In article <1990May18.213118.14747@acd4.UUCP> wdo@acd4.UUCP (Bill Overpeck):
>......If atheists represent a
>small minority, maybe we should examine the paranoid ideation that
>seems to be symptomatic of many posters to this group ("the Christians
>want to control our lives!").  I'm only kidding, but my point is that
>this contention is ludicrous, and if you go around asserting that
>theists are truly delusional, you aren't likely to be taken too
>seriously.

"paranoid ideation"?  Granted- most people who call themselves "christian" 
or "religious" are, in all significant ways, good and decent people who are
more than willing to respect the rights of others.  However, there is more
than just a little reason to be on guard; the more intolerant *are* out there
in threatening numbers.  For example:

taken from the Greensboro News & Record, 5/19/90:

Chesapeake, Va. - Pat Robertson, the Christian broadcaster and evangelist who
ran for president in 1988, has returned to politics, launching a new religious
coalition to train conservative Christians to shape government policy.

  Robertson- who retreated from political involvement after his failed GOP
presidential bid- insists this is not a warm-up for another White House
run, but a grass-roots campaign "to make government and the media responsive
to our concerns... Christian Americans are tired of getting stepped on."

  The primary political goals of the Christian Coalition, according to a
brochure mailed recently to a quarter million U.S. homes, are pressing for
legislation making abortion a crime and school prayer legal, protesting films
and TV programs that "defame our Lord", and protecting the presence of
religious symbols on government property such as Christmas displays on
courthouse lawns and crosses depicted in city seals.

  The coalition, built from Robertson's 1988 campaign mailing list of 1.8
million households, already has 25,000 members in about 30 states and a
1990 budget of $1.5 million, Robertson said.  By year's end, there will be
150,000 members in 500 local chapters, he predicted during an interview in
the studios of his Christian Broadcasting Network at Virginia Beach.

  Ralph E. Reed, 29, the coalition's executive director and former head of
the College Republican National Committee, said "What Christians have got to
do is take back this country, one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a
time, and one state at a time.

  "I honestly believe that in my lifetime we will see a country once again
governed by Christians... and Christian values," he said.

   The group is establishing networks of business and church leaders and
hopes to train potential political candidates- as many as 5,000 at all
levels- by the end of the decade, Reed said at the coalition's modest offices
in this Virginia tide-water community.

  The coalition has elicited the strongest responses in California, Florida,
Pennsylvania, Michigan and the Carolinas.

  Reed said the coalition, in operation since the beginning of the year, is
designed to pick up where Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Roberson's
Freedom Council- both now defunct- left off.

  But, unlike the former organizations, the Christian Coalition is not
tax-exempt and may engage in unlimited lobbying.  Although it is
organizationally and financially separate from Robertson's CBN and Regent
University, the coalition bears the strong imprint of Robertson's leadership.

------ end of quoted article --------

That's right, *they're back*.  And, they should definitely not be taken
lightly.  They may be the minority, but in a day and age when the President
can be elected by 9% of the population, a slick subterfuge operation on this
scale could have a profound impact.

I shudder to think just what "taking back this country" would entail- they
intend to "take" YOUR and MY neighborhoods.  As history tells us time and
time again, in a theocracy, an atheist has NO rights.  Remember in 1988 when
Robertson pulled out of the race?  All of those PACs across the country didn't
just go back to the pews; they remained loosely connected and began a 
campaign to infiltrate every law-making and decision-making body in the
country.  If anyone hears anything else on these groups, please post it to
the net.