Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann at a Faith and Freedom Coalition rally in Orlando, Florida. Photograph: Keystone/USA-Zuma/Rex Features

Writing at the Guardian, Karl Giberson reviews the pernicious effects of the religious right on science, history, politics, and on his own development growing up in the midst of it:

Unfortunately, millions of evangelicals – and this would include much of the political base being courted by the GOP presidential candidates as well as the candidates themselves – are trapped in an alternative “parallel culture” with its own standards of truth. [A]ll have media empires that spread their particular version of the gospel. Millions of dollars every year support the production of books, DVDs, radio shows, school curricula, and other educational materials. Very few evangelicals grow up without hearing some trusted authority – perhaps even with a PhD – tell them that the age of the Earth is an “open question”. Or that scientists are questioning evolution. Or that gays are getting spiritual help and becoming straight. Or that secular historians are taking religion out of US history.

The flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz scared the living shit out of me and my big sister when we were nine years-old. We would run and hide when that part came on, and that was with my mom or dad sitting right there telling us it was all make-believe and nothing to worry about. Imagine you were told by sources you trust from an even earlier age that there is a real war between good and evil, where a particular party or ideology or field of study is in cahoots with the scariest real-life, highly intelligent monsters you can possibly envision, that these monsters have supernatural powers, including the ability to brainwash or torture you and everyone you care about for eternity, and that the entire fucking world was going to end any day. That would really scare a kid, and probably scar an adult for life.