minded elitists". I said the people who believe in an special and exclusive truth about God are narrow-minded elitists. This shouldn't offend a believer because my accusation is just an extension of the logic of their beliefs. It isn't whether or not you "believe in God" that is relevant to my statements but it is *what you believe about God* that is relevant. Why aren't you more willing to say more about what you believe about God than just continuing to declare the you "believe in God"? You leave me to make assumptions because of your lack of being forthright and detailed about your beliefs. So, I'll ask again another way --

What do you believe about God and why? If you are not a Christian who adheres to the belief the the only path to salvation is to believe in Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ, as the Lord and Saviour of the Universe, then just say so. If you are, just say so! I'm not the one being intentionally arcane about my beliefs -- you are. Most everyone I know believes Jesus Christ is the Saviour and worships, when they actually get to church, at a Christian church of some denomination. Interestingly, however, when I speak with them individually about the logical implications of their stated beliefs -- most of them are uncomfortable with the clear facts about their own religion. My agenda isn't to "out" you as a Christian. Of course, I can't imagine why a Christian would mind being "outed" for their beliefs. My agenda is to "out" exclusivity and the divisive influence of exclusive religion on society."

Where did this exclusive truth thing come from?  I never said God came to me and told me to worship him or anything, but apparently you think I did.  I don't know why you're thinking that. 

I could tell you what else I believe, but I don't see why it matters.  All that matters is I worship a god and believe that god to be the real god, like most of the world.  I have never even said I was Christian.  I haven't said the word Jesus to you at all.  Will you reflect on that and see how many assumptions you have made?  If I am not forthright about what I believe, that is not a "assume all you want about me for free" card. 

How can I be a "narrow minded and self-righteous religious elitist" if all you know about me is that I believe a god to be real.  How is that narrow minded?  How is that self-righteous?  Sure, it's religious.  How is that elitist?  Maybe if I were saying, "Listen not to this 'science', ye peasants, for I the great Defensor know that it can all be explained away by Trangor the Almighty god!"  Then you might have something.

I'm getting bored and it's getting late, so I'll end there.