Rep. Gerry Connolly (VA) makes an excellent point on MSNBC

[disalitervisum]

18. How you deal with them is to remove their fear, you make them unafraid of education

Fear is what moves men. The fear of going to "hell" for your "sins" was inculcated into these people long ago as the ultimate means of control, along with a sham set of "morals" by which they can compare each others degree of fault. You're right, you can't disagree with the adopted values of of a bunch of people without them getting pissed off at you, because they have tied their whole lives to this screwy idea and when you attempt to point out that for you personally (just you, not them) that this idea is screwy, you get serious backlash, because as far as they are concerned you are telling them their lives mean nothing, and this bothers them, because people prefer anything to being nothing. Just look at the Nazis.