Apostasy

"It is deeply troubling that a country we helped liberate would hold a person to account because they chose a particular religion over another," Bush said on Wednesday.

"We have got influence in Afghanistan and we are going to use it to remind them that there are universal values."

Although he's never displayed any actual knowledge of or familiarity with, say, the Bible, and although he doesn't appear to attend church, George W. Bush does claim to be a Christian, and a "born again" Christian at that.

So here you have a man who ostensibly subscribes to the (incredibly preposterous, and therefore extremely popular) belief that Jesus Christ is the sole source of and avenue to salvation; that one must be "born again" through some intense conversion experience of personal connection to God; and that to those who don't come into the fold in this manner, no amount of good works, decency, kindness, prayer, etc. can forestall the eternal, unspeakable agony of damnation. I don't think that the Petit Prince has given that doctrine a whole lotta thinkin', but those are the doctrines of his professed religion.

Now, it seems to me that what we have here is a doctrine that, to put it mildly, "hold[s] a person to account because they chose a particular religion over another."

In the meantime, just to prove that I truly do believe all of the monotheistic death cults to be equally vicious, bloodthirsty frauds, I leave you with IOZ's Tolerant Statement of the Day™, from the judge in the guy's case:

"We will try to see if he converts to Islam, for Islam is the religion of compassion. But if he does not, Islamic law will be enforced."