Intelligent design in schools

This post may annoy some of you. I'm not going to apologize for that, so you're just going to have to get over it and yourself. Whatever your religious views and beliefs are...I don't care.

For the past few years (since the '50's really, but more so recently) people have been trying to get religion taught in schools as part of a science education curriculum. It started out with the Scopes trial (1925) in an effort to block the teaching of the theory of evolution (in Kansas...surprise. Sorry Shelly.), and has continued through to the present with local school boards trying to have "intelligent design" added as an "alternative theory".

Naturally, this "alternative theory" involves a single christian god being an agent of "intelligent design", but they thinly veil that by saying the "agent" isn't what's important. Naturally, evidence to the contrary has been found, but the zealots ignore it.

My problem with all of this runs deep and has many levels. At first, I have an issue with some teacher instructing my children (were I to have any) on religious views. If you want a religious education, go talk to the leader of your church. A little further down the line, the complete IGNORANCE of the actual theory of evolution annoys me and shows a complete lack of education on the behalf of the people trying to adopt these new lessons.

Finally, and most important to me, is that theology has no place in the science classroom. Science inevitably leads to a concrete, testable, and provable answer. Religion leads only to "because", and as we have all learned in grammar class, "because" is NOT an answer. It is simply a dismissal.

Personally, I don't know how the universe began, but I do my best to understand the evidence we have collected and the theories we have formed so far. I'm open to new information, and I'm open to learning more...even if that means our current presumptions are wrong. Religion, on the other hand, is neither open to new evidence, nor is it open to being proven wrong. Literally, religious beliefs are formed by men and women thousands of years ago that had no way of peering into the inner workings of life or out into the universe. From their perspective, the earth was flat, god spoke to Moses, families owned slaves, and men (gender specifically) ruled the earth.

Do we really want those people teaching our science classes?