Reply #8: the ascendancy of religiously insane wack jobs

[leftofthedial]

is always attended by utter disregard for the truth.

This in turn destroys reason.

then the dark age

then, if we survive this time, a slow rebirth of rationality and the cycle repeats.

rationalists become enlightened and tolerant of religious superstition, which spins up inevitably into rising fundamentalism, which can eventually result in the ascendancy of religiously insane wack jobs.

Half of all people are, by definition, stupid. Add the above-average evil manipulators and you have a majority.