You know, I like being on the conservative side of the fence. It is safe. I know which way is up because that’s the way I have to go after falling down. I know there’s an East Coast and a Left Coast. I know my right hand from my left. Things are clear in black and white.
Some will say I’m lazy because I’m not into shades of gray. They’re probably right.
That said, sometimes those who call themselves ‘conservative,? usually elected official types, really bust my breeches (when’s the last time you read, heard or used that phrase?) I think to myself, ‘What were they thinking?? That thought usually is followed by this thought, ‘Duh!?
That beacon of journalistic integrity, AOL News, reported last week on a science project taking place Georgia. Well, okay, AOL didn’t do the reporting, Doug Gross of AP wire service did and, well, it really wasn’t a science project way down south in the land of cotton and Coka-cola. But, what is happening is this:
‘The state’s school superintendent has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia’s science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase, ‘biological changes over time.??
Let me say this again. DUH!
Biological changes over time is EVOLUTION. DUH! DUH! DUH! With brainiacs like that, it’s no wonder the south lost the war. (And, with that statement I’m sure to make lots of new friends — many of whom are probably related to me, via my mother’s mother’s side of the clan. Mother’s mother, Nanny Murphy, was born in Kentucky and raised — until she was 14 and married Grampa — in West Virginia.)
But, let’s get off of the twisted biology of my genealogical map and back to the convoluted thought process of Georgia State Superintendent of Schools, Kathy Cox. ‘Cox said the concept of evolution would still be taught under the proposal, but the word would not be used. The proposal would not require schools to buy new textbooks omitting the word evolution and would not prevent teachers from using it.?
I don’t know why I keep going back to the word, ‘duh??
Further, ‘Cox repeatedly referred to evolution as a ‘buzzword? . . . and said the ban was proposed in part, to alleviate pressure on teachers in socially conservative areas where parents object to its teaching.?
In other words, the folks on the top of Georgia’s foodchain think the folks on the bottom are brain-dead hicks who can be fooled. The top folks don’t agree with the bottom folks. The top folks will let teachers teach evolution while at the same time banking the folks on the bottom can be hoodwinked into thinking that evolution, minus the word evolution, is not evolution. (That was one hell of a run-on sentence, kids. Don’t do that on your English essays — leave it for the professionals like me.)
I don’t believe the folks at the ‘bottom? are stupid. I don’t believe they will be fooled or lulled into a false sense of creation. I hope they can see the duplicity of the state’s top educational dogs. Sometimes I don’t know why people do the things they do. In Georgia, maybe they’re just trying to keep a portion of their population tame. Maybe they’re trying to keep everybody happy, all the time. But, bigger than that, why is ‘evolution? a bad thing?
If God is in everything, every rock, worm and tree that ever was or will be, why couldn’t he be in a single-celled organism that matured, crawled out of primordial goo and evolved into humans? And, who said God is supposed to look like Zeus, with robes, flowing white hair and beard? Maybe He looks like an amoeba or maybe just a wisp of swamp gas. Maybe, just like air, He’s invisible and has no form.
Why is science always the enemy of religion when both are trying to do the same thing, albeit from different sides of the coin? Both work to explain who, what and why we’re here.
Maybe I’m not such the black and white conservative I thought I was?
Comments for Blasphemer Don can be e-mailed to: dontrushmedon@aol.com