You have to hand it to the Christian Right, they are nothing if not determined to force their narrow-minded views informed by the Bible and faith on us all; believers and non-believers alike. Their latest front is really an old front closed, but reopened on a different vista, but it is the same old battle: to get creationism into the public schools.
I am continually amazed that Americans in increasing numbers fail to grasp the foundations of their own government; i.e. the doctrine of Separation of Church and State for starters. Could it be that as each generation is born, we slip further and further away from even a basic understanding of what the constitution means? I was shocked when Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, stated from the bench during arguments concerning the Ten Commandment case before the court, that government(s) derives its power to govern from God! Funny I thought the government drew it power to govern from We The People as embodied in the U.S. Constitutions and many subordinate state constitutions.
Scalia's statement can only serves to embolden those who seek to replace Civil Law with Canon Law and thrust religion and biblical teaching into the public sphere. Never mind that not all Americans are Christians or even believers in God, what matters is that their agenda governs. Never mind our collective freedom to be free of religion if we so choose. If they believe in God and the Bible, so should we all believe and live by the word. Never mind that the Religious Right continually and habitually seeks to deny freedom to others based on faith!
In a recent Washington Post article, the paper reported that the religious doctrine of Intelligent Design (regurgitated Creationism), is being push in nineteen states from Georgia to Ohio, Ohio to California, with stops is Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington state, and points in between. The proponents of Intelligent Design would have us believe that the concept, in which the human race was created by a higher intelligence, is science and deserves to be taught beside the Theory of Evolution as a viable alternative to the latter. Problem is the concept cannot even begin to be proven, much as the existence of God cannot be scientifically proven; indeed the existence of God and or other higher beings must be taken on, well faith. Since it implied that this higher being that created mankind is God, or a God-like being we must take it on faith that it true. Faith is not the basis for sound public education; therefore, Intelligent Design has no place in the classroom of any public school.
True the Theory of Evolution is just a theory, but at least there are some science backing the assumptions that man evolved over time from primitive creatures who share a common ancestry with apes, monkeys etc. Science bares this out; science on the other hand offers no proof that one all-mighty being created all we see on Earth and the Universe. Therefore I submit again that there is no place for Intelligent Design in the public schools.
Some may point to the bible as compelling evidence of Intelligent Design, but once again, nothing in the bible can be proved; it is all conjecture, written over the span of at least 500 years and by different men with their own agenda. The tome is very contradictory and meandering, and if take literally offers no real guidance at all. The Bible is filled with loft words, but we must take it on faith that the Bible is indeed the word of God, and faith once again is not the basis for sound scientific education.
I am against teaching the theologically inspired Intelligent Design in the public schools. Not only is it scientifically unsound, but it violates the Separation of Church and state doctrine set up by the First Amendment. If we allow Intelligent Design to be taught in the public school, would we then have to allow other religions to insert their believe(s) of how mankind came to be into the public school curriculum? We would if we were to remain true to the constitution, for the state cannot favor one religion above another.
Religion and religious teaching and or doctrine has no place in the public arena, it should remain private. If Christians--who now claim by the way that they are being persecuted by not being allowed to insert Intelligent Design into public school curriculum--want to teach the ID let them do it at home and in the church. What I ask is wrong with that? Leave the rest of us alone; if you want you children to wallow in ignorance fine, but don't ask my children to share their fate.
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