No Quotes, Just Write

Today, I just want to rant.
About a topic that's constantly in "debate," without anyone bringing up anything remotely approaching evidence, logic, or just good plain common sense.
"Evolution" vs. "Creation Science."

Yeah, I know it's a "hot-button issue," but frankly I don't give a damn. Both teams are friggin' stupid.

Here's why.

First, this "debate" is between strict Constitutionalists, and fundamentalist Christians, and includes no-one else. Considering that EVERYONE'S kids go to public schools, everyone needs to be included.

Second, the Christians are missing several important points in their argument.

Too bad for them I'm here to wreck their whole day.

The Christian argument is that their mythology claims that the world was created in 6 days by their particular deity, and that evolution is therefore crap.
Why?
Because that's what their book says.
Why is their book the final authority?
Because their book says it is, of course.
No mention of the fact that the holy books of every other religion make the same claim, with just as much evidence to back it up.
No mention of the fact that the Christian book was edited by the Catholic church on several occasions - the same folks who support child molestation, and even sells "Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free" cards. (Think I'm joking? Go look up "plenary indulgences," and just see what you find. Never mind; I'll even save you that much effort. Just click here.)

To digress for a moment, I would like to point out that if you take the Bible literally, there's actually no contradiction there between Biblical theology and the theory of evolution. The Bible claims that God said "Let there be light" and there was light; science claims there was a Big Bang. So big, in fact, that the light from said Bang is (wait for it) still visible to astronomers even today. That's a big light, indeed. Maybe even as big as what would happen if God said "Fiat Lux!" You think?

Oh, but wait. The world was created in six days, not 11 billion years. Except that until around about the third day, the sun and earth weren't yet created, and therefore the term "day" in that context refers to an arbitrary length of time (maybe a sixth of 11 billion years, eh? Just a thought....) and the term is clearly used as a device to give the reader a comprehensible term to relate to. Never mind the fact that evolution is allowed for in the Bible - the book says God created all the living things. It never, ever says how.

Never mind all that; Creationism ought to be taught in schools. Because despite the fact that evolution is based on science, and despite the fact that the Constitution specifically decrees a separation of Church and State, Christians are really, really cool.

Or at least that's what they say. See, they will argue that the separation of Church and State only means that we can't establish a national religion, and make it compulsory; this, of course, because the Founding Fathers were Christians.

They conveniently forget, of course, that the Founding Fathers came to America, by and large, to escape religious oppression, and were desperately seeking a way to ensure that they would have the freedom to practice ANY religion they chose, and that said religion should be kept strictly out of the business of secular government.

They also conveniently forget that if they are successful in forcing their mythology into the classroom, they open the floodgates, because the government, by Constitutional law, cannot establish a state religion, which is what you have done if you require instruction in the tenets of one particular belief system in a government - run mandatory school system.

See, these days, you can sue. And if the Christian doctrine winds up in classrooms, because the government cannot discriminate based on religion, we will also have to teach Buddhism, Shinto, Native American tribal myths, Norse legend, Meso-American tribal myths, the Western European stories of fairies, Orthodox Judaism, the Book of Mormon, the Koran, and anything else anyone wants to sue over - in a SCIENCE CLASS.

Maybe it's time to ...

Strike that.
Fuck maybe.
It's long past time for people to get their heads out of their asses about this.
Really.

"Creation Science" belongs, properly, in the church from whose beliefs it grows, and nowhere else. Foisting it off on everyone in the classroom is as total a betrayal of the doctrine of religious freedom as has ever been perpetrated in this country's history, and will do irreparable damage to our social fabric. The divisiveness of this notion cannot be ignored; it is an enormous threat to our domestic relations.

Maybe, rather than attempting to turn our schools into forced indoctrination camps for Christianity, the fundamentalists should try this new thing called advertising. The Mormons do it; the Jehovah's Witnesses do it, despite the innate silliness of a church with a million-plus members which espouses eventual salvation for 144,000 lucky winners and no-one else advertising for additional members; the Muslims do it, in jail; even the Hare Krishnas do it in airports, or they did until 9/11, anyway.

TV is a wonderful thing. Instead of trying to force people to your point of view, why not try convincing them you're right, instead? You ever see how many people click on spam and fall for Nigerian 419 scams? Some people will buy ANYTHING.

But lay off trying to tell me what I have to let you teach my kid. I don't care; even in the very unlikely event that you were to agree with me totally, my child has the right to make up his own mind; my job is to provide information and guidance, not twist his arm until he screams for Jesus.

Stop trying to peddle your religious observances as science; there isn't any there. Stop trying to rename it so it sounds cool; stop trying to hide the fact that what you're doing is trying to extort from the state sponsorship for your brand of the afterlife. You don't have the right to do it in this country, period. Thanks to our Founding Fathers, who as it happens, were mostly Christians.

I think they'd spit on you if they saw you. But that's just me.

Oh, and one final thing: you may be wondering why I said at the first of this post that both the Christians and their opponents were stupid, and then proceeded to write about the Christians alone; I'll tell you why.

Because none of them wrote this article, and I DID.