Wetland Wandering

Let's visit the swamp, to see what we can find!  Yay!

Oh look, there's Mister Bullfrog!



Let's go say hello!



Hello, Mister Bullfrog!

And here are some of his smaller froggy kin!



Yay!

Here's Mister Turtle, being all turtley!



Mister Crayfish may or may not be at home at the moment, though his front door is wide open.



Look, there's Mister Robin, being all camouflaged because he's sneaky!



Madame Butterfly is out taking in some sunshine, too!




Ms. Bee isn't being very busy, lounging around like the lazy hussy that she is.



The dragonflies are out zooming about, however.  Probably battling tiny little knightflies somewhere.








And here are the damselflies that dragonflies must be wanting to abduct.  Probably because the damselflies are so shiny.









And here is a vicious damselfly trying to rend my very flesh from my bones!  Yay!






The woodpeckers have been busy around here!



Oh, there's Mister Crayfish!



And his friends, Mister Salamander and Salamander, Jr.!




Ooooo, a bizarre alien monster!  Either that, or a young dragon!




More butterflies!





Dragonflies and damselflies and turtles, oh my!

Mayan Calendar Doom!!!!!!!

Most people don't really think about the fact, but we use more than one calendar in our day to day lives. One goes March 1, March 2, March 3, et cetera. The other goes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on. The former was originally based on the phases of the moon (though it has since been changed to fit in a predictable manner into the year), the latter is based on the age-old principle of “because we feel like it, that's why”.

Because of this complete unconnectedness, there is no easy way to predict how the two calendars will mesh up. We know that the day after August 31^st is always going to be September 1^st, and that the day before Thursday will always be Wednesday. But is September the 1^st going to be a Wednesday? We usually have to look at a calendar to find out. As it turns out, this year September 1 is a Saturday. But last year it was a Thursday. The year before that, it was a Wednesday. Next year it will be on a Sunday. The last time that September 1^st was a Saturday was five years ago, and it will be another six years from now before we get Saturday the 1^st of September again.

This means that, if we were to be referring to dates within this ten year period, we could state “Saturday, the 1^st of September” and there would be no ambiguity as to which day we were talking about. We could technically do without including “2012”, because we wouldn't need to mention the year in order to differentiate that September 1^st from any of the others within that time period from 2008 to 2017. Simply combining the weekly with the monthly calendar does that.

The reason why we usually mention the year as well is because we often are working within periods of time much longer than just ten years. If we wanted to know when people first set foot on the moon, saying “Sunday, July 20th” isn't a big help. That could be fifty-three years ago. . .or ninety-three years ago, or seventy-five years ago, or one hundred years ago.

Instead, then, we might say that it was Sunday, 20 July, 1969 AD. Giving the year as well puts Sunday the 20^th of July firmly into a fixed place in a larger framework. There has only ever been one day with that particular combination of calendar dates, and there will be only one (we're leaving out such matters as different countries starting the calendar on different days and other such weirdness).

The week calendar is cyclic: it starts at Sunday, goes through to Saturday, and then cycles back to Sunday again. The month calender is doubly cyclic; not only does it go from 1 up to 28 to 31 and then back to 1 again, it also starts at January and goes through to December before coming back around to January. But is the year calendar also cyclic, or does it just keep going on in a straight line forever?

It's both. The number keeps on growing, never fully repeating. But there are cycles within the number.

The yearly calendar starts at the year 1 AD (there was no year 0). It then progresses on to 2 AD, then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then 10. Let's look at the first year again, though. Writing it as “1” is how we usually do it, but because of the way our numbering system works it isn't really just a single digit all by itself. There is an implied series of infinite zeroes in front of that 1. We could, if we wanted to be really odd and yet still accurate, write the date of the first year as this:

00000000001 AD

This style of writing would make the first ten years of the calendar thus:

00000000001

00000000002

00000000003

00000000004

00000000005

00000000006

00000000007

00000000008

00000000009

00000000010

Now, we're all so accustomed to using numbers that we sometimes forget just how they work, even though we know full well how it does work. We use a positional numbering system, where the value of any particular digit in a number is based on how far to the left or right of other digits in that number it is. Looking at the list of ten years mentioned above, the first year and the last year in the list contain the exact same digits: ten 0's and one 1. But they don't have the same value, because the 1 in the last year is moved one place over to the left, giving us a ten instead of a one.

