re: #238 Old Liberal

We were once a nation which admired science, supported science and believed in the scientific method. Mainstream religion was dedicated to finding ways to fit science into religious belief. Until the fundamentalist groups hooked enough people. I know there are loons on the left but they aren’t fighting to keep that Old Testament religion. Science is the enemy of most religion because you can’t have authoritarianism without authority.

It’s closer to the truth to say we were a nation of cranks and loonies who couldn’t get along with our fellow (mostly rational) European neighbors and came here to pursue our various pathologies in peace — until a huge lump of European intellectuals fleeing Nazis arrived and cleaned up our intellectual and educational act (with the help of our own need to outscience the nazis, and later, the soviets). Now our enemies are gone, that generation has died, and we’re trying to revert to type. It remains to be seen whether the nerds will win out over the yahoos.