Jon Stewart - for President

I tell you, I hope some day Jon Stewart goes into politics. I seriously think I would move to whatever state he was running in, just to stump for him and to get to vote for him to. He's funny, smart, and he's actually got a clue.
I have been enjoying his socio/political commentary for a few years now and I'm convinced that this guy cares more about our country, more about the American people than just about any elected official I have come across.
Anyway - it seems this week they are doing a special all week on Evolution. Now there's another hot topic that really gets my goat.
Look, I can respect people who have a spiritual side, people who have a powerful faith in something ineffable, something beyond the pale of observable reality, people who have an awe of the mysterious unknowable that is our and the universe's simple existance. But please, don't take it too far, don't embarrass yourself, don't profane your faith by taking mythical tales and spiritual lessons as literal fact. That misses the whole point. Recommendation - everyone on the planet should read, "The Power of Myth" and interview of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers. ( Excerpts of "Power of Myth" , "Power of Myth" on Amazon.com )
There is something else I think should be pointed out to everyone, there are different ways of thinking, of viewing the world. More specificly, two possible ways are the ways of mythos and logos. At one time, both schools were employed equally, each had it's own baliwick. Logos was applied to matters of reason, practical implementations. A=B, B=C, Therefore A=C kind of stuff, how to plant and rotate crops, how to build bridges. Mythos was the ineffable, non-reproducable stuff. Gods, Spirits, the why we are here, how best can we live, how do we deal with death, that kind of stuff.
The problem is that Logos was so efficient at predicting things and successful at improving life, so at some point the religious started adopting the methods of Logos to sell Mythos, only - the whole point of mythos is that it's unprovable, and ineffible. But once you start saying this myth stuff is fact, you're setting it in stone, it can no longer organicly adapt to the the needs of the psyche of masses. And without the ability to adapt, it started to insulate and fortify itself against reason and rationality, because as logos (the scientific method) began to unravel the workings of the physical universe, it threatened the foundation of power amassed by the religious institutions.
Anyway - I digress, the whole point is that mythical belief structures are good for the psyche, if they help the masses cope with the fact that life is short, pointless, often involves significant random suffering and sensless tragedy, and at the end of it all, the resolution for every single person is death. Whoopie, if you need something that helps you swallow that bitter pill, then fine, go for it.
But the problem with people who believe in the literal intepretation of mythical stories is that they leave themselve no room to accept/tolerate people who have different beliefs. If you literally believe that the meaning of the universe is what your religion says, and if someone else believes equally strongly in something that's contradictory, there's not much room to accept each other.
So, on to Evolution, versus Intelligent Design. I don't even see how they are in conflict. One, Evolution, is a scientific theory that is fairly well established within the scientific community. The other is a fanciful explaination for what may have, in some people's opinions, led to evolution. Evolution is not contradicted by Intelligent design, it just says there's some creator out there that is responsible for existance, but it's not provable, it's not testible, so it can't be addressed by the scientific method, therefore it's not a scientific theory. It's just an idea that can help fill in the gaps for those people who need a mystical explanation to get connected to the wonder of existance.
So - Jon Steward was covering this whole "scopes trial part II". And it was pretty funny, especially as they lampooned some really odd creationists. Oh, sorry, they call it intelligent design now.
Funny thing is, I don't dispute some parts of the idea of intelligent design. There could be, for all we know, a separate masculine style intelligent and sentient supreme being. I doubt it, but it could be, who knows. Doesn't really matter. So - maybe this supreme being called into existance the rest of the universe. And maybe this force or whatever directed all of everything to happen. Fine, no big deal. Of course, what I do object to is where they say that all the biodiversity that exists could not have randomly developed and then they come up with all kinds of spooky math trying to prove that evolution is impossible. That's just crazy talk.
Ok, enough ranting tonight, I'm not going to be able to get up for work now.