It is much more prevalent than a rational, scientific approach and I can understand people want to defend something they deeply believe in. We are not a tolerant species.
Now, as a pure atheist, I am all in favor to ban these laws and pus religion somewhere n the side, together with fairy tales (or psychiatric studies). I also know that this will not happen.
I'm ambivalent whether religion has done humanity more harm than good, but I think that it probably on balance is too humanity's benefit.
In any case, what we have here is a case of extremism. Let's call that out instead of using it as an example to bash all religion.
The Soviets yes. Communism was the religion and Lenin its' prophet.
Nazis had "gott mit uns" though.
Religion is a codified belief system while science is a codified knowledge discovery system. They cohabitate just fine until one is mistaken for the other.
- tradition
- because it worked for previous generations: America became one of the best countries to live in while being religious
- I guess some people also shared my experience that it worked, despite how unreasonable it seems. (Yes, this means I am an engineer who discuss evolution with you guys and have studied a tiny bit of astrophysics, but still pray to God and is heavily influenced by what I read. It kind of works like wave particle dualism: I use the model that works for the situation.)
Maybe some in the us use religion to explain why they should be in a privileged position compared to others?
EDIT: I began drafting this comment before others posted their flame comments. My bad for bringing nuance to a “flame religion” thread.