As a result, they believe all kinds of goofy stuff. All of us believe some goofy stuff. As long as it doesn't hurt anybody else, let goofiness reign. The problem comes when people mistake their own personal goofy beliefs as the absolute truth that everybody else had damn well better believe also. That's why fundamentalist preachers should be strictly barred from legislative chambers.
Legislators are self-righteous and vindictive enough.
All they need is moral justification to divide the world into dancing blacks and good, solid, money-making, taxpaying whites. The unholy alliance between religious fundamentalists and mean-spirited Republicans actually is a fairly new phenomenon. In small-town Indiana, I remember religious fundamentalists were constantly in trouble with the government. As a matter of conscience, they refused to take their moral guidance from the nation or to deify its earthly symbols. They refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.