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To: grey_whiskers
That's where you and I differ, then. "Grass-roots" usage of public facilities is not the same as "Congress passing a law respecting an establishment".

Whatever "grass-roots" usage means, a public school is still a part of a local government in the US, and local governments in the US have had to respect rights established in the Bill of Rights, by constitutional law, ever since the post-civil war amendments to the constitution were ratified. You may not like this, but it is nonetheless, what the constitution says.

Are you stealing the taxes, or are you using money which was going to go to the school anyway?

I think you must have hugged a liberal lately. There is no significant "money which was going to the school anyway"; schools are overwhelmingly funded by compulsory taxation--of everyone: athiests, pastafarians, jainists, jews, moslems, wiccans, and raelians not excluded.

there is no law involved, and that they are not "stealing" money any more than any other special-interest club meeting at the school. Accomodation is not the same as endorsement, endorsement is not the same as establishment.

I don't believe we were addressing private clubs meeting in otherwise unoccupied buildings after hours, which I have no insurmountable problem with. I believe we were addressing the faculty of a school being forced to endorse a contemptuously thinly disguised christian religious doctrine in a science class which, as was pointed out earlier, children and their parents are lead to believe they are forced to attend if they want to graduate.

Contrary to your stated opinion, endorsement IS the same as establishment, and accomodation probably is to, if it costs anything significant to accomodate.

In an earlier post, you had asked me to "go insult someone else". I was fleshing out the thought behind my original Oregon remark.

Consider finding a way to flesh out your thoughts that doesn't involve using me as a noodle-scratching post.

Full Disclosure: For the nonce, the whole ID in schools debate bores me to tears.

Huh. That was pretty detailed arguing for a bored person.

It is pretty obvious that ID is not science,

Oh, it's more science than most of the marginal ideas vieing for scientific respectability. and so teaching ID in science class is a misnomer.

Well, it's not outstanding science, but it seems a little odd to call it a misnomer. Ether and phrenology were sciences, once upon a time, and ID has a better shot then they do.

Unless you're one of those folks who believe that extraterrestrials seeded the earth etc.

If you include unintelligent extra-terrestrials, then I do.

In that case you ought to showcase ID next to VCR's of The X Files.

ID's anemic cousin, panspermia, bears some promise. That doesn't make it a science of the legitimacy of the theory of gravity, or the theory of evolution, such that it belongs in a high school science book, but it ain't out of contention.

2,755 posted on 12/26/2005 4:28:13 PM PST by donh
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To: donh
That's where you and I differ, then. "Grass-roots" usage of public facilities is not the same as "Congress passing a law respecting an establishment".

Whatever "grass-roots" usage means, a public school is still a part of a local government in the US, and local governments in the US have had to respect rights established in the Bill of Rights, by constitutional law, ever since the post-civil war amendments to the constitution were ratified. You may not like this, but it is nonetheless, what the constitution says.

Sorry 'bout the confusion there, in talking about "grass roots" I was leading up to my suggestion (one with which you disagreed) about there being a continuum between accomodation and endorsement. Apparently I did not make the connection clear enough; or possibly you had dismissed that subject from your consideration once you had 'disposed of it.'

I think you must have hugged a liberal lately. There is no significant "money which was going to the school anyway"; schools are overwhelmingly funded by compulsory taxation--of everyone: athiests, pastafarians, jainists, jews, moslems, wiccans, and raelians not excluded.

Yes, that money from compulsory taxation does "go to the school anyway" : for salaries, maintenance, utilities, staff, administrative overhead, etc.

I don't believe we were addressing private clubs meeting in otherwise unoccupied buildings after hours, which I have no insurmountable problem with. I believe we were addressing the faculty of a school being forced to endorse a contemptuously thinly disguised christian religious doctrine in a science class which, as was pointed out earlier, children and their parents are lead to believe they are forced to attend if they want to graduate.

That is in fact what ID tends towards, particularly as manifested in the Dover case. But in one of your earlier posts, to which I was responding, you seemed to advance the position that virtually ANY usage of public schools by any religious organization, constitutes an "Establishment of religion". My post to which you just replies was addressing that point.

Contrary to your stated opinion, endorsement IS the same as establishment, and accomodation probably is to, if it costs anything significant to accomodate.

Endorsement need not invoke sanctions for rejection of what is endorsed; establishment presumably would. And you chopped off half of my statement again--are you zeroing in only on those portions of my text with which you disagree? Just to prevent unnecessary friction.

Consider finding a way to flesh out your thoughts that doesn't involve using me as a noodle-scratching post.

If I knew exactly what a noodle-scratching post WAS, I might be in a better position to comply ;-)

Huh. That was pretty detailed arguing for a bored person.

You must not be a regular reader of my posts. No surprise, most everyone else ignores them too :-)

Ether and phrenology were sciences, once upon a time, and ID has a better shot then they do.

Most people today tend to use the word "sciences" when they mean "Natural Sciences" i.e. implicity looking only at the natural world, not considering the supernatural. If one happens to use that working definition, then ether and phrenology were better "sciences" than ID.

Unless you're one of those folks who believe that extraterrestrials seeded the earth etc.

If you include unintelligent extra-terrestrials, then I do.

I apologize if you posted extensively on this topic earlier, and I missed it--if unintelligent extra-terrestrials seeded the earth, how does that fit under the rubric of "Intelligent" design? (Unless you meant the unintelligent E.T.'s were themselves the 'seeds' ??)

ID's anemic cousin, panspermia, bears some promise.

Never heard of that, I'm sorry to say. (Told you the subject bored me!)
...do you have a link handy like Ichneumon tends to?

Cheers!

...and Merry Christmas!

2,756 posted on 12/26/2005 6:29:36 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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