Raising questions is one thing, but when you've raised 786 questions, gone 0-for-786 as far as making any objection stick, and are still demanding time be devoted in the classroom to your religious-horror "anything but THAT!" non-theories, then fanaticism looks like a reasonable explanation for what's going on.
We can't be absolutely certain. Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system of testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. This works not just for ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life.So, please, feel free to question evolution all you want, just back it up your objections with a few facts, evidence, and logic.My objection to fundamentalism is not that they are fundamentalists but that essentially they want me to be a fundamentalist too. Now they may say that I believe evolution is true and I want everyone to believe that evolution is true. But I don't want everyone to believe that evolution is true, I want them to study what we say about evolution and decide for themselves. Fundamentalists say they want to treat creationism on an equal basis. But they can't. It's not a science.
No. People who try to smear the perfectly valid field of scientific inquiry called evolution by referring to it as "Darwinism" are the fanatics. They would rather use prejortive terms than actually confront scientific evidence.
Yeah, yeah, evolution has some holes. Not surprising, since the serious study of it is only about 100 years old. But it is a solid explanation for the variety of life on earth, explaining evidence from such disparate areas as comparative anatomy, molecular biology (DNA and protein sequences), bacterial drug resistance, and many others. Those who stick their head in the sand and shout "Darwinism!" as if that refuted the evidence are the fanatics. Those who pretend that "intelligent design" is science (when all it really says is "I don't see how it could have happened without a creator, therefore it didn't") are the fanatics. Those who would place an allegorical creation myth ahead of evidence they can touch and feel are the fanatics.
Those who understand and attempt to explain evolution are the realists - prepared to look the world in the eye as it is. In some cases, prepared to be humble enough to know that we cannot possibly completely understand how God might have decided to build a world, but we'll do our best with the evidence He set before us.
The fanatics are the ones that arrogantly decide that they understand the mind and will of God so well that they are prepared to dump inconvenient facts to fit their preconceived notions. And then, of course, try to pin the "fanatic" label on those who point out their foolishness.
I just got home from seeing The Passion of the Christ, keats, and the criticisms and mockery of the fanatics here seem remarkably small and meaningless by comparison.
The one true God, Creator of the universe, willingly suffered brutality and death for MY sin.
Nothing else matters, but that I continue to yield my life to HIM, and share His love to a world in need.