Good point, I've had more thoughtful conversations with my parrot.
Plus, he understands the best use for certain publications:
Posted on 10/07/2005 4:59:16 AM PDT by shuckmaster
How should evolution be taught in schools? This being America, judges will decide
HALF of all Americans either don't know or don't believe that living creatures evolved. And now a Pennsylvania school board is trying to keep its pupils ignorant. It is the kind of story about America that makes secular Europeans chortle smugly before turning to the horoscope page. Yet it is more complex than it appears.
In Harrisburg a trial began last week that many are comparing to the Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925, when a Tennessee teacher was prosecuted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Now the gag is on the other mouth. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public-school science classes was an unconstitutional blurring of church and state. But those who think Darwinism unGodly have fought back.
Last year, the school board in Dover, a small rural school district near Harrisburg, mandated a brief disclaimer before pupils are taught about evolution. They are to be told that “The theory [of evolution] is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.” And that if they wish to investigate the alternative theory of “intelligent design”, they should consult a book called “Of Pandas and People” in the school library.
Eleven parents, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, two lobby groups, are suing to have the disclaimer dropped. Intelligent design, they say, is merely a clever repackaging of creationism, and as such belongs in a sermon, not a science class.
The school board's defence is that intelligent design is science, not religion. It is a new theory, which holds that present-day organisms are too complex to have evolved by the accumulation of random mutations, and must have been shaped by some intelligent entity. Unlike old-style creationism, it does not explicitly mention God. It also accepts that the earth is billions of years old and uses more sophisticated arguments to poke holes in Darwinism.
Almost all biologists, however, think it is bunk. Kenneth Miller, the author of a popular biology textbook and the plaintiffs' first witness, said that, to his knowledge, every major American scientific organisation with a view on the subject supported the theory of evolution and dismissed the notion of intelligent design. As for “Of Pandas and People”, he pronounced that the book was “inaccurate and downright false in every section”.
The plaintiffs have carefully called expert witnesses who believe not only in the separation of church and state but also in God. Mr Miller is a practising Roman Catholic. So is John Haught, a theology professor who testified on September 30th that life is like a cup of tea.
To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding”, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one's spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.” None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.
It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea” explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theory—which he called “appalling theology”—in science classes.
Darwinism has enemies mostly because it is not compatible with a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Intelligent designers deny that this is why they attack it, but this week the court was told by one critic that the authors of “Of Pandas and People” had culled explicitly creationist language from early drafts after the Supreme Court barred creationism from science classes.
In the Dover case, intelligent design appears to have found unusually clueless champions. If the plaintiffs' testimony is accurate, members of the school board made no effort until recently to hide their religious agenda. For years, they expressed pious horror at the idea of apes evolving into men and tried to make science teachers teach old-fashioned creationism. (The board members in question deny, or claim not to remember, having made remarks along these lines at public meetings.)
Intelligent design's more sophisticated proponents, such as the Discovery Institute in Seattle, are too polite to say they hate to see their ideas championed by such clods. They should not be surprised, however. America's schools are far more democratic than those in most other countries. School districts are tiny—there are 501 in Pennsylvania alone—and school boards are directly elected. In a country where 65% of people think that creationism and evolution should be taught side by side, some boards inevitably agree, and seize upon intelligent design as the closest approximation they think they can get away with. But they may not be able to get away with it for long. If the case is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, intelligent design could be labelled religious and barred from biology classes nationwide.
Either he's gone, or we are in for a real treat.
A gratuitous insult is the only kind I'd ever offer.
I take it the last sentence in your post 279 is a rhetorical question.
Good point, I've had more thoughtful conversations with my parrot.
Plus, he understands the best use for certain publications:
LOL!
If God is capable of creating life, why would it take him a million years to wave his magic wand?
Something had to have been there for life to emerge, so how did that something get there?
That's a different subject not covered by evolution.
I do think that kids should be taught that evolution is a theory,
That's why it's called the Theory of Evolution.
and it is NOT accepted by everyone as the definitive statement on how life appeared on this planet.
