God knockers: I suppose it was bound to happen. There are a bunch of pissed-off atheists and nontheists out there who have finally had enough of George W. Bush and the Christian Coalition’s attempts to create an American theocracy. They are fighting back with overheated rhetoric that sounds a lot like the Bible thumpers who think Jesus is their co-pilot and anyone who thinks differently from them is a hell-bound sinner. Well, seems the hell-bound sinners are fed up with the Christian Right’s antics and are responding in a movement some say has morphed from “secular humanism” to “secular fundamentalism.”

That’s the gist of an article that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday. Apparently, the athesists and nontheists are mad as heck and they are not going to take the babble from the Bible Belt anymore. They’ve formed a lobbying group.

Now I’m no believer in God or Jesus, heaven or hell. I don’t even believe in the Pope, though I admire his tailor. And I can sympathize with the other nonbelievers who are tired of those who feel they need to have a friend in Jesus or rest in the bosom of the Lord insinuating their beliefs into the political and social structure of America. From opposition to stem-cell research that could save millions of lives to promotion of the teaching of intelligent design in public schools to having the Ten Commandments displayed in public buildings, the religious right has hijacked what originally was conceived as a deistic, nonreligious country. It’s the intolerance of difference, stupid.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they would just believe what they believe, sing their hymns and tithe in their churches, but they insist on inflicting what I consider to be childish superstitions on the rest of us. If you want to believe that there’s a paternalistic white guy who made everything in the universe in six days sitting up there in the clouds, I’m fully prepared to allow you to believe that and not invoke the Baker Act (as it’s called in Florida) to commit you to an asylum where you can receive treatment for your delusions. I think that’s pretty Christian of me, don’t you?

Used to be, if you had folks claiming to be speaking directly to God, you’d either hail them as a prophet, burn them at the stake or send them to the loony bin. Today, you give them their own TV show and the mainstream media dutifully reports their absurd predictions, and not ironically, either.

But if you’re an unbeliever like me, you are treated as if there’s something wrong with you because you believe a woman should have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, people of the same gender should be allowed and encouraged to enter into long-term relationships under the rubric of marriage and that Muslims have as much right to fly on an airline as a knuckle-dragging snake-handling evangelical Christian.

So I’m joining the Secular Coalition for America today. You can join too, by going here and signing up. You don’t have to believe anything except that you should be able to not believe anything you don’t want to believe without having the sims and the pod people shoving their Christian tenets down your throat via the U.S. gubmint.

Meanwhile, I look forward to watching the secular fundamentalists kick some Christian butt.