quote:
You have chosen to embrace the prejudice mythologies of the dark ages and have come here for reasons that I haven't yet even been able to guess at.
I can stab at the motivations of Faith and people like her...fear and laziness. The fear component is that fundamentalists see how fast science has progressed and to some extent they embrace the products of science (popping pills using computers) even while hating the scientific process. They fear that there will be fewer people they can hold in thrall to their religion should people begin to appreciate and understand the scientific method. Hence, the constant assaults on the education system for example..ignorant people are easy to control.(Actually wonder why they don't embrace the Amish and abandon technology).
That leads to the second motivation (or lack thereof) laziness. The leaders of these groups want power. The followers want to feel superior to everyone else without putting much effort into it. Thus, you have fundamentalist criticisms of evolution, cosmology etc. coming from individuals who have clearly NEVER put one iota of effort into actually learning about those fields and what they actually say. That is why for example you see the same stupid statements from AIG and other creationist websites cut and paste over and over again in these and other forums. It is certainly and easier proposition than actually learning any science.
It is also easier for people like Faith to demonize her opponents as jackals or in another thread, comparing them to "Hitler" . Another aspect of wishing to feel superior to her opponents. A typical feature of fundamentalists.
It actually makes me appreciate people like jar, Phat, and Percy all the more. They are believers but are not in thrall to such a narrow, hate inspired, vitriolic dogma yet they have faith. Scientific discovery seems to enhance rather than challenge their beliefs. It seems that perhaps the faith of the fundamentalists is especially weak so they compensate by being extra dogmatically rigid and aggressive...ultimately my take on comparative dilusions.