Y’know, I remember when the subject of evolution came up in High School. It took us all of twenty minutes to go through it, and only because it was connected to the presence of mitochondria in cells. After that, we just moved on to the next subject. Seriously, what’s there to bitch about?

Seriously, what’s there to bitch about?

Some people cannot accept science and religion existing together, to various degrees. Take the following true story, for example.
I had a friend in elementary school, name of Daniel. Nice kid, had nice parents, kinda nice little brother. (Stole my hat, the little bastard.) Anyway, nice and all, but very very insulated. Daniel’s mother wouldn’t let him watch Tiny Toons because she heard Buster say the word “butt"… this was when he was about twelve. Any movie at or over PG had to be seen by her first and confirmed as suitable. (He wasn’t allowed to see the TMNT movie, there was cussing.) Now, lest you think this is all off topic, these people were also staunchly, utterly religious.
One day, Daniel’s little brother (the hat-stealing bastard) came home from school in tears. Why, you ask? Had he been bullied? Had he gotten an F? No. They had studied the water cycle in class.
Yeah. The water cycle. You know, rain, evaporate, repeat?
And my ol’ buddy Daniel, he hugs his brother and says, in utter earnestness, “You don’t listen to a thing they say about that, God makes it rain.”
A year or two later, Daniel said he had to stop being my friend. (I’d cussed out a larger kid when he’d come up and smacked me upside the head for no reason.) Shortly thereafter, his parents pulled him out of public school to home-school him, apparently citing that the other students were a negative influence on him.
I cannot imagine anyone less fit to survive in the world than he must be at this point. His only hope would have been the clergy, where he could stay safely insulated from the big bad world out there.
So, yes, there are all manner of extremes out there. Some cannot accept even the mention of evolution in school without at least portraying it as probably false, because their faith is so weak that it cannot withstand even the slightest variation from its literal written word.

Isn’t lying a sin?

Technically, no, the Commandment was against “bearing false witness against a neighbor”.

To some degree, I think certain people aren’t wired to handle the idea that this is it, that life ends when it ends, that there are no great mysteries beyond the natural, that there is no great turtle carrying the sun across the sky.  If, somehow, I was able to provide concrete, undeniable proof that there is no higher power...there would be a large number of people who wouls simply be unable to accept it.

And so, the myths and legends keep getting retold and retold and retold.  And science is looked at like fucking witchcraft.

It’s just the same old same old.  Humans being the frail, weak species that we truly are, despite our scientific and technological domination of the planet, deep down, late at night, with no one but their own thoughts to keep them company, most people are scared shitless of dying.  So they need the only thing religion has ever been good for: Hope.

Hello, first time poster but long time reader here and at right-thinking and moorewatch. I really like reading stuff from Lee and Para and you, even though I’ve been quite put off by Lee’s posting lately. Anyway, like my totally original screen-name? I was having a brain-fart.

I usually don’t engage in these… debates, since I am quite young and not very confident in my knowledge {Sort of like “I know I’m right but I don’t know why"). I was just wanting to ask you if you’ve ever considered that you may be religious yourself? After all, religion has nothing to do with God or the supernatural really-- it’s just a set of beliefs you stubbornly stick by in spite of everything, no matter what. Correct me if I’m wrong, sir, but that’s the impression I get whenever you get on this subject…