Well, that's true, but one must admit that its flatlining during the Dark Ages is pretty accurate as far as the western countries went. I believe torturing people and hanging/burning witches was more the approach at that point.
Pascal's Wager would be solid were it not for the fact that you wouldn't actually believe. Then there's the fact that fundamentalists are completely opposed to scientific progress, and will talk endlessly about God healing their flu symptoms while sinners are given cancer. I shit you not, check out the FSTDT link. To believe as they do, using the wonders of doublethink, is to be willfully ignorant. Fundies have regular book burnings. Harry Potter, LotR, Origin of the Species, Pokémon cards (which are of the devil) and even C.S. Lewis (I shit you not) get regularly flambéd.
The Museum naturally went ahead with the Darwin exhibit. However, it went completely unremarked in the press, on the museum map, and just about everywhere else imaginable. Me, my dad and my sister's boyfriend - uh, she works there now -
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I love that it was a Western idea to ban religion because it served as nothing but an opiate of the masses, but the only country to successfully ban religion for a long time is China. The USSR didn't keep it up, though now no one respectable talks about their faith like it is an important thing to have. And yet they still believe in the Yevraisky Conspiratsy. I always try to imagine the burning of witches was more Agnes Nutter in Good Omens and less the reality of Jean d'Arc. And the worst part of Pascal's wager, is it only works in ritualistic Catholics/Anglicans, where it doesn't matter if you truly believe, as long as you go through the motions. Because every protestant religion is all about accepting Jesus as your saviour completely, and well, Pascal's wager never says you should. I wonder if Pascal shares the 9th Circle of Hell with Judas for hypocrisy and betrayal.
I was reading statistics earlier, and it seems a lot like fundamentalist religion coincides strongly with, you guessed it, extremely weak education.
Clearly something to be remedied.
Though I've never understood how anyone could not believe in evolution, as it's virtually a tautology. It's impossible to imagine a universe where the principle: 'That which in a non-homogenous world survives, will persist and be observed' was not in operation.
It's difficult to remedy that in the US, where fundies either homeschool their kids or send them to special fundie schools. They're taught that evolution is a hypothesis (having no grasp of the massive difference between scientific theories and hypotheses) and, above all else, GODDIDIT. It's like a pocket of cavemen survived to keep throwing spears at the sun because it's cold.
As to how they can disbelieve it, it's not that hard to figure out. Combine indoctrination, lack of critical thinking and of course the doublethink process and voilá. Explain that antibiotics and much of modern medicine is based on microevolution and they'll either deny it forcefully (citing a few crackpot "scientists" like Kent 'I'm a great big fibber in prison for tax evasion' Hovind) or decide that microevolution is fine, but macroevolution doesn't exist at all
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Pascal's Wager would be solid were it not for the fact that you wouldn't actually believe. Then there's the fact that fundamentalists are completely opposed to scientific progress, and will talk endlessly about God healing their flu symptoms while sinners are given cancer. I shit you not, check out the FSTDT link. To believe as they do, using the wonders of doublethink, is to be willfully ignorant. Fundies have regular book burnings. Harry Potter, LotR, Origin of the Species, Pokémon cards (which are of the devil) and even C.S. Lewis (I shit you not) get regularly flambéd.
The Museum naturally went ahead with the Darwin exhibit. However, it went completely unremarked in the press, on the museum map, and just about everywhere else imaginable. Me, my dad and my sister's boyfriend - uh, she works there now - ( ... )
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Clearly something to be remedied.
Though I've never understood how anyone could not believe in evolution, as it's virtually a tautology. It's impossible to imagine a universe where the principle: 'That which in a non-homogenous world survives, will persist and be observed' was not in operation.
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As to how they can disbelieve it, it's not that hard to figure out. Combine indoctrination, lack of critical thinking and of course the doublethink process and voilá. Explain that antibiotics and much of modern medicine is based on microevolution and they'll either deny it forcefully (citing a few crackpot "scientists" like Kent 'I'm a great big fibber in prison for tax evasion' Hovind) or decide that microevolution is fine, but macroevolution doesn't exist at all ( ... )
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