I found this episode of TAL to be pretty interesting, which is a nice change after the last one we listened to. Overall I thought it was  engaging, though there were a few parts that I found frustrating.

It is ridiculous that evolution is still not fully accepted and taught in America. Luckily I went to a school that did teach it and not some bogus malarkey like creationism. America has fallen behind in the sciences, and unthinking clinging to religious explanations as opposed to real science is part of the problem. Hearing about a principal trying to intimidate a teacher about the subject of evolution was very frustrating to listen to, and I fear that’s probably something that is very common.

Now I don’t think people shouldn’t be religious. If that gives meaning to someone’s life, then I think that’s great because that’s something that’s hard to come by. But I think it is totally unjustified if they try to impose that on the rest of the country. There was mention of the debate about whether the Founding Fathers wanted the country to have a separation of church and state. I think this episode set it straight that they did intend for the country to be secular, but I also think it doesn’t matter whether they did or didn’t. To just go by what they believed is take an argument from authority, whereas what we should do is reason for ourselves as to whether it is actually something we want for America. One of the opponents of secularism argued that the Founding Fathers were religious, therefore America should be religious. But the Founding Fathers were also slave-holders, so by that logic, do they also believe that America should be a slave-holding country?

I enjoyed the Julia Sweeney segment a lot. I felt it was a good contrast to the the rest of the episode and that she made some very good points. Only problem I had with it was the final conclusion she reaches at the end. Her reasoning is basically the Bible is flawed, therefore Christianity is flawed. So far so good, but then she jumps from that position to the believe that no God exists and that all religions are flawed, which isn’t necessarily wrong but that doesn’t directly lead from the previous conclusion. Just nitpicking I guess.