An Atheist By Any Other Name . . .

Granny Magda's answer goes right to the point, which is that your analogy doesn't really apply because the role and usage and abuse of religion in society is entirely unlike that of stamp-collecting, such that religionists' abuse of religion poses dangers to atheists and the whole of society that need to be responded to. However, I'd like to take your analogy and develop it further; basically, by substituting "stamp collecting" for religion or Christianity.Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782, researched from THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION:

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But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

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Most non-stamp-collectors' attitude towards stamp collectors mirrors that quote: they really don't care what stamp collectors think or believe or say. Stamp collectors are off doing their thing and non-stamp-collectors wouldn't give it a second thought, having more important, or at least much more interesting, things to occupy themselves with instead. Or at least to not waste their time and energy fretting over meaningless minutiae, which is fine for those who are into that stuff, so more power to them. All that non-stamp-collectors ask is that stamp collectors afford non-stamp-collectors the exact same courtesy. We don't interfere with your stamp collecting and we don't think any less of you for being interested in that stuff, so in return don't interfere with us or think any less of us for not collecting stamps. Seems fair enough, don't you think? Leben und leben lassen, nicht wahr?But, no, the stamp collectors do not think that way at all! They want everybody to be a stamp collector. They campaign zealously to convert everybody to stamp collecting. They form organizations whose sole purpose is to proselytize stamp collecting. They even go door-to-door to proselytize stamp collecting. And accost strangers on the street in order to proselytize stamp collecting -- this was especially bothersome in the early 1970's with the "Stamp Freak" movement, when hoards of burned-out hippies having become "hooked on Stamps" became the new army of stamp-collecting proselytizers. Even when they gather for stamp collecting, much of their time is spent training to proselytize stamp collecting. They form stamp collecting clubs on all college and university campuses in which the club's primary business is to try to convert the rest of the student body into stamp collectors *.And nothing will stop them from assaulting non-stamp-collectors thus, so what are non-stamp-collectors to do? Obviously, they will try to avoid these extremely unpleasant situations as much as possible, but the more zealous stamp collectors are so in-your-face aggressive that we finally reach a point where we have to stand up for ourselves. So we learn something about stamp collecting, even though most of it is nonsensical to us, especially the proselytizing material that we keep getting assaulted with and which is particularly full of and based on false claims and blatant fallacies. Then the next time we are assaulted by a proselytizer, we fight back. For example, I was once presented with a popular variant of Pascal's Wager which I was immediately able both to recognize for what it was and to present a very effective counter **. And as more and more non-stamp-collectors started coming up with effective counter-measures to use against stamp-collecting proselytizers, they began to share their experiences and those counter-measures with other non-stamp-collectors, which increased their visibility to other non-stamp-collectors similarly plagued by those over-zealous stamp-collecting proselytizing anuses.Now you know what motivates non-stamp-collectors to band together. Whereas non-stamp-collectors would be quite content to leave stamp collectors in peace, stamp collectors absolutely refuse to reciprocate. It is the relentless aggression of stamp collectors against non-stamp-collectors that has led non-stamp-collectors to band together for their common defense. If stamp collectors had simply left non-stamp-collectors in peace in the first place, then there would be nothing to unite non-stamp-collectors. You stamp collectors brought this all upon yourselves.

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{* FOOTNOTE: Many years ago, my boss' son, a third-generation fundamentalist stamp collector, left home to go half-way across the country to university. Working with us during the break after his first semester there, he mentioned feeling alone, what with him being away from friends and family, so I suggested he could seek fellowship in one of several campus stamp-collecting clubs there. He immediately rejected the suggestion, saying that he had already looked into that, but all they ever did in the meetings was to plan ways to convert the rest of the student body. }{** FOOTNOTE: Basically, it was "after-life insurance". Since stamp collectors believe that having the right beliefs about stamp collecting will assure them of a pleasant after-life (though not quite an aprs-vie), they will present Pascal's Wager as a car-insurance analogy. You buy car insurance just in case of an accident; if you have an accident, then you are covered and everything is taken care of. If you don't buy car insurance and you have an accident, then you are in a bad situation because you aren't covered. If you never have an accident and you had bought insurance, then you had peace of mind instead of worrying all the time if you hadn't bought insurance. Of course, the problem with that "after-life insurance" is that it charges exorbinant premiums for a policy that is so restrictive that it is virtually guaranteed to not pay off.
The complete story of that encounter is at http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/wager.html .
There was a casino analogy of Pascal's Wager wherein the casino was under investigation by the Gaming Commission because it promised a sure-thing bet that instead cleaned everybody out. Unfortunately, links to it are broken.
A topic here discussed Pascal's Wager; my contribution was Message 8 -- both links in that 2007 message are broken, one of which was to Pascal's Casino.}

