Ms. Clark
English 101
18 November 2010
Preliminary Essay
Christian fundamentalist have challenged the thinking of popular society by denouncing modern sciences, one example is the theory of evolutionary biology. In the process they are constricting their children from exploring the world to form their own beliefs. I stumbled across a Youtube video that featured a radical fundamentalist Christian home-schooling her child to only believe in creationism, this limits her child of other modern knowledge such as science.
Christian fundamentalist that truly believe in creationism have rejected evolutionary biology altogether. Evolutionary biology was first proposed by Charles Darwin in the mid-1800’s. Darwin had a theory that people evolved from other organisms and with that he introduced natural selection to the world. Natural selection is the idea that traits can become common or rare within a population caused by the surviving, reproductive bearers. Meaning that the traits are passed down to the population by their parents. In 1859, Darwin published a book about natural selection called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, this book would mainly defend Darwin’s theory of evolution. Since then, the development of evolutionary biology has been increasing successfully with new information that supports the Darwin’s theory and changed many people‘s perspective on how man came to be.
Radical Christian fundamentalist rejects the idea of evolution, they believe that it is absurd that people were a product of monkeys. Creationism came about way long before Darwin’s theory, and it tries to explain the origin of how life came to be, how people should act, and that the bible is law. That is why radical creationists have a problem with schools teaching their children the theory of evolution, and questions why creationism is not taught. And some extreme creationist want to eliminate the teachings of evolution completely from the school’s science curriculum. Therefore, many radical Christian fundamentalist parents have chosen to home school their children and to keep their child from ever hearing the words “evolution”. It is not wrong to want to home school your child, but doing it just for the simple reason of not letting them explore other ideas of how the world came to be is not a legitimate excuse.
The conflict that arises from the theory of evolution is the Christian fundamentalists’ belief of creationism. Creationism and evolution has a difficult time coexisting with one another. Evolution states that we have evolved so that our physical traits can adapt to our surrounding environment, whereas creationism stands on the principle of intelligent design. Which is comparable to the belief that a higher being, with unlimited power, has created man. Darwin’s published book on natural selection began a major uproar between religious groups and those who were curious of the world. He created one of the most controversial arguments just simply by coming up with a theory of his own. Arguments that creationists have made were relating to the fact that science may destroy tradition. Many Christian fundamentalist have the fear of changing what their whole belief system were based on. They want to respect what their ancestors have believe in. And it is very difficult to change one’s perspective on life once he or she only grew up in a control environment. For an example, if parents are home-schooling their child to only believe what they believe then chances are, as the child grows up, he or she will be less accepting of new ideas that would contradict their own beliefs. Many parents that strictly follow the doctrine of the bible are less likely to allow their children to go to school(s) that teaches evolution, because they believe “that science doesn’t prove anything” (Youtube video). Some creationist are hard to persuade through science because they believe that “our nation was founded on Judeo Christian values” (Youtube video). Evolutionist try to find the facts by exploring and researching, then coming up with a conclusion. Whereas, creationist are criticized for starting with conclusions and finding facts that would support it.
Now I am not saying that creationism is wrong for children to learn and that evolution is right, I merely want to state that children should hear both sides of each theory and let them choose what they believe to be true. The reason why I feel strongly against Christian fundamentalist not letting their child learn about more aspects of life is because parents have a strong influence on their children’s belief that they may give their child a totally bias opinion on creationism. I think that it would be fair to let your child go to school to learn about evolution and they can learn about creationism during church or at home. Many Christian families are alright doing this and their children do not seem to be rejecting creationism and accepting evolution, they just follow what they want to believe. And you rarely hear about parents preventing their children from learning about creationism and to strictly believe in evolution. Plus, if children are allowed to go to school, they will get a chance to interact with other students, share different views, and in process it can make your child more open to new ideas. I just do not see the point in forcing a child to believe the same beliefs as their parents. Everyone should have the freedom to make their own choices. Regardless of any religion or theories about life, one thing that is definite is that everyone was created equal.
To conclude, my argument was that radical Christian fundamentalist can go overboard with how they teach their children. I want to make it clear that I am NOT targeting creationist, only the extreme creationist parents who take it too far. For example, when parents force their child to help protest for a cause that the child may not have full understanding of. To that point the parents are just using their child for their own selfish means, and they justify it for saying that their child is helping for a just cause. And what can the child do if he or she was home schooled, they would have been raised in a controlled environment in which mommy and daddy are always right and that everything else is wrong. They say that one of the healthiest environment for a child to grow up in is if religion was not imposed upon as much. Children are the future and if we want them to progress for the betterment of society and the world’s prospect, we should give them a chance to explore new ideas and make them more open minded. All and all, this world does not need restrictions on beliefs that can cause isolation upon other groups, but rather unity and understanding.
Works Cited
Bleckmann, Charles A. “Evolution and Creationism in Science: 1880-2000.” Bioscience 56, no. 2: 151-158. Academic Search Premier, EBSCO host (accessed November 16, 2010).
Dawkins, Richard. Dawkins Richard. The God Delusion. Boston: New York Times, 2006. 137-61. Print.
"Radical Fundamentalist Christian Home-Schooling." YouTube. Web. 16 Nov 2010.
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