The Context And Background Of The Scopes Monkey Trial

The Scopes Trail, also commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was one of the most famous and remembered court room scenes in American history. This trail is the perfect representation of the conflicting perspectives and beliefs between modernists and fundamentalists. Through class discussion, videos and readings regarding the Scopes Trial, it is extremely evident that there are constant interactions between church and state and there will always be conflicting beliefs surrounding religion, science, and state. Throughout the course of this paper, I will discuss the context and background of the trial, the facts and information on what actually happened, and finally the legacy and why this specific trial is one of the most significant

John Thomas Scopes, was taken place in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. The case was an American legal case where, John T. Scopes, a substitute high school teacher, was “accused” of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. There was still discussion whether or not Scopes taught evolution, however, he purposely incriminated himself in order to create this discussion and call out the conflicting messages between the Butler Act and the Constitution. According to the First Amendment, freedom of religion “is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom to change one's religion or belief”. Freedom of belief “allows the right to believe what a person, group or religion wishes, but it does not necessarily allow the right to practice the religion or belief openly and outwardly in a public manner”. Although science is not considered a religion, evolution is still a principle that all parties should be able to understand and believe in- from this there becomes a creation vs. evolution debate, which is why this case was created in the first

Throughout this class, I have found that we are not really given specific answers and we are not told what to believe. We are left alone with our thoughts in this media driven world and are presented information- and from that we get to interpret history how we wish. Moving forward, my hopes for this class is to better understand and cope with the fact that things will not always be black and white, even in court cases where there needs to be an