Today is Evolution Sunday. It’s a day when thinking Christians make a modest stand for reason, it’s a day when caring Christians make a stand for facts and truth, versus calumny and voodoo science and voodoo history.
Debunking hoaxes — finding the truth about who put the first plumbed bathtub in the White House, repeating the debunking of the “Lady Hope hoax” that claimed Darwin recanted his life’s work on his deathbed, holding a spotlight on the facts of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the events in the Gulf of Tonkin, highlighting the bravery of Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher and the crew of the Pueblo, noting that there never was a family of chainsaw murderers in Travis County, Texas — is difficult work. One wag I used to see posting on an internet bulletin board had a tagline, “Fighting ignorance since 1974 1973– it’s taking longer than I thought.”*
So, if you’re in church today, light a candle against the darkness, as Carl Sagan would say. Candles show us where demons are not, and where it is safe for humans to go. The more candles against ignorance, the greater the realm for human reason.
As Einstein almost certainly did not say, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. And as Frank Zappa probably did say, hydrogen is not the most abundant thing in the universe — ignorance is. Light some candles against ignorance today, in church or out of it. Reason gives us hope, and there is precious little of both today.
Be grateful for those things that keep us free, for those things that keep us seeking and acquiring knowledge, and for those people (like P. Z. Myers) who prod us — righteously — to stand up for the truth.
- * Tagline of Cecil Adams at the Straight Dope (thanks D.S.)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
You should link to The Straight Dope. That’s where the tagline still sits (although it’s since 1973 – no one’s perfect).
LikeLike