A poll done on Facebook resulted in more than half the
respondents averring that creationism should be taught in public schools. This
startles me only because I thought the percentage of the scientifically
illiterate among us would be much higher.
Allied to the average man’s misunderstanding of evolution is
his fear of it, often heightened and even encouraged by his religion. Every one
of the world’s religions is, at best, an intermediary between its adherents and
the truth. And every religion worth its salt must conform to the intelligence
and understanding of its audience. Religion must not let the naked truth go
abroad, but must clothe it in myth and allegory. Even Jesus, who espoused no
religion, chose to speak in parables in order to make the truth palatable.
When religion presents the truth, even in a diluted or
adulterated form, it renders a service to mankind, but more often it does
damage by employing a lie to convey a truth. For example, Jesus was preaching
evolution when he said that the kingdom of God is within us and we must strive
to realize it by becoming God-like. The lie of Christ-inanity is that we were
made in God’s image, as the apple of his eye, but that each of us is born in
sin and all we can do is pull ourselves up out of the slime.
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