One of my favorite films is "Inherit the Wind" starring Spencer Tracy (As Clarence Darrow, sort of) and Frederick March (As William Jennings Bryan, sort of)

The film was based upon a book by the same title. The book, in turn, was more than loosely based upon the Scopes trial set in 1925 Tennessee. The actual trial was a real 'show'. Every major news organization was there covering every word said in the courtroom.

Tennessee had instituted a law forbidding the teaching of Evolution in their schools. The actual trial in the case entitled Tennessee v. John Scopes was a put-on. The young high school teacher had actually taught the theory in violation of the law. But he faced only a $100.00 fine and Darrow had showed up with the backing of progressive organizations and never charged Scopes a fee. So nothing was a stake for either the state or the defendant and it was all set up for the 'show'.  And there was not even a CSPAN.

The author of this fictional history used fictional names for all players. (It always kills me when some author is interviewed as the first writer of a fictional history. As far as just about any 'history' given in this day and age that quotes an anonymous source, you are reading a fictional history) It seems clear that he wished to protect his copyright, shield himself from a libel suit and wished to present a dramatic confrontation between the intelligentsia and good bible totin' Tennesseans.

Tracey becomes more and more miffed during the trial because the judge won't allow any of his experts to testify as to the new findings in fields such as biology, archeology, geology.......

The real fun involves the cross examination of Williams Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow.  I mean what is Bryan doing representing the state? And how often do defense counsel cross examine prosecuting attorneys.  It was Bryan's hubris in all of this and the queer part of this charade was that Bryant was a liberal, in the modern sense of the word. He ran for president almost as many times as Harold Stassen and he stood for liberal values as well as a modern perspective of the state. 

And the movie really demonstrates the power of cross examination by a genius. Oh how much fun would it be to witness a great prosecutor cross examine dickyc or rummy?  Let alone w. ha!!

Darrow actually holds up a rock. How old is this?

I am more interested in the Rock of Ages than the ages of rocks.  (Which has to be the greatest line in the movie)

The following is from the transcript of the actual trial-- http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/day7.htm

Q--Mr. Bryan, do you believe that the first woman was Eve?
A--Yes.
Q--Do you believe she was literally made out of Adams's rib?
A--I do.
Q--Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?
A--No, sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her.
Q--You have never found out?
A--I have never tried to find
Q--You have never tried to find?
A--No.
Q--The Bible says he got one, doesn't it? Were there other people on the earth at that time?
A--I cannot say.
Q--You cannot say. Did that ever enter your consideration?
A--Never bothered me.
Q--There were no others recorded, but Cain got a wife.
A--That is what the Bible says.
Q--Where she came from you do not know.

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Q--You do not think that ?
A--No. But I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6,000,000 years or in 600,000,000 years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other.
Q--Do you think those were literal days?
A--My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue as against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days.
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 Q--Now, you refer to the cloud that was put in heaven after the flood, the rainbow. Do you believe in that?
A--Read it.
Q--All right, Mr. Bryan, I will read it for you.
Bryan--Your Honor, I think I can shorten this testimony. The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world, I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennesseee--
Darrow--I object to that.
Bryan--(Continuing) to slur at it, and while it will require time, I am willing to take it.
Darrow--I object to your statement. I am exempting you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.
The Court--Court is adjourned until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Bryan cannot help himself. He is full of hubris and Darrow knows this and when hubris raises its ugly head, the cross-examiner will never lose.

BERESHIT

Chapter 4 tells the story of Cain & Abel. With no women to fight over, with no elections to contest and no World Wrestling Association, Cain goes ahead and kills Abel.

Then the Lord asked Cain, Where is your brother Abel? He Answered: Am I my brother's keeper?

Kind of nice in those days. I mean you could have a nice conversation with god and everything. And Cain of course is an idiot.

I mean god can miss a whole lot these days with almost seven billion people on the planet. What if he does get caught up in one of those wonderful episodes presented by Pat Robertson and happens to miss the murder of 50,000 people in Africa?

I mean Cain has got to figure the big guy knows what has been goin on.

The punishment wielded out by the hand of god is simple exile. And:

If you till the soil, it shall no longer give you its produce. You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord: My punishment is too great to bear. Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, anone may kill me at sight. Not so! The Lord said to him. If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold. So the Lord put a mark on Cain. Lest anyone should kill him on sight. Cain then left the Lord's presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (Genesis 4, 12-16)

I like this chapter. I mean, the "Mark of Cain" was a warning to leave him alone.

As Darrow would point out, first there was Adam. Then Eve. Then Cain. Then Abel. And Cain not only goes away with his wife (where in the hell did she come from) he goes off to live WITH OTHER PEOPLE.

