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.
" No sir, no more inquiry needed here. He's right, your wrong, now move along..."
I am sure you had a point but you just forgot to make it.
Common descent is most certainly not a fact. There is no fossil record proving so. You can say we may eventually find it, and we very well may. But at the moment, it does not exist.
Seems like you have a belief system just as much as the IDers do.
The militant atheism of some who promote evolution is no more significant to the scientific argument than the murders of Jim Jones are significant to the truth of Christianity.
Wrong! Biological research depends 100% on evolution theory to come up with new medical advances.
Right!
Really. Link please.
If the theory of evolution cannot be supported in its entirety by fact, then has as much validity as ID.
Do species adapt and change thru natural selection etc etc ? Yes, and IDers don't dispute this. They simply dispute how it all started, and how such complicated mechanisms came from nothing.
There is no fossil or other record to justify saying a human eye, for example, evolved over time from a simple amino acid to the complicated mechanism it is today. Perhaps it did, perhaps it didn't. The point is, there's no proof either way.
A theory is a theory - it remains so until proven, and is always in danger of being modified by the find of other facts.
Or send them to public school and innoculate them.
Ding, ding, ding. Give that man an RG Dunn.
There are tons of things I "pay" for but don't use. Opting out simply isn't the answer.
Evolution lied its way into the classroom. Why not ID? I remember why, two lies (wrongs) do not make it truth (right).
The whole debate just gets dumber and more stupid. Sign of the times.
Absolute silliness. Running with your premise, it leads people to be wrong. Being wrong is not evil, especially on a subject, which is substantially inconsequential to human existence. Are the Amish evil as well?
Bob lops off heads = Evil
Bob thinks world is flat = Not Evil
Try getting a grip.
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