Actually faith can save time, resources, and heartache by avoiding testing bad ideas over and over. People who simply do what they are told without question can be remarkably efficient that way. They can be frugal and valuable employees. There are many things science cannot solve anyway. If all agree they want a bird feeder then science can help select one that will draw a particular kind of bird that perhaps best controls a particular kind of insect. If people cannot agree whether they want a bird feeder, a lawn sprinkler, or a badminton court, then science can be no help at all. Science cannot solve any problem until anyone knows what the problem is. Most issues in society become issues because people cannot agree what the problem is. It is therefore not reasonable to expect science to solve them.
Of course it is necessary that people who simply do what they are told follow good leaders or the whole plan falls apart. It is becoming rather obvious that they increasingly distrust and will not follow good leaders. It is also evident that they follow the wrong leaders. Both religion and science can provide excellent advice on many and varied topics, but neither political party seems able to avail itself of that help. There is widespread confusion about what science is and what religion is with far too many amateurs in each gaining sway.
As earlier noted on this website at one time atheists would often post surveys that showed "religious" people earn less income, are less well educated. and have higher divorce rates than atheists. It was also noted here that such surveys failed to consider "Christians" separately from other "religious" people. When that distinction is made "Christians" and atheists are rather similar in their performance and not doing as well as the rest.
Accurate surveys are difficult though. Self reporting can mean rather fluid definitions of groups. Some people are difficult to put in one category or another with the best help. People seldom identify themselves as "fundamentalists." The definition of an "evangelical" is not very detailed. The definitions of atheists and agnostics show evidence of tampering.
Yet with all its hazards, generalizing can be practical and necessary. To believe people in the southern states drink more iced tea can help the grocer who must stock tea. There is no harm providing care is taken not to prejudge or presume any individual from the southern states necessarily likes tea. Those are the right and wrong uses of generalization or "stereotyping."
To understand the political dynamics and address the problems it can be necessary to at least try to sort it all out; who are Christians, atheists, and other groups more and less concerned with various issues.
People who do what they are told without understanding or questioning tend to be Republicans and often identify themselves as people who do what they are told. Perhaps surprisingly, quite many Democrats can also demonstrate blind loyalty though. Because the Democrats' "blind faith" is in "science" they just don't recognize it as a faith. In their blind faith both parties can become dictatorial, Democrats because despite their fondness of science are not much good at it as a herd.
Many people in both political parties are intellectually lazy and cannot read above an elementary level. It would be unfair to Christians or atheists to characterize the parties as either Christians or atheists, nevertheless it is often assumed Republicans are more "religious" and Democrats are more "atheistic." In truth there is in neither party much religion or science in their struggles for dictatorial control. They all expect others to follow them as blindly as they followed anything, and the use of government force is their only method.
There are then troublesome people with little or no religious or scientific tradition variously identified as "Christians" ("Fundamentalists," "Evangelicals," and other loosely applied terms) or "atheists" who whatever they are called earn less income, have less education, are more often divorced, and so on trying to rule the world from the nation's capital with their chosen president.
Which "side" of that will win the presidency next is difficult to say. What is not difficult to predict is that whichever side wins, the national debt gets worse and little else changes.
Simple majorities are not supposed to decide matters as consequential as guilt or innocence. Especially with more serious crimes a unanimous decision is required. There should be no room for doubt or disagreement. Simple majorities are only supposed to decide things like whether to build the school on this side or that of the river. They are supposed to decide things that more or less readily can be renegotiated or changed. Thus votes indeed can change every two years. Deciding guilt should not be done over every two years for no more reason than scheduling.
The political parties in the United States lately have given elections a disturbing tone of a trial where one party must be the "good" guys and the other party must be that "bad" guys. There are not supposed to be any "bad" guys in either party. The "bad" guys are supposed to get representation by well trained professional public defenders, not the biannual whim of poorly informed crowds.
Each party appears set to accuse the other of some evil. The Democrats appear set to accuse the Republicans of being Nazis, which must have been evil since the United States fought them. The Republicans appear set to accuse the Democrats of being communists, which must have been evil since the United States fought them. While there might indeed be evil in the world and it might rise to power from time to time, it is not normal to have a "good" and an "evil" political party. Deciding whether to put the school on one side of the river or the other should not involve deciding one side is "evil" and the other "good."
Even in an actual trial it is not necessary to decide that the defendant is evil in essence, only that an evil act was committed.
Yet it appears from the tone of the campaigns that either "religion" or "science" must be the evil in the world and must be defeated, which highlights what a superficial understanding too many have of religion and science. Both disciplines have, and will continue to have, valuable roles to play in society and there is no reason why one should never be informed by the other.
The attempt is made here to salvage what truth can be on the following issues.
A troublesome assumption about health care costs is that the principles of mass production are not being used in the United States to their full potential. People notice that other countries have universal coverage and lower health care costs and assume that is because the other countries benefit more from the principles mass production whereby the more sold the lower the cost possible. Actually the principles of mass production only go so far then the price can go no lower even in a larger market. At that point all the capital has to be replaced, is used up. All the blades have gone too dull to be resharpened. With a market, even if limited, as vast as health care the use of capital is already as efficient as it can be, especially with modern techniques.
A more likely reason health care costs are higher in the United States is that the military is so many times larger and active than the military of other countries. The military is typically guaranteed quite much health coverage and that certain market with little regard to price can keep prices higher.
Another part of the reason Republicans will not likely lower health care costs is that people who do what they are told do not typically argue with doctors.
