Atheism does not necessarily mean the “voice of scientific reason” prevails, either. (Whatever that is)

From a comment on city-data.com

I was trying to find out what city in the U.S. has the highest population of atheists/agnostics/&c. per capita and I stumbled upon this comment. I’m noticing more and more lately that the religious view the sciences in the same way that the “unchurched” view religious beliefs: that they don’t actually prove anything conclusively.

It is frightening for me to think that we’ve arrived at the absurd end-of-the-line with regards to politicization. People are effectively politicizing reality. Empirical scrutiny and accepted fact apparently mean nothing anymore.

If you need any more convincing of this, or if you simply want to make yourself upset, go read for example arguments of global warming deniers, Holocaust deniers, and those of “fiscal conservatives” who still believe that Reaganomics and the free market works and will make us all wealthier.

It’s hard not to feel defeated and resign oneself to the idea that we are doomed. So maybe it doesn’t matter what you believe in, religion or science. In the end, neither one is going to save us.

Maybe—in a very overtly extreme statement, I know—that is simply the Republican agenda: to hurt people. On a related note, this is worth every single second of your time it takes you to read:

The economic right may believe religiously in their moral view of wealth, but we do not have to respect it as we might respect religious faith. For it does not transcend—perhaps no religion should transcend—empirical scrutiny. On the contrary, this conservative view, the Randian inversion of the Marxist worldview, rests upon a series of propositions that can be falsified by data.

And, frankly, look—I mean—these people are a little bit cowardly. If they like guns so much, if they like killing so much, I’d be happy to set them up with a one-way ticket to Iraq or Afghanistan where society still decides key decisions based upon the barrel of a gun. And if that’s the way they want to live, go there. In America, we decide things on the basis of ideas. We debate those ideas, we don’t threaten people with firearms.

Evan Kohlmann

Dan Savage is kind of an alarmist, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a good point.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally refreshing. It’s just a brand new feeling in my adult life.