Zealots gain the upper hand

The surge of religiosity in the US continues unabated. A survey from NEWSWEEK is the current cause of distress – apparently over 90% of Americans profess to be religious, and almost half reject the findings of science. Alarmingly, 35% of college graduates (the most educated of Americans) accept the bible as fact and believe that mankind sprung mysteriously into existence less than 10,000 years ago.

Less than one in ten Americans was willing to own-up to being an atheist – I suspect that as at other times when religiosity was in the ascendant, like the dark ages, there has been a danger of civic censure and communal intolerance of the atheist. It is already an established fact that government office is dependent on public displays of piety, and government policy is also dictated by various religious or ethnically religious groups.

It fills me with dread to think of the single largest military power on planet being held under the sway of religious fundamentalists. Of course for those of us in the west – Christianity is (laughably) regarded as the religion of progress and multicultural tolerance and democracy. Those from christian cultures feel threatened by firebrand religious fanatics of Islam. Those of us, who are atheist, regard any kind of christian ascendancy as equally undesirable.

Even the spell checker on this god-damned word-processor wants to capitalise the word ‘christian’.

What can we do to stem the tide of this religious anti-renaissance?