More negative effects of (some) religions

OK. To be more specific, I should say "some religious people," not necessarily the religion itself. However, those religious people usually use selected quotations from their scriptures, which they take literally, as authority for their views.

What prompts me to take up this topic on this Sunday morning? Having just written about the U.S. evangelicals who stirred up anti-gay hatred by preaching their biblical view of the evils of homosexual people, and then seeing the following news item about one of Georgia's Congressman.

Jack Kingston (R-GA) was interviewed by Bill Maher and said this about evolution:

"I believe I came from God, not from a monkey so the answer is no. . . . I don't believe that a creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day."

One day? And a creature changed from a fish to a human, in one day?

Either Kingston is grandstanding for his conservative base, or he is woefully ignorant about evolution. This is a cartoonist's version of evolution. But it's the version that so many preachers, ignorant themselves, perpetuate on the malleable minds of their flocks. Polls show that those who attend church weekly are more likely to believe in strict creationism -- and in the more fundamental churches, that caricature version is what is held up to ridicule and derision.

Reinforced daily by the right-wing radio ranters -- it's shouldn't be surprising (but is still dismaying) that 57% of Republicans believe in "creationism" as described in #3 below; even 34% of Democrats and Independents agree. Here are the actual questions posed:

A Gallop poll asked people to choose which most closely described their belief:

1. Humans beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.

2. Humans beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.

3. God created humans beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.

Not in its poll questions, but in its web site discussion of the results, Gallop refers to the three options as: #1 "theistic evolution," #2 "secular evolution," and #3 "creationism."

Framed that way, the choices are a far cry from Kingston's caricature of "crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day."

Rather than dismay at woeful ignorance and religiosity, however, perhaps we should look at two positive (from my point of view) trends. There is direct correlation between level of education and belief in secular evolution: 9% for high school or less, 25% for postgraduate education.

And that has increased over time. In 1982, 9% overall chose secular evolution; today 16%.

Both ignorance and extreme religious literalism are best combated by education.

Ralph