Another cat amongst the pigeons
Another spanner in the scheme of things
I don’t know why it shakes them up so much
They’re so out of touch with me
It isn’t easy finding something new
The bible bashers beat you black and blue
Fire and brimstone raining down on you
But you know it’s true
And they know what they can do…
Monkey business
Mankind —
I got a theory that will blow your mind
Monkey business
You’ll see
I got you swinging from tree to tree
I’m never sure about what they want
They put their collars on back to front
They’ve got their answers, and they don’t like mine
But I’m only trying to help
They say I should be full of shame and dread
They point at Genesis and shake their head
They don’t know what it is that makes them tick
But I’ve news for them, and it’s not so romantic
Monkey business
Mankind–
I got a theory that will blow your mind
Monkey business
You’ll see
I got you swinging from tree to tree
Monkey business
Mankind–
I got a theory that will blow your mind
Monkey business
You’ll see
You got an ape in your family tree…
–Nik Kershaw
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Looks like the God-botherer brigade is just suffering one setback after another lately. Look what’s new in Dover, Pennsylvania:
HARRISBURG, Pa. Dec 20, 2005 — In one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district Tuesday from teaching “intelligent design” in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board, saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
The ruling was a major setback to the intelligent design movement, which is also waging battles in Georgia and Kansas. Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.
Jones decried the “breathtaking inanity” of the Dover policy and accused several board members of lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to promote religion.
A six-week trial over the issue yielded “overwhelming evidence” establishing that intelligent design “is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory,” said Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago. [emphasis mine]
You know you’ve suffered a crushing defeat when a judge who, by all indications, should be favorable to your cause, isn’t–and indeed, sees it as rife with “breathtaking inanity”!
Thank heaven for just judges, especially ones mindful of legal precedent:
In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot require public schools to balance evolution lessons by teaching creationism.
I’m gonna go waaaaaay out on a limb here (aping my honorable simian ancestors) and say that this ruling probably also extends to district school boards. In which case, the ID proponents who are currently pushing their fraudulent agenda in at least two other states, are shit out of luck. It also means that Dubya himself, who weighed in on the side of teaching ID, is in the wrong.
But the real indictment is against the religiosity of ID’s proponents:
The judge also said: “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”
Um, doesn’t the 9th commandment say “Thou shalt not bear false witness”? I’d like these bible-thumpers to explain to me how they felt free to violate a tenet they claim to hold sacred, in order to push a mere, unproven (and unprovable) theory.
Isn’t that kind of, um, ungodly?
Finally, there comes the question of what kind of God these people believe in. If this God made them, he’s not much of a god, for he sure made them stupid:
Former school board member William Buckingham, who advanced the policy, said from his new home in Mount Airy, N.C., that he still feels the board did the right thing.
“I’m still waiting for a judge or anyone to show me anywhere in the Constitution where there’s a separation of church and state,” he said. “We didn’t lose; we were robbed.”
Well, Mr. Buckingham, ask and ye shall receive:
The First Amendment To The U.S. Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”
Simply put, that means the state cannot compel any citizen to hold a religious belief or church membership, or to not hold one. Since public schools are run by the state, religion has no place in them. It is therefore a private matter between individuals and their God, if they believe in one. Please note that freedom of religion does not mean that soi-disant Christians have any right to impose their religion on others, any more than atheists are permitted to impose atheism! It does, however, ensure that science is taught strictly as science, not as religion in disguise. In so doing, it makes certain that the issues remain unclouded. Individuals will simply have to grapple with the unmuddied issues in the privacy of their own minds, and either square their religious views with the immutable facts of science, or not.
Of course, the hard and solitary work that this entails frightens the ID proponents. They don’t much like to think (it’s dangerous!), and it seems they don’t want anyone else’s kids doing so, either. In so doing, they forfeit the “blessings of Liberty” as set out by the US constitution, for mental liberty is surely part and parcel of the Pursuit of Happiness.
What kind of God would make people so stupid?
(BTW, for those interested, excerpts from the worthy judge’s decision can be read here.)
