A Collection of the Things I Just Cannot Understand

Since this is my blog and the First Amendment of my nation's Constitution protects me, I am going to say what I want to say about a few issues that surface quite frequently in my daily routine.

Speaking of the First Amendment, it really bothers me when fellow Americans accuse liberals of not following the Constitution, then in the next breath they are ranting about the removal of prayers in school or any other act that takes God out of our public life. Hello! Have you ever actually read the Bill of Rights? Praying in schools and placing the Ten Commandments in public is a clear violation of the First Amendment. I often hear arguments that go something like this,

"But God is on our money!! In the pledge, God is mentioned! Our founding fathers founded this nation on Christian principles!"

Have you ever read about our founding fathers or taken a history class? It actually was not until a century AFTER our country came to be that "In God We Trust" first appeared on coins. It was not until 1957 that the phrase appeared on paper currency.

If you conduct research on Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, you will find that they were not interested in combining religion with the government. Go, I'll be here when you get back.

My second common qualm: Biblical literalism

Really? There are people that actually believe that the Bible is literally true and creationism? REALLY?!?!?!?! When I walk through campus to my office in the science building, I pass by a table covered by a white tent with a sign that reads, "Bible Study Group Sign-Up." It is always staffed with young adults ready to answer your questions and welcome you into the world of Jesus. I have thought about joining more than once. Not to discover that the Bible is true and the divine word of God, but to state my case using examples from the Bible that it is fact just a book of fiction, myth, and superstition that was written by primitive men over 2000 years ago. This should be obvious to anyone who actually reads the Bible. Slavery is cool in biblical society, so is the death penalty and rape, among other violent and abhorrent acts that were commonplace 2000 years ago. It is full of contradictions and absolute nonsense. We know that snakes cannot speak, men and women have the same number of ribs, childbirth in human females is especially painful due to a large head of the infant, people cannot live inside whales or fish or any other sea-dwelling creature. The website godisimaginary.com is fabulous for citing other examples of nonsense that occur in the Bible.

The most common rebuttal to my claims is that some of the Bible doesn't apply anymore. What? Hold the phone here, I thought that the Bible was the eternal word of God. But now you say that some of it doesn't apply? How are we supposed to know which parts do and do not apply? Since there is no way of knowing, we must assume that none of it is divine.

I could go on for days about all of the exchanges I experience with people who prefer magic, superstition and faith over reason, logic, and science. Oh, and they love to ignore that pesky stuff called evidence. But, it's always the same. Like Dr. House on TV says, "If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people."

I mentioned creationism earlier, which perhaps the biggest thorn in my side. Creationism is just silly. I said it and I don't really care who I offend. Just look at the evidence! Fossils anyone? How about vestigial structures present in organisms, the appendix or tail bone in humans for example, or comparative vertebrate anatomy? Go look at a photo of a chimpanzee or a gorilla. And, last but certainly not least, modern molecular biology and genetics. We can prove that us humans are related to most life on Earth, including bacteria, fungi, trees, diatoms, cats, rats, lizards, lichen, grass, bonobos, etc.

But, going beyond life on Earth, let's consider the Universe. Most people have looked up at the night sky and perhaps have witness the passing of a shooting star or a satellite, or have had the pleasure to glance through a telescope and peer at other planets. I am also assuming the most people are aware of the presence of the Sun. Now, as can be demonstrated by glancing towards the stars at night, we KNOW that the Earth is not the center of the Universe. In fact, it is a small rock orbiting one star out of billions that exist in the entire Universe.

Humans are just one species that reside on this planet. There are a vast number of organisms that call this little rock home and there have been many others that have lived and gone extinct (remember the aforementioned fossils) throughout the Earth's 4.5 billion year history. How can one species, who live in a blink of time on a tiny rock tucked away in one small solar system in an obscure corner of just one galaxy, be the most important part of the whole universe?

I personally just don't buy it. I don't claim to have all of the answers. I have no idea where the universe came from, where we are headed, what it truly means to be human, and the point of life. But a white-skinned male with a long beard playing puppet with the universe? I don't think so.