Evolution

No need to be frightened. I am not going to attempt to sway anyone to my opinion. Nope. Today it’s a rant. A rant about fundies, as my friend Aiden calls them. And in fairness, it’s not only the fundies that do this, but they seem to be the ones most in your face about it.

Today I was half listening to the radio and someone on the radio was going on and on about evolution being taught in the public schools. It was obvious this person believes in intelligent design. Understand, I am in no way finding fault with this person. I, too, happen to believe in intelligent design. I’ll go so far as to say I believe in the Genesis account of our world’s creation at that. So, suffice to say I am not finding fault with this person’s views on how exactly it was that we came to be and how our world has come to be.

What struck me as terribly shortsighted was this woman’s railing against the teaching of evolution in our schools. She went on and on about how it went against her beliefs and how she was teaching her children the truth and she didn’t want them learning about evolution.

How shortsighted can you be? I want my child to learn about evolution. And any other theories out there. If you don’t allow your children to learn about other theories, how are they ever going to know that what you taught them is right? In order to know what you believe is right you have to be able to look at the world around you, compare your beliefs and draw your own conclusions. You can’t hide your children away in a box, tell them what to believe, and then when they turn eighteen, turn them loose and expect that they will have any type of true understanding about their religious beliefs. Further, you’ve just set your child up to be unable to defend his religious beliefs.

I would also hazard to say that if you feel the need to go on and on about evolution, humanism, etc being taught in the schools, then you probably doubt the job you’ve done to teach your child the way he should go. If you fear so greatly that your child will abandon your teachings, then I would say it is time to look in the mirror and ask yourself why this scares you. If you are honest with yourself, you would probably realize you feel you’ve failed in this area. Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t, but honest self-evaluation will make it clear where this fear is coming from, and that will give you the basis for addressing your own fears instead of trying to instill fear into your child in an effort to force him to blindly accept what you’ve taught him.

Of course that opens a whole new can of worms. I find that fundies and their cronies really get upset when a child is taught to question. They accuse the child of being disrespectful. How does that work? How does a child learn if he’s not permitted to question? All the great scientific advances have come from people who question. Dare I say that religious enlightenment comes from questioning? If Martin Luther hadn’t questioned and then posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg, where would we as believers be today? If Galileo had listened to the church and blindly accepted geocentrism, how far behind would we be today? Are you telling me that these two great minds are “bad” and “disrespectful”?

And perhaps my biggest question is this: Do you trust God so little? Yes, we all have free will, but if you’ve taught your child well and brought him up as he should have been brought up, he is going to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompting. He isn’t going to suddenly become a pagan heathen and start sacrificing virgins.

Perhaps instead of having a fit over the teaching of evolution in our schools and cowering within our church walls like rabbit hole Christians, we should arm our children with a strong foundation in our beliefs and encourage them to go boldly forward into academia and…dare I say it?….question. And when they come home, talk to them about what they are learning. It’s so simple!

Most of my talking with my son is done while we’re in the car. (We spend a lot of time in the car!) We often discuss politics, religion, values, morals and current world and national news while we’re driving. It’s non-confrontational and nobody gets their panties in a bunch because they feel like they are being signaled out and preached to. Following are his takes on the evolution issue:

While he was in private Christian school: “Yeah, so we’re going to have this “debate” about evolution in science tomorrow. It’s so stupid. I’m on the evolution side and Miss Loyd told us we aren’t even allowed to research evolution. She’s giving us what we’re allowed to say about evolution. What does she have to hide anyway? Why is she so afraid of us learning about evolution? She must think we can’t think for ourselves and turn into a bunch of devil worshippers just because we learned about evolution.”

After a year of public school: “We talked about evolution today. It really didn’t make a lot of sense. Seems like there are a lot of holes in the theory. And Murray is crazy. He thinks we’re recycled stars. Whatever. It’s no big deal.” Then he starts laughing and says, “I don’t know why those crazies at my old school were so worried about evolution. Any idiot can see evolution is wrong.”

Well be still my racing heart! They talked about evolution. Nobody tried to force them into believing it was the only possible answer. Nobody attacked their religion. And, wonder of wonders, my kid didn’t turn into an atheist. Imagine that!

Come on parents! Have some faith in your kids. Trust that you’ve done your job right and that you’ve nurtured their brain and fed their spirits. Let them venture forth into the world and learn. They’re coming home to you at night and that gives you plenty of opportunity to mull over what they’ve learned with them. You never know, you just might gain a new insight into your own beliefs in the process. Imagine that!