Posted on 12/14/2005 6:23:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry
An education oversight panel has put off a final recommendation on the state's biology teaching standards at the urging of a state senator who wants alternatives to evolution - including creationism - taught in classrooms.
The Education Oversight Committee voted Monday to recommend approval of the state's biology content standards, but by an 8-7 vote, the panel removed for further study the wording that deals with teaching evolution.
The committee plans to put together a panel of scientists and science teachers to advise committee members on the biology standards dealing with evolution, JoAnne Anderson, the committee's executive director, said Tuesday.
State Sen. Mike Fair, a panel member, wants the education department to change the standards to encourage teaching alternatives to the theory of evolution. Fair, R-Greenville, also has proposed a bill that would give lawmakers more say on biology curriculum.
The Education Department writes standards teachers must follow in designing their daily lessons. The State Board of Education must give those standards final approval. The Education Oversight Committee can recommend the board approve or reject those standards.
The head attorney for the state Department of Education said he didn't think committee members are authorized to change the standards.
"This is unprecedented," attorney Dale Stuckey said. "It's my interpretation of the law that [EOC members] have no authority to change the standards."
Anderson said Tuesday that is not the committee's intent. The committee issued a news release clarifying that it does not have the authority to revise content standards.
"We are asking our colleagues at the State Department of Education for recommendations of individuals from the science community who can assist the committee in bringing about a resolution."
Fair said he wants to encourage "critical analysis of a controversial subject in the classroom."
State Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum, a Democrat, said Fair was trying to derail teaching standard revisions she said have wide support in academia. The agency recently conducted a yearlong review of key subjects and basic knowledge all science teachers in public schools must teach.
Current biology curriculum includes Charles Darwin's 19th century theory that life evolved over millions of years from simple cells that adapted to their environment. Creationism relies on the biblical explanation that mankind's origin is the result of a divine action.
In November, the S.C. Board of Education approved changes to science standards some teachers said needed clarification. The oversight committee put off voting on the rules in October to give Fair more time to lobby education officials.
Karen Floyd, a Republican candidate for state education superintendent, has said she will encourage the teaching of intelligent design.
Rep. Bob Walker, R-Spartanburg, said he supports Fair's efforts because "there are other ideas that can be addressed as to how this world came about."
One school official, Lexington-Richland 5 science supervisor Kitty Farnell, said the committee's questioning of educators' work sets "a terrible example for our students."
"It's an embarrassment," she said.
Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
These aren't antislavery. Try again.
Romans 61. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2. By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3. Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
6. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--
7. because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
10. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
13. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
14. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16. Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17. But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
20. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
21. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I'm pretty sure that there's a script that they all follow. I think the script comes in the form of one of those "choose your own adventure" books, so they can mix it up as the responses to their inanities come in.
How could it be antislavery if Moses and Aaron were allowed to have their own slaves?
(I wasn't speaking to the ANTI part of your question.)
You know as well as most, that the SLAVERY that appears in most places in the Book is NOT the forced kind, but more of an endentured person, especially in the NT.
--
That truly is bullshit. The slaves in the Bible, new and old testament were your normal, common or garden, slaves. They were owned. They were property.
There were special rules for Hebrew slaves, but foreign slaves in the OT were property for life, and even longer.
As for the NT, that was in Roman times, and the institution of slavery was again a form of chattel ownership, not indenture.
To answer it, we should really go to the religion forum.
But I'll bet some Joe will claim that there was silence. So it should be answered briefly.
So far the sophistic syllogism has been proposed: (a) slavery is wrong (b) The Bible doesn't say slavery is wrong (c) The Bible condones slavery
The fallacy in this kind of argument is mostly in its simplistic rationale. It takes advantage of a blanket meaning for slavery. There are all kinds of slavery: St Paul says he is a slave (doulos) of God. And knowing that conditions for freedom for individuals in a modern-day bureacracy are in fact worse than conditions for the freedom of slaves. This is why slaves have returned to their masters. So there is some semantic overlap involved.
It also takes advantage of the nature of Scripture, which is not an outline political rights. It is a statement of salvation of the soul, and the resurrection of the body. This means that it's truths are operative during a Holocaust or a pandemic.
The Bible does not condone evil. If there is evil in slavery, the Bible does not condone its evil. So we are pushed to understand the nature of evil. That is perhaps a topic more close at hand.
I recommend you take this to the religion forum.
"I recommend you take this to the religion forum."
I wasn't the one who brought the topic of Christianity and slavery in this thread. Until Elsie pinged me again today about it, I had made only one comment about it, and that was yesterday, after YOU introduced the subject here. :)
Do you play acoustic or electric?
"Do you play acoustic or electric?"
Yes.
I will usually give my vote for Pat Metheny, but there is skill elsewhere. Can't pass up Van Halen. James Olsen makes a very nice acoustic guitar.
As evolution is not a pseudoscience such a study would be over in a few seconds. I suppose that it might be instructive to take a class of advanced highschoolers through the detailed reasons why evolution is scientific and ID is not, but I suspect that there are many better uses of limited class time at that level.
You are RIGHT in saying the Bible does NOT come out against slavery, as it has been, and is being done today.
The book, does, however, point out a WORSE slavery than the mere physical; that being the Spiritual.
THAT slavery is the one Christ was definitely addressing.
THAT slavery will last a REAL long time, compared to the earthly type.
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.