Facts and Opinions’ Seeking Orenda columnist Tom Regan is a fan of Pope Francis. Regan is an atheist. He explains in his column, My atheist fan letter to Pope Francis. An excerpt:
When you’re an atheist you don’t spend much time thinking about “important” religious figures. Most of them are just too silly to care about. Pat Robertson is an example.
He’s a former Baptist preacher, and Republican presidential hopeful, and a media mogul who hosts the Christian conservative show The 700 Club where he makes pronouncements like gays were responsible for the damage in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.
I’m not one of those atheists who tend to hate all forms of religion. I’d like to think my approach is more nuanced.
Basically, I don’t care what you believe as long as you don’t try to make me believe it and as long as what you believe does not make the world a worse place.
So while I have lots of good Muslim friends, I consider the twisted hyper-fundamentalist form of Islam practiced by a group like ISIS as sort of being a modern-day version of the Spanish Inquisition on steroids.
In fact when you come right down to it I’m pretty down on almost all forms of fundamentalism: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, pick your poison. … continue reading My atheist fan letter to Pope Francis.
Tom Regan’s columnist page is here.
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