The Monkey Turns Into A Man

There is a story in the New York Times (Link) about a trial going in Harrisburg, PA. The board of education is being sued by 11 parents because the biology teacher at said school is teaching "Intelligent Design" instead of straight up evolution.

Intelligent Design is a sort of neo-religion that has spawned out of the collective small talk of people who are questioning their faith. Followers of ID beleive that God created the earth and universe as a sort of scientific experiment and that evolution was a part of His grand plan.

Someone who was semi-knowledgable once asked "Well, if science has all these answers and they don't match up with the bible, what's the deal? The bible is the supreme truth, right? Why doesn't the bible mention 325 million years of dinosaur domination, 8 billion year old earth, or the hominids that scientists know humans have ancestry with? (we have the bones for goodness sakes). If God created man in his image, does that mean that God looks like a hominid (a short, hairy, ape-like person)?"

To answer these questions, we have to warp the "supreme truth" - God's words - to fit the new paradigm. God meant to do that, in other words. People in Biblical times had no concept of hominids, dinosaurs, the roundness of the earth or even the countless cultures on the other side of the world who had no concept or knowledge of what was going on at the time (as it turns out, they'll wish they never did) - since the bible doesn't mention these things, we have to conclude that it was written by someone who did not have the knowledge i.e. man. ID is by people clinging to beliefs - not wanting to abandon the concept of God and subscribing to evolution at the same time.

I have a problem with made up religions. ID is no more beleivable to me than a Stephen King novel; it's completely fictitious and therefore not worth teaching. It's spreading ignorance, which we definately don't need any more of in America right now.

For the record, I can assure you that dinosaur bones were not planted on the earth by the devil to confuse people.