For those who believe we didn't really lose

I have a story to relate to you. I just remembered how important this story is in my understanding of where we are as a nation, so I want to share with everyone.

Last spring, I was taking a Biology course in Oakland, CA. Oakland is not, by any consideration a bastion of conservatism. The last week of school, it finally came to that day that everyone dreads. It was the day we had to discuss evolution.

Hats off to the professor who handled the situation extremely well, perhaps better than I have ever seen it handled. He is a devout Christian and a microcellular biologist. He wanted to have a discussion regarding people's beliefs. He laid the ground rules and saw them enforced quite well. Everyone would be able to state what they believe, without insulting or attacking or questioning anybody else, and we would go around the room.

He decided to split us up. The people who believed in creationism on one side of the room, and the people for evolution on the other side. In the middle, people who were not sure. Mostly the people in the middle were shy. As the class of 50 split up, each to their side, I realized, in a fit of cold sweat, that I was completely alone on the evolution side.

Somehow the entire young population of this Biology course had been co-opted by the religious right, brainwashed with their hyperbole and propaganda. I don't understand how this could have happened. People, in college, in a Biology course, denying the basic premise of life, pretending a greater meaning exists. Not to sound fatalist, but that is so quaint.

So when nearly 100% of the biology students in college in liberal Oakland, CA tend to be very religious, is it really such a stretch to believe 51% of our country would chose religion over logic? The two are antithetical. If you believe logic, you can't believe religion. If you believe religion, you have denounced logic.