Posted on 12/31/2005 12:41:23 PM PST by streetpreacher
I use fundamentalist to describe anyone who insists on the absolute authority of a foundational text, such as the Bible or Koran. I am not in the least interested in debating the absurd and obnoxious contention that your particular sectarian belief system is the only one that can provide a basis for morality.
Ayn Rand was a mediocre political philosopher at best, and wrote awful novels, but she had some success attracting people to libertarian ideas, for which she deserves kudos.
Watch out!!! They will swarm you with all sorts of statistics and computer animations proving that Darwin is correct! The people who worship at Darwin remind me of the Planned Parenthood zealots. HMM, I guess that baby growing in the mother's womb is simply some unwanted mutation.
Obviously, I agree with Pat on this one. Good for him to take a stand!!
2) It's almost absurd to ask if I'm 'against Hebrew schools'... I am for school choice and if Jewish parents choose a school to teach the Jewish faith, fine.
Well then, what the heck are you recommending that we teach in public schools? That is the issue. Not what is taught at home or in religious schools or in churchs or temples. What do you teach when you have a population that include non-Christians, and is supported by the tax dollars of Christians and non-Christians alike? What are you saying in real-life practical terms? And don't give me the "Christian nation" thing. Of course most of the founders were Christian. What the heck does that have to do with this issue?
I do not contend that. I do contend that all morality is an appeal to authority, and religious authorities are as valid as secular ones for public discussion. Moreover, secular disputes can be as intractible and violent as religious ones. So there is no reason to exclude religion from the public square.
Interesting! I think it should be given a chance.
Morality that derives from authority is no morality at all.
Absolutely, assuming they actually proposed research. In fact, individual ID advocates have published good papers; they just don't happen to be relevant to the ID argument.
It remains a mystery what would constitute ID research. No one in the ID movement seems to have any idea how to go about research that is specifically ID.
I know of at least one FReeper poster who follows the research closely and occasionally opines on unsolved problems in evolution theory, but unsolved problems are not disconfirming evidence.
We know the history of Mt. Rushmore is enormous detail. Try something we don't know.
How would you go about trying to figure out how the pyramids were built?
And that's utterly beside the point. I wasn't asking if you knew how Mount Rushmore was carved. I asked you if you thought it could be scientifically determined that something like Mount Rushmore could not, for all intents and purposes, have resulted from purely unintelligent forces.
Mount Rushmore is a far better subject for this particular exercise than the pyramids.
"Well then, what the heck are you recommending that we teach in public schools? That is the issue. Not what is taught at home or in religious schools or in churchs or temples. What do you teach when you have a population that include non-Christians, and is supported by the tax dollars of Christians and non-Christians alike? What are you saying in real-life practical terms?"
I have already given 2 practical propossals:
1) The ultimate local control is parental choice.
Each state should take their funding portion and give it directly to the parents to use for educational purposes as they wish, either public schools, private schools, charter public schools, etc. It would be irresponsible and wrong to force secularism on religious families as it would to force a particular religion on an irreligous one. Therefore, the system must include religious schools to be truly fair and equal. This amount in most states would be between $2500 and $4500, enough to pay for many schools.
Different public school districts can compete for students.
Local school boards should also augment those vouchers.
2) the teaching of religion even in public schools is possible without state funding, as follows: Let religious groups set up after-school religious education programs.
I noticed you havent commented on it, but it is certainly both a practical and non-threatening way to allow for religious instruction while maintaining 1st amendment freedom to worship.
3) I am recommending we teach more in public schools, they are woefully inadequate on many levels due to the grip of the educrat elites pushing PC rather than excellence and its monopoly status that prevent improvements.
Why? We know the history of Mt.Rushmore. What is the point of speculating about it?
We do mot know the history of the pyramids, but it is reasonable to assume they were built by men with technology consistent with their era.
But it is not certain that this is possible, and the details are unknown.
So I am asking you, is it reasonable to attempt to replicate some of the activities necessary to build pyramids with low tech equipment, or is it more reasonable to assert it can't be done; therefore aliens must have helped?
This is not a trivial or rhetorical question. I goes to the heart of how we learn things in science. It is also how forensic science works in criminal cases. It is not unusual to have crimes with no witnesses. In such cases we ask what is possible and what is likely. We often have to demonstrate that a scenario is possible by replicating its primary activities.
But we will never know for certain, even though we sometimes execute people based on less than the work of tens of thousands of investigators and less than 150 years of accumulated evidence.
I already addressed that point in my last post to you. You're avoiding the real point, and I think you know it.
Once again, I'm not asking if you know how Mount Rusmore was sculpted. I'm asking if it could be a proper scientific conclusion, based only on the fact of the faces' existence, without prior knowledge of how they came about, to say that they could not have come about from unintelligent forces only.
If you continue to avoid the question, then it will be obvious what the answer is.
Why is it that people think it is a miracle when faces appear on a piece of glass or a piece of toast? Why do people see faces and forms in clouds? I don't need to speculate about Mt.Rushmore because I know the history of Mt.Rushmore.
It is far more interesting to see people speculate about the magical origin of things that are most likely to be natural phenomena. This says something about people's tendency to read intelligence and design into natural objects.
If you think you can tell the origin of something from its appearence, let's talk about things where we don't know the exact origin.
You're welcome to the last word on this. I've made my point and don't care what you think.
You've made no point.
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