The madness in our midst

When you've got some time and are feeling resilient, take a look at this link.  You can skip the post itself and head for the comments -- where you'll find yourself sucked down into the maelstrom of the religious mind.

See twenty-first century humans talk about sin, a "fallen world" and even heresy as if these were real objective phenomena.  See them assert the right and duty to "rebuke" and harass people of whose lifestyles they disapprove, for their own good.  See them uphold the ignorant and befuddled scribblings of ancient Middle Eastern primitives as the ideal guide to life in the modern world.  No summary can convey the flavor of it -- go see for yourself.

These people exist.  They are out there.  Not all people who self-identify as Christians actually think this way -- not even a majority of them, in modern countries -- but those who do are still a force to be reckoned with, even if a shrinking one.

(This is a Christian example, but hard-line Muslims, some groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews, and radicals of various other cults are just as scarily deranged in their own way.)

You cannot reason with people like this.  The House quote is dead on -- if they were capable of viewing their own reality-bubble from the outside and rationally assessing it, they wouldn't be this way in the first place.  All we can do is out-vote them, contend with them for the allegiance of the vast unaware middle, and keep our guard up.  And keep an eye on them too, as I do by reading such websites from time to time, lest we start to forget or doubt how deep the madness really goes.

Update:  Here's an example of the murderous Christian violence which such bigotry can fuel.