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.
Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles says it's the former, comparing the recently passed Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona to the requirements by the Third Reich for Jews to carry around identification documents and wear the Star of David on all of their clothes.
Understating it, SB1070 is a controversial bill, as it is the strictest and most open-ended immigration law to be passed on US soil in many years. Formed as a means to identify and deport illegal immigrants, the law was signed into passing by Republican Governor Janet Brewer on April 23rd in spite of strong criticism from President Obama and many other groups whose cries of 'foul' seem to be clamoring louder everyday, involving everyone from Cardinal Mahoney to Major League Baseball players.
Needless to say, immigration reform is way overdue and needs to be given high priority by the federal government. Issues have arisen far too often but nothing concrete has yet been done to address the problem and fix yet another broken system. The fact that such a controversial law as SB1070 has been passed is evidence that the federal government's failure to act on the issue is making it necessary for state governments to act on their own. Maybe SB1070 was exactly what was needed for Arizona to get the federal government to pay attention.
Aside from the necessity of comprehensive reform, just as important is the way in which such reform takes place, which is the real problem with SB1070. Although it's great that Arizona is trying to do something about immigration, this is an inappropriate and inadequate solution to the problem, only addressing symptoms, not root causes.
Among the largest criticism of SB1070 is that it "makes racial profiling legal." This accusation itself is enough to get people riled up and speak out against the bill - how could the Arizona legislature be so hateful? It's almost surprising how many people have joined together to speak out against SB1070; if Americans feel this strongly about the issue, then obviously something needs to be done about it. Yet for all of the support immigrants are receiving from some groups, there are not nearly as many cases of actual interaction between regular Americans and immigrants - they're still isolated and misunderstood.
More than any solidarity with immigrants, perhaps it's just that Americans are put on high alert by an issue that skirts as close to racism as racial profiling does. Such a strong reaction to the possibility of legalized racism sends people into a frenzy that has caused them to quickly isolate the state of Arizona, calling it a "police state" or a "Nazi Outpost." Yet it's quite disappointing how quickly people are willing to ostracize and label Arizona with so many hateful names, boycotting its businesses and withdrawing students from its universities, without making it clear that it is not the people of Arizona who are to blame, but the state legislature and the governor who passed the law. How often do states in the Union effectively boycott other states because of their local laws? Is boycotting really going to get the Arizona government to pay attention or is it only going to exacerbate the problem in Arizona even further?
This situation draws parallels with the debate in International Relations studies about the efficacy of imposing sanctions on a foreign country to get it to comply with demands - is it the people in power who are actually affected or is it the people under them who suffer?
So, does SB1070 actually legalize racial profiling? SB1070 requires Arizona law enforcement officers to investigate under "reasonable suspicion" those people they suspect of being undocumented immigrants, to prosecute them and deport them if they are proven to be illegal. Critics complain that racial profiling is inevitable since how are you supposed to tell if someone is illegal or not just by looking at them? Are officers going to go around and detain everyone who appears to be of Hispanic origin, or who can't speak English? Even people who are found accompanying illegal immigrants can potentially be arrested under SB1070.
Critics are right that such a wide-sweeping law should not rely upon something as arbitrary as "reasonable suspicion" - there are too many possibilities of abuse of this law. And yet on the other hand, if people are worried that officers will abuse this law, doesn't that reveal a need to crack down on an irresponsible law enforcement system too? If people believe that police officers will racially profile, given the chance under law, that reveals a lack of trust in the moral character of law enforcement. SB1070 contains manifold problems and has holes in it at multiple levels. Even long time citizens will now have to carry their identification papers with them at all times for fear of being investigated at a time when they are without one. This creates a fear of law enforcement which should not exist, as well as creates more work for law enforcement officers that will distract them from the more dangerous drug lords and criminals who do get through the border.
Although SB1070 does not blatantly legalize racial profiling, it does open up more possibilities in which it can take place. Police officers are still subject to federal law that makes racial profiling illegal - state law does not supersede federal law, and any violations of the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable search without probable cause will still be prosecuted according to federal law. Criticism of the law should not be primarily based on conjecture as has been the case here. Proper criticism must include a thorough analysis of the actual text of the law as well as acknowledgement of the defense given by those who helped write the law. If someone is so willing to speak out against SB1070, they ought to at least make sure they know what it says, so that there are no false assumptions made. Then, rather than stopping at being upset about Arizona's laws, there needs to be better alternatives put forth, as was recently done by a group of Democrats in Washington. For an issue which potentially affects the entire country, immigration must be dealt with by the federal government, not the states themselves. Let's hope that despite the elections coming at the end of the year, immigration will be given its deserved attention by Washington.
