Coping with woos
I work in Newark, which is an extremely fundamentalist city, despite being in New Jersey (a blue state) and home to five universities and the nation's largest public health university. Vast tracts of Newark land are off the tax rolls because they're owned by churches of every stripe and size, most of which are primarily money-making operations for their pastors...they all run real estate development companies. They thread the needle of avoiding taxes while making money.
The membership, as a result, takes the Bible not as a series of allegories about human history and a source of useful moral lessons, but as a literal and minute-by-minute depiction of the history of the world. I have heard colleagues and superiors tell me that removing prayer from schools has led to America's decline, that we live in the "End Times," that the devil controls the weather, and so on. At the same time, the slavishly follow horoscopes, even though astrology is directly opposed to Jewish and Christian tradition -- false gods and pagan idols. My colleagues openly denounce evolution as a "mere theory," and one of them is proud that her father taught her to skeptically question evolution as it was taught in her high school.
The height of this was the woman who gasped in horror when I mentioned that Wallis loved "Harry Potter." How can I let her read such Satanic material, the woman gasped. Witches and warlocks...it was un-Christian! I had a hard time keeping a straight face.
I have to put up with this intense religiosity and its associated lunacy by mostly hoping that the phone will ring to interrupt the tirade. I also remind myself that this is proof of what happens, as my pal Anne says, if you "insist on going around believing in God."
But mostly, I avoid debating them. It's a no-win situation. I used to argue with them, and now realize it's pointless. They are what they are. The God they worship apparently created them that way, which shows He has a sense of humor, I guess.
What I don't let them do is take over my children's education...I won't let them teach creation as a genuine theory in our public schools. And while Wallis was baptized, she hasn't gone to First Communion or any of that stuff, to the annoyance of some of my colleagues. I point out to them that I don't want her burdened for life with guilt and shame unnecessarily, and believing that the only way to get rid of it is to confess "crimes" and give all your money to the pastor.
Then I go home...and I leave the idiots at work.
Now as for the woos on the web...I have also had to cope with Holocaust deniers, who I think are worse, because of their vicious anti-Semitism and worship of Hitler. They are more dangerous, because when confronted and exposed, they lash out by attacking and harassing their interlocutors, in some cases sending spurious complaints to authorities, naming their nemesis as a child-beater. Some neo-Nazis send e-mails with forged headers to make their opponent seem to be threatening the life of the president, or subscribe their opponent to a variety of objectionable websites. One woman found herself posted as a fan of bestiality and anal sex seeking companionship...and got a lot of horrid phone calls.
So I avoid arguing with those folks completely. If they send a note to me directly about my website, I answer them politely and refuse the debate challenge. I have a column about one such moron on my page. They get irritated that I won't play.
That's my best advice...don't get into it. It'll only make you feel worse. And don't take it home with you.
It doesn't get me down, on the whole. I find belief in the woowoo depressing in its false promises and doomed hopes, and being free from that is truly liberating. 
