Smelling The Coffee: 2010

Any chance that some of those might be correlated with greatly increasing population, the spread of wealth to the middle class, and a doubling of our lifespans?Any chance at all?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

There is an article on Wiki dealing with Dominionism. Leaving out the real extremists, this is what it says (in part):

Dominionism as a broader movement

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In the early 1990s, sociologist Sara Diamond and journalist Frederick Clarkson defined dominionism as a movement that, while including Dominion Theology and Reconstructionism as subsets, is much broader in scope, extending to much of the Christian Right. In his 1992 study of Dominion Theology and its influence on the Christian Right, Bruce Barron writes,

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In the context of American evangelical efforts to penetrate and transform public life, the distinguishing mark of a dominionist is a commitment to defining and carrying out an approach to building society that is self-consciously defined as exclusively Christian, and dependent specifically on the work of Christians, rather than based on a broader consensus. (p. 14, emphasis in original)

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According to Diamond, the defining concept of dominionism is "that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns". In 1989, Diamond declared that this concept "has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right" (p.138, emphasis in original). In 1995, she called it "prevalent on the Christian Right." Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take "control of a sinful secular society."

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In 2005, Clarkson enumerated the following characteristics shared by all forms of dominionism:

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1. Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.
2. Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
3. Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.

Is that enough? Or shall we delve into the Discovery Institute's Wedge Document, which states (in part):

We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions. ...

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Governing Goals

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• To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
• To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Now, I do science--specifically archaeology--and I don't want some theocrat telling me what I can and can't find in my research.Can you imaging "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions"?

• Geology--those fools can't get the age of the Grand Canyon right. GONE!
• Archaeology--can't find any evidence of a global flood. GONE!
• Astronomy--that big bang stuff, and all those really old ages. GONE!
• Genetics--all those similarities to chimps, and common descent. GONE!
• Egyptology--those Egyptians didn't notice the global flood. GONE!
• Planetary sciences--all those annoying facts we can't explain away. GONE!
• Radiometric dating--those fools can't get the dating right either. GONE!
• Biology--they started that evilution stuff and figured out how the eye really developed. GONE!
• Paleontology--millions of inconvenient fossils that are all fakes. GONE!
• Physics--that pesky 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. GONE!
• Linguistics--can't get the development of languages right. It was Babel what done it! GONE! And most particularly,
• Evolution (by which we mean any science that we disagree with). GONE!

No thanks. I'll stick with the Enlightenment, which showed we no longer have to kowtow to the various shamans and theocrats, whether they be "extremist fundi Christians" or some other kind.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

When you stress that the US is a "Christian Nation" does that imply that you, and other Christians, want to use the power of government to impose your particular version of morality upon all residents?And if so, how does this differ from a theocracy (such as Iran)?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You'd be sore annoyed under a muslim theocracy. I suspect your attitude would change real quick.How about we keep all religious indoctrination out of the public schools, eh? That's what churches et al. are for anyway, isn't it?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

And look at the mess they're in!"Bread and circuses..."

You are mixing different issues and confusing cause and effect.Could any of these things you mention be a consequence of a significant increase in population, concentration of much of that population into large cities, and a significant reduction in a rural lifestyle?And could the increasing secularization be due to a vastly more educated populace?Or to the two+ centuries of scientific advance since the American Revolution?Or the increasingly multicultural makeup of our nation?Or the realization that The Enlightenment means that, if we so choose, we can tell the shamans -- of all stripes -- to go jump in the lake without fear of arrest or burning at the stake or some such?Perhaps your viewpoint is too narrow.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.