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But wait, that's not all! In addition to a lot of teachings that non-stamp-collectors find to be nonsensical, stamp collectors also vilify non-stamp-collectors. Stamp collectors believe and teach that stamp collecting is the only source of morality and that non-stamp-collectors are immoral and evil and totally untrustworthy and intent of destroying society and behind all kinds of evil deeds such as eating babies -- just because we don't collect stamps. As a result of those vicious lies about non-stamp-collectors, we are traditionally classified in the USA as the most hated group, though during this past decade that #1 slot has been given to collectors of Arabic stamps, with members of the Club of Latter-Day Stamp Collectors remaining in the #3 slot. The public thinks nothing of discrimination against non-stamp-collectors and indeed will cheer it on. Being revealed as a non-stamp-collector can lead to loss of friends, loss of one's job, and even expulsion from one's own family. In the case of Dan Barker, called "America's leading non-stamp-collector", where he was raised a stamp collector but then became a non-stamp-collector, the leaders of his stamp-collecting club pressured and convinced his wife to divorce him solely because he had become a non-stamp-collector. It is virtually impossible for a non-stamp-collector to ever be elected to public office; I recently heard of one who had succeeded in getting elected back in the early part of the 20th century, but it's still a great rarity. Non-stamp-collectors are barred from joining several public organizations, even though those organizations do not engage in stamp collecting, and are expelled with extreme prejudice if they are discovered; that happened to me personally -- even though I met all official requirements, the leadership invented extra rules which violated their own rules, regulations, and bylaws and the very principles of the organization. Non-stamp-collectors are personally threatened with violence, which I have personally experienced, and even killed (eg, in this country, in Texas, which admittedly seems to be in another world) just because they are not stamp collectors.Now those are very real threats that non-stamp-collectors are facing! All because of the false accusations that the stamp collectors continually make against us. So you had better believe that we are going to fight back against all your vicious lies. And this gives us even more motivation to band together and to organize for our common defense.But wait, there's more! This country, the USA, was founded on principles which guaranteed the right of all citizens to be able to choose for themselves which form of stamp collecting to practice (and there is a mind-staggering variety to choose from) or to choose to not collect stamps at all. Stamp-collecting Liberty means that you may collect stamps or not as you see fit. The principle of Separation of Stamps and State is implicit in the First Amendment, as is made clear by James Madison's brochure, A Memorial and Remonstrance, which he wrote a few years before he drafted the First Amendment.But ever since 1980, "conservative" stamp collectors have been highly active in national politics, trying to gain ever more political power with which to force their own form of stamp collecting on the citizens of this country. They are intent on tearing down that "Wall of Separation" so that they can trample the rights of non-stamp-collectors. As part of that effort, they are literally re-writing US history with outright lies; an excellent and very well-researched on-line book, Liars for Jesus by Chris Rodda, discusses those lies. That they are also using lies to attack science education is minor compared to their political agenda, that included the destruction of the public school system in order to replace it with stamp-collector-controlled schools; school vouchers were presented to stamp-collector political organizations as a principal tool in this plan.In response, non-stamp-collectors have had to organize even more, forming national-level organizations such as Americans United to combat the efforts of stamp collectors to destroy the Constitution and replace it with a stamp-collecting theocracy (the explicit goal of the Stamp-Collecting Reconstructionists who served as the political mentors of the Radical Stamp-Collecting Right). Our rights, our liberty, our very way of life are at stake.Non-stamp-collectors would much rather just live and let live, leben und leben lassen. But the stamp collectors refuse to let that happen. Normally, non-stamp-collectors would have nothing in common with each other, but because the stamp collectors have declared Culture War on America, we now have a common enemy, the enemies of America.

