I’m not talking about cognitive dissonance here, and I’m not concerned with their internal compartmentalization.

It’s very simple: embarrass them into not talking nonsense in public. Make it socially unacceptable. Start with ridicule, and then escalate to the kind of reaction someone might have if a total stranger started talking about their sex life in graphic detail.

There are all kinds of ways to escalate this if needed. Think “Evangelical Homosexuality,” and “Evangelical Atheism,” and start writing the scripts to use to come back at religious extremists when they try “recruiting” in public.

This can be dealt with at the level of pure behaviorism: black-box whatever might be happening in the minds of these extremists, and find the most effective ways to put a stop to their behaviors in public places. That in turn will make their positions just a bit less visible by degrees, until a tipping point is reached at which spouting religious extremism in public becomes as unacceptable as smoking in a crowded elevator.

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Re. Bickle re. Ballard:

The problem is, we don’t want to establish a precedent whereby any government authority has the power to rule on the truth or falsehood of religious claims. If that happens, then we end up with establishment of religion by the back door of investigations of truth/falsehood of claims. Consider also the present Catholic majority on the Supreme Court. We really really do not want to go there.

What we can do is establish under law that sectarian religious beliefs are not allowable in the processes of any branch of government. We can do this via “anti-Sharia” legislation that is drawn “broadly enough to pass 1st Amendment muster.” If this is done correctly, then _any_ legislation or executive act or court decision that is found to be substantially based on religious doctrine, for example discriminatory marriage laws, can be thrown out.

Realistically what will happen instead, is that certain megachurches will see it coming and will campaign against it, thereby forcing the issue of whether Sharia can be singled out from other forms of religious legal doctrine. That will be most entertaining to watch.

Just you wait ’til they use the “deficit crisis” to implement the sort of economic and social policies that the CIA made (in)famous in South and Central America back in the day… Then you’ll begin to see just how bad I think it is.

So two events that have no causation, are our public schools’ best explanation at the creation of the universe.

Everytime I see it written down, it makes me laugh harder everytime. You empty souled cretins are too much!

US vs Ballard must be repealed to allow religion to be challenged in court. Prove it, or it’s jail on fraud charges. In this case, being a Congressman means that he is a clear and present danger to himself and to others, and therefore must be involuntarily committed to the nearest mental institution until such time as his skydaddy appears, or he’s off the Jesus sauce

Actually, Jacob’s breeding experiment doesn’t even support Lysenkoism, does it? More like sympathetic magic.