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Well, freedom means that the ignorant can go to Mr. Hovind's park and live in their fantasy world. Oh well.

Let's shrink God down to the size of one single book, written by a select set of people whose understanding was that of shepherds and fishermen; let's ignore everything else we've learned about Him from His actual creations, and be sure, while we're at it, never never never to learn any math that might tend to confuse us. Get beyond pre-algebra, and you might get into trouble. You might find yourself running into questions that can't be answered with that single book.

"Bible? We've got a Bible. We don't need ANYTHING else, including open eyelids."

There's no scientific notation if you confine yourself to the cubit. (I'm surprised that there hasn't been a fundamentalist movement to send us back to Biblical weights and measures.) Carbon dating? Now God wouldn't make anything so inconvenient as isotopes. That would confuse us. They're so small we can't see 'em, so we can ignore what they tell us. Those atheist scientists are just trying to do the Devil's work, undermining the faith of true believers--who may have to actually think about their testimony and integrate it with physical reality, if they dare question the doctrine that all true human knowledge is in Just One Book (which was a primer in morality and history, never intended to teach EVERYTHING, but never mind that.)

And those stars, they're just stuck on there. They're not so far away at all if you assume Heaven has to be beyond them. Worlds around them? WHO wants to go looking for a church that has taught, all along, that there are other worlds out there around those faraway suns?

We're gonna spend eternity just floating on clouds playing harps and singing at the Throne. Yes. That's what we want. No family, no marriage, no friendship, no service, no progression. No learning. No making, no doing...just sitting and harping and playing a horn for variety. Yeah, that's a great eternity. Forget the majesty of active volcanic fields and the heinous doctrine of plate tectonics--we won't have any use for that stuff. Forget the joy of falling in love with a kitten, a new baby. Heaven doesn't need any of that stuff--we did mention the cloud thing? You get your own, all to yourself, for eternity! Unless of course you go to that other place.

Ignore the rest of this stuff God made. Can't fit dinosaurs on the cloud you know, so they're of no possible interest.

And the notion that God is always talking to us, telling us more about Himself and His world? Why, that's the most evil thought at all. Just keep going through your prayerbooks and scripted services. Stick to the safe stuff. Don't even venture to try to ask God Himself to help you understand how it all fits together. He might answer, and maybe the answer will require you to do a little work, including (gasp) math, even PHYSICS, and that's just too big a risk to take, isn't it?

Well, freedom means that the ignorant can go to Mr. Hovind's park and live in their fantasy world. Oh well.

Couldn't have put it better. Pity the poor unsuspecting children who grow up sheltered from the opportunity to make their decisions based on inquiry, observation and reasoning.