Baker wrote:Must admit, though, chalking up everything that contradicts what one conceives as true religion to a Satanic illusion may just be the surest way to keep the faith.
Josh Skains' "science and the devil" post over on the MADBoard (now MD&D) definitely makes for some wing-nut reading. In fact it is even entertaining (in a train wreck watching sort of way), until one realizes how many Mormons, and fundamentalist religionists in general, harbor, and even nurture, these kinds of attitudes and thought patterns.
If the US is falling behind other countries in math and science (and it is), and if being among the best in math and science is what catapulted the US to its recent apex relative to most countries (and it is), then our turning away from math and science becomes, in the long run, nothing less than a risk to national security.
How can the kind of intentional anti-intellectualism and associated self-imposed ignorance reflected in jskains' posts be squared with the professed Mormon ideal of national pride and patriotism?
Comments like those from jskains are so silly and so wrong-headed on so many levels that it is painful to even think about the task of straightening him out.
Perhaps I can help the upcoming generation of LDS students by sending a link to his posts to a few of them who still like math and science. This woudl be done as a cautionary example of what they themselves may be thinking, or even writing in a few years, if they stay on the path of Mormon faith (unfounded belief) and obedience (apparent inability to think and take actions for one's self).
