re: #89 Gus

My view is that the hindrance to greater advancement with our civilization is more than mere biblical literalism. It includes the saturation of fiction as reality in the popular media including movies; Ghost Hunters; Alien-Hitler shows; etc. The saturation level is enormous and begins almost as soon as the child is brought home from the hospital maternity ward and placed nearby the television. Add in the popularity of the paranormal and it’s respective “alternative medicine” quackery. So I believe that it’s not just the biblical literalism and includes a possibly larger dose of hokum from secular norms.

I agree with that 100%. I think, though, that we should also appreciate that we are in our infancy, history-wise, in our exercise of rational thought as a governing paradigm. Civilization is 20,000 years old (give or take), humanity is much older than that - the Enlightenment occurred within the last mere 300 years. To put it crassly, the birth of the beautiful baby of logic hasn’t even yet been followed by its afterbirth.