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.
That's another reason that is used, besides *diversity*. The attempt to prop up crappy schools by moving in better students is a real concern to a lot of parents.
Amen to that! My 3yo (almost 4yo) son is reading at better than first grade level and is farther ahead in geography, math, and art than he would be at the end of 1st grade in any public school in our area.
"How many couples do you know who elect to remain childless so that they can spend their money on themselves only? I know quite a few."
Or the couple who has a child and immediately throws the infant into day care, so that Mommy & Daddy can continue making car payments and buying more material BS. I know many parents who simply choose to not make sacrifices for their new child(ren)...but then complain when 'the state' doesn't make sacrifices for their children.
He doesn't complain about Jones, or mis-characterize his opinion by whining about its alleged (and non-existent) "errors." And he definitely doesn't defend ID as science -- although he never actually deals directly with that point. He accepts the Dover opinion. He's got integrity.
Not an issue in Texas. The good schools are in separate districts in the suburbs. They can bus kids to their heart's content in the Dallas Independent School District, for instance. The schools vary from mediocre to poor. Since only 8% of the school district is not black or hispanic, they don't have enough kids to bus for diversity. Everyone fled to the good school districts in the suburbs. I chose to live in the best school district for my kid. If they ever institute busing here (unlikely), it will be after he is an adult.
To me it is better to know you are self-absorbed or otherwise not interested in children and remain childless than to have children out of fashion or societal pressure and not spend all the proper amount of time and resources on them
Get real.
Why do the opponents of ID assume that ID, or evolution for that matter, comprise the entirety of biological research ?
ID, and evolution, are only theories about how life started and developed. Biology consists of a lot more than that. Biology research, biomedical research and the like are not hurt by this. Biological research does not depend on evolution theory to come up with new medical advances etc etc.
Most people live in the real world and do not have additonal resources to teach thier children after the gov has taken so much in taxes.
The only way this works is if we defund the public school system
Why stop at the schools? Lets see, you should buy your own security guard, because the police cant be trusted and fire protection and roads (oops we are already strangled by toll roads).
Yep let government take 70 cents on every dollar you make and then go out and try to buy these things.
Aristotle - you remember the famous Greek philosopher, a man of science and reason ? - wrote, long before the existence of the Bible and Genesis, that there was a First (or Prime) Mover. If you haven't ever read any of Aristotle's "Physics", he observed that movement of one body acts and moves another body, but that this had a beginning, which he posited as the Prime Mover.
Get a life, folks. ID, evolution or the First Mover are only theories about how life started and developed. All have their pros and cons. Evolution is not a slam-dunk, and nor is ID. They are simply theories or ways to describe what we think may have happened based on some types of observations.
Literacy in this country was a lot higher before the advent of public schools. Government has no place in education in a free society. Government is a coercive institution by necessity and it is inimitable to education. Vouchers are simply a way to get the government's foot in the door of private and religious schools.
So what's your explaination for the number of Creationists who spread untruth?
"ID, evolution or the First Mover are only theories about how life started and developed."
And only evolution is a scientific theory among those choices. The rest have no place in a science classroom.
free public education was never free
I'm not necessarily a "creationist" as the term is commonly understood, although my comment at the beginning of my post indicates that my own arguments may not make sense to me! :)
I did say SOME people do seem to use evolution as a shorthand for this. Science cannot explain everything, to be sure. That does not mean that science won't advance in the future to explain more. It happens constantly, of course.
Again, it seems to me that faith is a different category altogether. And many people do NOT see evolution as automatically precluding the existence of God. Maybe that was your point. Thanks for responding and letting me clarify.
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