It is not clear at what time in his campaign or administration Trump promised to reduce inflation, but it is clearly still a problem. It is the reason jobs go to China. Chinese currency is less inflated. If his intent is to punish China, then for what? Failing to inflate their currency? Trump has added as much to the national debt approximately year by year as any president ever has and that is a major cause of inflation. Perhaps he has some secret plan that will kick in soon.
It can be a source of wonder how illegal immigration could increase even as the border wall is being extended. A possible explanation, it is a simple matter of brute force and that can have opposite effects at times. Not all people who simply do what they are told get told the same things. A more bizarre explanation, people from other countries might not actually be any smarter if they come here, but they might feel that way.
It isn't exactly true that Democrats are less moral than Republicans and therefore approve of abortion. It has always been true that policing abortion presents logistical problems. If you make exceptions for rape then many people will claim rape even if it cannot be proved. If you make no exception then you burden women with too few childbearing years to spare for criminals. Either way mockery is made of the courts. The only way to reduce the number of abortions is to change the hearts, minds and lifestyles of all people including your political opponents, not threats. Even with all the cameras around these days, it is still not possible to stand over people in their homes. You have to turn your backs at some point and your threats won't work then.
The proper title for this section is in fact renewable energy not climate change. Current lifestyles in many modern countries depend on rather large quantities of nonrenewable energy, which eventually must run out. That's what nonrenewable means. It is however not clear they will run out in any short amount of time. They might last a hundred and fifty, or two hundred years, or perhaps only seventy-five. Estimates are difficult and can vary substantially. Renewable energy comes more or less directly from the sun and the weather it causes, or the tides caused by the Moon. The sun is not expected to burn out even after several thousand years.
Climate change is something else entirely. It might be an attempt to get people concerned about their energy use rather far in advance of an emergency since that can be so much better than being in an actual emergency. There are unfortuitous drawbacks to sounding the alarm too soon though. One is using new technologies that are quickly replaced such as curly fluorescent light bulbs. That step more economically might have been skipped. Electric cars do not use renewable energy unless the electricity they use comes from renewable energy and in most places except near hydroelectric projects electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. The conversion from one form of energy to another is necessarily inefficient therefore those electric cars actually burn more nonrenewable fuel. Another drawback is that the "science" is often fudged by well meaning amateurs. Getting caught can defeat their purpose. The technology to measure the eustatic level of the ocean to one-eighth inch per year has not been shown yet if it ever will. Similarly the technology to measure the temperature of the entire atmosphere of the planet to two degrees Centigrade at any moment has not been shown. Polar ice might be retreating because it is not being replenished by water in the atmosphere from the tropics where most water is put in the atmosphere anyway, not at the poles. It might be too cool in the tropics lately.
Another drawback of sounding the alarm too soon is that it will become less effective over time. It might be like the boy who cried, "wolf."
Damages to life and property are indeed increasing because more lives and property are getting in the way. The population is expanding. It is not yet clear CO2 levels are the culprit.
No candidate in either party seems to be aware that the time is long past to keep believing life will assemble itself from lifeless matter. Part of the problem is falling for tricks like, "you cannot prove a negative." Actually a negative can be proved, and in some cases it is very easy. If the scope is limited it is possible to prove a negative. A proof with a very limited scope is whether the baseball is in the toolbox. In a few seconds the toolbox can be opened and every baseball sized space in it can be checked. Done. Of course many proofs have a much larger scope meaning hundreds of toolboxes might need to be examined. With the origin of life the scope is rather limited. There are only a very limited number chemical elements, and only a smaller number of amino acids, and not many building blocks of RNA. The short RNA chains are not building longer ones as much as they tear them apart. That is just as expected by many people long before it was observed in labs, and consistent with the Second law of Thermodynamics seen everywhere else. There is no reason to expect it to change even if given a billion years with enough sunlight every day to roast a whale.
One of the saddest things about the wonderful people who simply do what they are told is the apparently accidental election of Donald Trump. They are trying to "win" through him, not realizing they need to overturn Kitzmiller v. Dover, sooner rather than later, and not realizing they need to explain everything they have done much better than it appears they can.
They seem most determined to "win" and reelect him. They might succeed too. That will not change who they are or what is wrong with the country. They might call themselves "Christians" or they might call themselves "atheists," but probably will not be called religious when the truth gets out about the origin of life and why they stood in the way of that truth for so long.
Part of the problem is that many of them fear that telling the truth will exacerbate the "problem of religion" as they obviously misunderstand it. The truth about the assembly of the first life on Earth only shows that there is an intelligent designer, not whose side it might take immediately or later. Since it doesn't typically do their bidding it doesn't especially empower any humans over any others. It might well generate a lot of reconsideration though.
Government overreach, government tending things not in its job description, government doing things better left to other controls, is an obvious problem lately. It is certainly one major cause of the national debt. Frustrating as the aberrant majority can be, the solution is not to ignore it. It is not possible for the police force to maintain compliance with laws without the cooperation of most of the citizenry. Most people have to believe theft is wrong or thieves will escape. Most people have to believe murder is wrong or murders will abound. In the recent confusion over what elections and trials should address, the very foundation of moral principles has been trivialized to a popularity contest. Basic moral principles need to be beyond mere popularity and much closer to unanimity. People who simply do what they are told without understanding it are obviously frustrated with others who have gone astray. Bringing people in line requires skills too many good soldiers do not have. The claim in Mao's Little Red Book that power comes from the barrel of a gun is not true. The national debt will not be solved by playing Russian Roulette.