So today there were a bunch of articles (Washington Post, NYTimes, L.A. Times) in the papers about our president being in favor of teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in public schools. This comes as an evangelical protestant group based in North Carolina is succeeding in pushing Bible study into public schools in Texas and elsewhere.The Christians are depressing me. Again. I know, I know. It's not fair to paint with a broad brush and these particular folks don't speak for all Christians, blah blah etc...But the fact is the fundies are organized, they're vocal, they have an agenda and frankly they're proving quite successful. I'll start being more careful about drawing distinctions with fine lines when I see evidence that other Christians are up in arms over this.
Yes I'm a little distressed about this. It seems to me it's getting worse. Is it getting worse? I don't know--I'm wary of narratives of decline. I need to take a deep breath and tell myself that America is not in danger of becoming an intellectual backwater. You wouldn't know it, however, to gauge by the reading I've been doing today. Yeah, spent a few hours doing some research on Intelligent Design and Creationism. I'm not going to link to it or go into detail. I'll just say it's some pretty depressing shit--we're on the verge of teaching some American children that humans and dinosaurs lived side by side a few thousand years ago. I take a certain comfort in realizing that the only things most of these groups have in common are their enemies, evolution first and foremost. They all seem to despise each other for various theological and political reasons. But, as the Republican party demonstrates, that need not be an impediment to success.
UPDATE: There's an editorial in the WashingtonPost today (Thursday) that takes Bush to task and rightly, I think, places the issue within the context of the broader debate over our tepid cultural relativism.
