The "right to think" is not something I really think about too often, and I do not think anyone else really does any more. nowadays the "right to think" is more of a given than a privilege, and everyone has it. It is not like you can control someone else's mind or anything like that, so people are going to think what they want to think. However, as i have realized from reading "Inherit the Wind", many years ago people tried to do so. In the fictional town of Hillsboro, Tennessee, most of the citizens are very religious about their Christian faith, and will not accept anything that strays from "the Word of the Lord". When a brave teacher, Bert Cates in the play, decides to teach evolution and the studies of Charles Darwin to his students, he faces some consequences. Even though evolution is an included chapter in the state-provided text book, the city enforces control on the teachers "right to think" about a different story of creation.
Sometimes, people say things like "if you believe in dinosaurs, then you do not believe in God". This is another example of trying to control a persons mind and take away their 'right to think". If people do not let you think, then there is no originality or difference in the people of the world. Also, there are thousands of creation stories from all over the world in different countries and from past and present civilizations, who is to say which is right and which is wrong?
Reading this platy showed me really how ignorant people could be back then. If teachers can teach about Christianity in school, why can they not teach about evolution? It just does not make sense, and that is what this trial showed and proved to the people of towns like Hillsboro. The "Scopes Monkey Trial" gave the "right to think" back to people and encouraged the law system to revoke the Butler Act and let both Darwin's beliefs of evolution and Christianity co-exist.
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