For some time now I’ve been becoming increasingly worried about religious fundamentalism, and its effect on our way of life.
Most people (especially those in the UK who read the Dailies Mail or Torygraph) will immediately think of bearded, wild-eyed, be-turbanned muslims (preferably clutching AK47s for added dramatic effect) when fundamentalism is mentioned. But it is not this particular flavour of religious nutter that leaves me quaking in my boots at the moment.
It’s the christians….
Even prior to Duncan posting the intriguing/amusing/worrying (delete as appropriate) video of the three young victims of experimental lobotomy, I’ve been actually upset (now there’s an old fashioned word) by the sheer intolerance of the well-indoctrinated youth of more extreme christian right, to anything that doesn’t appear in their interpretation of an ancient religious book of prose.
Add to this, the fact that the Intelligent Design bunch are now regarded as middle of the road liberals by the more extreme Creationist nutters that claim valuable airtime, and I reckon that we’re in trouble.
Of course, the mainstream churches of the world don’t condone such extremist lunacy, do they?
I mean, that nice German bloke who is god’s representative on earth will surely talk sense, won’t he?
He wouldn’t be so crass as to ignore the huge weight of medical opinion surrounding the preventative value of condoms in the fight against AIDS, just to peddle some outdated religious doctrine, and try to get bums on pews, would he?
I mean, he wouldn’t want to align himself with the sort of nutters who shun all science as satanic mumbo jumbo.
Surely not! Or maybe he wishes to cherry pick the particular bits of mumbo-jumbo science that suit him.
There are however, plenty of folk around who will question the role of those seeking to undermine science. Luckily, this being a free country, they have a solid platform from which to keep their exposes of religious and other anti-science nonsense in the public eye.
