Re posted highlights from "Stonekettle Station", that seem to describe some threads on this board.

Hate Mail From Jesus
"I don’t know that I get any more hate mail than any other blogger, but if you write about certain subjects
you’re pretty much guaranteed to get some pretty nasty responses. And when I say hate mail, I’m including
comments on the blog as well. After a while you can predict when and from who.

Write about politics, you get hate mail.

Write about abortion, and you will most certainly get frothy hate mail.

Write about religion, you get weird, poorly spelled and bizarrely punctuated hate mail that verges on
outright insanity.

Write about politics, abortion, and religion all in one article as I did the other day...  You get big dump-truck
loads of fresh steaming hate mail – often with the added bonus of death threats.

It’s ironic, don’t you think?

Ironic that when you speak about American politics, you get hate mail and death threats from flag waving
patriots who call themselves Americans – i.e. citizens of a country that is supposed to be the very epitome
of freedom, freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of belief. Some of these folks really seem to
think that freedom means freedom to believe only what they do, or freedom to fu@k off to sissy Canadaland
and be violated by flannel-clad polar bear jockeys.

Ironic that when you talk about abortion, people who claim to love life above all things threaten to take yours.
And ironic, that when you write about religion you get intensely bitter hatred from devout believers who
profess to follow a religion supposedly based on peace and love. Why is it that those who embrace a
belief system whose very symbol is a simple fish that represents, at least in part, a parable about feeding
the poor and hungry get so defensive when you mention their astounding contempt for those self same
poor and hungry?  Why is it, do you suppose, that a belief system supposedly based on the unconditional
acceptance of a loving God puts so many conditions on that acceptance? Why is it that a belief system
supposedly based on tolerance is so increasingly intolerant?

Some I think verge on mental illness, a mental illness we are far too accepting of in this country, and
certainly there is little amusing in that.

But most of it is just sad, sad that people actually look at the world in this manner, sad that they go
through life as dim little sparks hating the world and hating everybody in it, sad that they actually think
that there's some kind of everlasting happiness to be had by acting like stupid rotten bastards, sad
that they are so worried about some mythical next life that they never enjoy this one right here.

The entire post is at:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/02/hate-mail-from-jesus.html