****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This series details many of the facts about evolution and just barely touches on other aspects. It would have been great if the series could have been more comprehensive but then it would have been considerably larger. The last two episodes "The Mind's Big Bang" and "What About God?" reveals where we are today and shows the juxtaposition of the mind being free to learn and grow or being suppressed by unchanging flawed beliefs.Just because you add the word "special" in front of the word "creation" does not make it science, nor does it make it special. I had mixed feelings about the young people speaking before the school board. I felt sorry for the children that they were being exploited, but the fact that they were so unaware of how disingenuous they were, reveals a deeper problem. For example, what if schools did adopt a "special creation" curriculum. Which creation story should be taught? Native American? Islam? Hindu? Of course these children already knew which creation story they wanted to be taught. They wanted THEIR religious beliefs to be taught in public school.Most people are so naive as to what the Bible actually teaches. Look at this commandment from the Bible: "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NIV) Can you imagine being raped, then your rapist having to pay your father fifty shekels (about $165 in today's currency) only because he is caught raping you. Then you are forced to marry the man who raped you and can never divorce him. And to make matters worse, it's all done in a way that portrays you as property and that the rapist has done nothing wrong. Would you call this moral? Knowing this verse, I felt embarrassed for the young girls standing up and pushing for such nonsense. The Bible is filled with these type of commandments, from murdering your son if he is stubborn and rebellious (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), to ripping out your eyes if they cause you to lust (Matthew 5:29). Teachings like these provoked Thomas Jefferson to write: "Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." This is the reason that people tend to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they accept and the parts they reject, and is the reason there are literally tens of thousands of different Christian denominations in the world.The Bible teaches that the camel doesn't have cloven feet, which is not true and is not science (Leviticus 11:4). It also states that the rabbit chews cud, which is not true and is not science (Leviticus 11:5). The Bible also teaches that God created the grass and trees on day three then creates the sun and moon on day four, this is not science (Genesis 1:11-19). The Bible teaches that it took God four days to create the earth and its contents but he creates the entire, complete, complex universe in a moment of time, this is not science.I believe the reason most people cannot let go of a god or a creator is that they actually experience loss just as you would in losing a loved one. It is hard to dispel a lie that has an emotional attachment. This is the basis of fanaticism, the fanatic or fan has become emotionally attached to the object of their affection or obsession. Their feelings are mistaken for substance and reality. The object of their affection (Santa, pets, God) must "love" them because they "feel it" so strongly. You can actually see the emotion in the last episode when the young students ask, "What About God". I once saw a young girl in utter grief, sobbing uncontrollably, and could not be comforted. I learned that someone had told her that Santa did not exist, and it was as if she had lost an actual loved one. Some might say, how awful that someone told her the truth about Santa. I say, how awful that someone told her the lie in the first place.
