[Max Cow Disease]

The increasingly momentous surge of secularism and reason in much of the western world is encouraging to see, and I presume it will continue. Religious organizations and faith-based claims about the world have lost so much traction in the past century or so as to become almost entirely laughable to anyone who takes a moment to step outside the bubble of delusion and undertake a sober assessment. We now merely "tolerate" and "respect" religious belief, as opposed to living in fear of backlash for things like apostasy or genuine scientific inquiry. Hitchens said it best when he cautioned that we not forget how religion acted in times gone by, when it had real authority -before the ingratiating smirks and offense-taking.

Unfortunately there are places in the world where the stranglehold still exists, and people who are happy to see the grip only get tighter (even in parts of the west). Whether it's the presence of Islam in places like France, or hardcore Christian nuttery in the US, this sort of dogma needs to be criticized at every turn. Religious "moderates" make this difficult in certain ways, by creating a sort of veil behind which extremists can comfortably hide. As long as there are two religious people who don't advocate suicide bombing/homophobia for every one who does, it will be difficult in a climate of political correctness to call a spade a spade (I mean, bad ideas are, at the end of the day, still bad ideas).