This is where the cycle fits in. The far right digit in each year of the progression cycles from 0 up to 9, and then goes back to 0 again. Each time that happens, the next digit over to the left increases by one, until that digit, too, has increased from 0 to 9. And then the second digit also cycles back to 0, while the third digit to the left increases by one. And so on. The total value of all of the digits increases by one each time without ever repeating, but the individual digits themselves are always going in cycles.

Why did I bring all of this up, when this is supposed to be about the Mayan calendar? Because the situation with the Mayan calendar is pretty much the same.

First, though, a quick warning. The Mayans didn't use a number system like ours. Where we have a base-ten system, the Mayans used a base-twenty. Where our numbers listed above repeat a cycle every ten intervals, the Mayans' would repeat every twenty. While writing out a base-twenty number system is actually rather simple and straight-forward, it is also tiresome and annoying to try to write out or read when you're also using the base-ten system that we're all familiar with. For this reason, I'm just going to keep using a base-ten number system in all of the examples of Mayan dates, even though the Mayans would have used a totally different system. It all works out the same for our purposes here, and is a lot easier to understand. I'm also going to leave out a whole lot of the other details of their calendars, because the Mayans really loved their cycles and calendars and they created approximately twenty-seven bajillion different ones. We'll just be looking at the four main ones that relate to the whole “the Mayan calendar is running out, we're all gonna die!!!!!!” phenomenon.

Just like we do, the Mayans also used multiple calendars in their daily life. But where we use the weekly or the monthly calendars, the Mayans used the tzolkin or haab calendars.

The tzolkin was a length of time corresponding to 260 days, each with its own name. The tzolkin can be thought of as being similar in concept to our week: it doesn't seem to really be based on anything other than the fact that the Mayans liked the number 260, and it was important for ceremonial functions such as placing the holy days in proper order. The days of the tzolkin were named in somewhat different manner than those of our week, though. While they were giving names such as deer, night, rain, or whatever, they were also numbered. They had twenty names and thirteen numbers, so you'd start off the tzolkin by having 1-crocodile followed by 1-wind followed by 1-night, and then when they'd gone through the twenty names they'd cycle back and go with 2-crocodile and then 2-wind and then 2-night. When they got up to 13-crocodile and 13-wind and so on and worked all the way through to the very last name on the list, then they'd start the next tzolkin and go back to 1-crocodile again.

If you went back in time, walked up to a Mayan priest, and asked him what day it was, he might therefore answer with 7-monkey, just as we might say that it was Wednesday.

The haab is more like our monthly calendar, in that it was based on actual astronomical cycles and was more useful for day-to-day keeping track of dates. It was the Mayans' attempt to match a calendar up to the yearly orbit of the Earth around the sun, and was 365 days long. It had a similar naming scheme as did the tzolkin, but instead of having thirteen cycles of twenty names it had eighteen cycles of twenty names (which gives only 360 named days; the remaining five were left unnamed and were considered to be very ill-omened).

So going back to our time-traveling conversation with the Mayan priest, he might instead give the date according to the haab calender and say that today was 17-bat, just as we might reply that it was May 14^th.

To be more specific about when in time an event occurred, though, the Mayans would often combine the two calendars together. Rather than just saying that it is 7-monkey or 17-bat, the priest might very well say that today is 7-monkey 17-bat. This is like when we said Saturday the 1^st of September; it differentiates that particular Saturday from others and that particular September the 1^st from others within a certain narrow timeframe. By combining the two calendars together like this, any day within a 18,980-day (just under 52 of our years) period would have its own unique combination name. There would be no other day called 7-monkey 17-bat for another fifty-two years, and there hadn't been one with that name since fifty-two years previously. This fifty-two year cycle is called a Calendar Round.

The combination Calendar Round date was fine for most day-to-day uses. If you said that your nephew was born on 2-rock 6-pointy-stick, then it would be obvious that this would be referring to the 2-rock 6-pointy-stick of a particular Calendar Round. If your nephew was still a young boy, then it wouldn't be the 2-rock 6-pointy-stick that happened sixty years ago, or the one happening forty-four years in the future.

