okay, I'm going to have to make an important distinction here. There are (for the sake of this argument) two broad categories: "the random religious layman"(and political supporters) and "the science head".

Here's the deal: I already think the random american citizen is an uninformed, easily manipulated yahoo, raised by the electronic nipple. It's not their fault--and they can be saved. (But the politicians know this is a really big lever with which to move the populace.) Now, the other side of the coin: the science heads are people who's reasoning and general desire for education I respect. Unfortunately, people that have gone pro-science, seem to have continued on to reflexive skepticism. Reflexive anything (knee-jerk anything) is bad, whether that be reflexive rejection of anything varying from God's word to reflexive rejection of anything that can't be measured.

Let me try to pull this back together and get to my point: When I was thirteen, I rejected religion (it's nice to reject the default), then when I was twenty-eight, I rejected the absolutism of science. Why? Because, within the circles of silicon valley culture, that is the unthinking, jingoistic default. Maybe I'm just one of those nonconformists for freedom.

Okay, that wasn't my point, let me try again: within the young technical intelligencia, there's a fairly strong anti-religious evangelism. I understand evangelism. It's a damn shame, but one has to be pretty damned enlightened to be over it, whether you believe in Jesus, Baal, Satan, the elvis refernce or the infinite self.