FORMER DOVER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS ALAN BONSELL AND WILLIAM BUCKINGHAM, ALLEGEDLY LIED ABOUT SOURCE OF FINANCING FOR CREATIONIST TEXT

Don’t you love the irony of the Evangelical Christian school board members lying to legitimatize their latest wave of Religious propaganda?

Which is precisely what happened in Dover Pennsylvania this time last year when the largely evangelical school board voted to give the boot to evolution and plug Intelligent Design, the latest polish on Creationism – creationism for the masses- into the curriculum.

Perhaps the irony of lying to indoctrinate young minds with a lie is lost on many of the faithful, but it is not lost on the good citizens of Pennsylvania, or apparently on the Pennsylvania legal system. Hence, the investigation referenced in the above heading.

Intelligent Design has not fared well in recent months. Besides being decried for the groundless pseudo-science that it is by the majority of the world’s scientific and academic institutions, no less of an arbiter of global taste than the Vatican has joined the ranks of those speaking out against attempts to substitute it for the scientifically sustainable theory of evolution.

Even in Dover Pennsylvania, in a recent election all nine evangelical Christian members of the Dover school board were recently turned out of office over Intelligent Design and the community’s objections to it being taught in the schools as fact.

Now I respect the right of the extremist Christians to have their own version of the world’s creation, but if it is taught at all outside of Christian churches, it should be taught in the context of “this is a theory that many of us believe, though there is no scientific background to it and in fact there are reams of evidence against it. So believe if you so choose.”

Of course, this is how I feel that all religions should be presented, with honesty, candor and respect for the religion’s ability to be scientifically validated.

But the evangelicals, especially those on the fringe, like many other believers of religions based on fear, prefer indoctrination particularly of the young. My cynical take on the matter is that they dread the types of questions that an older, wiser, more mature person might pose, questions that have no logical or scientific answer and would show their religion for what it is, a belief system and their deity, as in the words of my friend Bungalow Bill, as little more than an imaginary friend for adults.

Now this should not be taken as a slam against religion and a denouncement of the existence of God by this writer. Actually the opposite is true.

I believe not only in God but also in the necessary place that religion occupies in people’s lives. What I do not believe is that any one religion is greater than the other or deserves any higher prominence than the other.

This is my beef with the so-called religious right. They are entitled to their beliefs but so too am I. I bristle every time some evangelical tries to tell me what I can do, what I can watch or listen too. It is none of their fucking business what I do in my own realm, or whom I do it with.

I also have zero respect for politicians who play these basically fine, moral people, who take their money and attempt to legislate their moral concerns into law in return for their continued support.

Our forefathers devised the separation of church and state for exactly this reason. If America would only see the wisdom of this, life would be better for us all.

Merry Christmas.

- Denis Donovan

In other evolution news….

EVOLUTION BREAKTHROUGHS LEAD TOP 2005 SCIENCE STORIES

New breakthroughs in the workings of Darwinist evolution, in flu genes, in chimpanzees and in stickleback fish led the top ten discoveries in the science world in 2005, according to a US magazine.
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In a year in which scientists and religious groups fought furiously over a pseudo-scientific challenge to accepted explanations of evolution, the weekly magazine Science chose to lead its top ten with discoveries that “piled up new insights about evolution at the genetic level and the birth of species.”

The breakthroughs included “information that could help us lead healthier lives in the future.”

Read On….