I am amazed at how many people still squabble over religious matters here. I’ll admit, I was ready to DA before I came to this board, through my education at university I released that evolution is not just an evil theory that Satan came up with to mislead the minds of humans away from God, as the WTS would have you believe, but rather it is a solid scientific theory, and without it, nothing in modern Biology would make since. I came across an article today while reading CNN that talked about the debate over the number of species on the earth ( http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/03/17/species.counting.reut/index.html ) and it reminded me of how ridiculous the whole idea of a world wide flood really is. Just think about it, 15 million different species on a wooden boat the size of a football field for over a year, surely just a fairy tale? But there are many, many people, some with PhD’s who believe this crap, and even come up with bogus scientific theories to try and justify their idiotic beliefs. I have no more respect for someone who believes the flood to be a real even than I do for someone who believes that Zeus or Apollo are responsible for the weather. But that’s not what really upsets me, for people have the right to be stupid if they so wish, what upsets me, what is the real crime, is that people force their beliefs on others and feel that to believe in some kind of God is a requirement for all people and force even young children to listen to their ridiculous superstitions. To illustrate this I’m going to tell you a story about three children, all age 4.Tommy is Catholic, Mohamed is a Muslim, David is a Jehovah’s Witness. Here are the children I am talking about:
Now would you listen to such a story? Would the very idea not upset you? Think about it for a minute… What if I said I am going to tell you a story about three children, all age 4, Tommy is a Republican, Mohamed is Democrat and David is a Liberal. Laughable you might think, how about this, three children, all age 4, Tommy an Atheist, Mohamed a Marxist and David an Agnostic. Ridiculous you would say no doubt, how could you assign such titles to mere children? They are not yet capable of even knowing what those terms mean! But you had no objection to labeling them a Catholic or a Muslim? Shame on you. Such labeling is a form of child abuse, how dare we as a society label our children as Christians or Muslims or anything else of that nature, and thereby forcing them to conform to our values. Would you as a Republican disown you child if he grew up to be a Democrat? Would you even talk to a 4 year old child about politics? How about economics? Then why would you fill their heads with silly titles like catholic or Christian?
In today’s modern society if you were to refer to a group of people as ‘men’ you would be looked down upon, why? Because of the successful efforts of feminists to get everyone thinking about the gender specific terms that we take for granted. They have successfully affected our conscious about such terms so that we cringe we hear terms like ‘if only we had more good men in management’. It is my argument that now society needs a new kind of education, just as important as that of dispelling the notion that men are better than women. We need a public education program in our schools, in our work places and through the media to educate people not to use such terms as ‘Christian’ or ‘Muslim’ when it comes to mere children. That when we hear such terms it will make us cringe.
My goal would be to shame people who use such vulgar terms in society, not as a means to repress religion or freedoms, but rather to encourage them. If all people are educated equally about different religions, about different religious books like the Bible, the Koran or the Hindu Veda’s then allow a person to make their own choice that is the only way we will ever truly have any kind of true religious freedom. That program could be incorporated into our school as a philosophy or culture class and be taught along other important subjects such as mathematics, evolution and art. This is my goal, this is my dream.