A serious question: how do people like this function in a multicultural society?

I've know people who take it all literally and do just fine. However, it isn't so much that it's a deep conviction in literalism, as a belief that it is shortcoming of faith to show doubt. Sort of, "Okay, the dinosuars are tough to explain, but if I doubt the story of Genesis where do I stop doubting?" I don't think the literalists are a big percentage though.

They work and pray for the world to be Christianized.

And for America to be returned to our "Christian heritage."

They don't make friends with Unitarians, Nutty. Though they might pray for their soul if they were feeling charitable.

Well, I ask because I had a student some years ago, who was the nicest woman ever, and a fundamentalist, literal-Bible Christian, and she pretty much befriended me. And while we never discussed the topic Nutty Is A Stone Cold Atheist, it had to be obvious from my everyday speech that I was not religious (especially not in her manner). And she befriended me right off. I guess I just wonder whether she thought about the fact that we were such different people, and whether that thought led to the idea that there is no such thing as the One True Way That Is The Same For All People.

Because those thoughts lead naturally from one to the other, in my head, but that doesn't mean they do so in everybody's head. Hence the "mental gymnastics".

Wow, that's real? I am again reminded that I don't live in America.

I'm not sure why the kids were standing around the flag pole holding hands and praying but they were. Some kids were making fun of them, and it was really odd to see. All of them standing around the flag pole like it was some kind of religous artifact.

I was taught that this was a possibility, but they pretty much left the issue of dinosaur fossils open

How can they do that? I mean, you're just left to draw your own conclusions? Or how to they explain the bible completely leaving them out? Mayhap they haven't found some scrolls in Qumran?

Listening to other opinions is one thing -- being taught them is another. I'm walking out of any class that requires me to be taught as if I'm a religion that I'm not.

Thing is, it was in the course description, so it's not like she wasn't warned before walking into the class. I had a similar situation in a life drawing class where a woman just couldn't make herself look at the nude models. She actually asked the instructor if he could put the models in swimsuits. I give him tons of credit for not laughing at her outright.

She was an art major and the class was required credit. I still wonder if she got out of taking it or switched majors.

A lot of people really don't live in a multi-cultural society. Where I grew up, we had one of a bunch of different things -- I was Baptist, Pam was Greek Orthodox, Patrick was Jehovah's Witness, Amrik was Seikh. Everyone else was Catholic.

And for America to be returned to our "Christian heritage."

Yeah, let's return to the religious convictions of our great founders like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Paine.

it was in the course description, so it's not like she wasn't warned before walking into the class

Eh -- we get people who sign up for krav and don't like hitting things.

Then they leave.

I do wonder, but I don't bother judging too hard.

How can they do that? I mean, you're just left to draw your own conclusions?

We were taught that there are some things that we don't understand - that God works in mysterious ways and what-not.

All of them standing around the flag pole like it was some kind of religous artifact.

It's a tenet of the Mormon faith that the Constitution was divinely inspired.

Also, members are encouraged to make friends with non-members in an effort to bring them into the church. It's called fellowshipping, and the non-believers are supposed to be so inspired by the godly and enriching lives of their new friends that they'll ask how to be godly and enriched themselves. This is, of course, made easier if the member's family actually is godly and enriched, which a lot of times is not the case.