One thing that has come up in all such discussions is that almost every atheist (or whatever you each want to call yourself) has his/her own definitions for the terms he/she chooses to use."Heathen" is not the right term to use. A heathen is a theist, albeit a more primitive variety. They're the ones who lived out on the heath and heather; ie, in the wild. They're the ones who would paint themselves before going into battle, as did the Picts * . So it is wrong to use this as a euphemism for "atheist" on two counts: 1) an atheist is not a theist, and 2) an atheist is civilized, often more civilized even than most theists."Pagan" is also wrong and I mention it here only for completeness, since I didn't notice anyone offering it up. Basically, a pagan is a civilized heathen (or a heathen is a wild pagan). Examples include the Greeks and Romans, pre-Constantine. And in support of the argument against using "heathen", when the Unitarian-Universalist church opened its big tent up to welcome neo-pagans, many of the old-time Unitarians were appalled at the very notion, since it appeared to them to be embracing superstition -- accepting the Universalists was bad enough!Many will use "agnostic" as a milder form of "atheist" ** , but to me it has a very definite meaning. It's the statement that we don't know. As such, I consider it to be the only truly honest position to take, and I consider it to apply equally to atheists and theists alike. In all honesty, we do not know and then from there we have to make the assumption of whether the gods exist as well as everything that goes with the assumption we make. IOW, after admitting that we do not know, we can then make either a theistic or an atheistic assumption. The theistic assumption requires you to then take things on faith, while the atheistic assumption is that we do not consider taking things on faith to be warranted.BTW, I once saw a bumper sticker: "Militant Agnostic: I don't know ... AND NEITHER DO YOU!"I will self-identify as atheist, even though that term is overloaded with a plethora of conflicting definitions and connotations, because it does describe my beliefs most succinctly. I do not believe in the gods, which in turn has multiple meanings. The gods are created by humans in their vain attempts to explain what they do not understand. In that sense all the gods do exist, just as any other concept created by humans exists. I do not believe that they actually exist as actual supernatural entities, which also can be interpreted in different ways: the gods whom humans have created do not exist as actual entities, and even if something supernatural does exist that could be interpreted as "God", it would be different from anything that humans are able to create. Another sense of not believing in the gods is that I cannot put any faith in what fallible humans tell me about their gods, which is completely separate from the question of whether gods actually exist. Yet another sense comes to us from Buddhism, in that the Buddha advised against putting your faith in the gods, because that will only hold you back from attaining Enlightenment. Thus Buddhists are atheists in that they do not believe in the gods (ie, do not put their faith in them) while at the same time considering that they do exist or at least that the supernatural does exist. As I've been told, the only reason why Buddhists do not apply the term "atheist" to themselves is because of its materialistic connotations (Buddhism teaches against forming such attachments).I've never warmed up to "Brights"; it just doesn't hold any meaning for me and sounds too contrived. I have used "normals", but mainly when contrasting the phenomenon, described by Dan Barker, of how fundamentalists are in a condition where "their theology becomes their psychology" with how we normals think. "Normals" also emphasizes that it's their viewpoint that is aberrant and out-of-touch with reality, but then that's also the thrust of their current NoTW ("Not of This World") car decal campaign, so we find ourselves in rare agreement here.Our minister, an atheist, preferred to self-describe as "non-theist" in order to throw people off-balance and get them to stop and think. Basically trying to disable their knee-jerk reaction.Normally, I will reply "I am not a Christian", or "I am not a theist", or "I'm Unitarian." Or simply that I'm an atheist ... and then react with puzzlement at their negative reaction and try to get them to tell me why.Though when it came up at work that I was going to Christian country dance (frequented by single members of denominations that frown on dancing, kind of like Mormons having drinking parties) one woman I'm friends with suggested I was looking for dates and, mindful of 2 Corinthians Ch 6, I replied that I wasn't since I'm not deemed to be suitable for them:
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not a Christian."
Shocked at the very notion: "Why aren't you a Christian?"
"Why should I be?"
"That's no answer!"
And it broke down at that point. But I feel it was a valid point. To her, the very notion that somebody would not be a Christian was unthinkable, such that somebody had to have a very good reason to not be a Christian and didn't have to have any reason at all to be a Christian. Similarly, in basic training our TI, who appeared to be a typical red-neck, assigned the duty of marching the Catholics and Protestants to services to a Catholic recruit and a Protestant recruit, respectively. Then he asked if there was anyone he hadn't covered and a lone hand went up. "What else is there?" "I'm Jewish."But enough about what we think of the term "atheist". What is going on in the Christians' minds when they assign such crazy connotations to the term?

