Growing up a straight-laced Mormon boy in Utah, I saw exactly the religion-fueled contempt of which you speak. The mindset is one of dominion, not stewardship, over nature. This contempt, fanned my the toxic media environment of talk radio that hates anything smacking of science, will only grow more and more strong as the evidence of global climate change, ocean system collapse, species extinction, and the other various disruptions of natural feedback loops grows stronger. Having made an emotional decision to treat nature like a disposable consumer good, these folks will deal with the guilt and shame of their mounting culpability by becoming even more vocal and extreme. In the West, this contempt will especially take the form of a yahoo "frontier" mentality that puts the supposedly "masculine" arts like hunting and four wheeling on a pedestal (like it takes real skill or bravery to shoot a wolf from a helicopter of rev up an overpowered SUV). Never mind the impact, these people have an emotional investment in the fantasy that they are rugged individualists, in their stick built McMansion "ranches" and rigged expeditions into the outback.
The only way to counter this spiral of extremism is with shame and legislation. Shame those who would waste the sacred inheritance of our natural resources. Legislate against those who would play out their solipsistic passion plays of macho posturing on a stage of crushed species and broken ecosystems. The only way to deal with the Palins of the world is to beat them, and then mock them. They will never give up their willed ignorance, never achieve a deep view of the complex miracle of evolution and the world it has wrought.
It's their loss. Let's make sure it is never ours.

As a Bible believing Christian, I also hold a firm belief in protecting the planet and all it's resources.  Sadly, many of the Bible-thumpers find these 2 concepts mutually incompatible.  This lifetime Republican may find himself voting for Obama this time.

In my Pentacostal Church (following the teachings of our beloved prophet William Marion Branham), Sarah Palin would've been considered a worldly, back-sliding harlot and would've been ostracized.  She's not using birth control...true.  And that makes her at least marginally eligible for heaven.  But real "Christian" women in my church were not allowed to pierce their ears, wear make-up, wear pants or short skirts, cut their hair, disagree with a man on spiritual matters, have a job outside the home, wear the color red, or give their children non-Biblical names.  They were also told by our minister that if their husband tried to have sex with them more than once or twice a week, they were a sexual pervert!  Intercourse if for procreation only!

What's scary about Bible-believers like Palin is that she, and the other Pentacostals I know, can choice-pick a few snippets of science that they find to their advantage.  They take incomplete information or small data sets and bend it to fit their view of the world (which is due to end any day now).  

If you want to understand what a Christian can do with limited understanding of science, I recommend you look up the Pentacostal doctrine of "Serpent Seed."  From what I remember from my childhood, basically, they've mixed Calvinist predestination with a limited understanding of genetics.  They believe that the serpent, before he was "cast down", was an upright, human-like primate that we would call a big hairy sasquatch or yeti or bigfoot (a.k.a. - the "missing link")  This big hairy man seduced Eve with his big juicy fruit and she ate of it.  Then even went home to her cuckold Adam and told him she had just tried something new and they shared some fruit together as well.  The result of Eve's day of gorging on "fruit" was that she got pregnant...with twins.  One of the boys, Abel, was the son of Adam and was pure genetic goodness...let's say XX.  Cain, on the other hand, was a genetic cross with the spawn of Satan and so was born to be bad...XY.  Now many generations of humans later, we are all descended from Eve, Adam, and the Serpent.  Some of us are, by our genetics (XX), pre-destined to righteousness and heaven-bound.  Others of you are unfortunate to be carrying the Serpent gene XY and are all pre-destined to be Catholics or Muslims or Atheists and go to hell.

Does that sound a little wierd to you?  Well maybe a reporter should ask Palin what her opinions are on Serpent Seed doctrine and genetics.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

Surveys show that a lot of people actually think the earth is only 6,000 years old or aren't sure.  Surprisingly, those of us who agree with geologists on the 5-billion-ish figure are a minority.

I do, however, think that most people would be totally shocked (since everybody is talking about genetic stuff these days) if they were to hear about the rediculous views Pentacostals hold on genetics (and how these views would influence policy, their implications in racism, etc.).  I know that an understanding of geologic time is very important to being science-literate but there are a lot more shocking things about fundamentalism that could be exposed.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

And Spence, while your fundamental points are reasonable sound, the contempt drips from your post. You won't legislate squat if your opponents control the Congress. And the more you attack them, the more likely they are to do just that. A much better approach is to persuade them to your way of thinking on the ISSUES THAT COUNT. Don't threaten their faith - you don't need to do that - that's guaranteed to fail. Lots of religious people believe that we need to protect the environment. So do lots of conservatives. You need to foster relations with those people and make your camp as big as possible. The more aggressive you are, the most you are going to lose. Like the "Earth First" whackos. Nobody is EVER going to support them.

Victory in Pattani

In Alexander McCall Smith's luminous, heart-warming mystery series, "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," which takes place in Gaborone, Botswana, and other places thereabouts, in the third volume, "Morality for Beautiful Girls," we read (pp. 12-13) this conversation, between the detective, Mma Ramotswe, and her secretary and assistant, Mma Makutsi ("Mma" being the equivalent of "Ms.").  Mma Makutsi has been reading an old issue of National Geographic, about Richard Leakey and his work in paleoanthropology:

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"Is that Dr. Leakey?" [asks Mma Ramotswe, pointing to a photo in the magazine]

Mma Makutsi nodded.  "Yes, Mma," she said, "that is him.  He is holding a skull which belonged to a very early person.  This person lived a long time ago and is very late."

