Its a crime against humanity not to teach it

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So, is this to be in public schools, then? In that case, heck yes it should be mandatory.

As far as private schools go, I don’t think there’s much that can be done.

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I am happy to say that in Serbia evolution is still taught in elementary and secondary school through biology and later ecology subjects. Few years ago priests started influence of imposing theology as elective subject, but if you don’t like it, you can always select some other subject such as civil laws. I hope they don’t implement it in elementary school as mandatory, as it may confuse kids.

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The devout will obviously consider this a threat of war from Dawkins. What they so often fail to realize is that children, particularly during such formative years, require an education based on empiricism. Religion is a philosophical collection of ideas that should be introduced much later in life (if at all). Many religions propose rewards of eternal elation for good behavior and penalties of eternal despair and suffering for sin. Many children are still trying to get over a myriad of unrealistic fears, including monsters under the bed, and so it is unfair to expose them to the idea of hell as being real. Evolution should be standard fare in the classroom. However, Creationists see the word “theory” and abandon all faith in Evolution. Faith in God, however, remains strong, despite there being absolutely zero proof.
Evolution is real! Beings adapt to their environment—those who fail to adapt, fail to extend their gene pool.
Remember when you first realized that God didn’t exist? A vein of disappointment shot through your heart when you considered being worm food for eternity instead of “waking up” (much like Dorothy) in some fantasy land full of lost relatives and the four or five dogs you had growing up. I long for the day when a generation will no longer have to even consider the validity of a paradoxically omnipotent supreme entity. Religion was created by money and politics and sustained by fear and heartbreak in parents who look their beautiful 6 year-old children in the eye when asked “what happens when I die” and respond with the same desperate lie: “heaven!”
Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are regarded as silly by full grown adults, yet an invisible creator of all matter and energy gets over half the world’s devotion.

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To JGM…excellent comment, and I would emphasize that we need to greatly expand the understanding of “theory” as used in the scientific community as opposed to the common and dismissive usage of the term as being nothing more than an untested, unexamined opinion or idea.  We simply cannot allow the myth makers to co-opt a scientific term in this way.

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One of the reasons people may be threatened by evolution is because they don’t see how special it is to be an animal.  I believe it is pretty impressive and unique that I am given the opportunity to be a mammal on this rare planet.  It may just be difficult for a religious person to see that this makes each person an individual and living thing, and natural selection gives us our own personality.  As an atheist, I see life as being valuable and precious because I realize we were not just placed on earth like chess pieces on a board game.  We slowly developed and evolved, and every piece of evidence is like a jigsaw piece which is part of the puzzle, and so many pieces of evidence are pieced together that we see the picture of evolution. 

      Sorry for the allegory type description of evolution, but I always here that I must think life isn’t special if I believe a god did not put us here for no reason, and maybe this description of evolution will show believers that life is more special without a god.  If a god did just plant us on earth, than earth is just basically a fish tank and we are the fish for god to look at.  We go to school to be educated in truth, and to learn about the world, so learning evolution is needed because it is how we came to be.  Oppressing the education of evolution is an attempt to adjust and alter the truth to bring false comfort for those who are irrational.

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JGM and tsimpsom, I congratulate you both for expressing so well part of my thinking. I wish some day I could synchronize my “little brain cells” (like Poirot) and articulate all that is boiling in the caldrum of my brain, thus become able to express my ideas better. Thank you for sharing.

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