So last night, in his big “religion” speech, Mitt Romney warned of nefarious forces bent on “establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism.”
Meanwhile, a new poll reveals more Americans believe in the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Those results hardly suggest a rising tide of secularism. I’m forced to conclude that Mitt was pandering.
I would like to see how the questions were asked. Even so, this kind of article is silly (“more Americans like toast than believe in string theory!” or “more people aware of botox than know who Dennis Kucinich is!).
I know it’s outrageous to you, an atheist, but this isn’t surprising at all to me. Regardless of your stance, though, a theory is a theory is a theory. That’s why it ain’t no law.
In 1492 most people believed the world was flat, and 99% believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Twenty years later, the Catholic Church denounced Copernicus as a liar and a fool.
“One of the most irrational of all the conventions of modern society is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. …[This] convention protects them, and so they proceed with their blather unwhipped and almost unmolested, to the great damage of common sense and common decency. That they should have this immunity is an outrage. There is nothing in religious ideas, as a class, to lift them above other ideas. On the contrary, they are always dubious and often quite silly. Nor is there any visible intellectual dignity in theologians. Few of them know anything that is worth knowing, and not many of them are even honest.”
It’s a good thing we had the Enlightenment when we did or we would all still be living with Divine Right kingship…. Oh, right we got a guy who thinks God put him in the White House.
Oh, well, if Mencken said it, then it must be true.
I just can’t understand why this is an issue in Presidential elections.
I can’t think of any recent election ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD when the question was asked “Do you believe in evolution?”.
*sigh*
I can’t wait to cast my vote for Ron Paul during the primaries.
Hey, I belive in the devil. I have seen him standing behind Bush during speeches. What…Oh I’m sorry, that is Dick Cheney. Silly me, I always get those two confused. I’m sure a lot of other folks get them confused to.
Anyway, the Romney speech is his way of trying to score points on Huckabee & Guliani. The next thing you’ll probably hear is a Rudy speech on the Mafia.