You know. To mix a couple threads.... From my "I can't get a date" hijack of Nico's Cavebabes and Mudchix thread.....
OK, so ya gotta know I am a major freak magnet. When I do go on dates, The weirdest ones find me. Back two years ago I was going on dates just to see how their freakhood would manifest itself.
Back to this guy I've gone on a few dates with recently. He's into the whole paranormal thing. Hook line and sinker. Sunday, after going hiking with him, we grabbed some dinner and I had to listen to him ramble on and on about how during the cold war aliens prevented our Titan missiles from launching so the Russians could catch up with us in order to maintain a balance of power.
Then he got into the whole 9/11 conspiracy. There was the whole argument of how the govt confiscated gas station surveillence tapes. Well guess what, bucko! *There are no gas stations anywhere near the Pentagon!* I live out here, I've driven past the Pentagon lots of times. There aren't any! If I had the interest in staying with the guy, I'd propose a field trip to find those gas stations, and ask the owners about the confiscated tapes. But, I'm ready to move on.
My point in all this, and I have other examples as well, is that you cannot persuade with logic, an idea that someone arrived at with emotion. I can give that guy other proof about 9/11, but he won't believe it, because he doesn't *want* to. He'd rather believe the whacko stuff. Same with the fundie religious people.
What weirds me out, is that this guy I've dated slips seamlessly between perfectly lucid and perceptive about something regarding politics and the like, then suddenly like an optical mouse, he zings way off rom where you think it is.
And I believe that's a basic propensity of human nature as I see it all the time. Relgious fundies are just one manifestation of it, and only the outside world that hasn't been sucked in can be persuaded by logic (and hence the reason for continuing to fight them--stopping new recruits).
This is why it's important to keep religion out of schools and most importantly, to teach critical thinking.