Posted on 10/11/2005 6:21:59 PM PDT by gobucks
The most frustrating thing about following the Dover school board trial is seeing both sides maneuver for a legal advantage with arguments that not only seem disingenuous, but miss the point.
Dover school board members may deny it, but religion did influence the vote to introduce intelligent design into science class. Lawyers for the plaintiffs jump on the legal requirement demanding a “secular purpose” for science curriculum by lining up witnesses who denounce intelligent design as religion. Slam-dunk case, right?
Not really, because the plaintiffs’ argument is built on faulty premises. Their witnesses insist that Darwinism is pure fact, that it is neutral in regard to religion. Then they roll out the old chestnut that science and religion are two entirely different realms of knowledge — separate but equal. We’ve heard that before.
Intellectual honesty
The truth is that anyone who’s being intellectually honest will admit that science can never be divorced from religion, that a person’s philosophical outlook will always affect how he or she interprets nature’s phenomena. Honest people will also admit that Darwinism supports a definite philosophy about nature, one that is hostile to theistic faith held by many Americans.
This is why I find the Dover plaintiffs’ arguments disingenuous. Their witnesses, like many adherents to Darwinism, insist modern science respects religion when in reality it marginalizes it and usurps its authority.
Consider how many leading scientists frame the issue. The late Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould went further than many of his colleagues in allowing that religion has the right to pursue “questions of ultimate meaning and moral value.” But then he undercut the credibility of religion by stating that only science deals with actual facts.
In other words, science examines reality; religion deals in fantasies.
Hard to take
This implicit disdain for religion makes it hard to take the Dover plaintiffs’ argument at face value, such as when theology professor John Haught explained why he does not consider intelligent design science.
Science, Haught said, is supposed to address the question of “how;” while religion answers “why.” They are two different schools of thought, he said.
What Haught did not say was that this alleged restriction fails to prevent some scientists from encroaching upon subjects supposedly reserved for religion.
Physicists argue that miracles are impossible. Behaviorists equate human morality with the instinctive reactions of laboratory rats. Oxford professor and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins insists that an evolutionary view of life and the cosmos makes God “gratuitous.”
The late biologist Julian Huxley even went so far as to call for “an evolutionary and humanist religion” to replace faiths such as Christianity he considered either dead or outmoded.
Does this kind of agnostic evangelism sound like the product of a field of study that restricts itself to answering certain kinds of questions? It does not, and to suggest otherwise is absurd.
Second-class status
But even if Haught is right, what does that say about the priorities of public education? If religion answers the question “why” — why we are here, why evil exists, why any choice we make matters at all — wouldn’t you think religion would be considered indispensable to the curriculum?
But as far as public education is concerned, religion is quite dispensable. Religion courses, if they’re offered at all, certainly are not presented as students’ best chance to learn about divine truth. How much “ultimate meaning” can you expect to get out of an elective, anyway?Science courses, by contrast, are usually mandatory. And don’t forget about those standardized tests.In reality, the separate-but-equal standard works about as well for religion in public education as it did for minorities during Jim Crow.
Belief in nothing
What does this means for students? It means that explicitly and implicitly they’re taught that science trumps faith.
It means they learn that men in white lab coats — the ones who offer medicines, iPods and weapons of mass destruction — speak with greater authority than pastors, rabbis and priests. It means they’ll be told the reason they exist is no reason at all, just chance, mutation and blind law.
And chances are they’ll believe it, because after all, it’s based on science.
Dave Dentel is a copy editor for the York Daily Record/Sunday News. Reach him at ddentel@ydr.com or by calling 771-2043.
I'm just curious. How smart is it to confirm here what the Christians in Dover are denying under oath?
Theologeons came up with the angel astronomy and y'all came up with these peculiar falsehoods about how evolution's not real science, like say physics. But hey, if durmming up sympathy and anger with BS helps the cause-go for it.
Another.
"I'm just curious. How smart is it to confirm here what the Christians in Dover are denying under oath?"
Actually I have no clue what is being testified to or not. This editor clearly sees that religion played a role in the support of the I.D. movement, as far as he is concerned.
But, it is not at all clear Christians in Dover have perjured themselves as you imply .... and hope. Of course, looking the Jim Crow metaphor was totally ... ahem ... immaterial to you I see.
Which ones denied a philosophical bias against evolution? I'd like to know because I'd like to check into this person's interest in ID.
maybe you should ponder this:
"But even if Haught is right, what does that say about the priorities of public education? If religion answers the question “why” — why we are here, why evil exists, why any choice we make matters at all — wouldn’t you think religion would be considered indispensable to the curriculum?"
You were the one who said on another thread the YDR was doing a great job at the local level and was a great source.
You are right about some things PH.
Well yeah..back when science had some pretty ridiculous ideas too.
and y'all came up with these peculiar falsehoods about how evolution's not real science, like say physics
Good point. I'm certainly not competent to make any claims of that sort against evolution and I have a feeling that many of those who oppose it aren't either.
Ooh, a woman after my own heart. Write programs that do one thing well, and will work together. Mistrust the "one true way!" All Hail Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie!
