Religion.

While I am at a particularly spiritual/religious part of my life where I'm questioning exactly what my opinion is and am extremely influenceable, especially by very attractive boyfriends who have strong religious beliefs and can argue them intelligently, I am not okay with what our assignment is for biology.

Let's start from the beginning:
Hot topics:  Evolution and Faith          15 points

Several observations about the earth and the universe lead scientists to conclude that the earth is ~ 4.5 billion years old and the universe is ~ 13.7 billion years old.  The Bible, however, contains various bits of chronological information that, when taken together, put the creation of the world at 4004 BC.  Your text contains introductory material regarding the age of the Earth that we will cover in class, but you should think about these issues before Dr. Jones’ talk.

Please type out your answers.  Cite at least one source for your literature cited to support your argument(s) (this does not have to be peer-reviewed).  All of your answers, plus your one reference, must fit on one page (be concise).  Also, be sure to put your instructor’s name on your paper (Dr. Maxwell).

MAKE SURE TO PROOFREAD YOUR PAPER – POINTS WILL BE TAKEN OFF FOR POOR GRAMMAR.

The Bible is available online at the following url: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/. 

1.        Does Darwin’s theory that humans evolved from simpler life forms conflict with the idea that humans are made in the image of God?  Explain.

2.      Is the value of the Bible diminished if one accepts that the earth is much older than the Bible says it is?  Explain.

3.      What effect would it have on a person's view of the natural sciences if he or she believed that the world was only 6,000 years old?

This is the assignment that was emailed out. As any summer would, my paper is already done and cited and ready to be printed (also thank you, life, for changing the format of this unexpectedly and unfixably).

My problem? My problem is that this assignment assumes that I'm Christian!

I might be, but I might not be and that isn't okay for this assignment to just be handed out!

Say I was of a different religion--what if I didn't believe in God at all (which has been me at some point in my life, luckily I didn't receive this assignment then or I would have had a full on rage). This assignment not only forces myself to drag myself through the drudgery of christian extremists in order to find sources on how evolution contradicts creationism, but it also forces me to treat Christianity as my religion to answer the questions; to finish this paper, I had to look up what the image of God was.  I had to assign value to a book I have not read or been exposed to because I am not of a religion that follows it. I dislike that this assignment was aimed at Christians. I thought we were beyond that.

 I also think that perhaps my rant is a show of my inability to accept others religious opinions. Then I realize that my boyfriend is a baptist and I'm so upset because I think that people in our biology class are feeling as alienated or more alienated by this assignment as I am. So maybe I am accepting and just confused about a lot of things.