Frank Schaeffer:
How could they believe this stuff?
Trying To Understand the Republican Base
Let’s be blunt: science has rendered a literal interpretation of any scripture, be it Bible, Koran, whatever, as impossible.
For many religious people this means that they have sought out deeper meanings in a spirituality that depends on a more intuitive sense of meaning and purpose than a slavish attempt to follow texts that have been simply disproven.
But for another group – the fundamentalists of all religions – modernity has been ‘answered’ by opting out or attacking facts as lies.
Enter Madrassas of all kinds, literal — as in Pakistan — or virtual — as in the Evangelical home school movement and private school movement.
Enter Evangelical TV and radio and publishing industry and mega churches as personality cults.
Enter the ‘conservative’ Roman Catholic bishops cut off from their own far more tolerant (and liberal) flocks.
The rise of the religious right within religion is designed intentionally to isolate, indoctrinate and ‘protect’ from challenging ideas.