Intelligent Design: What Fundies Won't Tell You

Boiled down, the debate over Intelligent Design is really simple. Conservative Christians believe the Genesis story of where everything came from. Any deviation from that is heresay. But wait, there's more...

There's another Genesis story that Conservative Christians put even more faith in. That's the story of Adam and Eve. Their focus isn't on Adam and Eve frolicking naked in the Garden of Eden without a care in the world. It's what happened next, and how it affects them, and, they think, the rest of us.

Fundamentalists are very theological, or dogmatic. I know, as I used to be one of them. There's the old joke about the debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Christian Fundamentalists are very exacting in their beliefs.

Let's go back to Genesis and Adam and Eve. Fundamentalists believe in a dark doctrine called "The Fall." As a result of Adam and Eve's sin...not so much eating an apple, but yielding to Satan, disguised as a snake (mythology, my friends). As a result of this grave mistake (no pun intended), they believe that all human beings are born into sin. In other words, we're sinners as soon as we pop out of that warm and safe place called the womb. As a result of this sin, we're automatically destined for the unquenchable fires of hell, where there's "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

And there's not a damn thing you can do about it...save one. And that's to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. Like Personal Size Ivory, Jesus will clean you up and wash away your sins. And Fundamentalists will be glad to tell you about the "Plan of Salvation," so you, too, can be saved.

A lot of religions, like Judaism, in which Jesus himself was a practioner, don't believe that you're a sinner until you start committing some sins. I don't know how old you have to be, but somewhere along the line we chose to do that which is not right. I really doubt, though, that it pisses off God. Doesn't he have more to be concerned about than you telling a little lie?

This is what you have to really, really understand about Intelligent Design. Suppose it's generally accepted that evolution is true, and I define evolution as a natural progression of nature through the survival of the fittest. Now let's suppose that science disproves (which of course it already has) the malarkey of a literal interpretation of Genesis?

If we toss out the Creation fable in Genesis, then we also toss out "The Fall," the the idea that we're all sinners needing the Fundamentalist's "Plan of Salvation" through Jesus...and of course, attending a Fundie church of your choice.

Folks, this is why Christian Fundamentalists are hanging onto Creationism, or as they've renamed it, Intelligent Design. This is the bottom line, and this is what it's all about. You throw out Creationism, aka Intelligent Design, in Genesis, you throw out Christian Fundamentalism and all its dogma.

The Christian Fundamentalists have a right to believe the way they do. The only problem is, they want to foist all their beliefs and lifestyle on the rest of us. We'll fend for ourselves, they don't have to worry about saving our souls.