I was reading another blog entry on Simply Blogical's site regarding the introduction of Creationism into the curriculum of Texas public schools. Simply put, his stance is that it's a bad decision. As the topic spawned a big reaction in myself, I went to comment on the post, but unfortunately (or not), I was passionate enough about it to exceed the character limits on comments. So I will instead post my rebuttal here, which might possibly serve as another example with which to show that there are a lot of misunderstandings between people who believe one thing and those who believe another, and communication is necessary in order to get rid of these misconceptions so that we can discover real and substantial solutions to our disagreements in as peaceful of a way as possible.
After reading Simply Blogical's short post, here is my comment/argument, addressed to him:
I won't claim to have intimate knowledge of all of the scientific arguments that are said to support the theory of evolution, and I'm willing to bet that neither do you since you only make very sparse reference to them, so my critique of your post will try to focus on ideas outside of all that science.
You say: "Firstly, the “theory” of creationism is scientifically incorrect."
Although Creationism is a theory, so too is evolution. If you look into the definitions of the words 'theory' and 'fact,' you'll see that the differences between the two are really just a matter of probability and not absolute truth or absolute falsehood. Scientifically you can't completely disprove the possibility of something being true, you can only prove it's unlikelihood, or you can prove that something wasn't true at the time that you carried out the experiment. Evidence found today only supports theories which become generally accepted as facts, but that doesn't discount future discoveries which may require modifications to the theory accepted today. Essentially, you can never prove anything absolutely, but you can only fail to disprove it. People take this simple concept of science for granted.
You say: "Genesis states that God created light 3 days before the sun and the stars."
It's funny how you first mock Creationism for taking a literal interpretation of the Bible, and then in your own argument you rely upon doing the very same thing, assuming that the Bible is literally saying the sun and stars were created three days after light. The Bible didn't say the light created in Genesis 1:3 was light from a star - it's just light, brightness on it's own without any organization or form. It's only when God creates the sun and stars that he organizes that light into focal points. Compare this with someone making a cake - they don't start with the cake. First they mix up the batter in one bowl, then finally pour the batter into the baking pan. You can't look at these ingredients of Creation as being final until everything is put together. As we all know, light doesn't ONLY come from stars; of course there are other sources, such as light bulbs or camp fires. It's not too hard to imagine light coming from another source than stars until those stars were created.
You say: "The bible also states that earth was created before the stars. This is incorrect because earth is billions of years younger than many stars."
Not all Christians accept the Genesis account as completely literal - have you ever heard of the idea of Gap Creationism? It provides an explanation not only for the age of the Earth which fits with scientific findings as well as the difference between the 'earth' as we know it today and the 'earth' as a concept of the mass of atoms that God later formed into the earth we know today. And don't complain that it's just a young theory slapped on to defend against the new idea of evolution - this stuff was thought about long before evolution came along.
You say: "The bible also states that the earth was created in 6 days and humans and animals in less than 1 day,"
Once again you make false claims about the Bible, as it does NOT say humans and animals were made in less than one day. Fish and birds were made in one day, land animals on a different day, and humans again on a totally different day. Check the facts before you make the claims.
Of course your reference to evolution stands at the root of this whole debate and branches into other issues which I shall partially address below.
You say: "students will learn to accept ideas despite the lack of any factual backing, which will handicap their intellectual ability."
That you don't even give references to where you got the information to make these claims about the Bible seriously hampers your argument's strength and believability. Did you even actually read the Bible to verify if your assumptions about it were true, or did you just rely upon what somebody else said about it? If you're going to demonize another group of people and their beliefs, you might as well do it in a proper way other than making false assumptions and ungrounded accusations. At least give us the decency of throwing REAL mud at us if you can find any. Do you even really know if Creationism is going to be taught without any kind of reference to scientific findings? Or is that another assumption without any factual backing, which is exactly what you're saying student's shouldn't do.
Are you so trusting to give someone else the benefit of the doubt on a question as important as the origin of the whole human race, which at least in the case of Creationism gives us our purpose for existence. To let a bunch of scientists tell me what I should believe, I'd better have a lot of trust in those scientists. In fact, man, I should have become a scientist myself, since it sounds like they have all that power to influence people. Obviously we have to trust other people to a certain extent, otherwise no progress would ever be made. When it comes to certain things, I'm willing to trust science. Hey I'm using a computer right now - it's an amazing invention of science and I'm glad for it, even if I don't know how it works. But I'm not willing to so easily trust scientists when it comes to something as big as the origin of life and the subsequent meaning and self-worth that it gives me today. For something that important and personal, I'm going to go with my own personal experiences which tell me that there's a lot more than what science can explain to you.
