My biology teacher is awesome. He truly loves his subject. Somewhat rare in a high school teacher, more rare to have this level of excitement. The guy actually started the AP bio program at my high school, he's won several awards for his classes and website. And the coolest thing about him:
He starts every year (I had him for regular bio, he did it there too) by stopping the class and asking us to ignore the fact that we're being graded. Ignore the tests and the homework and just think, truly think about life. Through the year, as we learn more and more of the complexities entailed in life, all the while knowing we're only scratching the surface; he continues to remind us of the absolute majesty, the magnificence of what we're looking at. Something so complex, so intricate, so perfectly arranged. Such an awe-inspiring spectacle has never been beheld in all the universe. Truly.
It occurs to me that this beauty, this overwhelming perfection, is the driving force behind the argument over creation and evolution. This magic is what religion is, its basis; religion is most peoples' way of touching that greatness, of understanding it and not being afraid to be so small in comparison. To have it be defined in the scrawling, dismissive handwriting of scientists and shoved in textbooks with a few 3-color sketches is offensive on levels unsurpassed by anything else imaginable by man. To desecrate this perfection ... unthinkable!
And here's the kicker - I'm not religious. I believe in evolution. And yet I can still be amazed and humbled and blinded by the beauty of this wondrous thing I have the joy, the honor, of looking upon. Life. And the true disgrace is not to understand it in terms of religion or science but to look upon it and feel nothing, to be blind to its wonder and glory. Let the religious and the non-religious be still in their squabbles and turn once more to the same magnificence and know that each of them, atheist and Christian and everyone, can partake of its holiness and be touched by its magnificence. And let the non-religious not be offended when people express their wonder in religious terms, for those terms are the few of all words man employs that hold withing them the ideas can even begin to touch on the purity and greatness of life.
And so I would like to thank my biology teacher, and hope that I have brought to you some of the wonder that he has brought to his many students over the years. I know words cannot describe what I have tried to describe; I hope only that in my failure I have come close enough that you can find the rest of the way yourselves.
Be blessed in your endeavors.
-Bayley Adams, student of Eric Thiel.