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{ * FOOTNOTE: I understand that to have been a big liberty that Mel Gibson took in Braveheart, painting themselves in blue, though I did rather enjoy that part of the dialogue. Here Wallace and entourage arrive with their faces painted blue and instead of engaging in a battle, the Scottish lairds are parlaying with the Saxons ("sassanach") for a truce:
Hamish: Where ye going?
Wallace: I'm going to pick a fight.
Hamish: Good! I'd hate to think I'd gotten all dressed up for nothing!Alba gu brath!
}{ ** FOOTNOTE: As quipped by ICR's Duane Gish when he appeared on Ray Briem's radio show in 1984 with Humanist Fred Edwords: "Well, everybody knows that 'agnostic' is just a nice word of 'atheist'."
}

Not just basic human gregariousness (wanting to form groups). If you were to ever visit an ex-Christian forum, you would read story after story of how hard it was to go through that process of deconverting. So atheist groups can be seen as a kind of addiction recovery support group.To again refer to Dan Barker, he had gone through deconversion entirely alone in Southern California in the early 1980's, not being able to find any like-minded people until he moved to Wisconsin. A Los Angeles based atheist organization, Atheists United, used to have a 15-minute weekly radio program in the 80's (which is how I had stumbled upon their existence myself) and it was on that program that I heard Barker's presentation at an AU monthly meeting, during which he exclaimed at one point: "Where were you when I needed you?"Neophyte atheists not only need some kind of support group to help them through the process of deconversion, as well as being able to know that they are not alone in this, but they also need to learn what it is to be an atheist. Remember, all they know about atheism is the crazy lies their church had been telling them their entire lives. No, we do not eat babies! No, we are not outrageous hedonists! They need to learn that from somebody and they certainly are not going to have learned it from the church that they're leaving.And, I guess there's also the self-serving motivation. As a friend had once long ago pointed out, if you're new in town and you're looking for somebody to marry, you join a church. What with the high divorce rate, especially among the 50 to 60 year olds, one local megachurch (the one whose name is synonymous a sexual practice that would be considered sodomy yet OK since it keeps the girl technically a virgin) has a singles ministry whose membership numbers about 15,000 singles, a huge number of them middle-aged. From my contact with them, I would judge the membership of many of them to not be motivated by religious conviction. OK, so where is a nice atheist guy supposed to meet a nice atheist girl? Maybe in an atheist organization? Or in a Unitarian church.I think though that the basic question refers mainly to those who were raised atheists. Most of those atheists wouldn't feel motivated to get involved in any "We Don't Like Religion" clubs; it would all be a silly non-issue to them. But that basic question ignores the large and ever-growing numbers of ex-theists. And it also ignores the repeated threats that fanatical Christians pose to our religious liberties, thus presenting themselves as a clear and present danger. And of course the basic question also says nothing about the detrimental effect of our quality of life by all these damned fool proselytizers who would severely task even the patience of Job * .

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{ * FOOTNOTE: A West Coast Swing teacher I assist told me that when the door-to-door proselytizers come to her door (usually JWs), she just tells them that she's Jewish and they immediately walk away. Kind of like one area in England, "The Black Spot", which is heavily Unitarian and in which no evangelists have ever had even a spot of success, so they avoid it at all costs.In my own case, my childhood neighborhood ... OK, the entire city practically ... has become Hispanic; when suddenly all the billboards are in Spanish, you know you're in Santa Ana. One day when I was visiting my mother, a door-to-door evangelist came to her door. Seeing my Irish-Scottish complexion, she asked me in Spanish whether we spoke Spanish. I replied in Spanish (having been married a couple decades to "The Spanish Inquisition" at the time) que no. She immediately left.And one day at our old residence, before the divorce, a door-to-door evangelist arrived and I informed her that we do no buy anything from a door-to-door salesman. She protested that she wasn't selling anything, but I informed her that, yes she most definitely was selling something and I was fully aware of what it was.
}

