The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

This is an issue that Joe blogs about with relative regularity (his most recent related post). I feel the need to put my thoughts down as well.

Christian groups in Kansas this week are organizing a trial of sorts that pits evolution vs. creationism, or what they call intelligent design.

Lots of people have beliefs that I disagree with, and generally I feel I just have to live with the fact that not everyone thinks like me. I am willing to concede that matters of opinion are subjective, and I am even willing to concede that I may be misguided in some of my beliefs, but this intelligent design crowd is just downright loony.

There is no other politically active group who takes the stage and sounds so unintelligent. I start to shake sometimes when I hear them speak.

First of all, one may not claim to be an intelligent person and not believe in evolution. Evidence of evolution is literally everywhere you look. At the same time the argument that evolution is "just a theory" makes the same people sound even more unintelligent. Clearly they understand that a theory is something that is accepted as true, yet cannot be definitively proven because it would require us to prove the same thing an infinite number of times, an impossibility. Since they must know this, they are making a purely semantic argument designed to deceive people even dumber than them.

I refuse to believe that someone does not take evolution as a given. I simply cannot fit this into my view of the world.

Secondly, I do not understand why evolution is at odds with a workable intelligent design theory. The idea that living things adapt to their environments is not the polar opposite of the idea that God created the Earth and humanity. It's not even a directly related topic. It is tangentially related at best. Is it not possible that God created an Earth that follows the laws of evolution? That seems to be a perfectly reasonable argument.

Why do people insist on taking the Bible literally. And when they do, why do they only take pieces of the Bible literally. The Bible contradicts itself time and time again. It is not possible to take the Bible literally. The book of Genesis contradicts itself in chapters 1 and 2 regarding the order in which things were created. The first book contradicts itself in the first 2 chapters.

Jesus was known to espouse his teachings through the use of parables, stories that weren't necessarily true, but did a good job of outlining the point he was trying to make. Is it not then conceivable that the entire Bible is a parable of sorts? Rather than an account of history, couldn't the Bible be a guide to living a faithful life? Clearly there is some history strewn into the mix, but to take every word as a true account is nothing short of foolish.

My intention is not to demean religion. I find it to be truly astonishing that people are capable of such faith, and I admire everyone who holds true to their religion. Rather, I feel that there's no reason to pit religion and science against each other. Discovery is what makes life interesting. Knowing how things work does not put one in opposition with God. Using religion to demean science, which is what intelligent design does, is a step backwards from the truth. In particular when that truth is something as basic and evident as evolution.

Why doesn't the intelligent design camp go after physics? The notion that the Earth is a tiny planet that circles a tiny sun in a nondescript galaxy that is one out of billions of other galaxies like it mustn't sit pretty with them. The fact that it's true doesn't seem to bother them. I'll bet the main reason is that most of them don't really understand.

Evolution is easy to pick on because the idea is so elegantly simple. Even small children can be taught the basics of evolution, despite the fact that the underlying mechanism is clearly much more complex.

For most issues in life I can just agree to disagree. Those who honestly believe that evolution is patently false, however, do not garner any amount of respect in my book. The argument is not even worth entertaining.