But that wasn't quite good enough for other purposes. As with many other cultures, the Mayans liked to record historical events for posterity. These might be the rise and fall of kings, various battles, or astronomical data. When referring back to something back before common memory, such as the date when a king died nine generations ago, simply stating that he died on 3-ant 12-nut doesn't really help. 3-ant 12-nut of which Calendar Round? The one eight cycles ago? Nine cycles ago? Twenty cycles ago? A method of accurately fixing dates into an even longer framework was needed.

Thus the Long Count calendar was created. This is the particular calendar that has caused all the furor and panic, due to it “running out” this December.

Just like how our yearly calendar differs from the purely cyclic weekly and monthly ones by being both cyclic and linear at the same time, the Long Count calendar differs from the purely cyclic haabs, tzolkins and Calendar Rounds by being both cyclic and linear. In fact, the Long Count calendar functions in exactly the same way as does our yearly calendar, with the only difference being the Mayans' use of a base-twenty system.

As mentioned above, we could write our years as 00000000001, 00000000002, and so on. It is the position of the digit within the number, not just the value of the digit itself, that tells us the value of the number. Which is why 00000000010 has a higher value than does 00000000009, even though 9 is more than 1.

Because the Mayans used the base-twenty system rather than a base-ten system, it's a bit tricky to write out Long Count dates in the same way that we write out our years. We're fine counting up the Mayan dates up to the point of 00000000009, but then we're stuck. According to our system, the next number in the sequence ought to be 00000000010, with the digits in the tens place coming into play. But in the Mayan system, we're only halfway through the digits in the ones place and the tens place will have to sit and wait for awhile. We can't write that out using our numbers. And so we cheat a bit.

What we do is we write out the dates with spaces marked between each digit. This would be like writing 00000000001 as 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1; the marks between each digit aren't actually part of the overall number, they're just marking the space between the different places. So the Mayan Long Count's progression would be written something like this:

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.2

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.3

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.4

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.5

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.6

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.8

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.9

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.10

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.11

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.12

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.13

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.14

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.15

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.16

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.17

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.18

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.19

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.0

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.1

0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.2

This lets us write out a year using out ten-digit number system, when the year is meant to be written using a twenty-digit system. It works in the exact same way as with our own system, with each place progressively “filling up” until it cycles back to 0 and the next place over to the left gets increased by one.

In math class, we learned the names of the different digit places in a number. Given the number 849723, for example, we know that the digit 3 is in the ones place, 2 is in the tens place, 7 is in the hundreds place, and so on. For our year 2012, we have a 2 in the ones place, a 1 in the tens, 0 in the hundreds, and another 2 in the thousands.

That doesn't work for describing the date in the Mayan Long Count, though, because the numbers are different. So we use the Mayans' own names for the different places in their dates. For the Mayan date 4.12.6.8.15.7.11.8.16, for example, we'd say that there is a 16 in the kin place, 8 in the uinal place, 11 in the tun place, 7 in the katun place, and so on. The first six places in a Mayan Long Count date are as follows:

pictun.baktun.katun.tun.uinal.kin

(The above is all actually slightly simplified from how it really works. The Mayans decided to complicate things in a couple of ways. First, the digits in the kin position, representing the smallest units counted, actually start at the number 13. It's sort of like if we decided that in our years the number in the ones place always started at 4, thus meaning that the years progressed as 1998, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2014, etc. Also, they decided that the uinal place—and only the uinal place--in the date should be base-eighteen rather than base-twenty. We have no idea why they did any of this; probably just to mess with future archaeologists.)

That's the Long Count calendar. Each kin is one day, each uinal is seven kins (thanks to Mayan weirdness), each tun is eighteen uinals (again thanks to Mayan weirdness), and then each of the rest is 20 of the unit immediately preceding it.

So, what's happening with the Long Count this year? Why is it “running out”? Well, the Long Count date on the 21^st of December will change from 12.19.19.17.19 to 13.0.0.0.13. The first four places in the date will be filled up, so they'll cycle back around to zeros (and 13 for the weird kin one) while the digit in the baktun position will increase by one to 13. That's it. The baktun position has increased by one a dozen times already, and still has seven more increases to go before it itself cycles back to zero. This is nothing new, really.

