Separation of Church and State - Response to a comment

The following is a response to a comment made on my post titled "The Ol' Creationism/Evolution Debate - Not As Clear-cut As You Think".

The separation of church and state is always a huge brick wall in debate, but my take on it is that the state should not demand through law that people follow a certain religion as dictated by the government, and neither should the state prevent the church from freely practicing its religion.  Teaching students what beliefs a religion has is not forcing them to accept those beliefs for their own (something which WOULD violate the separation of church and state).

So again, I think rather than worrying about IF Creationism is being taught, it's more correct to worry about HOW it is taught - is it being presented as the only way?  If so, then yes, that's unconstitutional.  But if it's being presented clearly as the opinion of a group of people that influenced their historical actions as well as their current actions, then I don't see how it forces anyone to believe anything other than to believe that other people (Creationists) believe it.  This is exactly the same as classes I've had where I've been taught about Marxism or the Abolitionist Movement, even the very movement for America's Independence.  Those are political and social theories or movements based on theories that were followed by certain groups of people who believed in certain ideologies.  Learning about them didn't indoctrinate me to them, it just made me more aware of WHY the October Revolution took place, WHY abolitionists fought against slavery while others resisted, WHY the colonists thought they were better off without Britain.  Surely it's not enough to say "the colonists wanted independence, so they fought a war."  You have to get into the WHY - why was Britain abusive of its colonies, and what type of system did the founding fathers believe would better fit their interests?  Some of these ideas I agree with, others I don't, but being presented with the framework of these beliefs empowered me to either accept or reject them, and even if I rejected them, to at least be able to understand what it is that others are accepting when they choose to believe them.

No where in your criticism do you tell me why Creationism shouldn't be taught except that it's religious and not scientifically verifiable.  Give me a little more than that - I'm willing to work with you.  Social studies and literature are not scientifically verifiable subjects - they rely on a different type of ideology and processing.  WHY should something religious not be taught in school?  It doesn't mean you have to indoctrinate the people, just make them aware of what influences others in the world.  The least it could do is help prevent misunderstandings about what people of a certain religion actually do believe.  Then everyone will know that those morons at Westboro Baptist Church are completely misrepresenting Christians and they'll stop trying to label all Christians as homophobic, because we're not!

Religion isn't something to fear, but to educate yourself about since it's such an influential system of thought in the world.  Fearing religion is the same irrational fear of the 'other' that was so prevalent during the Cold War - people just didn't want to deal with what other people believed and so they isolated them.  And look at all the wars the US put the third world into because of that fear.

That few people have even mentioned the details of this law in Texas, namely the way in which Creationism would be taught just shows that people are hung up on the 'religion' thing.  Maybe Creationism shouldn't be taught in a Science class, as the two don't seem to get along very well, but I see nothing wrong with it being taught in a class on Religion, and Religion is an important subject that should be taught to public school students.  In fact I think it would be very beneficial for students to not only be taught Creationism, but also core ideas from other main world religions.  With the War on Terror it would be great for students to understand the Islamic mind as well.  If we have more than one religion taught, at least then there's no question about the state trying to indoctrinate students with one of those religions.

Let me again point to the statistics in my post about the sheer size of religion's adherents in the world today.  Are schools as institutes whose goal is to educate young minds about the world around us really supposed to simply ignore such a huge influence in that world as if it means nothing?  What does 9/11 tell you about religion's influence on people?  What does Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. tell you about the positivity of the influence that can come from religion?  Understanding the ideas that influence the world views of others is key to finding ways to cooperate with those others.  Marginalization and isolation are not good solutions because it just breeds mistrust, misconception and hatred of the 'other.'

As to your references to science: It's that very case where people thought the world was flat that presents an example where science failed to present the accurate truth of the world, so why are we so sure we have all that truth today?  And why should it matter that the Bible was written before scientists discovered the world was actually round?  Are you insinuating that because people from that time thought the world was flat, they were ignorant, so if they also wrote the Bible it too must be a product of that same ignorance?

If scientists say that matter cannot be created out of nothing, then how do they explain where the extremely dense matter came from that expanded to make our universe according to the Big Bang Theory?  If that matter had to have always been there, what's to stop the possibility of there being a spiritual being that always existed too?  Besides I think if there IS a God who created the universe, He's the same one who made the rule that you can't make something out of nothing.  If He created everything, that means it came out of Him, not nothing.  If God didn't make the rules, how could He even BE God?

And your point about DNA is exactly the point I've been trying to make: "that doesn't mean it didn't exist before then, or that it is any less credible just because it was commonly accepted before that that something like that couldn't or didn't exist." - just plug in Creationism into your sentence in our situation today...it doesn't mean that (Creationism) is any less credible just because it was commonly accepted before (today) that something like (Creationism) couldn't or didn't exist (because evolution provides better SCIENTIFIC evidence for our origin).  How do you know we won't find something in the future that won't support the theory of Creationism?

In the end I know there's no way with modern science to convince you SCIENTIFICALLY that Creationism is true, but that's not what I'm trying to do here.  I'm just trying to make the point that people need to have conversation with each other, they need to be educated about each other's beliefs so that there can be understanding amongst people in the world.  Whether people agree in their beliefs or not is up to them, and a whole other story.  But if people refuse to even join in the conversation then you don't even have to worry about those conflicting beliefs because you don't even really know if they're conflicting or not - you're just assuming.

