I’ve often wondered what would happen if the fundies won and taught their view of the world. How catastrophic would it be? I’ve met brilliant “young earth” fundamentalists who have done things like plot ICBM courses for a living and others who could write FFT code off the top of their heads. They made it through life and acquired useful learning. Their religion didn’t reduce their capacity to learn hard stuff. Maybe we’d be ok as a society if people like them set all the rules.

Let’s imagine a world where schools everywhere are run by people like the idiot in my home state, Texas, that fired a science curriculum director for mentioning evolution.

My best guess is that engineering and experimental sciences would survive, math would flourish, the liberal arts would be bombed back to the middle ages and genetic research would die. Things like comparative genetics would be right out (imagine their reaction to cool stuff like this, or this), geology would look more like the 16th century, and biology would be reduced to debating how many “kinds” of animals the Ark carried.

Could the world really keep working? Imagine thinking like a physicist who believes rainbows literally first started happening after Noah got off the Ark. Surely that would blind you to something important.

I’ve seen it. I’ve talked with them and I know they sincerely believe what they believe and adamantly refuse to consider contradiction as anything more than a mystery of the one true God. Seeing smart people fall for this self inflicted form of lunacy is the most amazing religious phenomena I know. And it’s not just Christians. You can’t make it through engineering school without encountering dozens and dozens of intense followers of Islam, some with even scarier ideas. I think the math attracts them.

I’d be interested in other’s thoughts on this subject. What would happen to medicine? Psychology? History? Political Science? Economics?

Maybe there should be an atheist response to “Left Behind” ( I reluctantly admit reading 3 or 4 of those books in a masochistic attempt to better understand my co-workers). Working title: “Taken Over: A Novel of Earth’s last days of progress and reason”

To help decide, I focus on the role of the pastor. Are they calming the flock and making them into better people, or whipping them into a hateful frenzy? Most public statements I hear from the clergy are divisive and negative. Hypocritical “be like Jesus” claptrap is sandwiched between support for evil acts like tormenting pregnant school girls and gays or supporting a government that favors torture. So overall I doubt the second premise. (Ever noticed how little “turn the other cheek” you hear from fundamentalists compared to old testament terror mongering or militant support for actions they would view as evil if perpetrated against them? If Christian fundamentalists believed in Christ I’d have a lot less trouble listening to them.)

Recently, however, I saw one of the first generally positive acts ever from the clergy (I’m excluding the in-group acts of support such as visiting sick church members, and the work of proselytizing missionaries) and it impressed me a great deal. Way to go Rev. Troy!

From now on I’ll have a example of something good happening because people went to church and were willing to listen to you.

Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view. The justification is always that someone, somewhere, might possibly be offended or feel uncomfortable living in the midst of a largely Christian society, so all must yield to the fragile sensibilities of the few. The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.

[…]

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

Or this,

In case after case, the Supreme Court has used the infamous “separation of church and state” metaphor to uphold court decisions that allow the federal government to intrude upon and deprive citizens of their religious liberty. This “separation” doctrine is based upon a phrase taken out of context from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802. In the letter, Jefferson simply reassures the Baptists that the First amendment would preclude an intrusion by the federal government into religious matters between denominations. It is ironic and sad that a letter defending the principle that the federal government must stay out of religious affairs. Should be used two hundred years later to justify the Supreme Court telling a child that he cannot pray in school!

Or this:

Moreover, there is ample evidence that most of our Founders were deeply religious men who never imagined a rigid separation between religious beliefs and governance. Indeed, our national documents, symbols, currency, and buildings are replete with religious symbolism. Our national motto, “In God We Trust,” is an obvious example. These symbols are entirely inconsistent with the religion-free government supposedly mandated by the First amendment.

Perhaps someone should tell him that “In God We Trust” was declared our national motto in 1956. Maybe they should read him quotes from the founding fathers that he disagrees with.

I’d start with President Thomas Jefferson

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites –Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.

Nahh. That would have to wait behind telling him there is no plot to merge the US, Canada, and Mexico (from his web site) :

NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.

And a free America, with limited, constitutional government, would be gone forever.

He’s said these sort of looney things over and over

Our American way of life is under attack. And it is up to us to save it.

The world’s elites are busy forming a North American Union. If they succeed, as they did in forming the European Union, the good ol’ USA will only be a memory. We cannot let that happen.

The UN wants to confiscate our firearms and impose a global tax. The UN elites want to control the oceans with the Law of the Sea Treaty.

and

“The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.

Then we see that according to Paul’s belief fundamentalist religion has little role in Islamic terrorism.

Religious beliefs are less important than supposed. For instance, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist secular group, are the world’s leader in suicide terrorism . The largest Islamic fundamentalist countries have not been responsible for any suicide terrorist attack. None have come from Iran or the Sudan. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraq never had a suicide terrorist attack in all of its history. Between 1995 and 2004, the al Qaeda years, two-thirds of all attacks came from countries where the U.S. had troops stationed. Iraq’s suicide missions today are carried out by Iraqi Sunnis and Saudis. Recall, 15 of the 19 participants in the 9/11 attacks were Saudis.

