'...Inside the Confusion exhibit, I strike up a conversation with Tim Shaw, a high school student visiting from Florida. "I don't care how long it took to make the Grand Canyon," he tells me. "It's not how old it is that matters to me. What matters is being right with God. Darwin's theory has no God. It can't be right. I don't know if this story is truer than Darwin's theory, but I do know it's better."

_____

OK, Timmy, you poignant little aliterate infortainment era dilettante, maybe if you'd actually READ Darwin's "Origin of Species" you'd be surprised to find his repeated references to "the Creator" and how He accomplished His Works via evolutionary natural selection.

You'd also find elegantly expressed humility of the sort so lacking in your own Fundie Mullahs:

"That many and serious objections may be advanced against the theory of descent with modification through variation and natural selection, I do not deny. I have endeavoured to give to them their full force. Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor..."

More broadly, I find this whole Dissing Darwin thingy the lamest of tiresome red herring cheap shots. Easy to pick on a long-dead 19th century naturalist. Allows you to so conveniently turn a blind cataract to the veritable Mount Everest of subseqent independently confirmatory natural science.

The most disturbing part of the story came at the very end:

"I don't know if this story is truer than Darwin's theory, but I do know it's better."

which reminded me of this article:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html

The pervasive tendency of people to believe what they want to be true, rather than what evidence implies, has repercussions beyond their own ignorance.

See: Iraq, current US involvement in.

Wilson, you know, thinking religion and atheism is the same thing is like thinking the owner of some corporation and the union workers who work for him are all in the same class, because they all want money. They are not.

Atheists believe in science. Religious people believe in their faith. Two different philosophies of life and looking at the world. Materialism and idealism. Study a philosophy primer sometime.

Many good religious people compare their religion to 'love.' I'm all for love. It is very hard to 'quantify' in a scientific sense, but we all know it exists. People will die for love. Of course, a clever scientist could show a chemical, emotional and sexual bond that is based on the material world. But be that as it may.

However, if I fall in love with my girlfriend, I am not going to make everyone in society also fall in love with her! Or worship her, or proclaim her lovliness every Sunday morning, have buildings dedicated to her, cast other's into hell because they don't love her, put her in charge of the government, etc. Much as she wouldn't mind this, you understand. And it won't work that all of you will have sex with her, as it would wear her ... and me ... out. All the Christians can't really have sex with Jesus either, much as some might like to. He's really dead. (see the family tomb in Jerusalem.) So their love is somewhat 'sterile' and distant.

Which is why I like my girlfriend better than Jesus. And why religion and science are fucking polar opposites. I'll take a real woman over a dead image any day of the week.

Oddly enough, the creation story isn't the point of the creationist museum. Sure, the exhibits are dedicated to scenes from Genesis, and have pseudo-scientific explanations to counter competing scientific claims. What most people fail to realize is that science is not a static collection of facts, but a process, a way of thinking.

Before relativity we had the "ether", the mysterious stuff through which light surely *must* propagate, since it's a wave, and before thermodynamics, we said things that burn contain phlogiston. Once these older theories led to inconsistent explanations about our observed world, new theories were proposed to account for them. That isn't to say that institutions of science are immune from jealousy, spite, or politics, but at its core, the process of science is a process of doubt.

Heresy is arguably the worst crime against the church. Doubt is the enemy to people in the faith business. Intelligent design isn't a theory, it's a cop out; things are so incredibly complex, it is impossible for them to exist without divine design. This idea is a scientific dead end, it has no predictive power, no next step. Creationism in this fashion is not an idea, it's a tool towards blind, unquestioning obedience .

I wonder what creationists have to say about antibiotic-resistant bacteria...

I just think atheism and religion are about the same thing and that its possible to say "I don't know everything" and be comfortable with that...

When you say "religion," you are apparently excluding all but today's mainstream religions. If not, you're arguing that a belief in Zeus, Thor, the Ptah-Sekhmet-Nefertem trinity, Jupiter and all the other gods in the dustbin of history is as valid as a belief in the cosmic do-it-yourselfer of Ken Ham's theme church. Which, of course, it is.

Furthermore, I know very few atheists who would not believe in god if there were actual proof of his/her/its/their existence, yet fundamentalists like those in this article believe in things that are demonstrably not so, and refuse to accept any evidence that contradicts what they've been told they must accept without proof.

From religioustolerance.org comes some encouraging statistics:

-The percentage of American adults who identify themselves as Christians dropped from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001. This is an unprecedented drop of almost 1 percentage point per year.

-The percentage of American adults who identify themselves as Protestants dropped below 50% about the year 2005.

-Confidence in religious institutions has hit an all-time low.

-There appears to be a major increase in interest in spirituality among North Americans. However, this has not translated into greater church involvement.

-Mainline denominations have been losing membership for decades in the U.S.; conservative denominations have been growing.

-At the present rate of change, most Americans would identify themselves as non-religious or non-Christian by the year 2035 CE.

-The numbers of "unchurched" people has increased rapidly in the U.S. These are individuals who have not attended church in recent months.

-Agnosticis, Atheists, secularists. and NOTAs (none of the above) are growing rapidly.

So, to all those who like to spew the Law of the Father, ignorantly dismiss real science, and demand that women be obedient vessels with legs, I would like to just say...

NEENER NEENER NEENER you big jackasses.