If Allowed, Religion Will Force America into Decline

A thousand years ago the Middle East was the center of learning for the Western world. Over time, due to the imposition of conservative religious dictates, their leadership in knowledge was slowly diminished. With the reduced openness in learning the region also declined in military might. The result has been that the Middle East is now one of the regions of the world with a lot of potential, but they are held back by the domination of restrictive religious views. History has shown repeatedly that all major Western religions have suppressed learning if given the chance.

Presently in America we have a small special interest group of well meaning but misguided fanatics forcing religious teaching into our public schools, and they want it taught as if it were science. At the same time they are attacking the teaching of real science. When we teach our children that religion, rather than scientific research is the basis for understanding how the universe works we are setting the stage for the future decline of this nation.

Religion asks that a person accept ideas based on faith, not facts. This is a perfectly acceptable approach for religion; it has nothing to do with science. Plato thought that experiments to prove a theory were unnecessary. He was convinced that ignoring the actual world was possible and that he could pretend to live only in his ideal world. Christianity adopted and promoted this un-inquisitive philosophy. As a result learning was stalled for a thousand years. The dark ages ended when people starting asking questions again in spite of death threats from the dominating religious institutions. These brave thinkers started the age of enlightenment when they began to make observations and perform experiments to prove their theories. The result has been a great quest for the expansion of human learning that has continued to this day. Unfortunately unbounded learning is under attack by the religious right.

The radical religious right is trying to discredit the theory of evolution, and in turn selling the intelligent design myth as fact. Intelligent design is properly called a myth because it requires faith, not facts, to fill in the gaps in logic. The extreme right is claiming that because there are gaps in the fossil record that theory of evolution is flawed. So they seek to replace this well documented and researched science with something that has more factual holes in it than a kitchen strainer. Intelligent design is an idea that has not had to go through any kind of scientific rigor, and like any unproven theory, is questionable until facts are found to prove its viability, only then will it be a real scientific theory. However it will be very hard to ever prove this theory as its holes are filled with faith based answers.

Is it possible that the gaps in the fossil record are because those bones have just not been found yet or perhaps they did not survive for millions of years and will never be found? Both of these are much more believable explanations than the magic one must accept as fact to believe in intelligent design. The highest irony of all is that the proponents of intelligent design, in their zeal to denigrate the fundamental pillar of modern biological science, have actually admitted it is true. To explain intelligent design the evolutionary model must be used. For intelligent design to function as they describe it, they must admit that Darwin was right after all! Out of one side of their mouth they are admitting that evolution did in fact take place, while out of the other they are condemning it.

The big difference between the scientific answer and the intelligent design myth is how the gaps are filled. The scientific approach to the gaps is that when no data exists they admit they do not know how the animal evolved from the first to the second, but based on an intricate study of the bone structure of both, they know they must be related and it is likely that there is an intermediate step or steps that have not been found yet. The intelligent design approach to the gaps goes like this: when evolution can not explain what happened God stepped in. Will intelligent design evolve as new bones are discovered? Or more in character, they would probably just have us stop looking.

If we permit the religious right to force their closed minded approach to science onto our children we will surely face a decline in the viability of this country. Our technology will fall behind other nations and in time America will no longer be a dominate force in the world. This negative religious affect on scientific progress is already happening with stem cell research and cloning. Other countries are getting ahead of us in this vital research. They will reap the rewards of discovery, and create the good jobs – at a time when those jobs are needed here. This is a concrete example of how the religious right are actually harming the nation with their extremely conservative views.

There are several glaring examples of existing nations that are dominated by religious law. None of them are world powers, none of them are democracies, nor are they economic leaders and most are on the edge of stability due to the poverty brought about by the lack of freedom. Forcing our children to accept myths as facts is leading us down a predictable path: the end of progress. The end of progress will lead to the end of the middle class. The end of the middle class is the end of America’s greatness.

There is no problem with teaching the theory of intelligent design if it is presented for what it is: a philosophy. It is a faith based answer for otherwise unanswered questions about our origin. The problem is when it is presented as scientific fact, which it will never be.

Religion and science do not mix well. Permitting the teaching of myths as alternatives to facts in our schools’ science classes sets the stage for future generations of limited thinkers. To permit this mixing of science and myth in our public learning institutions takes us back thousands of years to when mythology was used to explain the physical world. Just as narrow-minded religious thinking has repeatedly done in the past; it could lead to another dark age. Unchecked religious dominance of science is already causing us to fall behind technically. We must not permit the small but powerful extreme right wing to dictate what is taught to our children, for the sake of our nation’s future.

Steve McGourty

19 November 2005