Now, regarding the theory of evolution, like I said, I'm not going to go into the science itself since I lack the knowledge, and I concede this willingly, though I don't think it invalidates any of my other points about this discussion. Again, evolution is only a theory just as you say Creationism is. Evolution can possibly be disproved upon future discoveries. Like many other theories, including Atomic Theory, Cell Theory, Music Theory, the Theory of Relativity, evolution has been helpful in explaining many things that previous theories could not, and that's great! But that doesn't mean it's the final word on everything. I mean, before Atomic Theory we had monism and corpuscularianism before it, which for their own time were helpful in explaining scientific phenomena until even better theories were arrived upon. Let's not be so sure that just because we live in the present and we may have progressed from the past, that the future isn't capable of progressing even from what we have right now. Surely we haven't arrived at the pinnacle of human achievement and understanding yet, have we?
Have you ever even read Darwin's books? He himself was raised in a Christian home and it took a long time for him to lose faith despite all of his scientific findings. Yet he still could never completely give up the possibility of God's existence. Darwin himself said: "In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind." So the man himself didn't even want to follow though with the implications of his own findings.
As to religion itself, too many people are not willing to acknowledge how much of an impact religion has on the world. Surely something that has such a big impact should be studied in our education systems. And if religion is as dangerous as you claim, then at least inform kids about why religion is dangerous, rather than avoiding the topic completely. Surely an 'enemy' that is well-known is easier to defeat than a completely unknown one. This is another example of the problem with demonizing the 'other' and refusing to carry out communication between groups just because you don't agree with them - something I keep trying to address in my own blog posts. Check out these figures here on membership of world religions. It seems to suggest that a third of the world's population is Christian and accepts Genesis as truth. Then Islam too believes in a God who created everything. That's already over half the world's population, not even talking about other religions (something for another time). Of course there are many within these religions that don't always accept everything taught by that religion - let's not bunch everyone into the same group, which can be misleading. This might be a good book for you to read to clear up some of your misconceptions on religion: God is not One.
Even if evolution's claims are so overwhelming and ground-breaking, why is it that so many people still refuse to accept it as true? Why is this still so contentious of an issue? There's a Newsweek poll conducted in 2009 (you'll notice that I'm giving you the source of my information so you can see for yourself - you don't have to accept it just because I said it) that shows almost 9 out of 10 Americans have faith in a spiritual being, and 85% say that religion is "very important" or "fairly important" in their lives. That's a lot of people. Now if you believe that all of these people are being influenced by dangerous ideas, maybe you ought to work a little harder to save us from our own stupidity. And what do you say to the 84% of people in the world who still believe religion is important? I know you say: "Many will get the idea that solely because many other people believe something, regardless of how fallacious it is, it must be true." Of course there's always a danger in following the masses. Seek truth for yourself, don't just do what everyone else does. But what about people like me who do think for themselves and still find reasons to nevertheless follow religion, whether it's popular or not. Just because it's popular doesn't mean that it's evil. But maybe you're just one of the privileged few who are intelligent enough to resist brainwashing? I know the feeling all too well myself, but I have completely different views from you! So how are we to figure out what's right? Why don't we start with communicating and actually discussing these issues rather than declaring everything you don't believe in to be a lie. I don't think anywhere in my comment do I refute the scientific evidence for evolution, and if I appear to do so, I'm sorry for giving that impression - we can all make mistakes. I don't even need to go into my reasons for why I believe what I do, as I've found ample evidence to refute your claims simply on the grounds that your claims rely on false information hearsay. I will however clearly state just for the record that I choose NOT to accept evolution's premise that there is no Creator. Everything I see in life just shows me more evidence of God's existence, even explaining why evolution is so readily accepted by some people while not even given a second thought by others.
About the issue of school curriculum - it's entirely possible to present Creationism in an unbiased manner that doesn't violate the separation of church and state. You're taking this way out of context - teaching creationism doesn't mean people have to accept it as truth; you can teach it in an objective way as a POSSIBLE theory, just as evolution is a possible theory. There is nothing lost in discussing contentious issues, only misunderstandings bred by avoiding them. George Bernard Shaw said that "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions." It seems that you fear if Creationism is taught in schools, gullible students will be mislead into believing a 'lie.' If our education system is not capable of teaching students to think for themselves enough to be able to resist something so 'false,' then maybe there's something more pressingly wrong about our education system than whether it should allow discussion of different theories. Isn't that what open-mindedness is about anyway? Being able to freely discuss all viewpoints no matter how marginalized? Whether or not Creationism is justifiable I would think it's still worth teaching in schools as a form of thinking that has at least significantly impacted the history of science and historical social and political events. Especially if evolution has only risen in the last 150 years or so, while Creationism has been accepted for thousands of years. And if Creationism can so easily be disproved, as you seem to think your four paragraphs sufficient for such a feat, then surely it's not as dangerous of an idea as you claim? Let them teach Creationism in class, then provide the scientific evidence that destroys the believability of Creationism. Isn't that a better way to eliminate any doubt about evolution and expose this Creationist 'lie'?