The trial isn't about evolution. It's about whether the founders of the ID movement and the writers and publishers of Pandas and People were motivated by religion, and whether they changed the word creationism to ID to get around existing court rulings.
Since the first drafts of Pandas used the word creationism, and since later drafts changed this to ID, the legal case is a slam dunk.
They say they are not hostile to religion as they ridicule it.
Fault me for being a nerd who thinks a joke combining angels with quantum mechanics might actually be funny.
Given all you've said, how does the article contradict what was said under oath?
The court case is about sticking it in science class. It doesn't belong there. It doesn't belong in public school either, because it is religion. There are different religions and different answers to the "whys". Parents should be the ones to teach that, not the schools. It's not the govm'ts plac eto pick out and teach religion.
Angelic Orbitalists stand opposed to Flying Spagetti Monsterism. Angelic energy does not need a medium, such as marinara sauce, in which to propagate.
The fact is scientific thinking has had more success explaining things than theology.
Yep, and it's resposnible for killing George Washington with it's success - bleeding him to cure his disease.. The proud always gloat in the hopes that no one paid attention to their ills. Evolutionists have done two things - stood on the shoulders of those who "proved" science while at the same time shouting that scientific theory cannot be proven. Who proved the theory of flight? Hint, it was a pair of brothers at Kittyhawk. We're supposed to carve such trivialities from our minds in order to bolster the concept that Evolutionists should be required to prove their drivol. Evolution isn't gravity. Evolution is a religion pretending at science and attempting to hide behind lame disclaimers that they are under no obligation to prove themselves.. you are just obliged to believe them. Where else but in a cult does one expect to hear such notions. Where else but from charlatans has one heard such sales pitches.
Polystrait fossils were argued by christians to be evidence of flooding for a long time. The damage presented by the 1980s eruption of Mt. St. Helens proved to science what Christians had been saying all along. St. Helens at once explained coal formation, rapid sedimentation, rapid carving of canyons, etc. One relatively small scale natural disaster destroyed many evolutionist fairytales about "millions of years". It isn't the notion that non-science is overtaking science that bothers them. It's that the truth is overtaking propaganda and evolution is quickly approaching it's demise as mock science and is headed for the ash-heap of history. It cannot withstand many more Mout St. Helens like events which expose the lack of candidness or truthfulness on behalf of the evolution crowd. Truth matters. Proof matters. We are, afterall, discussing what is supposed to be observeable. And life and it's properties are observeable lest we be treated to some thesis on how superstrings are not directly observeable.
As regards superstrings, gravity and other phenomina, we have to interject a bit of common sense when discussing these things. They are not terms which lept to life out of the ether. They are terms applied to things science observed and couldn't understand. Evolution, contrarwise, is something Science has theorized and never seen. It didn't arise out of an observation that couldn't be explained, it arose as a theoretical possibility that they have been chasing proofs for since.. to no avail. What's more, Evolution is not a single theory. It is a set of theories that are discarded and replaced under the umbrella of a religious idea. The idea never dies, it just invents new theories when the old ones are disproven. And, yes, lest we allow them to get away with saying science isn't about proof, we must note that they disprove their own ideas and discard them, then noting the damage done, replace the old set of theories with new ones - thusly remaining a constantly moving target. Observations like those surrounding the investigations after Mt. St. Helens have served to pin them down bits at a time. The more this happens, the more nervous their side gets. Like it or not, that is the nature of things being attempted to be hidden from truthful and candid conversation in the public. The danger on the horizon is what to do when the faithful no longer have this theory to believe in and science has to answer for the long fraud... Screaching and gnashing of teeth aren't quite apt impressions; but, are close. Think of liberals losing power and you'll be pretty close. We have examples of that sideshow daily.
from here
I'm hoping to catch them ripping their tunics and throwing dust up in the air. That'll be quite a sight.
If you actually stop and think about it, since the Bible says that God created the Heavens and the Earth, then created day and night, and got around to creating Man, then you just called everyone who believes in the Bible "dishonest" for arguing that God created us.
How is that not hostile to religious belief per se?
No one is born with the body of knowledge and understanding that was created by and is science. None of this came from the Bible. None of it came as revelation from God. It was gained through the hard work and efforts of honest men. Yes honest, because I can pick up any science book, regardless of topic, and it's essentially all true. That bothers some people.
It bothers them, because they have to pick and choose which facts they choose to believe and which need to be rejected to maintain the status of what they hold, to be "true". Essentially they are comparing the text of parable against scientific theory and attempting to insert their God as a physical force into the science books. It's not bad enough that they can't deal with parables well, they can't even get what God said in plain English right. That's why they failed to distinguish between what God said and what man said.
The body of knowledge and understanding that is science is the fruit of man's efforts according to God's statement in Gen 3:19
"By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."
God also said in Matt 12:38-39,
"Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
The sign of Jonah is the Holy Spirit. No other sign will be given. There is nothing in science that will point to God. His draw is the things of the Holy Spirit, nothing else.
The Holy Spirit doesn't move folks to butt into science classes.
Great responses, jennyp.
I was going to respond to one or two, but I found I liked them all.
You also beat me to the punch a couple of times. LOL
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