(February 25, 2017 at 5:00 pm)Cephus Wrote:(February 25, 2017 at 3:57 pm)Jehanne Wrote: It definitively harmed me, as I was raised in a fundamentalist evangelical Church; in fact, I was often told not to read certain books (such as "Cosmos", by Carl Sagan), as they would corrupt my faith. And, of course, creationism was a big thing back in the '80s and my church was actively involved, which included the local high school biology teacher, who openly denied Darwinian evolution. In one of my English classes, four of my fellow students wrote term papers against evolutionary theory. I remember well one such argument against the Earth's age, to the effect that the Earth could not be 4.5 billion years old because erosion would have made the surface of the Earth completely flat and there would be no mountains! Tragically, when my fundamentalist friend presented this argument to me I was completely at a loss for words.
Same here. In fact, it was my high school science teacher that was most directly involved in my rejection of religion. I innocently mentioned evolution as something one of my friends was studying and he ripped me a new one, forbidding me from ever mentioning that word ever again. So I said, to myself anyhow, screw you, I'll do what I want, and went and researched for myself and that led me to rejecting Christianity as unsupportable.
I skipped biology, fortunately. Later on, I would read Darwin's Origin of Species, and so, that's the only biology that I have had. Here recently, I sent an email to a creationist state House member, a Republican. I am waiting on her reply, but as it has been nearly 4 days, I don't think that I am going to receive one.
Still, your story reminds me of a story told by one of my Dad's ex-girlfriends. She went to her high school one day wearing a long skort, and was immediately sent home to change into a skirt for having not "dressed like a lady." How times have changed!!
