Agnostic Mom

Let me preface this post with an apology. Lately my entries have offered only two different topics: stories about my kids, and Evolution. I offer my apologies, because this post is also on Evolution. Yes, I know there are many other issues and topics regarding agnosticism. And I am finally ready to sit down and begin working on an answer to Larry’s original response to the challenge I issued him. If you remember, we went back and forth about the appropriateness of the word “spiritual” for agnostics and athiests. Larry also wrote of his fears of a world without religion, and the possible resulting loss of morality. I have been planning to write a Part Two concerning this issue.

Since that initial writing, he has had a paradigm shift (thanks, I think, to the book, “End of Faith”) and absolved me of my responsibility to respond any further. I intend on writing about the morality issue, anyway. It is a legitimate fear that many people harbor, both religious and non-religious. I’ve also had a similar verbal debate with my dear, soon-to-be-lawyer brother-in-law. He doesn’t think it makes sense to be moral if there is no god. So I need to formulate these thoughts in writing!

Now, to the topic of tonight’s post. I’ve been wanting to start collecting the outrageous comments people make in letters and phone calls to my newspaper editors about evolution. DarkSyde from DailyKos beat me to it with a collection from chat rooms, IM’s, etc.

Go there to get a little entertainment, but also to remind yourself of the sad, sorry state of our country and its failed science education.

Didn’t I tell ya? By the comments he copied and pasted, it is clear that these people don’t understand science or the theory of evolution. One person thinks that what you eat changes your DNA (Oh my gosh!).

And I will have to eat my words, just a little. I have been blaming science for not educating in a way that will grasp the attention of us non-science-oriented types. I still blame them partially, but after reading those comments, I also realize there’s more to it. How can you educate someone on a subject to which they won’t listen?