So what's the fuss about?

It's been a long goddamned weekend and with my upcoming nuptials clamoring for my attention I can't help but feel that the last thing in the world I care to give my limited attention and time to is this idiotic god v. science debate. So I guess I'll spend a few precious moments reminding myself why this is important.

Organized religion has it's benefits. It provides comfort and guidance to people in need. I can't begin to imagine what it must feel like to be at the end of your rope and find guidance in a thought, a feeling, that your misery is part of something larger.

Now, that being said, let's examine the downside of religion. Let's look at the crusades, the dark ages, at Galileo, Joan of Arc, Salem, the 30 years war, Oliver Cromwell, Bosnia, the Middle East...

Religion has it's place, and that place is in the private sphere. When religion gets in to the public sphere, becomes the rule of all instead of the guide of some, then we have problems. Let's look at, oh, pulling a random case out of my hat, Afghanistan until a few years ago. Okay, so that's probably going for the worst case straight out the gate, and isn't fair.

This intelligent design thing isn't about competing theories. There is no scholar hunched over a microscope observing bacteria and witness the hand of god, then writing scholarly papers about it long into the night. There's a scholar attempting to describe the system which acts on that bacteria, and he may make an observation and write long into the night about it. It may very well be that later, in a smokey bar, he'll tell his biologist buddy after a long day at the lab that he believes the system he's trying to map out is god's system. (Okay, okay I've been reading too much Neal Stephenson. The Baroque Cycle rocks.)

The difference? What he believes and what he can prove. And that is what we're talking about. Believe what you want. I can't stop you. And I probably wouldn't want to. Or care to. But personal beliefs can not be public policy. That's how we balance a shit ton of personal oddities without starting a major military action.

And in any case, is there any danger that a creationst family won't be allowed to teach their children their beliefs? Or is it more likely that watering down a science curriculum so it doesn't interfere with religion prevents a strong science class to be taught.

ID belongs in religion class. Which, thankfully, the public schools don't teach.