Origins, and Implications of Origins

[Rían]

I started a thread on the proposed changes to the Kansas science curriculum, where the proposed changes were to correct what I think (and more and more people are thinking) are imbalances in the presentation of the theory of evolution (they want to make sure some of the mainstream, peer-reviewed criticisms of the theory are taught - gasp! )

What absolutely fascinated me was the tone of the responses, across the whole nation and even in other nations, of many of those against the changes. It was hysterical, bullying, name-calling, doomsday predicting, condescending, belittling, schoolyard-taunting - in short, everything but scientific.

Why? Why?
There must be a logical reason why proposed changes to scientific curriculum in one certain area - evolution - are being discussed worldwide, in such a passionate manner, when other changes ... aren't.

It fascinated me, so I started a thread to discuss it. Since then, the thread got merged with another thread, and what I wanted to talk about has been kind of buried, and also I think the merged thread title doesn't accurately reflect what I wanted to discuss, so I"m starting this thread specifically to discuss why I (and others) think the responses against the changes had the character and tone that they did.

In short, I think it's because evolution has something to say about our origins. And what a person believes about their origins has a ripple effect in many, MANY areas of their life.

I think there's 4 questions that most people consider in some form at some time:

1. Where did I come from? (origin)
2. Where am I going? (destiny)
3. Why am I here? (purpose)
4. How shall I live? (morality)

And the answer to the first one affects the answers to all the rest of them.

And that shakes people up.

What do you guys think?


* * * * EDIT * * * *
I guess I didn't say things clearly enough, and there were some misunderstandings about the thread focus.
Here's what I wrote later on to explain more what I was wanting to discuss in this thread:

Originally Posted by Rian

I don't give a RIP about the validity of what a person thinks about their origin in this thread. I don't care if it's supported by 10 facts or 10,000 facts - or no facts!

On this thread, I want to think about and discuss this: given the premise of a particular belief about your origin, what deductions do you draw from it that affect your daily behavior and choices? And how valid (in terms of logical analysis) are those deductions?

So what I do NOT want to get into here is a discussion of the validity of evidence for a particular origin belief. There's already evidence threads around. What I DO want to discuss with anyone that would like to is how our origin beliefs affect our daily life and choices, if it does at all.