Trouble in Texas with a capitol T

I love Texas. I have been there a three or four times and have always had a good time. I paticularly like Austin. A great town with awesome resturaunts and fantastic nightlife. If  you're a music fan, it's like you died and went to heaven. In fact I would like to move there someday. But it seems that my favorite state has one serious draw back. Texas evidently will become the new battle ground for Intelligent Design vs. evolution. The state is just chock full of conservative Christians that are down with the whole I.D. agenda.

Recently the lady in charge of science education for the state was fired for forwarding an e-mail with information about a lecture to be given by  an anti-I.D. author. Not an endorsement one way or another, just a f.y.i. The powers that be thought that she wasn't showing a neutral stance on the issue. It sounds like the beginnings of a witch hunt to me. 

Personally I could care less what mythological preferences you practise. Worship the cosmic muffin or hairy thunderer, it makes no difference to me. Whatever gets you through the night. Just don't force any one against their will, no human sacrifices and no orgies in my front yard(it upsets the live stock) and most importantly leave me the hell alone. But when it comes to science education in publicly funded schools, just hold on a minute. The Constitution is pretty darn clear on this subject. You cannot teach a religious belief. Teaching that a supernatural agency is responsible for creation is religion. And again not to put too fine a point on it, you can personally believe anything you want, there are plenty of creation myths to choose from. Have at it amigo. Just don't teach your brand of crazy in science class. 

The biggest problem see with the I.D. agenda is that all debate, all theorizing is prematurely cut off. God did it, that's the way it is, end of discussion. I believe that any thing that interferes with the ultimate quest for knowledge is evil, just plain evil. Creationism puts blinders on the natural creativity and curiosity of the human mind. As I have stated several times in this blog, I am an agnostic. You might might argue that I really don't have a dog in this hunt, au contraire mine fruend! An agnostic (in my opinion) is ever seeking knowledge and his view is always  changing  based on the available data. Stifle the human mind to the detriment of us all.

Perhaps I can illustrate my point with an example (a parable so to speak, it worked for Jesus).

Let's say you run a garage and were interviewing for a new mechanic. A candidate fills out an application and you proceed to ask him a few questions to get an idea of his qualifications. You tell him to describe to you how the modern internal combustion engine works. He thinks for a minute and he replies:"You put gas that little hole on the side, you turn the key and press on the gas pedal, then magic happens". So my question is, would you hire that man to repair automobiles? "Put gas in, then magic happens" would not inspire me with confidence. But thats the kind of thinking you're bargaining for if we let the I.D. rail road us with their agenda.

Any how that's how I see it, how about you?

Sign me:

eMoose (running scared) Head Mutant