Re: You're welcome.
You cannot separate intelligent design from christianity.
I think members of every other world religion would disagree with you there...
Christians have just hijacked the term; and certainly in the US, where Christianity is by far the largest religious group, and really the only one that gets thrown around in Politics, I could see why people would make that association. But its just a stereotype association.
In england, we often call vacuum cleaners 'hoovers' after the brand (not after the US president
...). But that doesnt mean that the only people who make vacuums are Hoover, its just a stereotype association from way back in the 50s and 60s when they were the largest market shareholder (I think...)
Anyway, I digress...
I have no issue with people disagreeing with my worldviews. I am (generally speaking) secure enough in my assertions to not feel insecure about that. i'm also happy to play the 'I don't know' card. I don't have a burning desire to understand how the universe works necessarily. That has relatively little impact on my life, and is really just an academic endeavour that ultimately I am somewhat ill-positioned to undertake. If i was an astrophysicist or a evolutionary biologist, I suspect I would be more concerned...
My issue, and I think the crux of the issue with evolution, intelligent design, and education is that we don't want theories presented as fact. We want them presented as theories. I would rather teenagers were equipped to think for themselves and examine the various facts we have, and the theories we have posited and draw their own conclusions about the world.
I studied astrophysics (in a small, non-PhD way...) and there is a marked difference in the way that the big bang theory and evolution were taught. The words 'we don't know' came up a lot on physics class - whereas biology dealt more in terms of facts (which turns out, are theories...).
I should also say, as a disclaimer, that I like the seperation of church and state (although here in the UK, ironically, we don't have that. The Queen is in fact the head of the Church of England...). But that is not designed to remove religious expression from the state, its supposed to remove religious influence from government, so that people enjoy greater freedom to practice whatever religion they so desire. (According to the last UK census, our fourth largest religion is Jedi...)
Whats wrong with admitting that ultimately we are small beings in a giant universe that we ultimately know very little about? Even our best guesses are relatively un-formed ideas. The pursuit of those ideas is admirable, as it promotes intelligent thought. But it shouldn't create these silly high-grounds that we occupy...
I would be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that the majority of people who argue about these topics haven't done any of the following:
1) Read The Bible (or any other religious text) from cover to cover in great detail
2) Engaged in any form of theological study or training
3) Read the Origin of Species
3) Engaged in any form of tertiary (or higher) scientific study in the areas of evolutionary biology or astrophysics.
So, considering that you almost certainly need to have done at least 2 (if not all 4) of the above in order to have any kind of well-informed opinion on the matter, isn't it better to hold onto our opinions loosely?
Especially considering it turns out we're all in the Matrix anyway... 8)~
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