Why is Intelligent Design becoming an issue as we gear up for the 2006 elections? Up until a year ago, the only ones that heard of Intelligent Design were the folks holed up in Kansas somewhere preparing the attack. The concept has been around for a long time, but it was dropped in favor of creationism. Its re-emergence as a way to get creationism in the public schools is very suspect, but never-the-less some people will try very hard to make this the diversion issue. The funny thing is that evolution isn’t really in conflict with Intelligent Design.
Evolution is fact. It is observable and testable. We can cross-breed. We can genetically engineer through our breedings, we can do a lot that supports evolution as fact. Now, whether or not we came from apes or whether men simply looked more ape-like is insignificant. Evolution is observable.
But evolution doesn’t explain how the Earth got here. Okay, so then we have the Big Bang theory where something exploded and from it the sun and the planets were formed along with the rest of the known and unknown universe.. But what was there before the universe? We don’t have those answers – at least not in a scientific way. Some believe that God created it. Some don’t ever think about it. And, I’m sure there are hundreds of other theories in other religions and cultures. The bottom line is we won’t know until we meet our maker – unless we have faith.
The problem exists with that. Just because you believe doesn’t make it fact. At one time people believed the world was flat and that you would fall off or get eaten by dragons if you went too far - and that was disproven by fact. Beliefs, as diverse as they are, are not the public schools responsibility to teach. It is the church’s responsibility, and the parent’s responsibility. Public schools are not the end all for everything. This country was founded on people fleeing England because they didn’t want the Church of England’s beliefs forced on them. Their decendants shouldn’t have to fight against the same thing. We are privileged in this country to have the freedom to believe whatever we want – and to insure that we maintain a separation between church and state. We can’t expect schools to pretend one religions principles are fact and impose it on all. For those that feel others should be exposed to their beliefs, may I respectfully recommend creating an elective class in world religions or beliefs?
