Religious belief interferes with people's understanding of evolution (NPR)

[Moostache]

86. I have zero use for religion in any form, but even less for the ones that intentionally deceive.

First of all, ALL religious people - unless they are pan-religious (meaning they simultaneously believe ALL religions...ie. NO-ONE!!!) are already atheists -1, meaning that they reject ALL other religions except for the one they have either chosen to follow or were born into and raised to believe in. When people ask me why I don't believe in their chosen deity, I always ask them why they reject Zeus and Jupiter and they have their answer.

Not a single human being is inherently religious, but ALL human beings are inherently curious and employ rudimentary scientific method techniques (trial and error mostly) to understand the world around them. It starts with the infant who cries for attention and help and nearly immediately determines that this action produces a reaction - help arrives in the form of the parent or care giver for the infant. From this early understanding of cause-and-effect, humans are inherently curious beings - UNLESS they are religiously abused.

I have a barely controllable fury regarding religion and its affects on people as it is starting to impact my children.

I have raised all of my children in a religion-free environment. We do NOT attend churches, or synagogues, or mosques, or temples. We do NOT pray to invisible men in the sky or to personal saviors or to nature itself. We do NOT condemn people for what they are or for who they choose to love or how they express that love. We do NOT care what other people eat, what they say in their homes or what they do in their bedrooms. We do NOT lie to our children with fairy tales and lies, instead giving the scientific reasons for things like thunder and death and life and all things in between.

We DO celebrate empathy and compassion and discuss the importance of generosity and caring about the people in our community and in our larger sphere of influence and interaction. We DO discuss love and family and the ties that bind us to each other and to our family but also to our fellow people of any color and any background. We DO discuss the need for money and the dangers of becoming obsessed with it above all else. We DO recognize that we are fortunate in many ways, and while we are not "rich" beyond measure, we acknowledge our good fortune to live a decent and comfortable life, free of privation and want. We DO discuss ways to help make a difference in the world and how to positively impact the world around us during out finite time in it.

For this, my daughter has started to become a target. She has kids at her middle school, a public school here in god-forsaken East Kansas (otherwise known as the state of Missouri) begin asking her why she doesn't believe in Jesus. They spit out the word atheist at her as if it is a contagious disease (which in reality and the light of open inquiry and education it IS, but not in the way these cretins think). They have begun excluding her in some circles and trying to sway her to their thinking in others.

This pains me, physically and emotionally.

I do not want to see my children in any kind of pain; but thankfully, the pain is more mine than my daughter's. She simply deflects the inquiries and pays no mind to the people obsessed with trying to make her like them, with those trying to define her instead of having her determine who she is on her own. Instead, she focuses on the things that she wants and does and how to keep getting better. She is a voracious reader and a constant Facebooker. She does jazz band and cheerleading. She is in student council and on the archery team. She is an honors student and tudor and mentor for younger students and also sings in the choir. In short, my daughter is everything I ever hoped for and more. She is what I had hoped for when I decided consciously to exclude religion and its teachings from my family life. She is the greatest example of morality without sacred texts that I know.

But the small minds and religiously motivated are persistent and unwilling to accept this. My daughter is an emerging threat to them and they are starting to react to this perceived threat. If a child can be all that my daughter is without the influence or interference of religion, well that does not sit too well with the Jeebus-worshipping crowd. There are actually young girls among those at her school who are spreading entirely false rumors about my daughter...things like she was promiscuous and a little too "hands-on" with some of the boys (entirely untrue accusations and rumors, but also 100% impossible to combat). There have been more than one in the last month that have told her she is "weird" and two that have asked her if she worships the devil (which she actually found amusing).

I am a scientist by trade (working for 20+ years with bacteria, antibiotics, protein purification and the like) and my daughter has a similar love of science, having been a three time school winner in the science fair with little to no direct help from me on her experiments beyond critiquing the experimental design and data presentation. She has performed the experiments herself and she has collected the data and she has defended the results in the science fair judging each year. The apple did not fall far from the tree and I love that, almost as much as I love my daughter. But I still cannot help but feel a certain amount of rage for those who would look at what she is and see something that is "wrong" or "abnormal" or "dangerous".

I know I am prejudiced beyond any semblance of partiality; but I wish the world was populated by MORE people like my daughter - bright, inquisitive, caring, sensitive, loving and kind.

BTW...one of her favorite songs happens to be one my favorites as well:

Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try.

No hell below us.
Above us only sky.

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.

I hope some day you'll join us,
and the world will live as one.