If it suits you to believe that Yahweh created the universe in the fashion related in Genesis, I won’t argue it. But I don’t have to respect your belief and I do not think that legislation requiring that the Biblical version be included in public school textbooks is either constitutional or fair. How about Ormuzd? Ouranos? Odin? There is an unnumbered throng of religions, each with its creation myth—all different. Shall one of them be taught as having the status of a scientific hypothesis merely because the members of the religion subscribing to it can drum up a majority at the polls, or organize a pressure group at a state capital? This is tyranny by the mob inflicted on minorities in defiance of the Bill of Rights.
Revelation has no place in a science textbook; it belongs under religious studies.
Robert A. Heinlein, from “The Happy Days Ahead”, Expanded Universe, 1980.
