Dexter and the Juxtaposition of Atheism and Religion as Good and Evil Respectively

I recently came across this article about the tipping point for ideas. If you get 10% of the population to become a true believer in any idea, that idea will shortly represent the majority opinion. To me, what this means is that at least 40% of people don't think for themselves, though the number is likely more on the order of 60-70%. In any case, regardless of whether these numbers are right, the idea that a minority of true believers can easily overtake the majority opinion makes for an interesting discussion.

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If you don't watch Dexter, you are seriously missing out. It is the best show on television right now, and this season of Dexter might be the best yet. Dexter is about a serial killer who was identified as such by his cop father at a very early age. His dad Harry raised Dexter to become a vigilante serial killer, and taught him how to get away with it. Anyway, what's interesting about this season is that as Dexter brings his son Harrison up in the world, he has to make a decision about whether he wants to bring him up religious or not. Dexter pretty quickly rejects this notion, and this rejection is now being thoroughly reinforced throughout the season as one of the main plot lines involves a Bible thumping serial killer.

The show is having a good versus evil battle where the atheist is the "good guy" and the religious zealot is the "bad guy." Even more interesting, they're both serial killers. And yet, we all root for Dexter, and are on firm moral footing in doing so. A recent episode of  House had an interesting plotline as well, in this case it was self-interest versus altruism, with the altruist being painted as the bad guy (and eventually admitting that she was acting out of self-interest anyway). Add to that the fact that ancestral health is becoming mainstream with the Living Like a Caveman series and you have a trifecta of change coming down the pipeline. This change really cannot come soon enough, so all involved in the above examples must be praised. 

We have officially reached the "tipping point" of "true believers" in the scientific method. In this case though, it's not about being a "believer" so much as it is about being vocal and unapologetic about our ideas. In other words, skeptics have started puffing their chests a little more in an attempt to put an end to this idiocracy that we have evolved into. Now that skepticism is becoming a part of pop-culture, it will not be long before we see science as the majority opinion in all realms, the culmination of which will be an overtly atheist president and a repeal of many subsidies, including agricultural subsidies.