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Not in the least. But for argument's sake, let's say the evangelicals are right. If I am in hell, I will be there with the rest of humanity that didn't believe in Christ's divinity, and I'll roast gladly with them. Think of it as sitting in solidarity with the downtrodden, while we stand in protest to the elistist country clubbers in heaven who's membership policy requires you to think exactly as they do or fry.

First, since morality is determined by Divine Decree and by nothing else (it certainly doesn't come from science!), you'll have nothing to protest. Second, atheists are as bad as anyone else at wanting everyone else to think like them. Perhaps you failed to read the quotations of the prominent atheists in the article at the top of this thread? Why is it any worse for an evangelical to want you to believe as he does than it is for Dawkins or Hitchens to want evangelicals to believe as they do? Perhaps you haven't noticed this, but you atheists are veritable fonts of hypocrisy on this issue. You think it unreasonable and tyrannical for religionists to say that "error has no rights," yet the entire exclusion of G-d from the science classroom is based on this: creation (or ID) is an error, and error has no rights. Perhaps this is another one of those "self-evident truths" your allegedly hyper-critical, independent minds have latched onto?

I guess the reason it bothers me is the apparent ease that they seem to have with 3-4 billion people being eternally condemned according to their theology. It seems irrational, and I don't like to see my friends become irrational people.

I am bothered by the apparent ease with which your mind holds so many contradictions: an insignificant, meaningless universe in which an objective moral code external to the mind of man somehow exists (and in which it is so important that we "know the truth" about everything); a belief in "self-evident truths" while celebrating "critical thinking;" religious suppression of other opinions is tyranny and oppression while science's suppression of other opinions cannot be because it is "the truth," etc., etc., etc.

So you were saying?

First, I'm not an atheist. So any extrapolations that you've made by lumping me together with secular progressives are made in error.

I don't support the inclusion of anything in science classes that doesn't have empirical evidence behind it. If you can prove God exists, then great. Use the scientific method, put your findings up for peer review, then teach it in school.

I am bothered by the apparent ease with which your mind holds so many contradictions:

You have no idea what my mind holds, so you shouldn't presume to be bothered by it. I have never supported the suppression of anyone's religion and the support the free exercise thereof. If you had ever read Hitchens, I think you would find that everyone believing exactly as he does is the last thing he would advocate.

How about everyone thinking for themselves? I have no problem with it, do you?