What's blindingly obvious is that both sides are horrible. I was only saying that I could see why the Catholics wanted to prevent commoners from doing their own interpretation, because it leads directly to fundamentalism; I never said the Catholics were models of virtue themselves.

The best answer is to not have any "holy books" at all, because as soon as you believe something like that, you get all kinds of twisted logic and justifications for stupid and horrible things. ("It says XYZ here, and we can't question that, so it follows from that that we need to do ABC in this situation.")

Hey, if you want to screw hairy-legged women, go right ahead. Don't pretend it's normal though.

A few points:

The 2A argument is a bit different. Personally, I can see both sides. Some of that may be my American (and southern) upbringing and environment, but to me, I can see both sides. One side argues that society is safer with guns because police can't be there in 5 seconds and you can protect yourself with one, the other side argues that a proliferation of guns is what makes society unsafe and that adding more guns to the mix just makes it worse. Both are valid points. Both sides, from what I've seen, have made valid points at times, and stupid points at others. This to me makes me think that the whole issue is far too complex for a simple binary choice, and also that our society's problems are a lot more complex than whether people have easy access to guns or not. I could go on and on about this subject, but at the very core, both sides have the exact same goal: a safe society for everyone. Neither side wants a society plagued by crime and violence, they just disagree on whether having legal access to guns helps or hurts this.

Gay rights is rather different. At its core, it's about equality: should homosexuals have the same rights as everyone else? Should they be allowed to live their lives peaceably, or should they live in fear and hide their orientation for fear of being ridiculed, harmed, or murdered? I honestly don't see how it's any different than civil rights for minority races. The only justification for oppressing gays is purely religious, and not based on anything rational at all. People hate them because they're different, and that's it.

That said, as for various smart people you listed, everyone does stupid stuff from time to time. I like to believe that we should *try* to be smart in our actions and beliefs, rather than being content to be dumb, but even the smartest of us do stupid things sometimes. Also, not everyone is smart in every subject. Being good at math for instance doesn't mean you've seriously thought much about ethics.

Saudi Arabia isn't the #3 country by population in the world. America is. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world's Christians are doing, America has a huge chunk of them, and quite possibly a majority of Protestants. Most of the other heavily-Christian nations in the world are Catholic (Latin America plus the southern European nations like Spain and Italy). The other Protestant nations aren't very religious for the most part; Germany for instance is the birthplace of Protestantism (Luther), and most Christians there are probably Protestant, but Germany is not a highly religious country these days. America is. America is also the country where its fundie/evangelical Protestants are sending missionaries to Africa and converting everyone there to their brand of Christianity, and as a result, African nations are trying to pass laws legalizing murder of homosexuals.

Wrong. It isn't some "tiny subset", it's a huge number of Christians in America who are like this. Look how many American Christians believe in the Rapture. IIRC, that's based on one tiny passage in Revelations. But probably about half of Protestants in this country believe that and watch Christian movies about how the end is near. One such movie is in Redbox kiosks right now. You don't get your movie in a Redbox kiosk nationwide without having a huge number of potential viewers.

What about the people in the middle east getting killed in the conflicts there? Don't they matter too? Why aren't we talking about them?

This article isn't about the earthquake, this is about an avalanche.

No, they aren't. Many of the "reformed" sects are the worst ones. All those fundamentalist Christians aren't part of the old Roman Catholic church (or any offshoots of it), they're offshoots of the Protestant movement. For all its faults, the Catholic church had a good idea, that just letting people read the Bible themselves and interpret it their own way would lead to all kinds of bad things, so they tried to keep people from doing that; the Protestant reformation is exactly what led to fundamentalism. Of course, the root problem is the whole idea that a book is "holy" and sacrosanct; trying to keep people from reading things for themselves is guaranteed to fail eventually.

Anyway, probably at least 1/2 of Protestants in the US are evangelical and/or fundamentalist. Just look at how popular the "Left Behind" books are and various other wacky Christian media warning everyone of the "Rapture". Calling it a "small minority" is ignoring a very large and serious problem in our society, no different than Muslims ignoring their own extremists and then waking up one day to find that ISIS has taken over their city.

There are plenty of women who are fans of classical literature and baroque music. They just tend to cluster in occupations that do not intersect those of the typical Slashdot reader.

Yes, this is exactly my point.

And as a side, those who consider a college degree in humanities or fine arts a waste of time should not be surprised when their co-workers spend time discussing the Kardashians or Honey Boo Boo.