Indeed. This has all happened before and it will happen again.Yesterday, BBC America's rerun of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (BSG), what James Edward Olmos and the critics called "the best use of TV because of the stories." That statement ("It has all happened before ...") was a leitmotif carried throughout. At the end, when, 150,000 years in our past, they finally arrive to settle on our Earth (not the Earth of their own legend, which had annihilated itself 2000 years prior in a war between organics and robots, echoed by the Twelve Colonies then-present struggle), they had come to a decision to break the cycle, to make peace with the surviving Cylons and allow each other to go their separate ways. Cut to our present-day New York City and two observers' conversation ("Head-Six" and "Head-Baltar"; if you are unfamiliar with the series, I could not explain it here) comparing what they saw with Caprica and Kobold and wonder whether it will all happen again, as the series ends to the tune of a more familiar cover of "The Cylon Song" playing over videos of our current robotic creations, including ones trying to appear ever more human.Even if you are not a sci-fi fan, one of the functions of that genre is to explore key human and political and cultural issues removed from their real-life context. We call it "science fiction" because science is usually involved (worked for Isaac Asimov, whose father thought that it would teach him about science), while in German it's usually "Zukunftsromane" ("future novels"), though "Mglichkeitsromane" ("possibility novels") has also been used. Through Star Trek: TOS ("The Original Series", or "The Old Show"), Gene Roddenberry presented morality plays through which a myriad of issues could be explored and examined without being loaded down by all our cultural baggage. Not the least of which (repeatedly) was what it meant to be human. A question further explored by and through BSG's Cylon "skin jobs."So do humans and Cylons continue to hate and distrust each other for eternity? Or as the anti-human ("annihilate them all!") Number Three expressed it, so long as they allowed any humans to survive, those humans would raise their children to hate Cylons and a few hundred years later humans would return to try to annihilate the Cylons, so the Cylons need to annihilate the humans first. Or, as after the Cylon Civil War, do humans and Cylons learn to trust each other and to work together? OBTW, in BSG, humans were polytheistic whereas Cylons were monotheistic.Or to quote a signature I encountered years ago:

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Those who fail to learn the lessons of science fiction are doomed to live them.

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So then, you ask: So what are our choices? And how will we choose? Will we learn the lessons of science fiction? Or are we doomed to live them?We can let the same thing happen over and over and over and over again. This has all happened before and it will happen again. You do not understand what non-believers think and you do not care. Non-believers do not understand what believers think and they do not care. Far worse, both sides imagine how the other side thinks and what they imagine is a direct threat, a clear and present danger, to themselves. So whatever aggression we commit against the other side is justified, because we are fighting for our very survival!This has all happened before and it will happen again.And the cycle will continue to repeat until we decide to break it!The only way to break the cycle is for both sides to understand each other. Something that you have just come out declaring that you will not do! So your choice is to allow the cycle to continue to repeat itself. Your side has absolutely no idea how non-believers think, nor what they believe. Of course, that does not stop you from making wildly false, idiotic proclamations about what non-believers think and believe and do. Wildly false, idiotic proclamations that prove beyond a doubt to non-believers that you are all a pack of fracking idiots. And non-believers see very clearly how you pack of fracking idiots (duly demonstrated and proven as per immediately above) are zealously trying to seize political power to force your idiocy (again, duly demonstrated and proven as per immediately above) on everybody else.And, uh, just what is it that you believers imagine to be the threat that non-believers pose to you? That they want people to stop and actually think? Or simply that they do not agree with you? I'm sorry, but until you honestly tell us just exactly what your problem with non-believers is, then we have nothing to work with. Oh yeah! That's right! It's all in your fevered and paranoid imagination! Which, of course, leaves us normals shocked and bewildered at your inexplicable paranoid reaction to our very existence.The cycle already exists. Believers see non-believers as some kind of thoroughly evil, even Satanic, enemies intent on the absolutely destruction of everything that is Good. Non-believers see believers as a pack of fracking idiots lost irreparably in delusion. This has all happened before and it will happen again.But if we were to break that cycle! Believers will understand non-believers for what they actually are. And non-believers will understand what believers' fears are. And both sides can eventually come to understand that the other side does not pose the danger that they imagine -- OK, you fracking believers do, in the USA, continue to pose a very real danger to America and The Constitution, and may we loyal Americans be able to keep you away from that power.Shadow71, Taq expressed the hope of greater understanding between the two sides. You rejected that. I would hope that you reconsider your ill-considered choice.