Furthermore, the Mayans created a further eighteen positions in the calendar after the pictun position. Meaning that there are nineteen positions in the Long Count calendar that haven't even been touched yet. Rather than running out, the Mayan Long Count calendar has barely even gotten started. It will be over 2,500 years before we even start on the pictuns. The Mayan Calendar isn't running out in 2012. At the very earliest, it will run out sometime around the year 41341050000000000000000000000 AD.

Added to this is that the Mayans themselves made lots of predictions of the future. Much of the fuss about 2012 is from a partial inscription mentioning the start of the 13^th baktun and. . .something. The inscription is damaged where the description of what will happen was engraved, meaning that we can't really tell what was predicted. But various people have declared that it must be horrible and ominous and world-ending, because. . .ummmm. . .just because. However, this overlooks the fact that there are large numbers of intact Mayan inscriptions that go on to predict events ranging from dates several centuries ago to about seven thousand years in the future, and none of them mention any little details such as the end of the world. Instead, they indicate Mayan society continuing on for millennia in exactly the same way as it had been. Which not only argues against the alarmist interpretation of the partial inscription prophesying about the 13^th baktun, but also argues rather well against Mayan prophetic powers in general.

UnChristian Christianity

At Vanderbilt University in Tennessee last year, a review of the charters of all official student organisations was carried out. This was done for two reasons. One was that there had been complaints made about several of the Christian student organisations refusing to allow members who weren't anti-gay to run for office in those organisations. Note that this isn't just students who are gay or who support gay rights, but even devout Christian students who simply said, “Hey, why don't we do our thing and let the gays do their own thing.” The other reason was a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding discrimination in college student organisations (SPOILER ALERT: the Supreme Court turned out to be against discrimination).

Out of over four hundred officially-recognised student organisations at Vanderbilt, five of them were found to not meet the university's charter regarding inclusiveness and nondiscrimination. This charter has been around for as long as the university has, so these student organisations have actually been breaking the rules all along; this isn't just some new arbitrary ruling being made that these organisations are being forced to comply with. Of these five organisations, four were Christian-themed. Meanwhile, a further twenty-seven Christian student organisations were found to be just fine and proper. So, four out of thirty-one Christian groups on campus were found to be in violation.

The five student organisations found to be in violation of the school's charter (and, y'know, that little thing called Federal Law and the Constitution) have to make a choice. On the one hand, they can allow any tuition payer to run for office in that organisation. They don't have to vote for him or her, they don't have to campaign for him or her, they don't have to listen to that person's speeches. . .they just have to let that person add their name to the ballot. That is the only change that they have to make in their organisations. The other option is to lose their official school-sponsored status. This will mean that they no longer get funding from the school. They can still meet on campus, recruit on campus, spread newsletters on campus, and all of that, they just won't get a share of the tuition money to buy cool stuff with. The university's reasoning is that since every student who is paying tuition is thus paying for the support of these five student organisations, then every student on campus should be allowed to be part of these organisations.

In short, these four Christian organisations (and one non-religious organisation) are being held to the same standards as every other organisation (including twenty-seven other Christian organisations), and are being told that if they don't agree to those standards then they are perfectly free to continue on as they are but won't be given free stuff from public funds anymore.

This is, of course, utterly intolerable.

Christian groups around the nation went into a frenzy. Hysteria-filled rants and petitions flew back and forth, decrying this horrifying persecution of Christians and describing how poor innocent Christian students were going to be kicked out of the university for the sole crime of being Christian. Fox News even got into the act and reported on the dreadful religious persecution being committed by those dreadful hateful fascist commie liberal anti-American officials in charge of Vanderbilt University (who probably roast bald eagles over a pile of burning Bibles and American flags, no doubt). Members of the four organisations in question wail about how this could mean that they'll have to actually interact in a tolerant and understanding manner with non-Christians or Christians who hold slightly different values (apparently Matthew 9:10-13 and Mark 2:15-17 and Luke 5:32 were considered to be “optional reading” in their copies of the Bible, and they opted out of it).

