The character Ursus speaking in Victor Hugo's "L'Homme qui rit" – Vous pouvez croire en Dieu de deux façons, ou comme la soif croit à l'orange, ou comme l'âne croit au fouet.

Roughly - You can believe in God in two ways, like thirst thinks about an orange, or like the donkey thinks about the whip.

And we know how American evangelicals think.

See this –

And while we’re in the business of being pissed off, how about those fun folks at Disney/ABC? Who, last year, wouldn’t run ads from the mainstream Protestant denomination the United Church of Christ, because their ads referred to the church’s welcoming attitude toward homosexuals. And who, this year, are happy to run ads from James Dobson’s far-right extremist Focus on the Family group promoting their “Focus on the Child” program built around Dobson’s bestseller Dare to Discipline.

As Digby over at Hullabaloo summarizes –

It seems [James Dobson] thinks of children as animals and he believes that animals and children should be beaten. He believes that nine month old babies should be switched on the bare legs. He believes they should be pinched hard, on the neck, so it will hurt. He believes in things that could get parents arrested in many states in the union. Yet his program is considered to be more wholesome and less controversial than a church that allows gays to be a member.

Well, God slaughters folks, is vengeful, does some evil, defiles, destroys and creates woes, when he’s not busy - Exodus 32:14, Numbers 31:1-18, Deuteronomy 2:30,34, 7:2,16, 20:10-20, 1 Samuel 6:19, Job 42:11, Isaiah 45:7, Jeremiah 18:5,8,11, 26:3,13,19, 42:10-11, Lamentations 3:38, Ezekiel 6:12-13, 20:25-26, Amos 3:16, Nahum 1:2, Jonah 3:10 – and so on and so forth.

And as God is father to mankind, so is any worldly father to his own family. My God is a vengeful God, whose "mission is to spread, not peace, but division." - Matthew 11

Dobson and his kind are working on it.

This is going to be an interesting theocracy.

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As noted in the pages here Christianity is now only for the medievalists – as much as the National Council of Churches protests and the United Church of Christ kicks and screams (in a loving way).  Heck, even the Unitarians are learning that what they have isn’t a REAL religion.  And here – “A state religion? It would not be the Unitarians.”

Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta –

Yes! What a great compromise! Tell the Frist Brigade the good news, that (a) we, the secular left, have finally agreed to allow a theocracy ... but then the bad news is, (b) the state religion has to be the Unitarian Universalist Church!

So we pause just long enough to watch them shit bricks, then we say we were just kidding and make a speedy exit, narrowly escaping arrest by the Capitol Police.

Hey, it could happen.

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Oh yes, this summary of the comments of another evangelical leader from a fellow in Portland Maine –

Much has already been written on the whoppers told by the Rrrrrrreverend Pat Robertson during his interview on 'This Week with George Stephapalooza.' Like federal judges being a bigger threat to America than al Qaeda or Nazi Germany. Or Muslim-Americans not being worthy as judges or high-level politicians in this country. Or Bill Frist not having a future at 16 Pennsylvania Avenue. Okay, so we'll give him half a point for that last one.

But Cheers and Jeers caught Robertson with his pants on fire over a comment that didn't get much attention at all. When asked why God allows bad things to happen to huge numbers of people -- specifically, the tsunami that hit Asia in December -- Robertson batted it aside, saying, "The reason for that tsunami was the shifting of tectonic plates in the Indian Ocean. I don't think [God] changes the magma in volcanoes and I don't think he changes the wind currents to bring about hurricanes. So, I don't attribute that to God..."

Which got us to thinking about this little comment he made about God's wrath on June 6, 1998: "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those [rainbow] flags in God's face if I were you... But a condition like [Gay Day at Disney World] will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about... earthquakes, tornadoes or a meteor."

But never a tsunami. That would be silly.

Geez, if we’re going to have a theocracy, can’t we have one the keeps things straight?

Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, adds this comment –

I find the Disney part of that equation a bit of a turnabout, since just a few years ago, the company famously stood up a Baptist boycott, I think for allowing gays to schedule meetups in their theme parks. Analysis at the time was that Eisner felt he needed to keep his animators happy, many of whom were gay.

Of course, what with Pixar having pushed out the old time hand-drawn Disney animation in recent years, the classic animators have been squeezed out of a job. Then again, as has Eisner himself, I guess.

Well, for whatever reason, Mike did the right thing.

But wait! There’s more!

Here University of Michigan Middle-East expert, professor Juan Cole, has some words about Pat Robertson and the current debate regarding religion and judges.

His bilious venomous lips? Say what?

John Aravosis argues that Pat Robertson should be a political pariah after his remarks on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that Muslim Americans are not fit to serve in the US cabinet. It is actually much worse than that. Robertson also implied that Jews are unfit to serve on the Supreme Court because some of them defend the ACLU, which he equates with defending Communism. The anti-Jewish bigotry among some evangelicals that codes Jews as a "cultural elite" promoting non-Christian values just drips from his words. I give the relevant parts of the interview below.

… Robertson knows nothing about the Koran or Islam. He can cite some extremist medieval jurist such as Ibn Taymiyyah, but who couldn't come up with extreme statements by medieval Christian leaders? The Christians did give us the Inquisition, after all, not to mention the Crusades. As for Islam, here is what Koran 5:82 says about Christian-Muslim relations, after it describes tensions with pagans and Jews: "You will certainly find that the nearest in love to those who believe [the Muslims] are those who say: 'We are Christians.' This is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly." Somehow that one never gets quoted. "Nearest in love" is something we need to get back to.

American Muslims are Americans. They have all the same rights and duties as all other Americans. Period. Likewise Jewish Americans. Robertson's religious bigotry flies directly in the face of Thomas Jefferson's thinking on religious liberty, which he dares sully by passing it through his bilious venomous lips.

A bunch of citations from Jefferson follow, and a bit from John Locke’s “Letter on Toleration” – and then Cole quotes from THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (10:30 AM ET) – ABC - May 1, 2005 Sunday …

PAT ROBERTSON

Well, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence said he wouldn't have any atheists in his cabinet because atheists wouldn't swear an oath to God. That was Jefferson and we have never had any Muslims in the cabinet. I didn't say serve in government. I said in my cabinet if I were elected president, and I think a president has a right to take people who share his point of view, and I would think that would be ...

… Right now, I think people who feel that there should be a jihad against America, read what the Islamic people say. They divide the world into two spheres, Dar al Islam Dar al Harb. The Dar al Islam are those who've submitted to Islam, Dar al Harb are those who are in the land of war and they have said in the Koran there's a war against all the infidels. So do you want somebody like that sitting as a judge? I wouldn't.

Ah, you’d want a Crusader from the tenth century? It’s a thought.

And then there is this on those evil Jews now wearing black robes in Washington –

Justice Ginsburg served as a general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU. That was founded, as you probably know, by about three members of the Communist Internationale. Their leader, Baldwin, said that he wanted to be a Communist and wanted to make this ... to make America a workers' state, breed Communists.

… she was the general counsel for this organization whose purpose right now is to rid religion from the public square. That's they are announced. We've Nadine Strasser down here to our university in a debate. She's a very pleasant lady but that's what she said was her avowed goal, to take all religion from the public square. That's their initiative and Justice Ginsburg served as their general counsel, so ...

So what?  Unfit for the bench, then?  Seems so.

This gets more interesting every week.