Return to the Dark Ages

OK, maybe not quite. But I have to keep reminding myself, in light of articles like this, that the US is not the only keeper of scientific thought and reasoning. What will be lost during this period of theocratic rule will be recreated once it ends. The US will undergo a new period of enlightenment. Still, it's disconcerting to have to argue to the "faith-based community" that "human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world."

From the linked article:

...[M]any of the intellectual leaders of the American colonies were drawn to the Enlightenment. The colonies may have been founded by leaders of various dogmatic religious persuasions, but when it became necessary to unite against England, it was apparent that no one of them could prevail over the others, and that the most desirable course was to agree to disagree. Nothing more powerfully impelled the movement toward the separation of church and state than the realization that no one church could dominate this new state.
Many of the most distinguished leaders of the American revolution--Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Paine--were powerfully influenced by English and--to a lesser extent--French Enlightenment thought. The God who underwrites the concept of equality in the Declaration of Independence is the same deist God Rousseau worshipped, not that venerated in the traditional churches which still supported and defended monarchies all over Europe. Jefferson and Franklin both spent time in France--a natural ally because it was a traditional enemy of England--absorbing the influence of the French Enlightenment. The language of natural law, of inherent freedoms, of self-determination which seeped so deeply into the American grain was the language of the Enlightenment, though often coated with a light glaze of traditional religion, what has been called our "civil religion."

We hold these truths to be self-evident...