Mma Ramotswe found herself being drawn in.  "And this very late person," she said.  "Who was he?"

"The magazine says that he was a person when there were very few people about," explained Mma Makutsi.  "We all lived in East Africa then."

"Everybody?"

"Yes.  Everybody.  My people.  Your people.  All people.  We all came from the same small group of ancestors.  Dr Leakey has proved that."

Mma Ramotswe was thoughtful.  "So we are all brothers and sisters, in a sense?"

"We are," said Mma Makutsi.  "We are all the same people.  Eskimos, Russians, Nigerians.  They are the same as us.  Same blood.  Same DNA."

"DNA?," asked Mma Ramotswe.  "What is that?"

"It is something which God used to make people," explained Mma Makutsi.  "We are all made up of DNA and water."

Mma Ramotswe considered the implications of these revelations for a moment.  She had no views on Eskimos and Russians, but Nigerians were a different matter.  But Mma Makutsi was right; she reflected: if universal brotherhood -- and sisterhood -- meant anything, it would have to embrace the Nigerians as well.

"If people knew this," she said, "if they knew that we were all from the same family, would they be kinder to one another, do you think?"

Mma Makutsi put down the magazine.  "I'm sure they would," she said.  "If they knew that, they they would find it very difficult to do unkind things to others.  They might even want to help them a bit more."
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Creationists have tended to reject the theory of evolution for a number of reasons.  Two anti-intellectual reasons are that (1) the theory of evolution ignores the existence and activity of God the Creator, and (2) a biblical religionist's acceptance of an extra-biblical source of authority which literally (and superficially) contradicts a biblical text is not permitted and would be sinful.

But there is another, which is more respectable, and even noble, however wrong-headed: (3) the theory of evolution is the foundation of an ethics that is no better than the Law of the Jungle, and would justify brutal selfishness, competitiveness, aggression, and the dismissal of altruism and charity as praiseworthy kinds of conduct.

Of course, as the brilliant Mma Makutsi recognizes, the evolution-based scientific story of life on Earth should actually stimulate a stronger sense of ethical cooperation and mutual regard.  (And although she is concerned here exclusively with humanity, I would extend the DNA-linked "family" to include all living creatures, the sentient members of which family deserve to receive from us some ethical regard -- which is why my sign-off message used to say, "Chickens are our cousins.")

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, also links all humanity through genealogies.  But we observe that, so far from uniting us in one happy family, it has only served to promote tribalism, of one kind or another.  In particular: ethics for Israelites is NOT the same as ethics for Gentiles; on the one hand, Israelites are required to keep a large code of commandments which are not enjoined on Gentiles; on the other, Israelites are NOT required to treat Gentiles with the same regard that they are to treat fellow-Israelites.  One of the most horrible legacies of the Bible is in fact the justification of the enslavement of African people by Europeans, on the basis of Noah's curse of his disrespectful son Ham, consigning Ham's descendants (viz. Africans) to be slaves to the descendants of his respectful brothers, Shem/Sem (ancestor of Asians) and Japhet (ancestor of Europeans).

Even that supposedly enlightened Israelite Jesus of Nazareth bespeaks that ancient prejudice: cf. Matthew 10.5s., his mission to the disciples, "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, 'Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"; and again, Matthew 15.22-24, his cold words to the (Gentile) Canaanite mother: "And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.'  But he answered her not a word.  And his disciples came and besought him, saying, 'Send her away; for she crieth after us.'  But he answered and said, 'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'"

This prejudice persists in this country (to say nothing about racist Israeli animosity towards Arabs).  The defense by some prominent Orthodox Jews of the Brooklyn-based Rubashkin family, owners of the Agriprocessors kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa, who are accused of hideous mistreatment of their Gentile immigrant workers, mostly uneducated people from Guatemala, is a terrific disgrace.  Their implication could not be more clear: what happens to Gentiles does not matter at all, so long as we Jews get our kosher meat.  Fortunately, many other Jews, upholding more noble biblical and Jewish traditions, have been very critical of the Rubashkins, and have added stipulations regarding social justice to the criteria of what deserves to be called "kosher."

On Michelangelo's famous image on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, showing the near touch of the fingertips of God and Adam: This is conventionally called "The Creation of Adam," but that is not accurate.  Adam is already created, and animate; if anything, the image depicts the final step of the creation process, in which God bestows on Adam his immortal human soul, on top of the animal soul which is already allowing him to look up and raise his arm.

Sarah Palin, and Christians of her ilk (NOT Roman Catholics, needless to say), would of course reject the Michelangelo image as representing anything that they believe for at least three reasons: (1) it is an image, and "Bible-believing Christians" have nothing to do with images; (2) it depicts a classically ideally beautiful nude man, which is shameful; and (3) it has nothing to do with the account of the creation of the first man in Genesis 2, which describes Yahweh fashioning a body out of clay, then breathing life into it.

Still, the (universal?) Christian doctrine of the special creation by God of each individual's soul, or personhood, whether at birth or at conception, is a frightening example of "stovepiping."  It especially reinforces Protestant individualism: the only relationship which really matters is that between the individual and God; other relationships are more or less significant or negligible.

Ergo, the theory of evolution provides at least as solid a foundation for a praiseworthy ethics as does biblical anthropology.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.