The Home Team Advantage

As a militant agnostic (I don’t know and you don’t either!), I support teaching religion, including Creationism/Intelligent Design in public schools. Education is about the free exchange and testing of ideas. We should not exclude ideas merely because they have no scientific merit.

The U.S. is by far the most religious of the modern industrial nations. At the time of the Pilgrims our religious commitment was very weak, much like that of European nations. In 225 years our church membership grew from 17% to about 70%. We added God to our money and pledge of allegiance. We replaced our beautiful secular and inclusive national motto, E Pluribus Unum, with the religiously exclusive, In God We Trust. Today our level of anti-science and fundamentalist beliefs is rivaled only by Middle East fundamentalist Muslims.

Born of the enlightenment, we stand ready to replace rationality and the scientific method with faith and religious dogma. How did this happen? Why are we the only modern industrial nation that questions Darwin’s insights and discounts thousands of studies that support evolution?

In sports and war the home team has a tremendous advantage. There is fan support and the players better understand the nuances of the field or court on which they play. If there is anything the Creationist/Intelligent Design supporters have shown us is that they are clueless about how the game is played in the field house of higher academics. Empirically verifiable observations are the building blocks of scientific theories. Logic matters. Faith-based theories cannot successfully compete in this environment. Hypotheses that God creates natural disasters to punish people or test their faith do not grow roots in the terrain of higher academics.

The religious right has been successful because they play only home games. And like the Globetrotters, they play only against teams they create. Sermons need not be empirically based or logically consistent. There are no referees to whistle a foul. They keep their own score.

While the 1st Amendment offers us some protection from the tyranny of government, it also creates an environment for the growth of superstition and anti-intellectualism. Religious fundamentalists are feeling their oats, as well they should. They have been successful in interjecting their agenda into the political arena. But fighting foreign wars can be tricky.

I hope the Creationists are not expecting the logical empiricists to be throwing flowers during their invasion. I say, “Bring ‘em on!” The invaders are in for a real butt kicking. It’s a slam dunk!