PZ Myers explains; I agree.

Just a quick blog post to give you all something to read and think about. Not here. On The Humanist Web site.

That’s where you’ll find an article titled “Comes a Horseman” by PZ Myers. In it, you’ll find this paragraph, near the end, which (to me) sums up why we should all be concerned about religion, especially in our schools:

And this is why I oppose religion. It’s not because it kills people, although it does. It’s not because it poisons everything, although it does. It’s not because it is nothing but a philosophical construct even though that’s all it is, and I actually kind of like philosophical constructs. Even moderate religion is an exercise in obscurantism, the elevation of feel-good fluff over substance. I oppose it because it is a barrier to understanding, a kind of simplistic facade thrown up to veil knowledge with a pretense of scholarliness. It’s an imaginary shortcut that leads people astray, guaranteeing that they never see the real glory of a cell or of the stars. And I honestly hope that once people see the creation story for what little it is–one thin sheet of tissue paper–they will be able to crumple it up and toss it aside.

Read the whole thing.