The Science of Religion vs. The Religion of Science

Now that Bush has aimed his massive intellect at the issue of whether our planet evolved as science has proven through rigorous research covering millions of years of hard evidence or as told to him by his Sunday School teacher, we need to take a hard look at how we will teach children to reconcile these two "theories." Bush, speaking in one of those rare situations where he is not reading a speech that almost always produces the most hilarious results, told a group of reporters Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. No doubt Republicans will now propose federal legislation to rewrite all science textbooks to reflect the idea that intelligent design (read: creationism) is just as valid a theory as evolution, especially in states where this obvious sop to the religious right might gain them a few more uninformed voters. Where the money will come from to pay for all these new science textbooks has not yet been determined as previous Republican legislative efforts have funneled most federal education dollars into more student testing. However, the vice president has decided that the contract for these new books has already been awarded to Halliburton’s newly created textbook division. It only remains for Halliburton to fill in the dollar amounts to the contract.

In order to keep the separation of church and state balanced, the new legislation should also include a provision that all Bibles be recalled and reprinted with a chapter added right after Genesis. This chapter will be written by secular scientists and will point out in summary fashion their “theory” of how science has proven that the creation story in the Bible has no basis of fact but was a nice, simple story that was written thousand of years ago for people without the strong intellects of today’s leaders. For space reasons, the chapter will be printed in 4 point type, with wide margins and will be limited to 5,000 pages, if possible.

The scientific and religious communities are keenly awaiting developments on what new areas of debate will be opened by the intellectual curiosity (or is it curiosity of intellect?) of the current inhabitant of the White House. Based on comments overheard from the Oval Office during a strong thunderstorm recently, the National Weather Association has recently completed a research paper on the process by which lightning strikes create thunder and how it is unlikely that they are due to “angels bowling.”