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| - by user 71.232.79.180 Despite spending more than $404,800,000,000 on an immoral and foolish war in , the remains both very rich and very smart. It is widely believed that the spent over $300,000,000,000 on research and development last year. Since they began handing them out in 1901, Americans, including UMass professor Craig Mello, have been awarded the Nobel Prize far more than any other nationality. The only country with more institutions of higher learning than the is , and they have roughly four times as many people. Clearly, the is the most intellectual country on earth. So how is it possible that the rest of the world is laughing at us when it comes to science?
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| - by user 71.232.79.180 Despite spending more than $404,800,000,000 on an immoral and foolish war in , the remains both very rich and very smart. It is widely believed that the spent over $300,000,000,000 on research and development last year. Since they began handing them out in 1901, Americans, including UMass professor Craig Mello, have been awarded the Nobel Prize far more than any other nationality. The only country with more institutions of higher learning than the is , and they have roughly four times as many people. Clearly, the is the most intellectual country on earth. So how is it possible that the rest of the world is laughing at us when it comes to science? The answer, I fear, comes from something else the United States produces more of than any other country on earth - Christians. This is no anti-Christian diatribe; I would never attack the tenets of another religion. However, religion can become a problem when people use misinterpreted doctrine and misplaced faith to set up obstacles in the way of advancement. I am not referring to halted social progress; I am speaking, instead, of scientific advancement. Schools in Christian-dominated states are teaching that evolution is, at best, an opinion, when in the eyes of scientists everywhere it is a proven theory and accepted as fact. The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in , Warren Chisum, one of at least a pair of naive Christian Texan politicians, has proposed that the Earth is truly the center of the galaxy, and that the sun revolves around our planet; furthermore, he has suggested that the alternative view is propagated by anti-Christian forces. The problem with his reasoning, and the beliefs of many Christians sympathetic to his ideas, is that science and faith are completely antithetical. Science is based upon facts, and faith is based upon conviction in the unknown. When one considers that dichotomy, it is hardly surprising that scientists come from all faiths. An award winning professor from , Kenneth Miller, has frequently written and spoken of the eminent ridiculousness of intelligent design. He also happens to say the “Lord’s Prayer” every Sunday in church. He is hardly alone in his pro-evolution, pro-God beliefs: Pope John Paul II officially endorsed evolution. How about that anti-Christian conspiracy about the sun? Equally ridiculous. Copernicus, the man widely credited with disseminating the theory that the sun is at the center of galaxy, not only attended Mass, he said them: he was a member of the Catholic clergy. So, despite a surplus of dissent within the religious ranks, according to author Sam Harris, a recent poll shows that almost 120,000,000 Americans still believe that the creation of the Earth took place 2,500 years after the Sumerians invented beer. It's a safe bet there is a fair deal of overlap between those people and the roughly 200,000,000 Christians in . So, why, exactly, do Christians refuse to accept evolution and the centricity of the sun? It would seem that one of the Seven Deadly Sins, pride, is to blame. Christian dogma teaches that Christians, and for that matter, humanity in general, are God’s chosen creatures. Reconciling that belief with the idea that we crawled out of the mud on a planet far removed from the center of the galaxy in some sort of cosmic joke is rather difficult, indeed. Nonetheless, it is clearly far from impossible to accomplish such a feat. Miller, Copernicus, and Pope John Paul II have all managed to balance their belief in God with an appreciation for scientific fact. In a time when erroneous beliefs, such as the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al-Qaeda, we must all strive to seek absolute truth, even if it seems incongruent with long held beliefs, even deeply held religious convictions. Historians, theologians, and others hold many different beliefs about Jesus. However, one thing that everyone agrees upon is that Jesus was a teacher. As far as I am aware, Jesus never assigned a five-hundred word essay on why evolution is a myth. It is difficult to imagine that any teacher would appreciate his/her students wallowing in willful ignorance. Regardless of the depth of one’s religious convictions, it is foolish and harmful to ignorantly cling to myths that have been disproved over and over. One of the fundamental measures of civilization’s progress is scientific accomplishment, and if the misunderstood lessons of Christianity continue to dominate in the , it seems certain that the legacy of this country will be that of an uneducated bully. __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.
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