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I know I should just stay safely on the sidelines (I chose the name "lurkette" for a reason, but don't seem to have been able to live up to it) but I can't resist, there's just so much bullshit flying around.
Whether Hitler was supported by the Catholic church, or whether Russia was godless, etc etc etc, are largely irrelevant.
The basic question here (and a valid if originally poorly phrased one) seems to be why liberals tend to bristle at religion.
Mojo, some of your assumptions in your original post are a bit off-base, as a lot of people have already pointed out but that I'll reiterate here.
You say: "why do you harbor so much animosity towards the judeo-christian beliefs."
Well, it depends on WHICH Judeo-Christian beliefs you're talking about. If you're talking about love thy neighbor as thyself, turn the other cheek, walk a mile in his shoes, give him the cloak off your back, then I think a lot of liberals espouse some very Christian beliefs. As has been pointed out, a lot of liberals are themselves Christian. What we object to is the brand of Christianity that pulls out certain beliefs and scriptures and interprets them in a very particular way, and then claims to have The Literal Truth about what God wants us all to do. The problem most liberals have with Christianity, is, as people have said, when these particular (and, usually, particularly narrow) interpretations start to be shoved down our throats through attempted legislation of behavior.
And your assumptions about where this country will go without a particular conservative interpretation of God at the helm are just a bit far-fetched. There's a whole field of study called "ethics" that has nothing to do with religion and that concerns itself with a lot of the issues you bring up - abortion, eugenics, genocide, etc.
And the passage you quote about "when they came for me there was no-one left to speak up" has a lot less to do with religion than it does with championing those who are different from you against the forces of hatred, about not standing back and letting others be abused and eliminated because it doesn't directly affect you. Not a concept you'll find often in public discourse of conservative Christians in this country.
We might turn the question back around and ask "why are conservative/fundamentalist Christians afraid of secular humanism"? If you can come up with reasoned, educated and supportable answers I'd love to discuss it.
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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Anatole France
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