``...it seems to me that it's a constant struggle for many who both have education and faith to deal with the seeming hypocracy of both being a 'believer' in things like Creationism and, let's say, having passed Biology 101 without faking it.'' Jordan Hayes
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The problem here is not with biology, just as the problem of abortion is not with the pro-choice crowd. Scientific understanding does not preclude in principle other forms of understanding, just as having a legal choice to have an abortion or not have an abortion, precludes choosing not to have an abortion.
The problem issues from the fundamentalist wing in these arguments. It is religious fundamentalism that in principle precludes a scientific understanding, just as it is the anti-abortion crowd that precludes choice.
In other words the hypocrisy lies with the fundamentalist's absolutist doctrines, promulgated as freedom of belief.
So, of course you can believe in creationism or anything else you want, just don't expect the scientific community to approve your beliefs as science. Why would you want them as science any how?
A scientist doesn't need to be a scientist through and through. According to fundamentalists it's the Christian who has to be a Christian through and through.
And again, the point to the first amendment is freedom from church or state proclamations, not freedom to proclaim for church and state.
So Jordan tell your friends to screw their heads on straight. The secular state and open scientific communities are not the problem here.
For Tom Kelly. Mendel is taught and celebrated in Bio 1 and has that place in the annuls of science, and certainly not in the annuls of fundamentalist doctrine.
CG