Spirituality: A License to Protest(aka whine)?

An acquaintance I met through a popular networking site who happens to be the former g/f of a late friend - and incidentally, this late friend was someone I was very close to myself, partially because of our past of playing in a band together - has made it clear on several occasions that she doesn't like the fact that I challenge people's religious beliefs....or, in her case, her "spiritual" beliefs.(yes, she's one of those who thinks that she can divorce her "God" from religion).

In any case, she continually goes on and on about how we're a "free country", yadda, yadda, and that we're free to believe whatever we wish. It should be noted that I have never once disagreed that we're free to believe whatever we wish. In fact, I say it quite frequently in these types of discussions.

So, here's the rub, because as you might've guessed, it's coming:

While we are, yes, free to believe whatever-the-hell we wish, the fact is, in some cases, people's personal beliefs become collective beliefs, and if/when people's collective beliefs turn into actions, those actions have consequences. For example, when the collective beliefs of a certain group of people turn to trying to teach "creationism" in the science/biology classroom, a consequence of this is going to be getting a challenge from people who know that "creationism"(or if you prefer the dressed-up euphemism, "Intelligent Design") is NOT "science". Now, if you are reading this right now and you are a proponent of creation/ID, *feel free to provide a physical street address of where scientists(key) are currently conducting tests on special "creation".

(*Note, you won't be able to provide any such address, but you can try. You won't be able to, because special "creation" by invisible, conscious, creator-beings, is NOT "science")

You see, in order for "creation" by magic, or ESP - or however "God" supposedly does it - to become a scientific theory, we must be able to do things like study it, observe it, test/falsify it, and make predictions on it. Well, we can't do any of the above. Thus, "creation" doesn't qualify fact or theory.

This, of course, is dealing with all of what exists. Then there's the subject of us homosapiens and where we came from.

D****** writes....

"did you see [so 'n' so's] baby???..where's the evidence to believe such a beautiful creature so unlike an ape evolved from a primate/single cell amoeba???"

She concludes that a baby human is nothing like a newborn ape, does she? She's obviously never seen an infant ape.

In any case, anti-evolutionists like to spend all of their time being critical of evolution, despite the undeniable fact that, at a minimum, we can directly observe new baby humans evolving directly from other mature humans. Yes, we can SEE it. The stork doesn't bring babies; babies aren't spontaneously being "created" out of thin air. No, the evidence shows us that life evolves from other life. So, taking this into consideration - in conjunction with the fact that bashing evolution is one big non-sequitir - the anti-evolutionists have all of their work cut out for them when it comes to proving their "lookist", creationist beliefs---beliefs that we can rightfully challenge. In fact, it's our duty to challenge them if we don't want our kids indoctrinated(brainwashed) with nonsense.