Carlos Santana and the Origin of Mankind

It’s been a little while since my last post. With all these hurricanes, the success of the UT Longhorns and of course the indictment of our friend Tom Delay, we have been pretty busy down in this neck of the woods. I’m also gearing up for my Emmy-Award winning role at the Ironman and so I’ve been extremely preoccupied. In fact, last week I interviewed rock legend Carols Santana for an unnamed biography program on A&E. The subject of the program is George Lopez who is known not only as the star of his own sitcom, but also as the guy whose wife gave him one of her kidneys. When asked to comment on this generous spousal act, rock-God Carlos Santana said (and I’m paraphrasing):

“Like ice cream, pizza, tacos, grass…everything is better when you share.”

Ahh the insights of a guitar virtuoso can be, at least at times, awe-inspiring.

Spending the morning interviewing a spacey guy with long hair who speaks in lyrical but nonsensical prose got me thinking about another such fellow from history- Jesus- and one of the more weighty issues of the day that has been really driving me crazy - Intelligent Design.

Now it is safe to say that I am a bit skeptical when it comes to all things religious. Since I am an American and therefore most exposed to Christianity, I am most familiar with the Grand Canyon size holes in the logic of its doctrine and so I often focus my wrath upon its scrolls while ignoring the equally curious teachings of Buda, Mohammed, and Vishnu. I would say that maintaining some skepticism toward public policy derived from a book used to justify everything from slavery to stoning women to being violently opposed to anal sex, is healthy. The recent intrusion of this book into the public school curriculum however, is especially worrisome. Let’s face it, most of the people in this country are educated in public schools and most of them are complete idiots so while I wouldn’t blame the public school system completely for the stupidity epidemic amongst Team America, I would at least say they are on the coaching staff. That said, asking the public schools to introduce faith into the science curriculum seems as good for America as giving tax breaks to companies that record $7 billion in quarterly profits (Exxon – a whole other issue).

The use of the term “Intelligent Design” is in truth a simple maneuver to hide the fact that it is simply the theology of Creationism being passed off as pseudo-science. The idea that God created the Earth is from the Old Testament – the book my people the Jews wrote. It’s always funny how Christians like to pick and choose which nonsense from this book we’re supposed to take literally. Stoning my wife at the walls of the city when she doesn’t bleed on the marriage bed (Leviticus) – just kidding. God created Earth in six days and then took a sabbatical (Genesis) – dead serious.

Evolution is a “theory” in the same way gravity is. Science is based upon testing a hypothesis against the natural world and seeing if that hypothesis can be proven by its repeated demonstration in the natural enviroment. Evolution is such a theory. Religion is an exercise in faith – it is the act of believing that there is something bigger than yourself and accepting it without any proof (hence “faith”). Both have a place in our society but only one has a place in our schools. Evolution, in and of itself, does not discount that God may have created life on Earth. Evolution does not claim to answer how that first single cell got here. It does, however, in a manner that can be demonstrated and seen in nature, explain how we got to where we are today. Intelligent Design does not, by definition will not, and by having its roots in faith, cannot.

And let’s face it – if there was some guy floating up in the cosmos planning this whole thing out then how does one explain our small toe, the appendix, and the need to give us so many skin pigments? Do we really need eighteen feet of small intestine to process a cheeseburger? There wasn’t any better way to do that? My bet is that if there is someone up there in the cosmos, he or she has got a lot better things to do than play Sims with this planet.