Poetry, prose and meditation maybe. But HISTORY? I mean come on!!!

Chapter 5 just goes on to recite 'generations' of men.

Adam and some guy named Methuselah lived just short of a thousand years. The purpose of the chapter as stated is to number the generations from Adam to Noah.

Karl Malden died yesterday. He was 97. I watched him in scores of movies and on TV. Interesting guy.

Worked with Brando and Michael Douglas.

The bald man on NBC sends cases of Smuckers to the people reaching the magical age of 100.

The Egyptians (and later the Jews as I will demonstrate later) thought that a perfect life would run 120 years.

People did not live to the ripe old age of 900 years. EVER.

There are Norse Gods that did not live that long.  But why worry about it?

Time and again, on local school boards and in national courts, evolution wins out over creationism. Despite the strength of these victories, however, evolution continues to encounter competition in the classroom. According to the first rigorous nationwide survey of how evolution is taught in U.S public schools, as many as one in eight high school biology teachers presents creationism or intelligent design as a viable scientific alternative to evolution.

The researchers, led by Penn State political scientist Eric Plutzer, questioned nearly 1,000 teachers about their personal beliefs and the amount of class time they devoted to evolution and creationism. The results? About one in six of the surveyed teachers espoused young-earth creationist views, and most of them taught their students those views. Only 23 percent strongly agreed that evolution was a central theme in their teaching. (Jocelyn Rice in Discover) http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/036

You cannot come to the ridiculous conclusion that the earth is 6000 years old without a literal interpretation of the Old Testament and without believing that the earth was created before the stars and the moon and the sun and without believing that people used to live for a thousand years. You just can't. There is no other reference book on the subject. And this kind of thinking threatens our educational system. This is NO JOKE.

There is a substantial population in this country that would like to see the most technologically advanced society in the world join Romania. http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/4652/46/

Texas's State Board of Education voted Friday to alter the state's science curriculum and drop a standard that critics say undermined proper teaching of evolution in the classroom for the past 20 years, the Associated Press reports.

The standard, which mandated instruction about the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories, indirectly allowed instructors to teach evolutionary theory alongside intelligent design, a belief that an intelligent being created life on Earth. The new standard approved by state educators encourages students to scrutinize "all sides" of scientific theories, a compromise that still disappoints some pro-evolution scholars. The board also adopted a series of slight curricular changes that critics say unnecessarily encourage debate about key pieces of evolutionary theory, like natural selection and common ancestry.

These new standards will be in place for the next decade and will influence Texas's classroom instruction, its standardized test material, and the topics covered in the state's science textbooks. Because Texas is one of the largest textbook buyers in the nation, its approved curriculum can influence the content of textbooks that are sold to other states and school districts across the country.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life compiled information about the debate in several states in "Fighting Over Darwin, State by State,"  http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2009/03/30/texas-schools-face-the-evolution-debate.html

See what is going on here?  Repub textbooks. A lot of money to be had in this market.

I do not mean to say that there is no hope:

Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) was a case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987 regarding creationism. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools along with evolution was unconstitutional, because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. At the same time, however, it held that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction."

Scalia and Renquist dissented. CAN YOU IMAGINE?

The most recent case of note occurred in the Dover area of Pennsylvania five years ago.

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is a landmark case in the 150-Year Creationism War. The Dover School District voted in late 2004 to require the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to the scientific theory of evolution (heavily influenced by the Discovery Institute's propaganda), and they were promptly sued by a group of eleven outraged parents. http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30551_The_Defeat_of_Intelligent_Design_in_Pennsylvania

"After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community." (page 64)

"[T]he one textbook [Pandas] to which the Dover ID Policy directs students contains outdated concepts and flawed science, as recognized by even the defense experts in this case." (pages 86-87)

"ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID." (page 89)

"Accordingly, we find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause." (page 132)

In his Conclusion on pages 136-138 of 139 of this decision he writes:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents. [...]

I saw a great documentary on PBS about this case. What sunk the bible thumpers were their own lies really. Through testimony and documents and hired 'experts' they attempted to separate themselves from 'Creationism'. But the ACLU and other organizations attacking Intelligent design demonstrated that these experts simply took old Creationist arguments and simply cut and pasted their entire bullshit replacing the word 'Creationism'  with 'Intelligent Design'.

Why go back to Bereshit?  Because it is only through examination of this sacred book that Intelligent Design will be destroyed as a viable argument. These people are really contending that the earth is 6000 years old.  By examining the 'Book', you are looking at their only source of data. NO OTHER BOOK IN THE WORLD is a primary source for averring the ridiculous contention that the earth is 6000 years old.