[so_real]

What is the matter with teaching the truth? Why teach untrue things? Because the people want it? If evolution can't survive in academia without coercion and a massive infusion of public tax money, let it die.

There is nothing wrong with teaching the truth (especially when people want to hear it) but you can't force someone who doesn't want to hear it to listen. Sometimes you have to let a person hit rock bottom before they become "willing" to be helped. I believe evolution theory will hit rock bottom, and I advocate allowing it to fall (and thus allowing its followers to look elsewhere) than to force it underground (where it will survive in private waiting to rear its ugly head again).

[beavus]

There is nothing wrong with teaching the truth (especially when people want to hear it) but you can't force someone who doesn't want to hear it to listen.

Very true. (Of course, I would give the example of trying to persuade a poofist from embracing his cultish nonsense). However, the point is that people with very different views can live quite well together so long as an armtwister isn't extorting one for the benefit of the other.

Civility isn't about who is right. It is simply about how people are treated, whether they are rational like Darwin or nutty like poofists.

[judywillow]

Christianity has a proven ability to survive without government support and even in the face of government harassment. Evolution hasn't a prayer of passing that same test.