Oh ye of little faith

faith (fāth):
n.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

One point missing from much of the discussion surrounding Bush's recent, typically wrong-headed suggestion that "Intelligent Design" (ID) be taught alongside evolution in schools, is the degree to which all such attempts to legislate religious values demonstrates the lack of faith on the part of those advocating such legislation.

The whole point of ID is that it allegedly provides evidence, proof it you will, of a higher intelligence guiding nature's hand. But faith, by definition, wants no proof. In fact a faith that requires proof is not faith at all, but is, instead, its opposite, doubt.

So when those who profess to be people of faith, whether they're in the White House, or on a Kansas school board, try to pass laws that remove potential temptations allowed by the greater society as a whole, it suggests to me insecurity in their own faith. It suggests to me that their own belief systems won't withstand either the temptations of secular society or the continued questioning inherent in a rational approach to knowledge and science.

Being of little faith, they require unquestioning absolutes. Being of little faith, they prefer the simple over the complex. Being of little faith they live in terror of those who may disagree with them.

And I wonder, which level of hell is reserved for someone whose faith is so weak that it can't stand to even hear rational argument?