According to all about philosophy, “The popular media often portrays the creation vs. evolution debate as science vs. religion, with creation being religious and evolution being scientific.” (All about, 2018). My father is a very religious man, and growing up he taught us his values/beliefs, which allowed us to welcome God into our life. Having those values follow me into my adult life is one of the main reason I chose to attend Charleston Southern University, and now I like how religion is somehow incorporated in every course. Honestly, I try to steer away from controversial topics like this discussion, because conversations regarding this topic can get heated very fast by throwing everyone’s beliefs around. However, I do know that not everyone is going to have the same beliefs as my family, and that there are many different beliefs that people choose to live by. In my opinion, I feel like it is very important to learn about both evolution and God, because it show us a scientific and biblical standpoint on how life was created. Also, it allows individuals to get a better understanding of the different views, and helps them to accept others who do not follow the same beliefs. Personally, I feel like just because you are learning about something does not mean you have to believe in it.

Bryan Teti

As a family who homeschools their children, this is a topic which my wife and I have discussed at length and only partially agree on. My wife and I both believe that man is the result of a creation event. We have both looked at evolution and done some study into its veracity and it only seems to us that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in god. We understand that there are adaptations that take place but we don’t believe that man, with all of its complexities and its self-awareness, just sprung forth through some random chance. As recently as 2016, the British Royal Society has expressed some issues with Darwinian evolutionary theory for which there are no current answers (Evolution News 2016). We have exposed our children to evolution because we believe that not doing so is a disservice to our children by not preparing them for what a large part of the world believes. We both believe that it is important not to shield our kids from different ideas and thoughts that we might disagree with. After all, if God is real and the Bible is truth, then what is there to fear? I think CSU should also teach about evolution for the same reasons. Exposing students to differing points of view and different ideas is supposed to be the hallmark of higher education. Although it is increasingly less so in colleges as seen from the current state of discourse within the country.