Monkeys? What monkeys?

 - James

So, chances are many of us have heard of the court ruling over in New Hampshire in which Judge Jones decidedly flogged any chances the Intelligent Design movement had over there, calling it an excuse to squeeze religion into public schools.
Really rather silly. If you think about it, ID is actually more than relgious propaganda. A-hem:
Intelligent Design says (as far as I'm aware) that evolution is not likely the way living things on earth formed, that instead of being a great big cosmic accident, a living intellect was behind...um...everything.
Somehow, this prospect doesn't sound much less likely than the idea that some great cosmic machine blew up and amidst all the muck infinitely complex life and structures came into existence--purely by accident. Isn't this basically what is being taught in public schools today? If so, ID has every right to be taught alongside evolution because it does have basis in scientific fact (as our knowedge of biology increases, we are finding more and more complex structures that just couldn't have formed from billions of years of slow, generation-by-genereation tweaking), and, frankly, because the typical Atheist's idea of creation, which often includes evolution, is pretty ridiculous itself.
However, that isn't really what this post is about.
As I follow the whole Evolution vs. Creationism smackdown, I begin to realize, more and more, how silly the whole thing is. This was perhaps driven home to me when I listened to a talk on chastity by Mary Beth Bonacci. In her talk, she mentioned a chemical the human body produces called oxytosin. It is produced primarily in two situations: sex and childbirth. What does it do? It weakens your reason, makes you more susceptible to suggestion (I think--don't quote me on that one) and, most importantly, builds a strong attachment in you to whomever you're with at the time. In other words, the feeling of love and attachment people feel for their spouses and children is (at least partially) manufactured by a hormone. And here was Mary Beth Bonacci, a devout Catholic, speaking of this phenomenon as scientific fact. Many die-hard Christians are inclined to get all bristly and defensive at the idea that human emotions are no more than chemical reactions, but not Ms. Bonacci. And that got me wondering: Why not?
Let's backtrack a bit. Evolution vs. Creationism basically equals Science vs. Religion, right? Well, I seem to recall reading the words of some wise guy like C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton which basically said that religion and science need not conflict because they are two entirely different things. And they are. If you think about it, they both have distinct purposes. Science tells us how things happen (A mother's love for her child is partially produced by the hormone oxytosin), but relgion tells us why they happen (A mother loves her child so that she will want to stay with it, nurture it, and see that it becomes a good person). Or for another, more pertinent example: Humans came to exist through a slow process of natural selection and perfection, originally coming from monkeys (???), until they reached the form they have today (science). Humans were created by God to be His magnum opus; His highest creation, meant to love and serve Him and eventually live with Him forever (religion).
In other words: Why does it matter to us how we came to exist? The point is, we exist. Why does it matter how the mother comes to love her child? It doesn't, the point is, she does love him/her.
All this time, we've been fighting for no reason. Rather stupid, if you ask me. C'mon, people. Kumbayah and all that jazz. Gawsh...