That's fine for those happy working at McDonalds. If you want a 6 figure job working in modern biology tech fields, you need an education in advanced science that's not muddled down by self righteous superstitious fanatics influenced by the latest best-selling charlatan pseudo-science book. That's what this whole argument is really about. There's high paying jobs out there that need well educated employees to fill them and ordinary people riled up by a pass the plate preacher are trying to insert their beliefs into the classes where students are expecting to get the education they need to get those jobs.
If you want religion, go to church. If you want an education, go to school. Why is that so hard to understand?
<crickets chirping>
And the relevance of your point is.... What exactly? No-one has ever claimed that all Christians are wrong-headed on this issue. But you cannot deny that some Christians promote slavery on biblical authority. Indeed they even do so here in FR. I am somewhat unclear on how literalist Christians can actually do anything else as the Bible codifies slavery and Jesus refers to it without condemnation. Fitzroy's attitude was completely consistent with Biblical authority.
My particular point is in response to the slur against Darwin that he was a racist. A slur which the original poster has completely failed to back up, telling me to research his outrageous claim for him!
Darn, it looks as if they've gone. Now who will I get to answer my rhetorical questions?
I: < crickets chirping >
I think he's out consulting with those other Constitutional scholars who agree that the first amendment grants Congress the right to establish a national religion, that amendment nine means that the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and amendment ten means that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" really means that Congress has all plenary power over everything.
Which may, de facto be the case, but my interpretation is limited by a knowledge of how the English language works.
"Watch me do to Frank Rich what Buckhead did to Rather!"
A discussion of the doctrines of Christianity is not the topic of this thread. However, I will just say that the doctrines given specifically to the Hebrews by God are not necessarily doctrines that apply to Christians in our day. If that were the case, then we would be executing adulterers, etc. Second, the type of slavery in ancient Israel (bond slavery) is not the same as chattel slavery of antebellum south, and their enslavement in ancient Israel was either due to debt or a judgment from God for wickedness. In the NT, Paul commands masters to love their slaves and slaves to love their masters, but does not condone nor prohibit slavery. When this command is followed, the inevitable result is the end of slavery. In short, this issue takes a careful and long study of scripture as it is a difficult issue, particularly for a non-believer who does not look to the bible as a source of truth.
What's astonishing is that you read plain words and somehow get a completely different meaning that that conveyed by the black type on the paper.
Article I, Section 1: "All [how much is all] legislative powers granted herein shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
Show me in the Constitution (which is the Supreme Law of the Land) where it says anyone else can legislate (make law). I can't wait to see it...
The point is that there is no such thing as an objective observer. The observer can never be sure that his observation corresponds to objective reality. It's a real philosophical problem that no one has been able to solve. Logical positivism was the latest attempt - it was thoroughly refuted and discredited.
If you have solved it, then please enlighten us all because all of the great thinkers in history have failed.
I understand. No one wants a flawed hero.
Who are those crickets chirping for now, oh constitutionally-challenged one.
I have some things to attend to so will leave for now. (I do have a life and responsibilities). I will try to answer later any further denials and obfuscations the you may post in my absence.
Article I, Section 1: "All [how much is all] legislative powers granted herein shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
Show me in the Constitution (which is the Supreme Law of the Land) where it says anyone else can legislate (make law). I can't wait to see it...
Your powers of misapprehension are truly supernatural.
I didn't say anyone else can legislate anything. I said the first amendment specifically prohibits Congress from establishing a religion.
This started with your post 197 in which you stated, "Read the first amendment -- only Congress can establish a national religion."
Shall we go 'round again? You seem to think that because Congress is authorized to pass legislation, it is not limited by the explicit words in the first amendment, which starts with, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." These are words that rational people interpret as meaning "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Remember that little dust-up about the time the Constitution was being ratified about whether we needed a "Bill of Rights" to keep the power of the government somewhat limited? You seem to be working awfully hard to miss the point of both the Bill of Rights and the first amendment itself.
The sentence in question is is a simple declarative sentence. Your problems with this make it obvious why you're not grasping some of the science that Ichneumon has presented.
Ask not for whom the crickets chirp. They chirp for thee.
It only took them 1865 years and several hundred thousand casualties to reach this conclusion.
Unless you are talking about Quakers. But then, I've been on threads where Quakers were not considered real Christians.
Perhaps it took Christians so long to abolish slavery because the Bible supports slavery in the strongest possible terms, and forbids slaves from disobeying their masters.
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