This is why Westboro Baptist Church is a joke

[Treesh]

But... The flip side of establishment is free exercise. The government should not be telling the people that their religion is superfluous either.

How is saying that religious explanations are superfluous *to evolution* (not superfluous in general - good prevarication, though) violating free exercise? Presumably, mathematicians would tell you that God is not necessary to perform algebra, chemists would tell you God is not necessary for molecular bonds, and political scientists would tell you that God is not necessary to establish a voting system. The only reason biologists make a point of saying so, is that so many have claimed otherwise, but that this is scientifically incorrect.

Should they be bandying about opinions about God in any way? Is that not a violation of the "Separation"? God is not necessary for me to go to the restroom, but I pray that someone remembered to replaced the toilet paper. You don't want "wink and nod" indications that "God is necessary", but you are OK with "wink and nod" suggestions that "God is unnecessary"? And, you are actually wrong about how Christians, or Buddhists, or Muslims view the superfluousness of God in all things. To them, God is the simplicity of an equation, God is the beauty of a flower, God is the process of a chemical reaction, God touches the hearts of elected and electorate, saints and sinners. It is not necessary to contradict their beliefs, and it is not constitutional either.

Not every scientist is on board. Of course, when they are not, they are called crackpots. For example, "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." -- Prof. Frank Tipler, Tulane Univ.

But, as we've discussed before, I view cosmology as just another type of religion, requiring little proof and a lot of faith.

Just a little side note to your and Jester's discussion here, but I actually took a course on evolutionary biology from a creationist in college. He wasn't frowned upon by the rest of the scientific faculty; he didn't force feed you creationism. What he did was point out was point out some of the minor lack of data points with the hypothesis of evolution while he was teaching the parts of it that have been universally accepted. He didn't leave out what we had been taught previously to force people into accepting creationism instead, but did point out what atheistic scientists don't bother to mention. It was really interesting to see the lack of fossil record in big chunks here and there and he did point out that it may just because we haven't seen it yet or it may actually be that evolution happened in step-like progression rather than an even slope. You don't have to teach things to be A or B. You don't have to drill into people that each thing is caused by just simply ONE thing. It doesn't have to be a case of either/or with damned near everything. That's the biggest failing we have in teaching, regardless of what level of education you're talking about. I think the problem came about because of how the scientific method is taught and how we're basically just spoon fed info rather than being taught to think about what we're being taught. You have to isolate one variable when setting up your experiments, but that doesn't mean there is ONLY one factor in what you're trying to figure out. Like the whole deal of nature vs nurture in so many cases. WHY does it have to be one or the other instead of a blending of both? That's such a pet peeve with me. Sorry.

With being taught by people with really differing views on religion and how it pertains to science (he wasn't the only one who was "different", but he was the easiest one to use as an example), I found out that science is really just another way to get a handle on how the world/universe works, just like religion is a way to explain how/why the world/universe works. It's just easier to believe in science over religion because there are things that you can do to get concrete results. But just think back and see how scientific hypotheses have changed over the years, starting with when the scientific method was really put into place. We've had to radically change some of the hypothesis simply because we couldn't measure and record everything we needed to in order to get accurate data and experiments. We're still learning new things with every jump in technology that allows us to measure more and more things. Who is to say that we won't eventually find a way to measure theological beings? I don't think it's likely that we will, but choosing religion over science or science over religion just really isn't as necessary as folks have been taught to believe. They are both just ways to view the world and since it's your own personal world view, you are allowed to grab a little from bag A and a little from bag B.