On a personal note (to help you understand why I think the way I do), I base my acceptance of Creationism on something far more than the hope of some future scientific discovery  - obviously I need something more substantial than that in order to live TODAY.  (Warning to religio-phobes, the following may appear to you to be coming from a brainwashed, misled, psychotic, gullible mind.  You have been warned.)  I grew up in Southern Africa where things other than science are much more valuable to the living of everyday life, such as knowledge of the ideologies of the different people groups around me.  I lived in South Africa under apartheid and I saw the hatred between blacks and whites.  I've lived in Zimbabwe, which only gained independence from white rule in 1980 - there are still many racist people alive today, both white and black.  I'm white, but I've lived in the same homes as the blacks, as one of them.  I've also been in the homes of the whites, and comparing these experiences, it always amazes me how much of a disconnect there is between the understandings of these two groups.  The blacks still resent what the white colonists did to them, and some of them end up hating anyone who's white - I've had racial slurs thrown at me even though I wasn't even alive during colonialism; I'm not even related to the Rhodesians, I just happened to be born with white skin.  Most of the wars in Africa are fought between people of different tribes - blacks against blacks.  People are naturally divisive and fearful of anyone different than them.  This fear is partially a result of a lack of knowledge about the 'other.'  They don't realize that they're almost exactly the same - same culture, same religion, same background.  Because they isolate each other and refuse to engage in dialogue with one another, they just hate each other.  Of course this is all a generalization and hardly sufficient to describe the whole problem in Africa.  The point is that Africans need to talk with each other in order for peace to happen, and that starts with education - educating ourselves about who other people are, their beliefs, their history, their culture, their RELIGION.

The Africans I've met are VERY religious.  They believe witchdoctors can summon evil spirits; they believe the spirit of their ancestors can get angry at them and kill them; they believe that a demon can run around and murder people (there's articles in the newspapers about this - they don't see it as a joke).  I've seen demon-possessed people with my own eyes.  I've even been touched by demons before.  I've also been touched by God before, though only rarely.  I sure talk with Him a lot, and He talks back - He answers my prayers.  I've seen a blind person prayed for and receive their vision back again.  I too was skeptical about it all, thought "well they're just someone hired to pretend to be blind."  But the people involved had never met the person praying before, and the blind person's family was ecstatic at what happened, the villagers who grew up with the blind person astounded.  I could find no explanation except that a miracle had occurred.  And these things don't only happen in Africa - I've seen it too here in America.  How could I deny so much evidence that points to a spiritual world and a God, a Creator?  Science hasn't given me any kind of explanation for these experiences.  Only religion has.  If science can explain these things away through some future discovery, I'm more than happy to listen.

But so far there are things that science just can't explain, things that I've seen that are too real to be ignored.  Just because you haven't experienced them doesn't mean they aren't real.  I have no interest in making these things up, and I don't care if you believe me or not; I just want to have a brutally honest, open discussion on what people really believe, what shapes their choices.  (Generalization alert:) It's always convenient for Americans to discount the experiences of the rest of the world - some Americans just think they know better.  9/11 proved just how pathetic their understanding of the world was, and how much of a disconnect they had with the outside world, with insufficient interaction with it that could have possibly prevented tragedies like that.  I hope there doesn't have to be anything more disastrous to make people realize that they have a responsibility to understand what's going on in the world out there, what do people think and believe out there?  As for Creationism, you don't even have to go outside America's borders; it's right down the street at your local church; those people walk past you every single day.  Even here on campus, we walk past you and sit in the same classrooms as you all the time.  For you to be oblivious to their ideas is dangerous not only for you but for them.  Just look at Arizona right now.  Do you think this anti-immigrant sentiment is coming from immigrants themselves, or friends of immigrants, or people who actually know immigrants?  Or is it coming from people who avoid immigrants or scoff at their attempts to speak English, mock their culture because it's so different, making no attempt to understand who these people are and how Arizona can actually deal with the situation without hurting innocent people in the process?  Ask those same immigrants what religion they follow and whether they accept evolution or Creationism.  Whether Creationism is just a story or not, it influences people's lives arguably more than evolution does.  Several thousands of years of Creationism's acceptance against several hundred thousand hours of study of evolution doesn't compare much, and today people STILL accept Creationism even in the face of evolution, for the reasons I've said above.

How lucky we are to live in the days after the development of the theory of evolution - all those suckers who lived before evolution came about sure were unfortunate that SCIENCE hadn't developed far enough to enlighten them of their ignorance and misconceptions of the world.  It's a good thing that today we can engage in conversation and share knowledge about what science has found that can correct those misconceptions.  But science is not the only field of study people need to be educated in - a lot of good science does me right now with my IR and English majors.  If the only thing that provides the world with truth is the continual progression of scientific knowledge then the world just comes down to an elitist system where the further in the future you're born, the more superior you are because of the larger wealth of knowledge you have available to you.  It's a race no one can win, so we need other guiding principles in our lives other than science.

Religion is very present here in America today - it has been from the start and there are no signs of it going away, as the 2009 Newsweek poll suggests.  There are still plenty of people in the world who follow one religion or another.  If people wish to remain ignorant of these facts, they can go ahead and do so, but it seems to me that the more people of the world can understand other cultures, other RELIGIONS, other languages, other worldviews, the better equipped we are to interact with those people and stop hatred from developing, stop wars from happening, stop injustice from continuing.  If America wants to lead the world, it needs to educate itself about that world, including the religious beliefs of that world.

Please, engage in honest conversation with me instead of writing me off as some religious nut.  I got into the same university as you, I think I even have the same major as you - so could there really be that much difference in our ability to think and process?  Even if I am just brainwashed or insane, at least I stand as proof that there's at least one other person in this world who interprets that world in a very different way from you.  The truth shall set you free.