For every cent spent by school systems and governments and ngos and quangos trying to bring entire social classes out of the dark ages and into the industrial age, there are fifty dollars being spent trying to convince people that science is evil, magic is bad, and superstition is a really good thing.

Yet, when people want something or need something, like heat, light, functioning plumbing, and a colour television, they suck it up without questions. Nevermind that their ancestors had good and religious reasons to be suspicious of constant bathing, electricity and those brazen hussies on the tube.

Modern medicine is a good case in point. A hundred and sixty years ago it was like pulling teeth to get a physician to wash his hands. Now, we have people throwing fits about vaccines and claiming it mutates their fetuses or turns their children into vegetables. Do they know what a world without vaccines is like? Let them take a little trip to the library or learn to use a search engine.

It is no use suggesting to some people that they should stop using their anus for a hat. If it was good enough for mum, it's good enough for them. Tradition, even if it is only a few decades old, is supposed to be better than historical fact. Look at all the wannabe 'Pagans' who can only date their fascination with the arcane back to the 1930s. Look at all the 'playgans' who can only date their fascination with Fantasy back to Lord Dunsany or Robert E. Howard. There are plenty of three and four thousand year old religions that can fulfil the needs of the curious and the bored. Do a little research and you will find a whole new world of weirdness, fear and cruelty without resorting to the fiction section of your local bookstore.

Education can only do so much to eradicate ignorance. It would help if the teachers were not so ignorant themselves. It is not a matter of culture or community standards. It is a matter of you cannot teach children to think for themselves if they have no role models but pop artists and movie stars, who are not known for their erudity nor original thought. You cannot teach children to think if their religious leaders are idiots who have risen in rank because they follow the party line. You cannot teach children to think in eight hours a day if the rest of the hours leave them in the hands of a household or a neighborhood that is teaching them crime, stupidity and fear. And those weasels who mix religion and education, who cannot seperate superstition from fiction, and fear from philosophy, they will find a special place for them in hell. Dante and Rushdie made sure of that.

I know we all can't be unique and survive in this society, but can we try to be a little less same? Mob behavior leads to one thing, a hangover the next morning.