Religious subversives

There is an article today on Truthdig called "Evangelicals Make War on Evolution." This includes a brief video of what it is some of these Evangelicals are teaching our children. I find this frightening beyond belief. Also, I also saw somewhere today that there are 54 million people over the age of 18 that do not believe in evolution. That is even more frightening (I'm not entirely sure I believe this - I certainly don't want to believe it). Watching this video I find it virtually unbelievable what these guys are telling our children. I find it impossible to believe that they can believe what they are peddling. Dinosaurs existing contemporaneously with humans, for example. Basically it boils down to their motto: "The Bible Says It, I Believe it, and that's it," or something to that effect. They believe the Bible is infallible and that what it says is the literal truth. The earth is only a few thousand years old, Noah built an ark, someone was swallowed by a whale, someone else parted the waters, everything was created in six days, and on and on. Utter nonsense, of course. But that is what they are teaching many of our children.

I have a real problem with this. I believe in free speech. I also believe in religious freedom, but now, I think, I may believe it only up to a point. I think what these Evangelical types are doing is in fact subversive and clearly not in the best interest of our country. If a huge number of our citizens believe in what are little more than fairy tales how are we going to continue to compete in the global scene? That is, the reality based world we have to live in? It seems to be clear that we are already falling behind every year with respect to science and math and computers and all of those innovations that are so rapidly changing our world. Teaching our children to not believe in evolution is like teaching them not to believe in gravity, or physics, or chemistry, or biology, and etc. I believe this is criminal. It certainly is not in the best interest of our country. It is subversive. It is the equivalent of falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, except that rather than being over with quickly it insidiously infects the crowd for a much longer time and with far worse consequences. I guess people ought to be able to believe in any kind of nonsense they want, but when they start to insist on making their bizarre beliefs public policy we have to just say NO. Unhappily these kinds of beliefs under the present administration have been insidiously undermining science to the point where we are going to have to insist that they cease and desist. Similarly, when Exxon or other corporations offer thousands of dollars to scientists or others to deliberately challenge the scientific evidence for global warming they should be considered criminals. That we should have a "War Between Science and Theology in Christendom" in the 21st century is simply absurd. We simply cannot afford religious fanatics trying to take over our lives.

A few days ago there was a marvelous article that I believe everyone should have to read. I ran off a copy and gave it to friends but, alas, at the moment I can't remember who wrote it or where it was. But I can tell you what it said: Bush/Cheney and the neocons have committed the crime of the century, but the Democrats and Republicans alike are only concerned that they haven't succeeded. Thus, instead of concentrating on the crime, we are only concerned with their failure to succeed at it. Think about it.