“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” These are the first words of the Old Testament of the Jewish and Christian faiths. “All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.” A similar quote also opens the holy Islamic Koran. Many lives have fallen in defense of these words, these books, and these theories regarding the beginning of time.

Everything that man ‘knows’ to be true began as a theory. The science of physics, still today, is based upon a foundation of theories. Chapters of physics textbooks have the word theory in them such as “The Theory of Relativity.” There are also still holes in the logical concepts of gravity and energy. “Almost all of what I do is work to try and prove true the theories taught in physics” says Dr. Joshua Wang, researcher at Jefferson Labs. No man yet has convincingly proven the idea of evolution into scientific law, which leaves evolution to also be a mere theory. Now the question presents itself: Why should one theory be taught while another theory be banned by law?

Granted, many people have very difficult time believing the theory of creationism, but how does this differ from students disbelieving evolution, or the fact that there are nine planets in our solar system? One may be able to see the planets in a telescope, but it could also be argued that since no person has ever touched the planets, they are only there through man’s faith that his telescopes are portraying accurate images, making this idea of a solar system a faith based theory.

Simply because it is faith based, creationism should not, by any means, be excluded from school curricula. I was taught about the faith-based solar system in elementary school. The ideas of intelligent design may be discussed freely and openly in both social studies and literature classes, but when it comes to the sciences, God forbid that the idea of a higher being be brought to light, (pun intended.) The theory of creationism is no weaker than many other scientific theories

Fear of preaching in schools is an unreasonable thought, as teachers of evolution-following faiths have been harping “Evolution is the light” for years now. The practicality of keeping religion out of school is preposterous. World literature, a class offered at most schools across the country and one of the major classes offered to fill a required English credit at York High, has chapters of the Bible within its text. “What is the meaning of the statement ‘Noah walked with God’?” This analysis question, taken directly from the Prentice Hall Literature World Masterpieces text, could, without a doubt, invoke any passionate teacher to preach to his or her class. The concept of keeping religion out of schools has already been broken.

With the fact established that religion and state are no longer separated why cling to the hope of keeping theology out of science class. There is every place in science for theory. The Greek base-word “theo-,” the majority of science’s all powerful word “theory” means “God.” There is no evidence against the existence of a higher being, hence there is not any reason to not teach the theories involving such in school.