For those of you who listened to Public Enemy back when hard, militant raps were new and relatively non-commercial (Public Enemy got no play on MTV – at least on their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back), you should be familiar with the title as a key sound bite spoken by Chuck D. Vilified by the media and feared by people who just didn't know, Chuck D carried on, for two decades, his clarion calls of sense and street reason for those who just did.
But the original Chuck D – Public Enemy #1 – has come under attack again, this time by crackpots in new clothing. These are the intelligent supporters of "intelligent design," the latest, greatest attempt to overturn established scientific theory in favor of flights of unsupported fancy. "Intelligent design" is not science because 1) it was never put forth by scientists or any scientific study, 2) its initial proponents were and are politically-motivated religious groups with a clear agenda on their hands, and most damningly, 3) it is supported by no specific evidence, but most importantly, by its very absence.
On the other side are perplexed scientists who have to sit and wonder why this even comes up as a legitimate subject of debate by the media. It's as if a group of people simply came up with the theory that the universe was spontaneously produced out of a sheep's ass in an explosion of flatulent fury. This "new Big Bang" theory would be arguably true only because of the lack of evidence to positively prove that there was no large, cosmic sheep's ass that pre-existed the creation of everything. How could you prove that right or wrong, one way or another? It simply defies logic altogether.
Faith works the same way, so if you have it – great. If you don't – great. The idiotic notion of "intelligent design" holds about as much water as the "new Big Bang" theory of fleecy flatulence. "God must be there, since the structure of DNA is so complex. It couldn't have gotten that way by itself." Although there are completely reasonable and acceptable theories as to why and how DNA could have come to be what it is, we have this first erroneous assumption. If there were some strange, inexplicable marker that we noticed once we had gained the ability to peer down at the thing at the molecular level, like some arrangement of peptides into the words "It's God, niggas! Right here, boyeee!" – man, I'd be shocked into getting down on my knees before the undeniable. Seeing as how God's use of ebonics would be about as likely as his using English, which would both be about as likely as God writing his name in the structure of DNA to prove his existence scientifically when faith is what if required for true religious belief, I'm not waiting around for any such burning bushes. Of course, I am committing the arminian heresy of professing to reason out the will and intent of the One, but I am just making a point here: There is no positive evidence for the veracity of this theory, and in a belief system – religion – that requires faith and faith alone, in the absence of evidence, the "intelligent design" theory leaves everyone at square one, anyway. You either believe it or you don't. Religion doesn't need pseudo-pseudo science to bolster its claims, even as scientists cannot actively disprove the existence of God. The only reason I am not a practicing Christian is because I lack faith. Hey – I'm Christian-compatible – ready to go, given my Midwestern, meat-and-potatoes, generically Christian environment. But I just don't have the faith required to make the jump to true Christian belief. As Chuck D would agree, you just can't fake the funk.
This country was culturally founded by extreme Christians, but politically founded by more tempered ones, who did the great and difficult deed of making sure that belief was separated from politics. Even in Massachusetts, ground zero of the extreme Christian views of the Pilgrims and Puritans, their constitutions progressively eliminated requirements such as being a church member to vote, and by the time of the two Great Awakenings and the advent of the Declaration of Independence, the state had become ringed off as a secular place.
Even Roger Williams, who was more a fervent Puritan than the rest of the Puritans, which is what got him kicked out of the Mass Bay Colony, advocated for the separation of church and state, albeit to protect the church from any undue and dirtying influences of the worldly state. Good idea, that. Some of the Christian right wingers might want to think about that fact as their PACs and other lobbying groups throw money and influence at politicians.
In any case, since I fear that there are forces that would seem to want nothing less than a theocratic Christian state, especially given the fact that more than half of all Americans say that they reject evolutionary theory, I place this sticker on my page to assist you in your fight against the forces who would put mankind back into the Middle Ages.
Charles Darwin has a posse. You down with us or what!?