The place for creationism is in the homes and gathering places of those believing it, and if you want to promote the idea, in various print and broadcast media, not the schools, nor in the government via law, policy, or religious monuments. You have access to all other means of getting your message out and all willing audiences. That's plenty of room for creationism. But you apparently want more, and the only thing more there is is to use the state to promote your beliefs. That's not permitted in a secular government.
If it's not enough, then it's because the belief isn't appealing enough. These days, it's getting harder and harder to sell that idea to the educated citizens of Western democracies, especially given the advent of the Internet, which has leveled off the playing field in the market of ideas. The organized religions have to compete with the skeptics now, people who didn't have an audible voice in that conversation before this more democratic venue.
It's interesting that you define non-creationist believers as hypocrites.
If you say it to a mind that hasn't learn to think critically, then you are likely to be believed. If it interferes with a proper liberal education, then there's the harm. It can begin with creationism in Sunday school and end up with a disrespect for education.
Here's a kindred spirit for you:
- "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them." - Martin Luther
It's interesting that so many believers see the promotion of their beliefs as appropriate, not an attempt to 'annihilate' atheism, which of course, is part of the agenda of any proselytizing religion, the rest being to 'annihilate' other religions. That's what the marketplace of ideas is - a competition of sorts.
And sorry, but religious doesn't equate to righteous. That's a word some religious people use to call themselves and their beliefs morally superior and the outgroup morally inferior. I consider the values of rational ethics of secular humanism to be the most evolved moral code available. Using your language, that is righteousness to me, not being religious.
The creationists have no more evidence than the storkists.
What elevates creationism above a fable to you if not evidence - that lots of other people believe it as well? That's still a fable to me.
Why are you so afraid of evolution?
We each decide for ourselves what the best understanding is. Rational skeptics reject faith-based beliefs and believe that those who hold them have made a logical error circumventing reason and evidence. That's not intolerance. That's dissent.
So far, you have characterized those who disagree with you as afraid, wanting to annihilate religion, being less than righteous, and being intolerant.
Are you aware that when you start discussions like this one, and others disagree with you, you are causing others to introduce dissenting opinions in a public forum visible to many? For that to be effective for you, you need to show that your ideas are better than the arguments against them. That is the level playing field to which I referred earlier when discussing the advent of the Internet and its impact on the religion-no religion debate, which didn't exist before then. Fifty years ago, the skeptics had no voice. Religious promotion had been going on unopposed in pulpits and later televangelism for millennia with no rebuttal from skeptics, who were shamed and defamed in these pulpits and TV stations without contradiction.
That's all changed now, and it hasn't been good for religious belief. What it's done is make atheism and irreligiosity more socially acceptable. The churches still like to tell the world how horrible atheists are and how much they are to be disesteemed, but they can see us now. At last, we are not characterized only by enemies. We can show whomever was previously never exposed to an atheist and could be convinced that unbelievers are angry, immoral sinners in open rebellion against a good god that we are actually reasonable and decent people. It makes this path less scary, and creationism less sellable.