I’d rather have Jerry Falwell’s zombie in charge than have this lunatic running things. Internment camps for non-believers seem a real possibility under the Paul administration. As long as they are funded by state governments rather than the federal government.

I thought I would spend a few minutes reviewing the Huckabee Campaign web site and it’s stated positions on religion.

Interestingly the web site doesn’t talk about Huckabee’s “balanced” views on schools and evolution, “I wouldn’t want them teaching creationism as if it’s the only thing that they should teach.” or his view on the age of the earth. Further there’s no mention of his proposal quarantining those with HIV, or his statements that homosexuals represent “an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” whose civil rights should not be respected.

• The First Amendment requires that expressions of faith be neither prohibited nor preferred.

This is the position that Fundamentalists wish the Supreme Court has taken. They believe that the religious majority (but really only if that majority is Christian) should be able to plaster their beliefs over public property and public policy. They interpret the Establishment Clause to mean the majority should be able to do as they please with public support of religion. If this position prevails Separation of Church and State will return to the pre-industrial point of view.  From Hucabee’s supporters point of view, that’s the goal.

• My faith is my life - it defines me. I don’t separate my faith from my personal and professional lives.

Contrast this to Kennedy’s “I am not the Catholic candidate” speech

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been — and may someday be again — a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist.[ Ed. note wasn’t safe then or now to add “or an atheist”] It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equals, where every man has the same right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice, where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind, and where Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, at both the lay and the pastoral levels, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

Kennedy was foresighted, and Huckabee and his supporters are pushing as hard as they can for the divisive future Kennedy saw. I believe we’ve reached the time where ministers do tell their congregations how to vote and the overreaching pandering hypocrisy of the Bush administration has elevated “disdain and division” until the fabric of society has been “ripped apart at a time of great national peril.”

• Real faith makes us more humble and mindful, not of the faults of others, but of our own. It makes us less judgmental, as we see others with the same frailties we have.

This is such an enormous crock. RealFaith(tm) often turns otherwise decent people against any perceived outsider. It reduces those who disagree to non-humans. It promotes superstitious hatred to an art form against both real differences and arcane nonsense. Join Huckabee’s church and disagree with baptism by total immersion and you’ll see. Frailty is accepted by fundamentalists only if accompanied by abject subservience and surrender to religious solution.

• Faith gives us strength in the face of injustice and motivates us to do our best for “the least of us.”

RealFaith facilitates thinking of those who disagree or have weakness as less than human, and thinking of a 70-100 cell blastocysts (see namelessheathen on the topic ) as more valuable than a dying person. It supports American living without health care because God wants you to be Rich and implying that if you were more Christian you wouldn’t have this problem. It promotes building more prisons to house marijuana users and allowing savage prisoners to rape the weak.

• Our nation was birthed in a spirit of faith - not a prescriptive faith telling us how or whether to believe, but acknowledging a providence that pervades our world.

This is more cover for tearing down the wall separating Church and State. Fundamentalists want to believe that this is entirely a Christian nation, founded by Christians (presumably for Christians). Check out some great founding father quotes about how they really felt about religion.

Elsewhere the site discusses other views popular with fundamentalists.

• While he doesn’t cast it in religious term he provides sufficient pro-Israel language “I will always ensure that Israel has access to the state-of-the-art weapons and technology she needs ” to keep the end-time Christian Zionist nuts happy.
• he says there should be a Constitutional amendment against same sex marriage and opposes “marriage like” (presumably civil union) status for gay or straights. (Nice little touch of pseudo-fairness there, opposing what straights don’t need)
• He voices support for “covenant marriage” and renews his vows under the covenant marriage law he got passed.
• He voices complete support for overturning Roe V Wade and outlawing abortion.
• He goes even further than Bush and says “I am opposed to research on embryonic stem cells”
• He opposes any form of gun control, even the Brady Bill (Lord knows you’ll need your assault weapons in the end times)
• He beats up teacher unions, a common target of Fundamentalists opposing rational thought in the classroom.

I see only a few gaps with the Fundamentalist agenda. Huckabee doesn’t support school vouchers, though he does support tax credits for religious schools. Oddly, he doesn’t advocate school prayer, and while he says he supports home schooling, he seems to have irritated home schoolers in Arkansas by adding regulations and pushing for standards. I suspect though he’ll have to beef up the gay bashing, “young earth” creationism and end times rhetoric to continue being taken serious with “main stream” fundamentalists.

I think I have it. Blackwater Christians.

The 2007 Blackwater Christmas card:

Front picture, Christmas Ornament hanging from a bough, with a map background in the ornament and the three wise men superimposed on that background.

