The use of religion as political power is on the rise, and that is indeed going backward. One story goes that the ancient Greeks would have developed technology, but the mystics--the equivalent of modern-day zealots and fanatics--nipped that in the bud. They were numerous and powerful, as they are in certain countries in the Middle East today. And Greece ended up falling to Rome, becoming their enslaved education and cultural center. The Roman gods are renamed Greek gods.
Mysticism, aka religion, can't produce weapons, medicine, or any other understanding of the physical world. Yet because of ignorance and fear among the populace, it can grow to displace that which gives humanity an upper hand in the real world. It grows like a cancer among the disaffected, and is seized by power-hungry opportunists as their rallying cry. (Talking about such things always reminds me of Ignorance and Want, the two children under the robes of the ghost of Christmas present. They spell our doom.)
The push of Creationism, a philosophy clearly rooted in Christian religion, to displace Evolution, a truly scientific theory, is the most troubling evidence of such backward-driving tendencies in this country. The only effective weapon against it is education, beginning with why faith-based theories are not, and can never become, science. Science demands the absence of belief--the very opposite of religion. But in a culture where the smartest are ridiculed and the dumbest thugs rule the schoolyard, I am not optimistic about education at all.
