I'm really in no way anti-religion, but it still seems to me that hints at some sort of fundamental truth about the nature of religion in the U.S. Over at Savage Minds, the premiere anthropology blog, Kerim Friedman comments upon the case of Ota Benga, the "pygmy" kept in a cage at the Bronx Zoo's Monkey House in 1906 (and the subject of a fascinating recent New York Times piece). Ota Benga spent Saturday afternoons frolicking in a cage with an orangutan named Dohong. And writes Kerim:

The exhibit quickly sparked protests from the Colored Baptist Ministers' Conference who objected not only to the racism of the exhibit, but also to its Darwinism.

Priceless.

And last but not least, in my anthropological advice giving, I urge you to be honest and brave. For anthropologists this means staying true to the stories we were told in the field, and keeping the details and nuances however inconvenient and contradictory they might be. It also means telling those stories in a way that is open and accessible. I remind my students and my employees that they have a responsibility to get it right -- that when someone shares the details of their lives with you -- you have a duty of care to do the right thing with that information.