Inside:

A Christmas wish that Christ’s great love,
His grace and goodness, too
May fill your heart and bless you now
and all the whole year through

May the Lord Jesus truly bless you during this wonderful season
as you rejoice with family and friends


Blackwater Worldwide

What better way is there to shield murder, greed, theft, incompetence, lies and abuse of innocents than wrapping yourself in some good old fashioned self righteous Jesus love? Here is the epitome of evil and hypocrisy, and it’s typical of the thinking of many fundamentalists. When you hear “God will sort them out” or “God is on our side” you’re talking to one of these theocratic monsters, or worse, one of the scum pandering to them. Currently our government and our military are riddled with these dangerous lunatics bent on control. Check out the group founded by an Air Force chaplain forced out by wacko Evangelicals (Turn down your sound first. The site has annoying sounds)

The only religious freedom Blackwater Christians want is the freedom to kill to heathens and shove their religion into your life. We can’t get these people out of charge quickly enough.

“Currently, however, just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a “good impression” of Christianity.

One of the groups hit hardest by the criticism is evangelicals. Such believers have always been viewed with skepticism in the broader culture. However, those negative views are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians. The new study shows that only 3% of 16 - to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals.

While Christianity has typically generated an uneven reputation, the research shows that many of the most common critiques are becoming more concentrated. The study explored twenty specific images related to Christianity, including ten favorable and ten unfavorable perceptions. Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) - representing large proportions of young outsiders who attach these negative labels to Christians.”

Of course the evangelicals, who’ve built their empire on hate, intolerance and fear mongering use non-Christian’s natural reaction to feed their paranoia, not to learn the value of humility, kindness and love.

91% of the nation’s evangelicals believe that “Americans are becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.” Among senior pastors, half contend that “ministry is more difficult than ever before because people are increasingly hostile and negative toward Christianity.”

Even in crisis, there’s no room for introspection or self doubt, except, thankfully, among the young.

Among young Christians, many of the negative images generated significant traction. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

Interestingly, the study discovered a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is “anti-homosexual.” Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a “bigger sin” than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians

My experience has been that there are two types of Christians. The militant, ruthless, in your face sort who hate anything not in their mold, and the kind loving kind who’s lives and morals are examples that you want to emulate. Pat Robertson threatening the citizens of Dover, PA versus Jimmy Carter building houses, helping the poor and teaching Sunday school. The militant sort despise the loving sort as much as they despise atheists and other infidels. Militants snap to decide right and wrong and view the world in black and white with no shades of gray. They are willing to tolerate any injustice from those they view as right, and commit any injustice against those they view as wrong. The personal attacks, and malignant accusations protesting Jimmy Carter’s book on Palestinian treatment are a typical example, as are the public comments of any web site attracting their attention. The militant sort want to be in charge and to force others to accept their morality, and they have had disproportionate power for far too long. This public perception is the natural result. Expect them to launch a massive marketing campaign rather than change as a reaction to this study.

In it, Thomas Martin wrote, with apparent dismay, of his well prepared, intellectually capable students:

A noticeable portion of those students also believe in the literal truth of certain ancient accounts of earth’s history that, to put it bluntly, directly contradict mountains of well-established data from geology, climatology, and biology.

I share his dismay.

Whenever I encounter a brilliant person who functions in a scientific/engineering world, yet believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, I am startled. How can someone believe in numbers, yet say something like “oil comes from Noah’s flood” or (without proof) “carbon isotope ratios haven’t always been the same” or “God changed the laws of physics when he put the rainbow in the sky for Noah.” Ask such a believer to explain how all the worlds animals fit on Noah’s ark, and they will postulate incredibly rapid differentiation from “kinds” of animals, and at the same time deny speciation through mutation. (By the way, this is a wonderful discussion of fundamentalists and Noah’s Ark). Fundamentalism is a stupefying display of will power over contradiction and curiosity. How can they not think through the implications of “changing the laws of physics” yet be able to function in the world of engineering?

What’s even more stupefying is that science continues to work despite people with such ideas being in power. Is it possible to look at the Bush administration’s scientific gerrymandering and not wonder how US science can continue to function? Look at the religious currents of our history and then consider all the other versions of prejudice, pettiness and ignorance that also struggle to deny truth and maintain some status quo. How on earth did we make progress?

Dr. Martin argues that progress comes through publicly pitting egos and intellects against one another. That within the world of science we demand evidence, and we encourage the destruction of hypothesis after hypothesis. Survival of the fittest ideas builds a self correcting system functioning despite the foibles of its followers.

Somehow I find that encouraging. There is hope, regardless of who is in charge. And I still believe it’s difficult to argue with the facts of the physical world.

What a hilarious site! I’ve never seen such an industrious parody. Check out this line of  cafepress items

“Culture of Life” Mission Accomplished Maternity T-Shirt

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! No condom murdered this unconceived human… but will the next one be so fortunate?

Remember: A condom stops an undulating flagellum.

After reading the cartoon, I found myself wondering about the stereotype. What’s the incidence of depression among believers and non-believer’s? I was delighted to find some non-judgmental information at about.com ( Atheism, Depression, & Meaning: Do Atheists Lead Meaningless Lives?
and “Atheism Myths and Misconceptions”).

Are Atheists More Depressed than Religious People? was also informative.

Bottom line? We’re ok.