Meanwhile, about ten miles away, another group of religious people are facing problems of their own. For the last thirty years, local Muslims have been having to make do with worshiping in a tiny 2,000-square-foot space that they've been renting out of an office complex. Many of these people are long-term members of the local community, born and raised there. A couple of years ago, they finally decided that having half of their congregation (which consists of over 250 families) being left sitting around praying in the parking lot every Friday because of lack of indoor space wasn't good enough. They very carefully and correctly bought some land, and carefully and correctly filed an application for a permit to build a small modest structure (6,700 square feet) there. They followed all appropriate protocols, filled out all the required paperwork, went through all the deliberations and consultations and inspections.

The local Christian community went nuts and terrorised them. The building under construction was at various times spray-painted with anti-Muslim graffiti, smashed and broken, and even fire-bombed. Muslim leaders received anonymous threats of murder. Christian groups staged rallies and picketed. Conservative political candidates heckled and ridiculed the Muslims and fought to deny them the right to build their mosque. Islam was denounced as not being a religion, or as being a nationality (and thus Muslims ought to “return to their own country”), or being a form of terrorism. Every hurdle that could be thrown into the way of this mosque was thrown. Some of these protesters pretended that they were concerned about the effects of having a public building constructed in that particular neighbourhood (and yet when a Baptist church during this time applied to build on the plot of land right next door to the mosque, nobody raised a single protest and the church was built and occupied within a few short months). Most of them, however, are quite open in stating that only Christians ought to be allowed to publicly display their faith.

Through all of this, the Muslim community persevered, and it looked as though they were going to be able to finish the place, get the final inspection completed, and then hold their first services there for the start of Ramadan this year. They were looking forward to the prospect. And then, in an act of pure spitefulness, one of the local judges blocked their final inspection by arbitrarily making up some additional rules that apply to this particular building and ONLY to this particular building based on the religion of its owners. This ruling was, of course, utterly unconstitutional, and when the Muslim community appealed to a higher court the ruling was immediately overturned. But the ruling still managed to tie everything up in red tape, meaning that the Muslims probably won't get a chance to hold the Ramadan services that they were looking forward to. Which was the sole point of the judge's ruling, of course.

Vandalism, threats, hatred, lies, spitefulness, literal terrorism, abuse of office. . .all of this is considered just fine and proper by many of the local Christian groups, because it is directed against non-Christians. These are some of same Christian groups who were wailing about the horrible religious persecution of the Christian students at nearby Vanderbilt University, declaring how it was so very wrong and unjust to target anybody based on their religion.

Apparently, religious tolerance is only supposed to be practiced towards Christians.

Which brings to light one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) problem with Christianity today. Not exactly a problem with individuals who are Christians, or with the Christian faith, or with Christian community. A problem with Christianity and its place in the world, in the lives of OTHER individuals and faiths and communities.

Christianity started off as just yet another little offshoot sect of Judaism. There was nothing particularly novel or unique about it; many other sects had similar messages and messiahs and figures dying and then being reborn. Christianity got lucky, though. Powerful figures in the Roman Empire saw it as a useful tool with which to gain even more power. And as they used Christianity to rise to power, Christianity in turn rose in power as well. Christianity went from, “Hey, have you heard about the latest wacky sect?” to, “Hey, if you're not Christian then we'll have to throw you in jail.” When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Christianity was therefore in a position to become one of the main unifying forces of western Europe, and thus its power grew even more. This was neither a totally good nor a totally bad thing; while it did give the Popes more power than most of them deserved or could handle properly, it did also help to keep channels of trade and communication and learning open, to impose some law and order, and to keep a check on the power of secular rulers (who in turn acted as something of a check on the Pope).

All of which has led to Christianity having a particularly privileged position in Western European and North American society. Being Christian was considered to be synonymous with being proper, being law-abiding, being decent, being civilised. Being non-Christian was considered to be everything else. It was nearly impossible to achieve any real position in society without at least making a good show of being a good Christian.

When it came time to put together the basis for a new country in North America in the 1780's, this was recognised as being something of a problem. The grand dream was to found a new nation that was based upon natural laws, laws that are intrinsic to each and every human being in the world regardless of race or creed. Setting up a government where you can be denied basic rights simply because you believe that God is named Bob and lives somewhere in Portugal would tend to clash with those dreams and ideals.

