Since she loves the idea of "the magical court case that will fix everything."

I have to read up on her - wasn't she the one that questioned Obama's birthplace? I never kept too much track of her because I thought she was a nut.

What side should she on in a Scopes-like trial?

Unfortunately, organized religion has more to do with a means of control than finding or explaining the truth of creation. People like Galileo was banished just for suggesting the Earth revolves around the sun. Whether he is right or not wasn't the point. The church didnt care about his evidence or reasoning. His theory threatened to undermine teachings of the church and therefore possibly undermine its control and legitimacy over the society.

Religious conservatives fear that if one thing is proven false in the faith, that everything else will be questioned or believed to be false, and therefore the whole religion will fall apart. So the reaction is to hold tightly the old beliefs, ignore new information, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant and powerful. And this is what Einstein is talking about and why he feels it will cause "incalculable harm to human progress."

(However Einstein was not really an atheist. He was more of an agnostic. He didn't rule out the possibility that a higher power could exist. He just did not believe the positions of those that practice organized religion was beneficial to scientific progress.)

I believe that we don't know everything and I doubt we ever will know everything. Therefor we need to hold some beliefs. 50 years will not see the demise of beliefs.

The most presently egregious is that this doesn't belong in GD.

Inherit the Flying Spaghetti Monster perhaps. Its great wish fulfillment.

But back in reality, how do you sue somebody over the truth of the Bible? Fraud? And what laws are still based directly on religious beliefs?

Bryant

The reality is that nothing is going to "fix the USA."

We are in a spiral, and the ending isn't pretty.

First of all, belief in the bible is rooted in faith. Belief of this kind can't be extinguished by a "trial"- whatever that means. Secondly, it's simply not true that all our laws are rooted in the bible. I'm not sure where you even got such a notion. Islam may be an outgrowth of Judaism and Christianity but it isn't really based on the bible- certainly not the new testament.

People should be free to believe what they wish regarding god or gods or goddesses or whatever deity they wish to believe in or no deity whatsoever- as long as they don't force others to follow their religious beliefs are commit crimes because of those beliefs. And if they do so; prosecute them.

In any case, no way would such a sham, illegal trial solve all human problems. Why? Because we ARE human. If it's not religion we invent some other belief system that persecutes others.

It's a touching faith in an American dream, all in itself. Like believing in the Easter Bunny.

Putting the literal fear of God into people is the only way to get them to behave nicely? I don't really have a problem with a lot of what the books preach, a lot of it is basic human decency - I suspect it's in there because people aren't inclined to be decent and threatening them with Hell is a pretty good way to get them to do it.

it is the darker aspects of human nature. Religion and laws were instituted as methods of taming those darker tendencies, but, unsurprisingly, both have been perverted and used to further the causes of greed, intolerance, and selfishness.

The only solution is to change people's hearts and minds - something that well-meaning people of all beliefs try to do.

If that were the case, we would have very different laws than other nations. And yet, most of our laws are held in common with all nations, whatever their religion or lack of religion.

The reality is that both religions and laws have their basis in societies. Both are created out of human societies, and reflect the common mores of those societies. Most laws and religious rules about human behaviors have their basis in common sense. It is common sense that one not murder people in your society. It's common sense that screwing around in a marriage causes conflict. It's common sense that stealing shit from your neighbor is not a good thing. And so on and so on.

Laws attempt to regulate human behavior. Religions, too, attempt to regulate human behavior. That the rules created by both and by all are similar is no surprise at all. What would be a surprise is if they differed in any major way.

Now, both laws and religious dictates are sometimes very wrong. Slaverly is an excellent example of such a thing. When slavery was legal in the US, for example, many found justification for it in the Bible, since slavery was a common thing at the time the Bible was composed. Eventually, it was abolished by law, and the Biblical justification ignored, because it didn't make sense. Slavery is against the law in almost every country and society. It's still there in those old Bible verses, though, oddly enough.

Religion is not the source of laws. It simply reflects the laws of the society that created the religion.

sorry, this is hogwash. Entertaining, but hogwash.