Quote of the Day: The Christianist Embrace of Ignorance

I frequently lament the closed mindedness and open embrace of ignorance that are the hallmark of far right Christians (hate and bigotry are others).   Anything that challenges them have to think or raises questions about their Bronze Age derived belief system is rejected - often hysterically so - and they retreat into a fantasy world that tries to disconnect from objective reality.  In the process, untold  harm is done to society not to mention children raised in ignorance worship homes.  Andrew Sullivan sums it up well while reviewing the Christianist reaction to the new book Zealot described in an earlier post:

Christian fundamentalists often simply have no way to respond to the facts – because empirical inquiry is anathema to fundamentalists. They refuse to acknowledge the extraordinary insights into the origins of the Gospels that historical research has unearthed; they cannot tolerate any dissent from Biblical literalism (itself an inherent contradiction, since the Bible repeatedly contradicts itself if taken literally); they have to blind themselves to the science of our time in a way someone like Aquinas did not in his; they even have to insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis, for goodness’ sake.

So what are they to do when someone pops up with some actual research and arguments and challenges to received dogma? The only thing they can do is attack the messenger. That’s how intellectually bankrupt Christianism is. It cannot relate its own dogmas to the truths about the world we have discovered outside of faith. Christianists do not seem to understand that if something is demonstrably true, it cannot be counter to God, who is the ultimate Truth. They are terrified of using their minds because their faith is so often mindless – and any engagement with contemporary scholarship on Christianity is a threat to their faith, rather than, as it should be, a spur to see it in a new light.

What you see above, in other words, is an expression of fear and unreason. Which is roughly all that Christianism has in its rigid quiver.

One has to wonder what form of mental illness or psychological disturbance leads one to remain a fundamentalist Christian when all the evidence around you indicates that your beliefs are not valid.