March, 2005

The Religious Right is trying to get their old denial-of-Darwin ball rolling again, which is their right, but they are trying to enforce that position in the public school system, which is not their right.

Public schools are provided by state, creationism is created by church and never the twain shall meet.

Except it’s no longer called creationism, it’s now called intelligent design which posits that someone helped nudge science along and that someone of course was God and that’s okay for anyone to think if they care to and may even be possible. But it’s not science, it’s theology and theology is not teachable in the public schools although ‘policymakers’ in nineteen states are making noises as though it was. Policymakers are not, so far as I know, Constitution-makers and the United States Constitution forbids the religious camel’s head to enter the state’s tent.

A Tennessee county school board member wants stickers pasted on textbooks that say evolution remains unproven, which is a particularly slippery slope because the existence of God remains unproven as well . . . it is a matter of faith. An outfit called the Discovery Institute wants to “foment a civil discussion about science.” Well, you can’t have a civil discussion about science any more appropriately than you can have a civil discussion about religion. Science requires scientific discussion, theories and proofs. Religion requires theologic discussion and theory, as there are no proofs.

From everything that I am able to read, this is a Christian movement.

So, I have my own question. If Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims, pagans and sun-worshippers and various mystics have no part in this . . . then who created them? Just exactly who’s God is this whose hand moves the science? It is after all, just an eyewink in the long history of the planet since we’ve even had Christians.

Get out of the Archives and read what Jim's writing today