Last week, one of the University’s nomadic evangelicals offered me a green mini-Bible. I was impressed by his generosity, but I wasn’t interested.In a calm, dismissive voice I told him, “There is no God,” and continued on my way to breakfast.After we got out of earshot, the friend I was walking with confessed he “hated those Christians.”At the risk of coming off as a contrarian, I had to disagree with him.Both the screaming and the smiling evangelicals on campus may be wrong about facts, values and policies, but their consistency is respectable.Extremism is not — in itself — a vice. There is nothing wrong with strongly believing two and two make four, that one should stop on red, go on green and speed up on yellow or that Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive. One should strongly believe rape, slavery and the Jonas Brothers are grave moral evils.Being an extremist only means you take your ideas seriously. It’s only wrong if your ideas are wrong.I don’t hate the Consuming Fire Fellowship. I am saddened to see their worldview inflicted on their children, but I am not angered by their presence. They make Free Speech Alley live up to its name.If you actually believed, as Jonathan Edwards put it, “the God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked,” you would have an imperative to save as many people as you could.If a cosmic candyland is awaiting those who spend time in the right buildings, saying the right magic words and eating the right magic crackers, then I should be angered by my Christian friends who do not try to save my soul.Saving others from an eternity of the worst punishment imaginable would be at the top of my to-do list. Because my acquaintances don’t try to convert me, they are either completely indifferent to my suffering or they — at some level — don’t really believe in hell.If anything, the Consuming Fire Fellowship can be criticized for not following the word of their unerring God strongly enough. Deuteronomy 13 tells the faithful how to deal with people from other religions.”Neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare … But thou shalt surely kill him.”As an occasional advocate of atheism, I am thankful they aren’t fully consistent.If an outspoken critic of Wal-Mart constantly predicted the business’ downfall, we would doubt his sincerity or competence after learning he had invested exclusively in the retail giant.Christians who fear death, accumulate wealth and don’t wage holy wars on others of different faiths must not really believe John 11:25-26, Luke 18:24-25 or 2 Chronicles 15:12-13.And they must also turn their nose up at Jesus’ proclamation “until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law.”Some Christians might respond by saying a mature outlook on the Bible appreciates the context in which it was written and rejects some of the more backward moral commandments as a product of a more primitive time.Perhaps, but an even more mature outlook would drop the special pleading. Human sacrifice to atone for another’s sins is a backwards moral ideal. The fear and guilt associated with it are the products of a more primitive time.Those who treat beliefs as a grab bag of comforting thoughts do not take ideas seriously.Daniel Morgan is a 21-year-old economics junior from Baton Rouge.–Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]