What is it about science that scares the extreme religious right so? What is it about math, logic and physics that sets off born-again Christians to the point of frothing at the mouth? Why does biology and chemistry upset the saints? Why are paleontologist vilified from pulpits across the land of the free?
I don’t get this.
I don’t get why the state of Tennessee can pass a law that lets teachers teach “religious-based’ beliefs instead of science – in a classroom dedicated to science. Creationism is not science. It is theology. Creationism is as far fetched to a scientist as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is to a theologian from Southwestern Baptist Seminary. The truth is, the two can co-exist and not repudiate one another’s reason for existence.
If the world was created in six days for you, so be it. Nothing I can do for you. If you believe that Earth is only 6,000 years and a few days old, go for it. I can’t sway you with the facts of carbon dating and cosmological timetables. But the process of science goes on, whether or not you want to witness it. It is real, whether or not you care to believe in it. It is going to affect your life whether or not you have your head buried in the sand or you are standing alone on a hill howling at the moon. I mean you are reading this on a computer screen that is activated electrons pouring over a surface that has been charged and manipulated by math on microscopic silicon plates – delivered along a strand of lightwave fiber optics and copper wires in sequence until it gets to you. All devised, created and engineered by science.
Science has never tried to disprove God. (Some individuals may have, but science wants to know the answers to things much different than ‘is there a God? It wants to know, if there is a God, what is She made of? And where did She come from?) But religions, for as long as time has stretched out, have tried to disavow science and the logic of learning.
The enlightened mind is a dangerous thing to the Pope in Rome and to the pastor of First Baptist in some Kansas farm town. Or to the televangelist who preaches from the airwaves. It is a dangerous thing to Imam and the Rabbi. The enlightened mind wishes to know why and how much and if. The religious mind is settled with only believing and controlling those beliefs.
And there in lies the battleground. Religious stalwarts do not want you asking questions. It is unholy. The scientists can’t live without questioning. It is the fuel for their minds.
Not to know the answers should make us want to explore. Go to the moon. Dive to the Titanic. Delve inside the cell, inside the atom, inside our own DNA. We should want to unlock the secrets hidden in our universe.
To turn our backs on this enlightenment is backward and rather stupid. But then again, that defines many who claim to be Creationism greatest proponents.
Second Topic today: Zimmerman v Martin
I normally don't do this – add a second topic; however, I was at a party the other night when everyone suddenly got on the “Let’s hang Zimmerman” bandwagon.
I chose to abstain.
I do not know what happened that night. I was not there. I know what people say happened, (and there seem to be multiple sides to this story) but authorities are looking into it and they will come to a logical conclusion. With this much scrutiny on a case of this much importance, the people who will investigate this, will do a thorough job. Bank on it.
Until then, I have no opinion other than this: until proven guilty, Zimmerman, in the USA, is an innocent man. We may not like that thought, it made grind salt into our wounds, but that is our law and our heritage.
Let’s wait and let the courts do their job. It is time for restraint and reason in this case. And we do not need NBC leading the charge to make this a sensationalized case, anymore than it already has become.
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