Dick & George's Excellent Adventure

In Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte has one of her typically-excellent posts, this one responding to an article in Harper's on just how much people in our so-called "Christian" nation actually know about their professed religion.

From the article:

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor.

And now, here's Amanda, proving once again why I think she's the hottest blogger on two legs.

we have an epidemic of false piety in this nation. It's real easy to go to church every weekend and sing loudly so everyone sees you and avoid actually thinking about what Jesus said and dealing with it. And into that vaccuum of actual knowledge of belief, it's easy to pour a bunch of angry bullshit about how god is sitting in heaven wringing his hands all the time and saying, "My god, why won't they stop fucking?"