"We should not remain silent when we see religious fraud. We should name it for what it is. We can all learn and reflect upon some of the signs that religion has become evil and that evil has become religious. Here are ten warning bells. * Fanatical claims of absolute truth. I don't mean the belief in absolute truth(s), which I think is both tenable and admirable, but rather the doubt-free and uncritical confidence that one has understood absolute truth absolutely. * Identifying the Gospel with nationalistic ideologies, partisan politics, state power, and ethnic identity. * Blind obedience to totalitarian, charismatic, and authoritarian leaders, personality cults, or views that undermine moral integrity, personal freedom, individual responsibility, and intellectual inquiry. * Ushering in the “end times” in the name of your religion. For a very painful illustration of these first four points, watch the film Jesus Camp. * Justifying religious ends by dubious means. * Any and all forms of dehumanization, from openly declaring war on your enemy, demonizing those who differ from you, construing your neighbor as an Other, to claiming that God is on your side alone. Do you believe that God loves Iraq and North Korea as much as America? There shouldn't be the slightest hesitation or qualification in the answer — He does. * Pressure tactics of coercion, deception, and false advertisement. * Alienation, isolation and withdrawal from family, friends and society, whether psychologically or literally (eg, David Koresh's Branch Davidians or Jim Jones' "People's Temple" in northern Guyana). * Exploitation and all forms of unreasonable demands upon one's time, money, resources, family, friendships, sexuality, etc. * Oddball, sectarian interpretations of Scripture that have little or no support from the broad, classical Christian tradition, or that disregard the best of historical-critical scholarship. The wildly successful Left Behind books (60 million copies sold) are a prime example of such Scripture-twisting." - Billy Warhol from Bookmarklet