Posted on 12/28/2005 3:49:52 AM PST by PatrickHenry
US. District Judge John E. Jones III's decision to bar the teaching of ''intelligent design'' in the Dover, Pa., public school district on grounds that it is a thinly veiled effort to introduce a religious view of the world's origins is welcome for at least two reasons.
First, it exposes the sham attempt to take through the back door what proponents have no chance of getting through the front door. Jones rebuked advocates of ''intelligent design,'' saying they repeatedly lied about their true intentions. He noted that many of them had said publicly that their intent was to introduce into the schools a biblical account of creation. Jones properly wondered how people who claim to have such strong religious convictions could lie, thus violating prohibitions in the book that they proclaim as their source of truth and standard for living.
Culture has long passed by advocates of intelligent design, school prayer and numerous other beliefs and practices that were once tolerated, even promoted, in public education. People who think that they can reclaim the past have been watching too many repeats of Leave it to Beaver on cable television. Those days are not coming back anytime soon, if at all.
Culture, including the culture of education, now opposes what it once promoted or at least tolerated. The secular left, which resists censorship in all its forms when it comes to sex, library books and assigned materials that teach the ''evils'' of capitalism and ''evil America,'' is happy to censor any belief that can be tagged ``religious.''
Jones' ruling will be appealed and after it is eventually and predictably upheld by a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees (Jones was named to the federal bench by President Bush, who has advocated the teaching of creation), those who have tried to make the state do its job for them will have yet another opportunity to wise up.
This leads to the second reason for welcoming Jones' ruling. It should awaken religious conservatives to the futility of trying to make a secular state reflect their beliefs. Too many people have wasted too much time and money since the 1960s, when prayer and Bible reading were outlawed in public schools, trying to get these and a lot of other things restored. The modern secular state should not be expected to teach Genesis 1, or any other book of the Bible, or any other religious text.
That the state once did such things, or at least did not undermine what parents taught their children, is irrelevant. The culture in which we now live no longer reflects the beliefs of our grandparents' generation.
For better, or for worse (and a strong case can be made that things are much worse), people who cling to the beliefs of previous generations have been given another chance to do what they should have been doing all along.
Religious parents should exercise the opportunity that has always been theirs. They should remove their children from state schools with their ''instruction manuals'' for turning them into secular liberals and place them in private schools -- or home school them -- where they will be taught the truth, according to their parents' beliefs. Too many parents who would never send their children to a church on Sunday that taught doctrines they believed to be wrong have had no problem placing them in state schools five days a week where they are taught conflicting doctrines and ideas.
Private schools or home schooling costs extra money (another reason to favor school choice) and extra time, but what is a child worth? Surely, a child is more valuable than material possessions.
Our children are our letters to the future. It's up to parents to decide whether they want to send them ''first class'' or ``postage due.''
Rulings such as this should persuade parents who've been waffling to take their kids and join the growing exodus from state schools into educational environments more conducive to their beliefs.
Yeah. And the Pope and Catholic church has never studied the Bible in the original Hebrew so they disagree with you [/sarc].
As I said, some people believe Christian creationism is a myth, and choose not to believe anything in the Bible based on this. This is the definition of a stumbling block.
If you interpret Genesis in a way compatible with the reality we find around us, then that is a *lack* of a stumbling block. When you interpret Genesis literally, then it *is* a stumbling block.
The reality around is isn't going to go away. You can continue and hide your eyes from it and wallow in your interpretation of Genesis, but that won't make reality any less real.
More than one evo on these threads have expressed their disbelief in the Bible due to this fact.
That would be me.
I was forced to reject God after I was convinced by some on FR that I must accept Genesis as written without reading between the lines. This is why I've claimed that literal translations are bad for faith. Because they force those of us that can't accept the contradictions to pick what we see around us, or an old book.
Got a BS degree in computer science from a secular state university. Studied a good amount of physics to go with it. Nothing I learned about science invalidated what I already knew about God and Bible. Try again.
The biology I know I didn't get from my BS/comp sci. Learning algorithms won't tell you about ERV virus DNA found in human and primate genomes. Try again.
My dad's family has been Bible-believing Christians from well before their ancestors even made the trip to this country.
Mine too. My ancestors were some of the religious leaders of the Massachusetts puritans.
But despite claims otherwise, church doctrine changes. I've seen it personally during my lifetime. The Southern Baptist church I grew up in taught a class at a youth retreat in the early 70's that science and the Bible cannot conflict. That evolution did not conflict with Genesis (which the Catholics still teach). That same church has reversed itself and has accepted anti-science dogma as you have.
That reversal in doctrine was another reason I rejected God. A God that has such limited powers of communication that one can believe almost anything, where there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of Christian denominations, and many thousands of non-Christian faiths isn't a God worthy of believing in.
Three hours then? Four? However many hours my point stands that churches waste huge amounts of money compared to the service they provide. Any church that preaches that the government schools are bad, while doing nothing out of it's general funds to teach children is a hypocritical church.
Mothra-Did-It Placemarker
I agree that it is past time we understand that the government is not going to abandon the rampant brainwashing in scientism that is going on in the government schools, but that doesn't mean honest people should not gum up government works every time they have a chance, and that includes teaching ID. Or just plain religion. Only a minority of parents will send their kids to private schools when the "free" schools are there. So for the sake of those kids that stay, the public education is to be exposed for the court-ordered indoctrination centers that they are.
I agree, there are some who want to eliminate any form of religion from our society. That we need to be careful of. But just as serious is those folks who want to impose God on our society rather expose God to the unbelieving.
You should look up some of Ichneumon's famous posts on the ERV virus DNA segments in the human genome here on FR. I'm not sure how to look up something that detailed, and I don't have the bookmark on this computer. But basically, they've found a couple of thousand retro virus DNA segments common between primate and human genomes. Since those segments are randomly inserted in the genome by infections in a single individual, that's hard core proof of common descent of these several species. The cool thing is that the farther back the species split was, the fewer common segments there are, confirming dating. Further, the older the split, the more random DNA mutations in the "dead" code there, which confirms the species split sequence and dating again.
There haven't been any good public media presented on this subject yet, but the bottom line is that we've added more confirmation of evolution in just the last few years than we've had for the last 150.
It's really pretty exciting. And the claims heard around here of "scientific doubts about evolution mounting", are just so funny. Little do they know.
"Well, first off, creation or I.D. should never be taught in science."
Neither should evoluation. It is, after all, only a theory, and as "far-fetched" as some believe I.D. is.
Of course, my religion does not (at this point in its history) go about loping off heads and committing acts of terrorism.
Should these present barbaric "religious" sects come close to me and mine, I can see me reverting to a crusade costume (cross and all) and with lance (.223 cal.) in hand, go about the business of preaching forgiveness. ;)
What do you think PH? Nomination?
That evo-lu-ation is really something!
There we go! We have a second.
Yeah, but I hear that it's "only a theory." Darn, that changes everything!
Thanks for the ping!
Thankfully the "whole language" bad habit can be reversed. From what I read, it seems to harm boys more than girls. No wonder there's declining reading ability in this country.
I thought the same thing about geometry..... AND I WAS RIGHT! :)
It doesn't take a genius to realize that Genesis isn't a biology text nor is it a history text. It is neither disproved nor belittled because humans have filled in the blanks. To assume otherwise is to be guilty of hubris and sinful pride but very few overly proud people ever see themselves as such.
Too rational.
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