So the people setting up this new government, though mostly Christians themselves, agreed to set up a government that was not Christian in any respect. Despite what various conservative politicians and pundits would have you think, no, America was NOT founded on Christian principles. Founded by Christians, yes (mostly). Founded by people who themselves followed Christian principles in their own lives, certainly (mostly). But not only is there no passage in the Bible establishing a bicameral legislature or declaring the age that a president must be or establishing the limits of a supreme court, there also isn't a single line in the Constitution or in national law declaring that salvation is only through Jesus or that we should all turn to the Bible for guidance. And it was not an accident that in a world where every other European or European-derived government was based on all sorts of religious blessing and religious empowerment and religious privilege, the United States government made conspicuous lack of any religious foundation. This isn't to say that religion is supposed to be forbidden to any member of government; the President is perfectly free to pray if he wants to, and if a Senator feels the need to consult the great ferret demon Ooog before casting his votes, then that is within his rights (though he'll probably find himself out of office when the next election roles around. . .unless Ooog's advice turns out to be very very good). All that it means is that Christianity lost its officially-sanctioned place of privilege in America, leaving only personal choice, social choice and inertia to keep it being important.

And it did indeed remain important. Though no longer mandated by government, Christianity was still a major cultural factor. But now, for the first time, non-Christians could at least have a legal handle on why they ought not be pushed down. As America flourished, other societies began to also question why Christianity should have such a special place up on a pedestal. Increasing contact and mingling with cultures not dominated by Christianity, along with some instances of rather breath-taking arrogance on the part of Christian religious or secular leaders, further eroded the formerly unassailed notion that Christianity was somehow apart from everything else, above everything else.

More and more, various groups have protested having Christianity imposed upon their own lives. People have shown that you can be quite successful and happy without being Christian. Gradually, the Christian domination of virtually all aspects of society has been trimmed away. It's not really a concerted effort, and it's not an overall movement to banish Christianity (though there are indeed plenty who call for just that). It's more of a lowering of Christianity from its high place of privilege and bringing it down to where it has to knock around with all of the other faiths and ideals and notions that our society has collected.

Viewed from within the perspective of the Christian community, of course, this has looked very alarming and threatening to many. In principle, it is rather like Einstein's comments on relativity. From the outside, it looks like removing special status from Christianity and making it equal to everything else. From the inside, however, it could very well look much different: like religious persecution and the attempted destruction of Christianity. This isn't helped by the loud diatribes from various groups and individuals who want it to be just that. Overall, though, it isn't that. It's just that large parts of society in general are tired of living in the shadow of something that really has no true justification for looming over them in the first place. Christianity is just one out of countless other religions, and one out of an even more countless number of other doctrines and ideologies. While certainly considered to be true and right to its believers, it hasn't provided any more proof of its rightness than has any other one of those ideologies. The only reasons why it dominates as much as it still does is are a chance of history 1700 years ago and the force of habit today.

As is the case when any habit is being disrupted, this often leads to extreme crankiness from those who have the habit. Christian groups who feel threatened by all of this change sometimes end up circling the wagons, hardening their positions and cutting back on tolerance and refusing even the slightest compromise. They lash out at every perceived attack, even if doing so makes them appear out of touch and spiteful and hypocritical Sadly, while this may solidify the position of Christianity within that particular community (at least for a little while), it ends up backfiring in that it serves as all the more reason for everybody else to limit that community's influence. . .why would you want to give influence to a gang who firebomb people who never even did a thing to them, who demand privileges that they'll happily deny to anybody who doesn't agree with them, and who often act in the most obnoxious and hateful and (ironically enough) non-Christian way possible? And these ultra-Christian groups end up causing a similar reaction in some of the more anti-Christian groups, leading to even more fiery anti-religious rhetoric that causes the ultra-Christians to dig in even deeper.

There's probably no way to avoid that. It's basic human nature, and is expressed in different ways in every human society at different times. It's still regrettable, though. It would be so much more preferable if Christianity could quietly and gracefully settle down to its natural level in society, not inflated and made hateful and burdensome by artificial preferment, but lived by those who choose such a lifestyle and not meddling in the lives of those who choose not. As it is, it's probably going to be a long and bumpy ride until things settle down a bit.

At which point, of course, we'll probably find some new mess to replace it with. We seem to be good at that.