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You know, I hesitate to say anything about this, because, I am really not concerned at all with the details of this story, but it was fascinating enough to me that I can not help but comment. (I do seem to have that problem, don’t I?) 🙂
Last night I was watching Special Report with Brit Hume on the Fox News Channel (my Mom would be proud!). I rarely watch news programs, since I mostly don’t get into political goings on, or disasters, or homicides or things like that. Call me crazy, but I am not all that excited by such things… 🙂 But last night they did a story on a school in PA that had decided to (if I understand correctly) teach a theory that some people believe everything that exists is the result of Intelligent Design. Not a particular deity (like, Jesus, Allah, or Buddha or something) but just “a greater force”, or however they word it. I thought, alright, that seems fine. They still teach evolution as well… just offering different possiblities.
Well, 11 people took the school district to court, alleging that this was a violation of the good ol’ church and state thing. (Not that again!) And the crazy thing is, they won! The judge said that teaching Intelligent Design was a violation of the constitution? That seems really really crazy to me. I mean… how is that any different than teaching evolution? Evolution can’t be proven? Neither can intelligent design. They’re both theories, and both have strong proponents.
As I said before, I am not concerned with the details. I think the whole thing can’t work because you’re trying to teach one large group of kids the same thing, and all of them come from different backgrounds, and don’t think or believe the same thing. SO…. you’re going to have things that you don’t necessarily agree with. What really amazed me was that people would actually think this so important that they would challenge it in federal (I believe) court and attempt to get the idea banned from being taught (or mentioned?) in the school’s curriculum. They did not replace evolutionary theories with intelligent design theories… nor did they espouse one particular brand of religion. They just offered an alternative view.
How is it that we have gone so far that even suggesting a nameless God is unconstitutional?
I guess I just thought it was more evidence that we continue to move farther and farther away from God as a nation – when our judges are making decisions like this.
One more note, for the politically minded who read this blog… this will not be solved in the courts. You can’t win enough court battles, or hold on to any sort of legislative power that will make people want to keep God at the core of who we are. That is just impossible. The only way we can move people back toward an acceptance of him is person to person, sharing the love we have with everyone around us. I don’t mean launching a huge evangelistic campaign… just… loving God, and loving people. If God wants to, he will turn people back to him through that. Hearts can not be changed through legislation.
So, no big political push here… just found it amazing how strongly some people don’t like God even being an option.
The reverse argument is also important: those of us who have been satisfed that evolution has been sufficiently supported by the weight of scientitic evidence find it hard to accept that creationists and ID-ers allow no space for the spontenaity and randomness in the generation and development of life.
Suggesting that they just offered an alternative view is a wilful misreading of the creationist/ID movement’s motivation which is to so surround the teaching of evolution with caveats and restrictions that it becomes difficult to explain a tremedously complex subject to young minds. Evolutionary theory is science: a hypothesis supported by evidence supported mostof the scientific community. Inteligent design is a belief, and as such should be taught in religious education classes, not in biology classes.
I work with a very devout man who had no problems reconciling his faith with a belief in evolution. That happened a great deal in the wake of the publication of the Origin of Species, certainly in Britain. Rather than trying to find new names for creationism and new ways to shoehorn its teaching into science classes which deal with the ages of rocks rather than the rocks of ages, it might be an idea to get some creative thology going which allows science and religion to co-exist. Can’t be too big a jump from justification by fath alone to allowing a God and evolution to co-exist. But unprovable ID, with all the patent absurdities of the human condition, ain’t it.
All the best with the new baby.