Posted on 09/27/2005 9:21:27 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Ya, SCOTUS often does that, and it is usually wrong when it does. I really need to be on SCOTUS to clean this one up a bit.
Believe me, every question we ever had about evolution, or anything else for that matter, was always answered in whatever context we were seeking. Looking back, I am very grateful and impressed at how well they all worked together to keep the religious and secular sides separate but accessible.
This is what I mean about encouraging separate elective theological instruction. And it benefits as much as science does from the separation.
I paved the way for my younger brother to "read" stuff that involved naked woman. In fact, they found it relatively speaking, reassuring. And so it goes.
Just keeping it real.
Do what in a private school? You simply continue to ignore the facts of this case, ignore the Constitutional issues and interject comments not relevant to the topic at hand. The issue is a simple one. Who controls local schools, the locals or the federal oligarchy. You get to be on one side or the other. Pick one and defend that position.
If you want to press for a refund of your federal dollars to pay for it I'll even support you.
I'm not looking for a rebate or support but I appreciate the thought. I'm looking for consistency from conservatives, what I get is hypocrisy. Such is life.
Just don't whine if an institute of higher education doesn't bend to your will and lower its standards to allow non science to be accepted for their requirements.
This argument is more garbage. My upbringing involved Catholic School and religious instruction right through the start of my senior year when I was the ripe old age of 15. I was taught that God created the Universe and all that is in it. I'm now 54 and much better read and have taught my children and am teaching my grandchildren that exact thing. None of that teaching affected my ability to understand science, physics or mathematics at the university level. And I paid for that education with my own money and, truth be told, an assist from the GI Bill while supporting my family.
Of course this is all I wished from the beginning.
What I wish for is consistency from members of the right. I don't always get it.
In a nutshell this is what the federal courts have involved themselves in. There is no teaching of alternative theories. There are no ID materials used in the course. A simple statement the elected school official's have chosen to have the bio teachers read at the beginning of the school year, to wit ToE has gaps.
That is a pretty silly statement. I don't like statements qua statements with nothing more. That is not education, that is the public square covering its ass. I would
like something more substantive. If that is all this is about, it is a meaningless political football. If I were on SCOTUS, I would avoid like hell taking up this case. It is a waste of my time.
It's a waste of everybodys time. If Dover wants trite statements they have that power. Making a federal case out of a trite statement is where the sublime meets the ridiculous.
I think you are onto the ultimate truth here. I get less and less patient with idiocy and posturing.
I'll leave you two to your love-fest now. Have fun.
Smartest thing you've done since you got to this thread, got out.
Making the Dover school district into Congress, as in "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment . . .", is why this ridiculous lawsuit is being tried.
Yes it is.
This isn't a case of the odds against a winning lotter ticket being proof that someone didn't just win the lottery.
It's a case of the odds against the likelyhood that the winning ticket was formed by someone spraying black paint into the air, and it happend to land on a random piece of paper, which was exaclty like a lottery ticket, and the droplets of black ink exactly formed the winning number, in the correct font, etc. etc. etc.
"Oh, well that makes it OK then."
Just hoping that you have not developed a persecution complex.
It s a very useful case, though, for the ACLU. The Discovery Institute has been very carefully advising school districts to 'teach the controversy' - to try to pretend there are scientific issues with evolution, without themselves setting up a target that the ACLU can use to defeat ID. But Dover did it all wrong. They created an extensive public record to show that their policy was religiously motivated, and that intelligent design was embraced as a religious alternative to evolution; and then they accepted a gift of a creationist textbook in which, at the last minute, the word creationism was replaced with 'intelligent design', thereby creating positive evidence the two are in essence the same. The ACLU could not have asked for better; what they hope they'll get (and IMO they will surely get, unless Thomas More is smart enough to drop the case after the district court verdict) is a precedent that says that ID really is 'creationism in a cheap tuxedo', excluded from public schools under the same decisions that barred creationism. That's why DI wouldn't cooperate with Thomas More in defending the case, and why they really, really hope the case will go away.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, though, I'd recall that Thomas More was actually set up by a Catholic millionaire. The Catholic Church - most of it, at least - has no problem with evolution; and in fact are highly suspicious of the biblical literalism that motivates most creationists. By taking this case, they endear themselves to the fundamentalist community, with whom they're allied on a lot of other issues; and yet, they could easily, by losing, deal a serious blow to the whole creationist movement.
Good thing I'm not a conspiracy theorist :-)
And what about the motives of the plaintiffs in this case? Seems they have yet to present an expert witness that will claim evolution is true. At best, they merely claim it is a theory. Isn't that exactly what the Dover Goard of Education is claiming?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.