of mice and men, not pandas and people

So I watched a portion of a Nova special tonight regarding the landmark court case in Dover, Pennsylvania regarding intelligent design and evolution. I couldn't watch the whole thing, because once again it is another piece of media that purposefully made people of faith look like unthinking, over-religious idiots. What's more sad is the fact that most of the time, people of religious persuasion do it to themselves. I think it's telling that no Mormons, Muslims or Jehovah's Witnesses were interviewed. Why not? Only fundamentalist Christians are interviewed to represent the 'religious' side of the debate, and predictably, the only snippets they used were ones where people (thinking they are honoring God by having staunch unmoving faith) unwittingly become postcards for why intelligent design as a movement is destined to fail in our country's educational system. The scientists interviewed on the other hand, can hardly contain their zeal and hatred for all things religious and supernatural, despite the enormity of the subjects at hand. It's so clear and obvious - even to the casual observer and especially to a well trained observer (like myself). It was also obvious that all of the pro-evolution interviews were clearly non-religious in nature. Is there a correlation here? There was no mistaking or hiding the purpose of the Nova episode. Darwin = 1 God = 0 Here is the wikipedia entry for the subject, itself barely objective in my mind.

I thought about this hard and fast tonight (I am tired and I have to get up early in the morning, so I'm not interested in a lengthy dispositional thought process.) and I came to a couple of things. Here's some cold hard reality for all of you evolutionists out there -

evolution is just as much of a religion as creationism. There are so many incredibly huge pondering holes in evolution. Transitional forms anyone?... anyone??? Not even one!!? - and that's just scratching the surface, let's not even bother talking about the mathematical odds of a single protein being made by the process of natural selection, much less the incredible placement of the earth, the sun, and the elements which sustain life itself. It's truly amazing all of the things that "science" in all of it's wisdom cannot explain. You know what? I can't explain it either. I may believe in God, but I cannot rightly say that I have proof positive that He exists. You cannot prove that he doesn't, and I can't prove that he does. (Conclusively anyway.) So here is my grand solution to this issue.

No Intelligent design or creationism should be taught in any public schools.

Darwinism and the theory of evolution shouldn't be taught, either.

Bottom line - until someone finds a damn transitional form clearly and indisputably proving that indeed evolution is how nature works (a human transitional form I might add), then evolution as it is remains a theory, and only a theory. The existence of God on the other hand, can be said to have been proven thousands of times over thousands of years by thousands of cultures. Let's face a serious reality check for all of you God haters out there - Darwin's ideas have only existed for about 100 years. The idea that there is a creator has existed since the dawn of time. Long after something else replaces Darwin's black box, the concept of God will still exist. So I don't really care if they teach about God in schools, but I am worried about a theory being taught as scientific fact when in reality it is far from it. That's just plain dangerous. The way this is being handled seems a lot like how history books are changed by governments to hide genocide. You just wipe it out and ignore it. Seems to be the way the non-religious evolutionist crowd seems to be handling the idea of an intelligent creator, doesn't it?

In any case, take it all out. Entirely. Restrict schoolbooks to teaching what is only naturally observable and leave the question of how we got here where it belongs - at home for families to decide for themselves. I feel like that is not a scientific question - I feel that is a religious question since science cannot actually answer that question with any degree of absolute certainty. In my humble opinion, this is the only practical, logical solution that will please both groups. No 'religion' in schools, and no 'theories' either.

makes sense to me.

By the way, maybe I'm crazy this way, but wtf people. If you are a Christian, stop saying things like "the Bible says 'God created' and that's all I need to know" - all that does is make you (and the rest of us) look like unthinking, unrealistic morons. I am so tired of people of faith looking like idiots in media. While there may be no solid way to 'prove' intelligent design, it could be clearly reworked into something palatable to the masses and to miss an opportunity to have a real impact on this debate is stupidity. So it is said, not all religious people are simpletons - in my own life there are some truly amazing, intelligent, thinking people of faith who have inspired me to have more wisdom about studying things, who push for rational discourse rather than religious blather, who realize that the society we live in now will not leave it's precepts of reason and because of this we have to be realistic and practical (in a loving) fashion.

For the non-religious, I think the thing to do is be more tolerant of people with spiritual views. If you espouse tolerance and say you hate the religious folks' hypocrisy, then live up to that. You cannot claim that Christians or other people of religious faith are intolerant and then act intolerant towards them yourself - for one you are becoming the hypocrisy that you supposedly hate, and for two wouldn't it be better to make those religious folks feel stupid for how they're acting? So be upright about it and take the high road - show them who's boss. If what they teach isn't true - then you have nothing to fear, and no reason to get upset, right? Take it like a homosapian.

that's that. my 2 cents. (probably not worth that even but I do what I can)