re: #31 Walter L. Newton

It’s almost ironically humous watching the delicate waltz between the “barbaric” religions and the “enlightened” religions. The fundamentalist among Islam are the “dark agers” while the god believing evolutionist are the stable and sane among modern society.

So, the jostle and maneuver goes on between competing believers, while in the meantime, the really big picture, the gorilla in the room, is ignored.

“Who is this God guy, anyway.”

People will accept the irrational mystical thinking that is the foundation of religion as long as the outcome comports with their personal limitations. “I believe in god, but none of that beheading stuff for my religion, those other people are barbaric” while all the time it’s just a formula of the same faulty thinking, only at various degrees of acceptability.

Rational and cultured religionist all boil down and shake out with the rest of the chaff. It’s amazing what one can be convinced of without any scientific proof, while all the time claiming to be rational scientific creatures.

You can’t lipstick this pig into equivalence. It’s been a long time since Christians used accusations of witchcraft to kill young widows who stood to inherit. And Salem was ashamed of it once the excitement died down.

By contrast, the use of accusations of blasphemy as a way to settle scores is an entrenched feature of Pakistani law, and is vehemently supported by a large fraction of the populace.