Vishnu forbid that this becomes an issue

There's more than one kind of fundamentalism that gets bent out of shape over the origins of the world. From How Does California Teach about Hinduism? A different agenda by Romila Thapar and Michael Witzel San Francisco Chronicle 03/06/06:

There are, however, other agendas being pushed [in efforts to chaqnge California public school textbooks deal with Hinduism] that are oddly familiar: the first Indian civilization is 1,900 million years old, the Ramayana and Mahabharata are historical texts to be understood literally, and ancient Hindu scriptures contain precise calculations of the speed of light and exact distances between planets in the solar system. Not only were many of the suggested revisions factually incorrect, but they also explain away those aspects of traditional Indian society that are now a matter of critical concern to Indians in India. The textbook revisions whitewash the plight of women and the so-called lower castes. Women's history was reduced to "different" rights while the caste system, which subjugated millions of Indians as virtual slaves in the untouchable caste, was simply a division of labor. By spelling God with a capital letter they are trying to position Hinduism as monotheistic, making it look more "modern." (my emphasis)

Actually, my (limited) understanding is that Hinduism views God in a "monotheistic" sense, but that's another story.

But, heck, one theory is just as good for science as another, right? After all, it's only a "theory". So we can force public school science teachers to teach "young earth creationism" as well as "super-old earth creationism" (with only a coincidental resemblance to Hindu fundamentalism, you understand) right along with that heathen, godless Darwinian blasphemy.

This isn't quite as far-fetched as it may sound. Christian fundamentalists have been known to cite Hindu fundamentalist criticism of the scientic theory of evolution.

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