Religious right fights science for the heart of America [Evolution vs. Creationism]

It's not just evolution. They see everything as theology. The entire intellectual domain that compliments the world of faith, which most of us know as reason, and which certainly includes the scientific method, is not only unknown to them, it is literally inconceivable to them. So of course they imagine that evolution (and the rest of the scientific enterprise) is "just another cult."
When you look at their arguments, their whole approach is what you'd expect if it were one cult bashing another, because that's exactly the kind of debate they think they're engaged in. They imagine that they score points by insulting Darwin. They think they're really making progress when they can find (or invent) some quote somewhere that seems to support them. They sweep away more than a century of discoveries by claiming it's all bogus, much as one swami would dismiss the alleged wonders accomplished by a competitor.

And that's why the dialogue never seems to click.

Nicely worded. Now just add a bit about how they believe that besmirching or disproving any arbitrary little thing makes the whole sturcture of science fall apart and you've got it all.

there are parts of the bible to be read literally and parts to be read figuratively.

I don't necessarily mean you personally, but there are many who would argue with this statement. It is those who believe that every word in the Bible should be taken literally to whom I would ask why they don't seem to have a problem with relativity. (BTW, it's in one of the Psalms that the reference to the fixed earth is found. I'm not a Biblical expert, though, so the literalists may try to escape with some interpretation of the original Hebrew text that I am not aware of.)

It is those who believe that every word in the Bible should be taken literally to whom I would ask why they don't seem to have a problem with relativity.

I'd probably have as much trouble with them as you would.

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