Too Funny For HuffPo!

Below are two reader's comments to Philip Goldberg's less-than-sane article on Huffington Post, Making Space For Sane Spirituality. The first comment, beginning "I don't know if," made it past the moderation. It's an answer to a comment from another reader, responding to another comment of mine in which I asserted that pro-religion and anti-atheism prejudice is everywhere, all around us.

The second comment begins with "It's like the old joke," and the moderation seems to have deemed it unfit to appear on Huffington Post's website. Although, as always, nothing with the HP moderation is certain: the old joke could appear at some later time, and the paragraph beginning "I don't know" could well vanish. Inconsistent? Unpredictable? A bit wacky? Why yes, the moderators of the readers' comment at Huffington Post are all of those things. And more.

[Comment1] I don't know if I have anything original or brilliant to say on the subject. It's all around us, it's plain to see: US Presidents being expected to end every speech with "God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America." "In God We Trust" on all of our money. The uncomfortable silence which is the usual response to any lunacy which is laced with Bible verses, as opposed to the minute scrutiny and nitpicking criticism which is the usual response to any irreligious utterance, no matter how reasonable. It's everywhere: here on HP, in mainstream media in general, in legislatures, school boards, sitcoms, billboards, everywhere. It's plain to see, but because it happens all the time, it usually doesn't seem remarkable, We're as used to it as we are to the sun rising every morning and setting every evening, and we tend to comment on it as little as we comment on anything else which happens all the time, because we're thoroughly used to it.

[Comment 2] It's like the old joke: a man goes to a doctor for a physical, the doctor asks him to describe his morning routine, he says, "I wake up, I urinate, I move my bowels, I vomit, I wash my face, I shower, I shave, I --" "Hold on a minute," says the doctor. "What was that part between moving your bowels and washing your face?" "Uh, let's see -- I vomit." "You vomit every morning? "Well sure I do, Doc. Doesn't everybody?"

If something happens every day, no matter what it is, people will start to think of as normal. If it happens every day for two thousand years --