This is true too. Unfortunately a lot of people in technical professions have this mindset. It's not just them either; I've seen that opinion (non-major classes are a "waste of time") from a lot of different people these days. It seems like most college-educated people these days just don't understand the value of a well-rounded education, and are really using college as a glorified trade school. We've really gotten away from the whole reason Universities were created in the first place.

I listen to brutal death metal but i also listen to Tchaikovsky.

Metal has a fair amount in common, musically, with classical music. Metal typically emphasizes complex song structures and virtuosic playing more than other forms of modern music. I'd say country is probably at the opposite end of that spectrum. I like progressive metal like Dream Theater, I also like Bach and Telemann, but I also like Rolling Stones, Boston, AC/DC, etc.

As for all your other interests, none of those carry any kind of political connotations or religious content. None of them indicate that you're a rabid homophobe who thinks the Rapture is coming any day now. Watching Duck Dynasty indicates exactly that. There's nothing wrong with having sexual fantasies or liking different levels of literature and music. There is something wrong (IMO) with watching TV shows or listening to music which pushes moronic religious viewpoints. It's very simple: if you listen to some type of "entertainment" which preaches to you to hate people who were born differently from you, and you buy into this, then you're a moron IMO.

Your choice of lowbrow entertainment may be because you are dumb, or it may be because you are smart but looking for an escape that has oooh shiny and doesn't require deep thought. To draw inferences on intellectual capacity based on what TV shows someone watches is just snobbish.

Bullshit. If I want to do stuff that doesn't involve deep thought, I play some mindless video game (like an old NES game with an emulator, or an old arcade game like Pac-Man), or I go hiking or biking, or maybe watch some silly TV show like Big Bang Theory.

What I don't do is watch a TV show that requires me to listen to a lot of homophobic and religious nonsense, since this show is absolutely famous for this. Watching a show like that (unless it's just to be horrified) absolutely says something about your intellectual capacity and your leanings. This isn't just some un-serious TV drama about some people living in an apartment together.

You probably think being an opera fan indicates higher intelligence than being a death metal fan.

Anyone who knows anything about opera knows that it was considered somewhat lowbrow entertainment during its time; it was made for the masses. Also, anyone who knows much about modern music knows that there's a lot of death metal that is quite complicated and requires a lot of talent and skill to play properly. Metal as a genre is generally fairly complex, as it emphasizes musical virtuosity more than vocals or lyrics (though there's exceptions, like the 80s hair-metal).

However, neither of these typically espouse fundamentalist Christian anti-gay rhetoric.

Maybe, but that's why I was pointing out that this was very likely due to his unique perceptions and experiences. I've had many of the same experiences, due to my choice of profession, and also my lack of socializing or outside activities which have a lot of women in them; it's not because women are necessarily stupider (on average, obviously there's always outliers, as the OP himself pointed out), but quite possibly because he and I have had limited opportunities to meet more intelligent women, and instead have had ample opportunities to meet men similar to ourselves.

Yes, if you really believe there's a "gay agenda" and that homosexuals are bringing God's wrath upon us and that the Rapture will happen any time now, then you are a moron.

No True Scotsman.

You're just another religionist trying to say that 99.9% of other people in your religion are "doing it wrong".'

Yeah, you need to get over that and try packing up everything and moving somewhere entirely different. You haven't really lived if you haven't ever relocated to someplace very different (and you don't need to go as far as leaving the country and learning a new language; the subcultures in different parts of the US are already very different from each other).

It sounds to me like you're in a place which simply does not have many peers for you, and you're not a good fit for the local culture. I'm in the same place; I (long story) got temporarily stuck in a southeast city that is extremely conservative and has a large military presence, and on top of it I'm separated and trying to date again. I'm like a fish out of water here; there simply isn't anyone here who I have any interest in meeting or spending time with. Luckily, I've gotten a new job offer elsewhere and am relocating within a month, to a place where I think I'll fit in better.

Living in a locale which doesn't fit you can really make you miserable, I've found.

Is watching Duck Dynasty any worse than playing GTA?

Yes.

GTA is just a video game. It doesn't carry a bunch of religion and conservative philosophy and politics along with it. Duck Dynasty does.

An interest in Duck Dynasty is not mutually exclusive with an interest in classical literature.

Yes, it is. Anyone stupid enough to buy into the conservative idiocy that Robertson spouts is not going to have any interest in academic topics.