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Unveiling the Playbook: The Threat of Religious Fundamentalism
When a fundamentalist Christian is preaching against abortion, don’t point out how many babies God killed in the Bible!
Sean’s Monologue: Book Banning in America
Our guest today is Mark Alsip, a computer scientist, freelance science writer, and the founder of Bad Science Debunked, a skeptical science blog. Mark is here with us today to talk about a personal history that is quite unexpected for a man of his profession - being raised in and indoctrinated into a fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist sect. He went through decades of trauma due to the conflicts between pseudo-scientific church teachings and the world of reality that was revealed to him through his love of science. After Mark left religion completely, he thought he’d be able to leave his past behind him and move on, but then fundamentalists insisted on forcing religious dogma into our government, our laws, our schools, and other secular places. Mark felt it was his duty to fight back, so he wrote the book Journey to Reason: Walking Away From Young Earth Creationism and Religious Fundamentalism.
In this episode, Mark and Sean discuss critical thinking vs. religious thinking as they swap amusing stories about growing up under the tutelage of Bible-thumping adults. They talk about how prayer is like “flipping a coin and calling it after it lands” and how religions quell logical questioning when they label disagreement with doctrine as a “sin.” Mark explains the beliefs of his childhood religion and how it sucked him in with scare tactics, such as a propaganda movie that made a whole audience of little kids cry.
Sean and Mark agree that religion is not abusive in general, and that there are many wonderful and compassionate believers in the world. They share Mark’s assertion that religion is fine, but “we just don’t need it” and people should not push it on one another. They talk about how the religious and non-religious could live together in peace and harmony if the fundamentalists weren’t such a fundamental threat to our democracy.
The conversation turns to impending legislation that supports narrow Christian viewpoints, and how such influence has come about. Mark and Sean wonder where religion is headed in America and speculate on what our future will look like if Trump wins the presidency.
Mark talks about his professional history and how it taught him critical thinking skills, he explains the relationship between capitalism and religion, and bemoans the hypocrisy of Christians who claim to believe in love for mankind while exhibiting little actual compassion for their fellow human beings. His conclusion is that we should focus on the good parts of religious teachings and reject the parts that hurt and condemn others.
You can find Mark Alsip’s book Journey to Reason: Walking Away From Young Earth Creationism and Religious Fundamentalism on Amazon, and follow him on social media:
www.facebook.com/BadScienceDebunked
Mark Aaron Alsip
Author
I'm a computer scientist and freelance science writer. As a pre-med student I used the knowledge I gained to launch the skeptical science blog, Bad Science Debunked. My work there led to being published by Forbes, Skeptical Inquirer, and the National Center for Science Education. Indoctrinated into a fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist sect at age six, I went through decades of trauma due to the conflicts between pseudo-scientific church teachings and the world of reality, revealed to me through my love of science.
I eventually left religion completely, and could have gone on with life peacefully. But fundamentalist would not leave things alone. They insisted on forcing religious dogma into our government, our laws, our schools, and other secular places. My new book, "Journey to Reason," is a first person account of how fundamentalist are indoctrinated, why they cling to their views, and how they are endangering our democracy by refusing to acknowledge the constitutional separation of church and state.
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