I haven't done that, nor would I. Why are you accusing all non-believers of doing that? You don't understand what non-believers think and you don't want to, but then in your self-imposed ignorance you proclaim what non-believers think. And you don't see a problem with that?I would reserve the label of "delusional" for those who maintain false beliefs even in the face of contradictory evidence and even in spite of the evidence, which is the case of "creation science" creationists. There is no evidence for God, nor is there really evidence against, so I don't see how one can label someone delusional just for believing in God.Though a friend from church once told me his story. Although he was and is (self-described) "a complete atheist and thorough humanist", he had previously for many years been a fervent fundamentalist Christian. As he described it, he was confronted every day with a lot of evidence that contradicted his beliefs, so he had to constantly deceive himself that that evidence did not exist, having to practice more and more self-deception with every day that passed. Finally, the strain of that self-deception became too much for him, so he applied the Matthew 7:20 Test to Christianity, it failed that test hands-down, and he became an atheist, and is now much happier and more spiritually fulfilled than he ever was as a Christian.So, we also have the word of an ex-Christian that delusion was a very important part of his former life as a Christian, such that that delusion was what he had to use to protect his faith.Which is in keeping with my opinion: believing in God is not delusional, but maintaining false beliefs in spite of reality does require one to be delusional.

You have no response so you switch to blatant proselytizing. You have conceded defeat, which is ironic because we weren't having a contest.You are being unspeakably vile! You want to turn me into a monster who would embrace a theology that damns my dead son to eternal damnation! Well, you may find it easy to be a monster, but I most definitely refuse to become one! I nearly called you "Scum", but realized that that would be insulting to scum. Do not do it again!

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Before you use a source, shouldn't you learn something about it first? You can start learning by reading the Wikipedia article on Antony Flew, who died of dementia in 2010 after years of mental decline during which he had "deconverted" from atheism.One problem with your quote from There is a God is that Flew did not write it, but rather the "co-author", Roy Abraham Varghese, did the actual writing.Another problem is that you and Flew are talking about two very different gods. He wasn't converting to Christianity, but rather to deism. His God was the Aristotelian God, not the Christian God. And Flew very specifically made that distinction.So you receive no support from Flew, which you would have known by having done a minimum amount of research before using Flew for support. All you have succeeded in doing has been to make a fool of yourself. Yet again you are lying about what I think and believe! You know better and yet you insist on lying! Typical Christian! Yes, I am growing to disdain you! Not because you believe in God, but rather because you are an unspeakably vile proselytizer and you insist on lying about what others think and believe! After all this time and everybody's explanations, you still have no clue what "hedging one's bets" means?You keep ignoring the facts and maintain false beliefs in spite of the facts. You have clearly and amply demonstrated that you are delusional. And belief in God has nothing to do with it, except for your delusion that you must lie and ignore the truth in order to protect and promote your faith. Disgusting!

The impression I had was that Flew did indeed switch over to a form of deism, though that does not obviate his having been exploited by Varghese and others.One main question is whether his switch was warranted. The reason given for that switch was his layman's determination (since, dammit, Jim!, he was a philosopher, not a scientist!) that there was no naturalistic explanation for the evolution of DNA. So his "solution" to this gap in our knowledge was goddidit, AKA the "God of the Gaps". Small wonder the IDists love him so much; their entire philosophy and theology are based on that false theology.No, Flew was not hitting on all cylinders when he arrived at that. Or as another Brit put it in a personal ad, he wasn't the sharpest sandwich at the picnic.As for shadow's complaints of non-believers' "distain" {sic} (should "disdain"; why can't anyone even spell anymore?) for believers solely because they believe in God, ... well, that's clearly projection. His mission, the same as the mission of all Christian proselytizers, is to attack and destroy the beliefs of everybody else in order to assimilate them into the "Body of Christ" * Since his mission and utmost wishes are to attack and destroy our beliefs, he assumes that that is what we wish to do to him. He's just projecting his designs on us upon us, turning us into an imaginary enemy.{ * FOOTNOTE:
I am of the Clan Donald, one of the two Scottish super-powers back when. The Loch Prado games (since discontinued) included a medieval Scottish encampment. The lady manning our clan tent, also a Star Trek fan, told us how she would every once in a while enter the encampment and pronounce, "We are the Clan Donald. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!"The other Scottish super-power was the Campbells, far too well known for their alliances with the Saxons (English) and betrayal of the other clans. She also informed us that the Campbell clan tent is always located in the center, so that everybody could keep an eye on them.And as for that "Body of Christ" reference, Landru immediately comes to mind.
}