Is not our justice system based on the idea that both sides of the story must be heard in full before judgment is to be made? Do you seriously know how scientists came up with the idea for evolution? Read a book on it that describes the logic to it, and read a book that refutes it as well - get both sides of the story and use your brain to figure out what's going on in the debate.
As to your outrageous claims that: "The bible also states that homosexuals, fortunetellers, people who don't listen to priests, people who hit their father, non-believers, followers of other religions, people who work on the Sabbath, and many more innocent people must be killed, so why shouldn't this also be taken literally? Also, the bible commands many acts of self-sacrifice necessary in order to go to heaven after death." - I'll ask you where in the Bible it says those things? It sounds like a lot of assumption to me. There were situations where people of those groups were killed at God's command, but it wasn't simply because they weren't Christian. The situations were far more complicated than simple killing of the 'other.' Besides that was in the old days, over two thousand years ago, and God has changed things. The separation of the Old and New Testaments shows this change. This is another big issue, but I've already written a nice long paper for you and I have other things to do, but I'll point out one easy hole in this statement of yours: Jesus himself worked on the Sabbath, supposedly 'breaking' God's rule. There's much more at play here than silly rule-following; God's not some old guy who gets cranky and kills you because you didn't do exactly the letter of the law - who would want to follow such a dictator? I wouldn't. Matthew 12:1-13 shows clearly the real meaning behind the Sabbath. Then there's a simple remedy for this silly idea that Christians should kill anyone non-Christian: in Matthew 5:43 Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." That sounds like Jesus gave His followers a mandate to love people, rather than kill them. Just because people in the past have done horrible things while claimed to follow the teachings of Jesus, doesn't mean they were accurately following the teaching. People can be gullible and misunderstand things, or yes, they can accept what someone else says without verifying for themselves whether it's true or not.
Now, what are these self-sacrifices you mention? And are you assuming that self-sacrifice is a bad thing? As far as what the Bible says about going to Heaven (something that happens if you are 'saved'): Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." So it's not through self-sacrifice or any kind of works, but by simple belief in who Jesus is and what He did for the world that gets you in to Heaven. That sounds a lot easier than following a bunch of rules and killing people. If you care to double check that what I'm saying isn't just false information used to my own gain, browse online and you'll find plenty of sites that clarify these issues. The question is, do you really care to find out the truth of what Christianity is about, or is it easier to just assume?
In the end, it's not all these little details about evolution that really affect my belief, but the implications of it all - that God created the universe and everything in it. Perhaps this isn't too different from you not knowing all the little details of the theory of evolution, but you're willing to accept the premise that we all evolved from some common ancestor which somehow came out of nothing. Seems both of these ideas require faith in order to be accepted. So what's the difference between these ideas? Maybe I'm just crazy and brainwashed, and everything I believe is wrong. But why are we even discussing this topic if life's all about survival of the fittest and passing on stronger genes to our offspring? A random thought: why do people love to eat unhealthy foods in excess like chocolate or ice cream if it's bad for their body? Isn't a silly example like that a case where humans aren't doing something that's in their best interest for survival? All of these issues are a lot more complex than you think, and they deserve further question and research before you make claims about them. Even though your arguments were poorly constructed, reading your post wasn't intellectually harmful whatsoever like you claim discussion of Creationism in schools might be; I was able to argue against what you claim because of other knowledge that I have. Can't we trust kids to do the same if taught about Creationism? Or do we believe that education is actually just brainwashing and makes people accept exactly what they are told without questioning its validity? Diversity and opposition help shape and strengthen your own beliefs, so we shouldn't be afraid of constructive confrontation. Again, I'm not trying to attack you personally or have any hatred towards you as a person, but when you make these strong claims and false accusations about my beliefs, whether directed at me individually or at the group I identify with as a whole, I have to stand up and defend myself and my beliefs. My goal is truth, so I hope my rebuttals were grounded in logic and evidence rather than hearsay, emotion, or assumption. If, as you claim on your 'About Me' section, challenging your beliefs is a 'favor,' I challenge them with the above arguments, and I'm completely open to criticism of them.
