{"id":2786,"date":"2012-02-29T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T15:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2786"},"modified":"2012-02-29T10:41:10","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T15:41:10","slug":"the-verge-of-an-enlightenment-or-a-dark-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2786","title":{"rendered":"The Verge of an Enlightenment or a Dark Age"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a topic I have talked about often, but recently two advocates have come forward in support of two competing visions for the future. These two views represent a stark contrast from each other and we really need to think about this now. The future of humanity is being written right now and we are on the verge of either a new enlightenment or a new dark age.<\/p>\n<p>First, I give you my former Senator and one of the leading candidates for President of the United States, Rick Santorum. Santorum recently came out against college education. I\u2019m not kidding. Santorum actually said that college is bad. Santorum favors home schooling with no standards for education. This is because education has a notorious liberal and atheistic bias:<br \/>\n<object width=\"430\" height=\"248\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/iWQgAFOduxU?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"430\" height=\"248\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/iWQgAFOduxU?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><br \/>\nThere is little doubt that Santorum wants a new dark age in which religion runs the world and education is vilified. The scary thing is that Santorum might be the Republican nominee and he might beat Obama and become the President of the United States. That crowd loved his speech and they loved the fact that he spoke out against education. So it isn\u2019t Santorum; he is just an advocate for this point of view. The problem is already there.<\/p>\n<p>On the other side of the coin is Neil deGrasse Tyson who is advocating for the future in which people are motivated toward science. While promoting his new book, he spoke to Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last week. Here is the video: <object width=\"430\" height=\"248\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.hulu.com\/embed\/cMGfGrUkxknlmjHCk8AnAg\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"430\" height=\"248\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hulu.com\/embed\/cMGfGrUkxknlmjHCk8AnAg\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><br \/>\nWe are on the cusp of one of these two visions of the future. But we don\u2019t have to be hapless bystanders. We can fight to help make Neil deGrasse Tyson\u2019s view of the future a reality. It will not be an easy fight, but we have to be vocal and not only promote a scientific future, but criticize Santorum and his view. We live in an interesting time and we have a responsibility to those who come after us to give them a better future.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/atheism-in-national\/atheism-101-atheists-can-be-spiritual-too\" target=\"_blank\">Atheism 101: Atheists can be spiritual too<\/a> (examiner.com)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=965\" target=\"_blank\">Dreaming of Tomorrow<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=568\" target=\"_blank\">The World of Tomorrow<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=cda9c8df-334c-40c2-b80b-c671439077c2\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2786\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a topic I have talked about often, but recently two advocates have come forward in support of two competing visions for the future. These two views represent a stark contrast from each other and we really need to think about this now. The future of humanity is being written right now and we [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1039,310,44,660,166,642,60,771],"tags":[2215,1277,1427,408,624,24,1768,1883,2227,2026,1387],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2789,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786\/revisions\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}