Church, State, and Intelligent Design

Remember reading these words in the 5th grade?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Of course most people will recognize these words from the Declaration of Independence. These are the very words that launched not only our country, but our governing philosophy as well.

Our very country was formed with the belief that we were ‘created’ , or in other words, intelligently designed. Now, the very notion of teaching this outrageous idea to school children is villified as an attempt to introduce religion into the classroom. I wonder how History teachers will explain that phrase “endowed by their Creator” without touching on Intelligent Design.

The fact is, you can’t. Our founding fathers held the belief that we did not just happen here by chance and evolution. They believed we were designed, and I suspect they felt very strongly that each of them were designed for a very specific purpose, that is to launch this wonderful experiment in Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.