Post this as a post unto itself.

Don’t let your frustration color all your perception. This whole thing is not a conflict between stupid people and smart people. It’s not even a conflict between believing in gods or not believing in gods. It’s a conflict between philosophies. It’s two camps arguing over what is knowledge, what is reality, what is truth. One side says knowledge comes from authority, from people in power augmenting their authority with claims of divine authority. The other side says knowledge comes from investigation using the five senses and if what is observed contradicts authority, then so be it. The conflict has been going on for thousands of years, and for most of that time the authoritarians held sway. However for the last 394 years or so, “our side” has been steadily gaining ground. When Galileo dropped two stones of different weight at the same time from a great height and they hit the ground at the same time, he proved that Aristotle, the favorite authority of the time was wrong and the idea that knowledge/truth/reality comes from authority began to lose strength. The single crack of those stones hitting the ground was our shot heard ’round the world. Because of that our lives have steadily become longer, richer, with less disease and pain, more satisfying and more interesting. The gifts of science and rationalism are very convincing incentives to keep going in this direction.

There are always setbacks in any epic struggle, and we have had many. If you look too closely all you will see are the setbacks and you’ll miss the overall trend toward rationalism. Galileo’s dying under house arrest was a temporary setback. The recent inroads of fundamentalists into American government is a temporary setback. Over the past 8 years they’ve repeatedly embarrassed themselves by bumping into physical, actual reality that doesn’t match their authority-based model of reality and their power grab is faltering. The fact that the universe doesn’t give a damn about their silly little model will always be their Achilles’ heel.

Keep in mind that the U.S. is only one country. Even if it does slip into it’s own dark age, the rest of the world is not going to be willing to follow suit. Rationalism will continue to grow elsewhere because the benefits are so compelling.

Will the authoritarians go away? No. Is there serious danger? Yes. The worst danger is for rationalists to look too closely at the depressing short term setbacks and get discouraged. That drains our energy. Step back and look at the wider picture, the longer term trends. Even if you don’t become a cockeyed optimist like me, maybe you’ll be a little more able and willing to add to our efforts rather than sit and pout and lose by default. Life is short. Spend it fighting the good fight.

Those kids, taught to believe what they are told rather than to investigate the world with their five senses are not well adapted to thrive in an environment that favors people who can think for themselves.

Au contraire! My experience tells me that mindlessly subscribing to the in-power paradigm is exactly what’s needed to advance in society. They will do well in conservative circles. And the liberals…well, they try to get along with everyone, anyway.

As Kurt Vonnegut pointed out, ideas are used as badges to identify who’s in and who’s out, and not because of the content of those ideas.

Looks like some spambots have wormed their way in.

Damn! For a second there I thought the hottness level on FA was finally spiking.

they will find little niches to fill where rational thought and supportive facts are not needed, like government.

Yes, like the graduates of Pat Robertson’s law school. What does it say about us that the former A.G. teaches there?

Let us not forget that the few fundamentalist law schools have been turning out activist lawyers for some years now. Much of the time, when one hears of a court case in which a group of fundies is suing to impose its distorted view, the lawyer for its side is a graduate of one of these institutions.

I am not at all hopeful that Christian fundies will be relegated to isolated niches; rather, they will continue to create a parallel reality, and to attempt to have that reality engulf our own. They’ve already made significant headway, and they won’t stop until all of American society (and, beyond that, the entire global civilization) is remade in their image. They are a relentless juggernaut of stupid.

And I note that the English class described in the suit fails UC’s standards on a non-religious issue – it’s not anti-evidence for religious purposes, it’s just a lousy English course. It seems that that reinforces the UC message: Christianity is fine, but do your homework. (Would that the lawyers for the Christian schools had done some homework!)

But i swear to god, these people who grasp and claw for ignorance just baffle me. Makes absolutely no sense. I would (and this is a famous quote, by someone, maybe Mark Twain but i think it was someone else who’s name escapes me right now) ‘I would rather live in a harsh reality than a fanciful illusion’ or something like that but better stated.

The people with the least ability to engage in independent thought seem to be the ones who are breeding (or have bred) at the highest rate.

Where I live those who are “breeding at the highest rate” are by and large Catholic. It remains to be seen what this means for the U.S. Our Catholics have been hard to control–we’ll see.