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Evangelical Christians - those Christians who accept a literal interpretation of the Bible and accept a personal "connection with God" and a personal responsibility to evangelize - comprise at an absolute maximum around 25% of the American population. In the high-income and highly educated states such as New York, California, and Massachusetts, their percentage of the population is significantly less. And yet despite their minority status, the influence - generally negative - that they exert on our society is enormous. On the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birthday, there are few areas where this is more evident than in the disgracefully low percentage of Americans who accept as valid the most basic, fundamental tenet of modern biology - the theory of natural selection, and the process of evolution.
Evangelical Christians view evolution as yet another example of science trying to pounce on their "religious beliefs" or, even more preposterously, their "religious freedom." Both claims are entirely wrong. As far as evolution trampling on their "religious freedom", only right-wing Christians are truly arrogant and ignorant enough to claim that the existence of beliefs and practices contrary to their worldview constitutes an abrogation of their religious freedom - this is why these nutjobs zealously claim that a married gay couple "destroys their religious freedom" because the mere existence of this couple somehow robs them of the so-called "freedom" to live in a world where their particular religious beliefs are the only ones recognized as permissible within a societal context. As far as the belief element of the equation, let's note that the Catholic Church has no problem with evolution - and neither do highly Catholic countries such as France and Italy, where extremely large majorities accept the theory as valid. Nearly all mainstream Protestant denominations do not explicitly reject evolution. Nearly all branches of Judaism accept evolution. Islam is mixed, particularly with regard to the rather large sect of insane suicide-bombing fundamentalists, but the most moderate to liberal Muslims generally accept evolution. Of course, those of us in the nonreligious/atheist/agnostic community accept the validity of evolution by essentially unanimous margins. Most Eastern religions have no problems with evolution and natural selection.
Of course, all of this means nothing to the Evangelical Christian. He sees nothing wrong with a system in which a full two-thirds of the world's people are ungodly heathens who are destined to eternal hellfire unless they convert to the Evangelical's own particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity. The downright idiocy and extremism of this sect explains, in large part, why the influence of far-right wing Christians is negligible across nearly all of the Western World...
with the exception, of course, of the United States.
Two hundred years after the birth of Darwin, and his theories have gained near universal acceptance in the developed world. But so long as the Christian Right continues to exert the irrational amount of power that they do today over contemporary American society, expect the USA to remain the outlier in this area - and quite a few others - for a significant amount of time to come.
Evangelical Christians view evolution as yet another example of science trying to pounce on their "religious beliefs" or, even more preposterously, their "religious freedom." Both claims are entirely wrong. As far as evolution trampling on their "religious freedom", only right-wing Christians are truly arrogant and ignorant enough to claim that the existence of beliefs and practices contrary to their worldview constitutes an abrogation of their religious freedom - this is why these nutjobs zealously claim that a married gay couple "destroys their religious freedom" because the mere existence of this couple somehow robs them of the so-called "freedom" to live in a world where their particular religious beliefs are the only ones recognized as permissible within a societal context. As far as the belief element of the equation, let's note that the Catholic Church has no problem with evolution - and neither do highly Catholic countries such as France and Italy, where extremely large majorities accept the theory as valid. Nearly all mainstream Protestant denominations do not explicitly reject evolution. Nearly all branches of Judaism accept evolution. Islam is mixed, particularly with regard to the rather large sect of insane suicide-bombing fundamentalists, but the most moderate to liberal Muslims generally accept evolution. Of course, those of us in the nonreligious/atheist/agnostic community accept the validity of evolution by essentially unanimous margins. Most Eastern religions have no problems with evolution and natural selection.
Of course, all of this means nothing to the Evangelical Christian. He sees nothing wrong with a system in which a full two-thirds of the world's people are ungodly heathens who are destined to eternal hellfire unless they convert to the Evangelical's own particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity. The downright idiocy and extremism of this sect explains, in large part, why the influence of far-right wing Christians is negligible across nearly all of the Western World...
with the exception, of course, of the United States.
Two hundred years after the birth of Darwin, and his theories have gained near universal acceptance in the developed world. But so long as the Christian Right continues to exert the irrational amount of power that they do today over contemporary American society, expect the USA to remain the outlier in this area - and quite a few others - for a significant amount of time to come.
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