In article <47E### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> What is at stake here is nothing less than the survival of the US 
> itself. On one side the group of people that noticed that moral 
> behaviour is dropping while (or because) religion is losing ground with
 
> respect to when they were young.

Umm. Which country are you talking about here? Seriously. In the last 10 
years we have gone from the European view of religion, where its all 
sort of there, but no one worries to much about it, to one where you 
have to prove which one of you kisses God's ass better to be recommended 
for election, never mind winning it. What we, on the inside, see is a 
small group of nuts, similar to the same kinds than led to the Jim Jones 
cult, Heaven's Gate, and Wacko, but with *huge* followings of people 
that think religion has lost ground, not because it has, and those of us 
among the secular have lost many battles, but because we finally 
realized we can't afford to lose any more, and have tried to fight back.

In the same period, we have seen religion produce pedophiles, radical 
Islam, people willing to blame every natural disaster on God's 
punishment of what ever group they hate this week, faith based 
everything, leading to millions of people not receiving medical 
treatment in places like Africa, proper sex ed in the US, and an 
increasingly more and more rabid attempt to push prayers into schools, 
government facilities, etc. We have seen museums built to idiocy, 
politicians basing policies on who they hate, while often being the ones 
"commiting" what they hate, etc. They all blame this on "secular" 
society, and in a country where the leaders of the left are the 
religious and ideological equivalent to the right wingers in Europe, the 
right wing here is convinced the whole country is going to hell, not 
because **they** can't keep their pants on, stay away from other 
people's kids, or act morally, but because those of us that don't think 
religion *must* be the core of every waking moment **caused** them to 
act this way.

Sorry, but, from my perspective, religion has gotten "more powerful" in 
the US in my life time, and with that power has come a need by its 
proponents to rewrite history and distort facts to cement that power, 
and a paranoia about vast conspiracies to unseat them.

Your view of the situation from our side is, somewhat accurate, but 
incomplete. Its not about economics, or super powers, or even science. 
Its about what has happened in **every** single case where those with an 
ideological goal, and no real morals, values, self limitations of their 
behavior, or recognition of their own mistakes, tries to force a country 
in the direction of becoming more obsessive about that ideology, while 
those who could have done something about it sink into apathy.

The irony here is that "both" sides think the problem in moral 
bankruptcy and lack of ethics. I would argue that history tends to 
strongly suggest that obsession with ideology is *always* the problem.

As for science being the main issue of the other side... Its only *one* 
issue. Yes, we certainly consider it one of the big ones, but its only 
the target being most hammered by the other side right now. They have 
certain basic themes, depending on what they are griping about at the 
moment, "family", "sex", "life styles", and, "the bankruptcy of 
science". It goes in cycles, and some times overlaps. Last time they 
harped, and harped about gays, life style choices, and the definition of 
family, a trifecta of concepts they want to own. When that failed, they 
decided that the only way to get anyone to listen was to corrupt 
education, thus the wedge document, which declared evolution as the 
crack into which they could "wedge" religion, so as to spread religious 
teaching through ***all*** branches of the school system. Mind you, the 
only reason they thought it would make a good wedge was do to there 
ignorance and complete failure to understand the science, but that is 
beside the point.

Yes, it will damage the US future economy, etc. But, I am far more 
concerned about the fact that they are already trying to rewrite early 
US history to back their attacks on science, as well as making other 
attempts to feed their religion into other classes. If you are willing 
to lie, cheat, and steal your way to power, the biggest concern is not 
if the US suffers some minor hiccup in its science, but the moral 
bankruptcy, the distortion of reality, and the collapse of civil ideals 
into some new inquisition that worry me and others. Science is just the 
first casualty in this, and precisely because they actually think its 
both a) possible to convince gullible people the see it as evil, and in 
need of being chained (unfortunately accurate), and b) the weak point in 
the defenses of secularism (which they equate with atheism).

-- 
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    call functional_code();
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