I know nobody here will agree with me on this, but... [View all]

[Speck Tater]

The solution to the middle east outrage over insults to religion is quite simple. Publish some new outrageous insult to their religion every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, until they finally get tired of acting like a bunch of idiots and calm the hell down. They're sure as hell not going to go on some ridiculous rampage every day of every week of every month of every year. Eventually they'll just get over it. It's like exposing a patient to small doses of an allergen until their body gets used to it. Or exposing someone to small doses of something they fear, like snakes or spiders, until they finally grow accustomed to it and get over it.

That's basically what happened during the Enlightenment when each new scientific discovery exposed the true believers to something that outraged them until finally they got over it and scientific progress could actually get a foot hold.

It's called "desensitization".

In psychology, desensitization (also called inurement) is defined as the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. It also occurs when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked in situations in which the action tendency that is associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary. Desensitization is a process primarily used to assist individuals unlearn phobias and anxieties

-- wikipedia

Now tell me I'm wrong.