I watched Sarah Palin’s speech during the Republican National Convention, and I have to disagree with most of the punditry that it was some sort of stroke of brilliance. Ms. Palin’s speech during the RNC was filled with lies about her record, lacked any specificity, demeaned community organizers, and used her ‘experience’ as a PTA member and mayor of a small hamlet as some sort of force multiplier that magically made her more experienced than Barack Obama or even Joe Biden.

But more importantly for the readers of this site she (perhaps wisely) did not discuss her religious views. In short, Sarah Palin is a closet Christian extremist. In a previous article, Roy mentioned that Palin believed in teaching creationism in the classroom. With China generating 300,000 engineering degrees a year – 240,000 more than the United States and roughly a 25% high rate per capita – we seriously risk endangering our position as the technology capital of the world especially if we are mired in such distractions.

She does not believe in abortion rights even in case of rape, incest, or the health of the mother, despite this position only supported by 18% of the population. Even among those who consider themselves ‘pro-life’, she is in the minority, as most believe that some sort of exception must be made.

Palin also has very little knowledge or opinions on foreign affairs and even less (if any) experience. But what she does believe in should scare you; I will let this video speak for itself.

This, combined with McCain indicating that he would pursue a hyperaggressive, confrontational foreign policy along with the possibility that neoconservative “Democrat” Joe Lieberman may fly up to Alaska to ‘tutor’ Palin on such matters is truly terrifying. In short, I cannot trust either McCain or Palin with the world’s most powerful conventional military and its second largest nuclear arsenal.

But behind every far-right fundamentalist is a far-right fundamentalist church. Meet the Wasilla Bible Church.

From it’s gay-to-straight conversion camps to its pastor invoking the typical “America is a sinful nation, Doomsday be upon you!” screed, it certainly does not look encouraging to secularists or even the majority of Christians.

Some may be wondering why I won’t bring up Barack Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright to be ‘fair’. This is because Rev. Wright’s political views are just that – political; although I don’t agree with much (if anything) that he said, after hearing his sermons it is clear that Rev. Wright justifies his views from his personal experiences and political leanings and NOT the Bible; it is very conceivable that if Rev. Wright were an atheist, Buddhist, or any other religion, he would still hold the same political views.