re: #11 Ian G.

As an atheist, I think Dostoevsky got it exactly backwards. It’s not that without god, anything is permissible. It’s that with god, anything is permissible. Once your convinced that god is on your side so completely that you can do no wrong in his eyes, then of course planting car bombs and kidnapping schoolgirls (among other things) is fine.

Sarah Palin’s odious “waterboarding baptism” comments are a more diluted version of this, but it comes from the same place.

Just my $0.02

Well, if you’re going to be “saved” and “forgiven” for every single damn thing you do, why not do them?

Doesn’t that take the brakes off every thought and action?