Posted on 12/01/2005 10:55:04 AM PST by curiosity
Edited on 12/01/2005 11:11:54 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The storm-tossed and rudderless Republican Party should particularly ponder the vote last week in Dover, Pa., where all eight members of the school board seeking re-election were defeated. This expressed the community's wholesome exasperation with the board's campaign to insinuate religion, in the guise of "intelligent design'' theory, into high school biology classes, beginning with a required proclamation that evolution "is not a fact.''
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
More importantly, they're not going to be embarrassed at the polls because, contrary to the desires of some of the squawkers here, they aren't dumb enough to make pushing ID an issue come election time. Why? Because it doesn't play in Peoria. Just ask Santorum.
Complain all you like, but if it ever becomes a real, live issue in a major campaign, that "huge constituency" is not going to be nearly huge enough - in fact, they'll take on the role of ball-and-chain tout suite.
Or, maybe their little bully-ing pulpit. I remember my early ed with evo (middle school) when the growing human embryo was sited as evidence of the Truth of evo. Gills, like a mudfish! Amphibian vestiges! Resemblence to a primate! I dutifully hid my snorts. What does looking like something have to do with anything? What kind of evidence was that? I can draw a fish, but it won't swim. This was the same class that had the artist's rendering of the monkey (with a tail) progressing upward, through the Neandertal, to a guy in a suit who looked a lot like George Will.
Later, there was a real embryology class that didn't give a flip about the theory of evo--it was just straightforward, because the students needed to know about embryos rather than the ideology of the teacher. At once the irrelevance of the previous evo-obsessed teacher became clear. That embryo folded in half in development, folded inside itself. What would become one organ emerged and gravitated to its proper place--another crossed it's path. And the most amazing thing about organisms--it formed this communication system of chemicals, of hormones that told each organ how to grow and behave. Of all the marvels of life, this system of organs talking to one another, working together, is the most remarkable of all. All this, from a genetic program. It happens to every other fertilized egg--succeeds half the time. A dance of life.
Evolution was not discussed. People were too busy learning about life.
Karl Marx would agree with you(them).. as would Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the entire American Democrat party..
Pat; What was your political bent again?..
whether they kill us or not, i'm sure they'll make us pay for their education with our tax dollars.
you don't need robot zombies - once the idea of eternal accountability to the Creator is removed from the human thought process - anything goes. islamofascists are pikers compared with the secularists of the 20th century when it comes to killing those who disagree with them.
Well, why not? Isn't that what their "huge constituency" wants?
You don't have to say it - it's tolerably obvious to everyone, I'm sure, that even you understand it's not quite so immense a constituency as to be able to go it alone. Well, welcome to Politics 101 - that means compromise, somewhere, somehow, so that you can get at least some of what you want, rather than none of what you want. Promoting ID is a loser, so I recommend we toss it overboard.
Did you think they would, or did you hope as much?
Did I hope as much? Considering your performance here, you don't have the bona fides to question anyone else's conservatism. I'm here - we are here - to prevent that from happening, by preventing well-meaning but shortsighted conservatives from strapping this particular boat anchor around their necks.
Be serious for a moment. If I tell you that pouring gas on yourself and then playing with matches is a bad idea, that doesn't mean I'm hoping you'll do it. Instead, it means that your friend, who takes the longer view, is telling you it's a bad idea and you shouldn't do it. Why? Because I think it's a bad idea, and you shouldn't do it. Now, whether or not you choose to follow that advice is up to you, but please don't come whining to me when you go up in flames.
I think the evos cannot contain their frustration when they are out of the classroom and cannot intimidate the student with the threat of ridicule or poor grades--they're so used to the bully-ing pulpit that any expression of doubt provokes behavior of adolescent insecurity. Not the attitude of winners.
The theory of evolution is an excellent paradigm, but can also be a stumbling block to the study of life. I gave you one example of class time devoted to Evo-devotionals that might have been better used sticking to facts--this is the way evo was taught many years ago, a shallow and nonsensical dogma, and most of it has been since debunked. Which might be OK, except the evos never notice that what was not true then, might also not be true now.
A lot of biology would be better taught with evolution used as a model, rather than the dogma it is. Then, when the doubters come, the scientist might be better able to maintain his decorum.
On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.'
~Barry Goldwater 1981
Of course, the idea of "eternal accountability to the Creator" didn't seem to stop some very self-righteous Spaniards from torturing, sexually mutilating, and killing defenseless men and women in order to coax "confessions" of heresy from them.
Well, that's an interesting quote from a famous libertarian. I guess it just stands there, unless you want to explain how one quote has anything to do with the other. Do you mean to suggest that you have no intention of making any compromises with the religious?
LOL. Without Barry Goldwater, the Republican Party would be mired in perpetual defeat and irrelevancy. Just about all of modern conservative thinking owes its origins to Goldwater. Before him, conservatism was just a formless lump of do-nothingism.
I question whether they were ever on the conservative side to begin with--or are part of the 'tarians who are wild with distaste that they might have to eat at the same table as Conservative Christians.
I question whether they were ever on the conservative side to begin with--or are part of the 'tarians who are wild with distaste that they might have to eat at the same table as Conservative Christians.
Reagan would likely have gone nowhere without Goldwater. Reagan was first noticed for a speech he gave in Goldwater's campaign.
This is scurrilous insult. You ought to be ashamed of posting it.
You're tempting me to make it four...
Yes, it's terrible that Hillary brags about being a Goldwater Girl.
In all seriousness, you are insulting a great many people that you have no busiess smearing. If you had any shame, you would offer an apology.
Festival of Hankies placemarker
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