Fantasizing and Crushing

DONALD TRUMP'S ACCUSATION that Senator Mitt Romney used his religion as a "crutch" in voting to convict him was typically malicious of the president, but, uniquely, contained a kernel of truth. Social scientists of all stripes have proven that religion is indeed a crutch, a necessary one in a world beyond human comprehension, fraught with danger. religion gives votaries a sense of comfort and inspiration. Of the thousands of religions in the world, all claim to possess exclusive truth, none do, and, most likely, no religion ever will, unless that religion is empirical science. There is not a shred of evidence to support the fundamental tenets of any religion known to humanity, none to support the existence of any anthropomorphic deity, nor any sort of afterlife, contrary to popular belief. Religion is a fantasy, but a convenient one. Karl Marx was correct in his assessment that religion is an "opiate of the masses". Social scientists also note that the less well educated and less intelligent the individual, the more likely he or she to be deeply religious, and to lack critical thinking skills and powers of discernment. Recent studies seem to indicate that people whose religiosity is fervently zealous and whose political ideology is extremely conservative, or traditional, are likely to have brain damage, specifically, damage to the cerebral cortex. It is observable that religious devotion and conservative political views often accompany each other. The current example can be seen in the fact that a vast majority of evangelical Christians are indeed politically conservative, and staunch supporters of both the Republican party and Donald Trump. The modern conservative movement, which tends to discount or deny human made climate change and to embrace unfettered free market economics, is no less a fantasy than the Christian or any other religion. Even the intellectual founder of modern capitalism, Adam Smith, pointed out that the free market was unlikely to ever be free of distortions which render it unworkable, and every credible scientist and student of science in the world accepts the dire reality of impending disaster through climate change. Even now its effects are seen everywhere in the world, with rising sea levels, massive droughts, extreme weather, and massive out of control wildfires worldwide. And yet, the devoutly religious and conservative community refuses to accept reality, preferring, like the climate change denying Trump, to live in a self created world of fantasy. In our world in which nearly every aspect of our daily lives attests to the truth of science, it seems incredible that religion survives at all, and in fact our old superstitions are in decline; at least one third of the American people report to have no religious views. As religion fades into humanity's barbaric, immature past, and progressive thinking slowly but surely replaces political, social, and economic tradition with progress, the eighteenth century admonition of Voltaire concerning the Catholic church comes to mind: "crush the infamous thing".