I didn't ask if it was better, I asked if [CS] thought it was harmful. You just created a strawman argument.
If you do not think it's harmful for someone, let alone someone sitting on the committee of space, science and technology, who holds a political office to believe such things, you're absolutely not qualified to comment on the subject. These beliefs form the foundation of a persons entire life, so one can reasonably assume they will bleed over into the political decisions they make which affect 330,000,000 people, the majority of which do not believe these claims.
No, actually they're not. What a person believes affects the decisions they make.
As mentioned more than a handful of times already, that is the very reason why science is so important, it doesn't matter what you or I believe, science is the most objective way to acquire the truth.
Do you understand that?
thats not a strawman. it's a rational comparison that sheds light on the argument and offers perspective.
you may find terror in the idea that someone holds or espouses some religious beliefs, but things could always be worse.
the strawman is to propose that someone's personal beliefs must mean they are raving loons with a desire to institute pogroms against any who disagree.
such as, for example, the taliban or the iranian islamic fatwas against any science not directly related to their plan to acquire nuclear weapons or the catholic church's insistence that life begins from the moment a single drop of jizz struggles towards an ovum.
THAT my friend is a strawman.
personal beliefs do influence decisions, but the congress does not do research, or conduct scientific experiments. if they did, then yes, we should only elect eggheads, poindexters and scienticians. unfortunately scienticians make shitty politicians since they dont move on an issue till 5 peer reviewed papers and 3 confirmatory experiments show the theory to be valid. politics is not science, i wish it were. but politics are the domain of the humanities and philosophy. very little math gets done in conggress, and it mostly winds up using irrational numbers and red ink.
it may gall you when a politician talks about how he prays for guidance or what he hears in a sermon, but it is not that troubling to most people unless the sermon comes from a firebrand black identity preacher or a militant wahhabist. or lately a mormon.
religious views may seem irrational, fuck sometimes they ARE irrational but when the rubber meets the road common sense and logic get more traction than even the slickest preacher's words. if you discount everyone who holds religious views then newton, darwin, curie and even tycho brae must be eliminated from your syllabus.