(AgapePress) - The father of a student who died in the tragic Columbine, Colorado, school shootings of April 20, 1999, is weighing in on the Texas debate over high school biology textbooks. He believes children who are taught that they are made in the image of God will have greater respect for life.When Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed Darrell Scott's daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and 12 other students and teachers at Columbine High School, the two teens used Charles Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory to justify their actions. Harris even wore a "natural selection" T-shirt on the day of the killings.
With these facts in mind, Scott is calling on the Texas State Board of Education to reject textbooks that fail to acknowledge that evolution is nothing more than a theory. Scott believes public school biology textbooks need to explore both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism. He is joining his voice to those of other concerned citizens such as the group Texans for Better Science Education, which opposes the efforts of some to censor balanced and truthful teaching about evolution by keeping students from learning about scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory.
Since the incident that took his daughter's life, Scott has become a well-known Christian speaker and the founder of Columbine Redemption (columbineredemption.com), a ministry that brings healing and hope as it promotes solutions to school violence and other problems through outreach and advocacy. In addition to equipping people to bring about positive change by partnering with or working from within schools, the ministry provides ongoing education about America's spiritual heritage and the importance of biblical values in society.
"The teaching of evolution is a theory, and yet it's being taught as though it's absolute truth, which is irritating," Scott says, noting that emphasis on Darwin generally leaves "no room for the theory or the belief of creationism." The popular speaker feels such one-sided presentation is entirely unfair.
"It's not only unfair, but it's wrong," Scott says, "and I think it violates what the Constitution stands for. I think it violates what our founding fathers would have wanted because even the Declaration of Independence mentioned the Creator four times."
Scott believes public school textbooks need to address alternatives to the theory of evolution, alternate theories often ignored by educators. He is urging the Board of Education in Texas to comply with that state's law by requiring that school science textbooks discuss the weaknesses of the entrenched evolutionary suppositions of Darwin.
The father of Rachel Scott feels there is a directly relationship between what children are taught and how they see the world and choose to live in it. "If children are taught that they came from slime, that they evolved from a lower form of life, and that there's no future after death, then their views of life are affected by that," he says.
According to Scott, for children taught to believe in such chance and random origins, "life really doesn't have the meaning that it does to children who believe they are created in God's image and that they have not only this life but a future life as well."
Scott says if Columbine High School's young killers had been taught the truth that they were made in the image of God rather than the "survival of the fittest" junk science they were taught in school classrooms, the two teens might not have murdered his daughter and the other victims.
© 2003 AgapePress all rights reserved.