Cranial Herbs & Rice

I see your point and agree.  And while I sometimes thing ACLU sticks it's nose where it's not really wanted or needed, I also think they would at least try to fight this sort of foolishness if it becomes law. And rightly so.  Meanwhile, I cringe every time I see some idiot championing yet another so-called "save the family" anti-gay-marriage law. Like gays can make any bigger mess of families than we already have? I just wonder how much damage they can do, all in the name of faith, before we get smart and stop them.

And it truly amazes me that the Republicans are the first group to stand up and swear that they want to uphold "christian" values. That the laws they pass or support are founded on "Christian" principles. Yet they completely oppose universal health care; the single most Christ-like legal measure attempted in my memory.  Christ spent more time and energy healing others than any other single form of miracle. He called on his followers to help others, even when doing so risked legal troubles. Heck, he even made a parable expressly about healing others.  The Good Samaritan is exactly that: the priests and power elite refused to help the man who'd been beaten, while the samaritan (an outcast class in Israel) stopped to help.  That seems like something the republicans should be championing above all else, if, as they claim, they are all about a return to Christian values in America!  But they don't champion such measures, so I guess that proves their hypocricy. It's a shame, really.

Meanwhile, let's start another holy war in the middle east.  It's not quite enough of a cliche yet.

I see a corellation between the resurgence of conservative faith and the current mindset, best voiced by a preacher not too long ago, when talking about science vs the bible, "Science is wrong." And no, that's not a partial quote or a taken out of context quote.  I've got several cousins whom I've heard say that science can't be right about the age of the universe.  After all, the bible says it took only 6 days.  Further discussion from one younger cousin seemed to boil down to, "I don't really understand science.  It's confusing.  The generalities and over-simplifications I've heard make no sense. Rather than try to further grasp what they mean about such complex subjects, I'm going to reject it as lies and go with the easily understood Genesis version." Nevermind that genesis has two versions.

This idea that science is like a faith, that it can be believed or denied, followed or rejected, without consequence worries me.  Because removing science (and it's related studies, like history) from our core, accepted view of the world leads to dark ages, too, I fear.

Besides, as I've tried to voice, with little success, if Genesis is to be believed, then that leaves only three logical explanations for science in total. Each of which has a critical flaw.  But logic doesn't work with faith, so...

1. For all the evidence to be reliable, but the outcome (evolution, as a theory, is vald and/or the universe really is billions of years old), then God must of planted the preponderance of evidence. This makes God a liar, which refutes everything the Judao-Christian world says he is.
2. OR God didn't plant the evidence. Instead, Satan did so.  But in reading the book of Job, it is clear that Satan only does what he is allowed to do.  So Satan planting evidence makes him a creator with powers far in excess of what a monothiestic system should allow OR again God let him do it. 
3. OR all of those scientists, across all of the different fields of study, in every nation and every personal background, are somehow brainwashed into lying, in mass, to everyone. And with such comprehensive and creative efforts as to make any fictional works by any and all authors quite pathetic by comparison. And all without letting sufficient evidence of the lies out to bring down the entire sham. And without anyone of credit in non-science fields figuring it out and exposing it (wouldn't Fox News just love such a story?!).

I don't see how any of those three answers are acceptable from a Christian frame-work.  Occum's razor applies: these answers fail to satisfy, so chances are the bible's story is the failure, not the science.  When I've heard an explanation, it seems to be some vague effort to push the blame on #3, but that's just too far fetched. No conspiracy so large could truly survive and thrive.