More from Steve Cornell:

Always remember that the atheist's problem with belief in God is not the absence of evidence but the suppression of it. This is what scripture teaches. "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:20-22).

This is not so much a case of suppressing information as selecting it.

Theists, Pantheists, Deists, Athiests, and Agnostics as well as every other possible definition of belief status, have reasons for selecting some information over other information and giving it more weight and significance than someone else might (including friends of mine who, on this subject, say, “I just don’t care one way or another what is true.  It has nothing to do with me."  I call them “apathiests”)

We all have our own reasons for selecting the knowledge upon which we will base our opinions and decisions, and that is our prerogative.

But when it comes to our society making decisions that affect us all, we have to try to make certain that the decisions lead to results that everyone can live with.  Not necessarily that we will like, or that benefit us all the time, or even that are necessarily always fair…but we all have to be able to live with the decisions we make as a society.

In order to do that, we have to have a societal selection process.  This process must allow for argument, but it must also allow for a conclusion to be drawn.

We have to make decisions, and we can’t do that if we wait for every individual to get on board with the consensus.  So we let everyone talk, and we listen to the evidence, and we try a few things and see the results, and then we make a decision.  Some viewpoints win, and some lose.

And in our society, the losers get to keep talking if they want to.  They can argue and argue and argue for as long as they have breath, but generally speaking, unless they come up with something good, and new, and compelling, most people don’t listen to them, and they natter along on the fringes feeling rejected and persecuted.  Because they aren’t really part of the dialogue, and their issues and information is not accepted, they feel that they are being suppressed, when in actuality, they are merely not being selected.

And I guess a person could feel pretty put-upon because of that.  The problem is that right now, the right-wing fundamentalists are trying to change the rules, trying to re-define the terms so that they can gain access to the debate without actually bringing anything new to the table.

In short, they are cheating.  The terms “Intelligent Design”, “Activist Judges”, “Sound Science”, among others are attempts to re-gain a lost relevance in the societal debate.  While the beliefs of fundamentalist, creationist, dominionist Christians might be relevant to them, and important, and yes, even useful…they have lost relevance, importance, and utility to our society at large.

And the current tactics are just window dressing used to cover up the fact that the swanky new boutique down the street is just an old junk shop filled with worn-out curiosities.  Maybe not useless or worthless to the right buyer, but certainly not things that will ever enjoy general utility again.

The verses Mr. Cornell quotes above have great meaning for me despite their antiquity.  They are a warning against hubris, for certain…but whose hubris does it most fit?  Mr. Cornell seems to believe it is the hubris of those who would prefer the knowledge of the creator written in creation to the knowledge written in the Bible.  I wonder.

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:20-22).

Mr. Cornell and his kind believe that they hold in their hands, between the pages of the Bible, all that there is to know about God and creation.  Yet, they will look on all the evidence, discoveries, reason and logic that tells of greater and more wondrous things than their Bible ever told, and close their eyes to it, preferring a God that can fit between the pages of a book to one of infinite creation.

They won’t look because they fear they will doubt, because they fear to doubt, they will not ask.  Because they will not ask, they will receive no answer, and because of that, they will not know.

And that is their prerogative, but we don’t need to stay here with them.

And that, is entirely enough of that.