Like so many evangelical Buddhists, I was born in Brownwood and grew up in San Angelo.  When I first moved to Abilene 30 years ago, the local paper carried stories of a town awash in church culture and creationism, and I saw at once that I had been called here, yes and summoned. I got busy writing letters to the editor about evolution, and offering occasional rebuttal to the Billy Graham column.

In those days, Christian education mavericks Tommy and Carolyn Walden (Don’t miss their creation “science” Discovery Center at S. 8^th and Butternut!) were reportedly expected to appear at all Abilene elementary schools with R.O.D.N.I.E. the religious robot.  

I guess that program had subsided later on, thank goodness, as my son attended K-12.  By middle school I was at least able to find the word “evolution” in his science books, but still many of our community’s science teachers almost certainly fell in the category of skimming past the topic or, worse, making positive mention of creation “science” as though it merited consideration alongside reality.

I don’t know whether the exasperating folly of creationism is presently indulged in AISD classrooms – oh wait, whom am I kidding, of course it is, and twice as much at Wylie and Clyde. 

People have suggested to me that the creation-evolution “debate” is an academic sort of matter, and of no great practical relevance.  I only wish it were so, frankly, now that the consequences of malignant science denial come blowing class 4 and 5, again and again.  But I suppose Texas incurred this sorrow and ruin by not going hard enough on Planned Parenthood and LGBT residents.

Having teamed up with Vladimir Putin and the white supremacist faction to pervert the presidential election, now the cult of creationism is gleefully at work circumventing the “no establishment” promise of the constitution –hoping to fulfill their mad fantasy of a “Christian nation.” How tragic that despisers of intellect and education have prevailed, replacing the worthiest statesman ever to hold the high office with a pretender thereunto, a shameless panderer who’s Christian only in the most hypocritical possible sense. 

To the delight of the crazy fringe that mis-elected him, this villain has of course done his blundering best to dismantle the advances America enjoyed during President Obama’s enlightened administration.

An immediate casualty was environmental protection. Great!  The fake religion Trump pretends to belong to drives an evil initiative to abandon regulation of industry, turning remorseless capitalism loose on a long-mistreated planetary environment.  Such an attitude can be expected to come of the popular doctrine that all this was quickly and easily poofed into existence just recently by One who’s going to come and carry us away to paradise any day now, if we but make ourselves believe a few things that fly in the face of, well, science. 

Mind you, many American churchgoers are not that way at all but have adapted to the news of the century before last and manage to maintain Christian faith that is worthwhile and beneficial.  Apparently they contemplate a God consistent with the actual supreme reality that science and Buddhism have detected. I sure wish those good Christians all the best and hope they overtake the others ASAP. 

Diversity, diversity in faith and philosophy is the treasure of constitutional liberty.  My heart is with the underdog minorities – Pagans such as my wife, and the Atheists and those who self-style on metaphysics in what has been called a new age.  Blessed are they who, in such times as these, stand up for the progressive ethic and resist the machinations of a dysfunctional regime.  May future elections repair and restore America!