Good points SoCal, although I wouldnt say "ultimately statists are intolerant people". it just goes back to my point earlier that human nature means some will always take beliefs, principles and actions to an extreme, we just need to be mindful of that whether its religion, atheism, political etc etc.

I suppose the most diffcult thing is defining "extreme"-I think its extreme to preach about the threat of hell and eternal torture specifically to indoctrinate kids and that certain human behaviours that effect nobody else are immoral. I do understand and have some appreciation of the reasoning for it though-how else could you preach a "faith" successfully and keep people within the guidelines of your specific teachings if there was ultimately no "punishment" for making mistakes (commiting sins)? If you sin and dont repent, you burn in hell forever-and thats from the moderates....slightly different from even an extreme statist belief in which there are at least different levels of punishment, depending on how serious the perceived crime is...I do concede that some of the "crimes" they define are ridiculous though. I cant see the US at any point defining the punishment for gun ownership as the death penalty...if it were a sin in religious terms, the punishment would be far worse though - assuming we all accept the literal idea of hell, death is only the start of the punishment....I'd like to know what maniac came up with that idea...