Posted on 08/24/2008 2:16:12 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
...In February, the Florida Department of Education modified its standards to explicitly require, for the first time, the state’s public schools to teach evolution, calling it “the organizing principle of life science.” Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history, over a dozen other states have also given more emphasis in recent years to what has long been the scientific consensus: that all of the diverse life forms on Earth descended from a common ancestor, through a process of mutation and natural selection, over billions of years.
But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.
Some come armed with “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out.
(Click link for full article)
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I agree. He acts like a practiced FRevo.
What the evos fail to realize is that the political process is organized force. All kinds of voluntary decisions are made without having to resort to the political process. But in this case, it is clear that the evos, left-wingers that they are, refuse to compromise or listen to reason. We therefore need to utilize the same political process to not only push back, but to call for a complete separation of their religion (read: Temple of Darwin) and state (not one dime of public money should be going to the evos). We should keep pushing and pushing this issue until the majority of Americans (i.e. Creationists and IDers) “get it,” and are willing to take the political action necessary to purge the religion of Darwin from state sanction and support.
You seriously spent all that time writing that up? Someone needs a girlfriend.
You can disprove the creation account in Genesis? Go ahead.
Sad to say, that would go right over the heads of the average high school student these days. It might work for a AP Bio class but in a general bio that everyone is required to take, it'd be a waste of time.
One of the problems is that kids are required to take biology. That includes kids who will never, ever use it in their daily lives or chosen career field.
That's one of the reasons that so many non-evos consider that this whole push to get evolution only taught in high schools to be a matter of indoctrination. Evolution has so little to do with so many career options, including many science ones.
Requiring the teaching of something that is so degree specific is a waste of time. Any student going into a career field requiring a working knowledge of evolution will not get it in the public high school judging by the quality of education the schools are graduating kids with these days. They can take the appropriate courses at the college level in college.
As has been pointed out before, everyone knows about the controversy and has made up their minds about it. It's simply a waste of time and resources to argue over it. Teach either ID/creation in addition to evolution and let the kids whose parents object to it opt their kids out of that portion of the class for the day or two that it's being addressed, or teach none of it and save the taxpayers $$$$$$ by not having to deal with lawsuits.
I believe those who use government to enforce their monopolies know exactly what they’re doing. They know that they’re using force to make others comply with their will.
Just as it would be if there were two competing products, and one producer used physical intimidating force to keep the other out of the market,
so it is in the marketplace of ideas.
The one using force has voluntarily taken the moral low ground, and in so doing, admitted that their product or idea cannot compete with other products/ideas.
This is why I do not advocate doing what the ACLU did -
first they argued for “neutrality”, then they used the leftist judiciary to monopolize the education environment.
I advocate not moving beyond the neutrality position. Contrary to SOME FReepers’ claims, our country would not, demonstrably, be a “theocracy” if we were to go back to post-Scopes, where evolution was taught, but questions were also allowed to be raised.
what about allowing students to use their minds in an open exploration and and respectful discussion of issues. Is that not included in the field of science in our modern era???
An inquiring mind is a wonderful thing!
The highest standard of living and the most freedoms are enjoyed by those nations which are demonstrably Judeo/Christian, both in history and presently.
This fear that we'd go back to barbarism is totally unfounded. Science has much more to fear from atheistic thinking and politics that it ever did from Christian thinking and politics.
Christian thinking and politics gave us the nation we have today. Going back to those days, when our country was at its greatest, couldn't happen soon enough.
Apparently not based on much of the evo behavior I've seen on these threads over the years.
The Scopes trial challenged the law that made it illegal to teach Evolution in Science class, and Scopes lost, meaning it was still illegal to teach Evolution in Science class after Scopes.
So your statement “our country would not, demonstrably, be a “theocracy” if we were to go back to the post-Scopes, where evolution was taught, but questions were also allowed to be raised” is just so much ignorant and/or revisionist dreck.
How many other Scientific theories do Creationists think it should be illegal to teach in Science class?
How many non-science ideas do Creationists think should be required to be taught in Science class?
What do Creationists have against teaching Science in Science class?
Simply “here’s the theory, here’s the assumptions it’s based on, and here’s the holes”,
no metaphysical conclusions or assumptions allowed or implied.
I know you’ll have a problem with that.
No problems at all. I do have a problem with you either not knowing or misrepresenting History however. Are there other regions in life that you blatantly misrepresent or are this abjectly ignorant of?
//Simply “here’s the theory, here’s the assumptions it’s based on, and here’s the holes”,
no metaphysical conclusions or assumptions allowed or implied//
Thats what I’ve been pushing all along and you are right they wont even consider that as a viable solution.
The liberals are dug in deep into the educational systems, and they will not leave without a nasty fight in the courts/public opinion.
I'm not sure where you live, but even here in uber-liberal Washington DC, Christianity is everywhere. I can think of half a dozen churches within a mile of my house, various Christian denominations and groups hold meetings, rallies and conventions here on a regular basis, the Pope just filled Nationals Stadium a couple of months ago. And so forth.
I'm not Christian myself, so maybe I notice it more looking in from the outside- but Christianity is very much in the public sphere here.
a little touchy, eh?
Hey, here's something you probably don't want to know about the textbook in the Scopes trial:
The Scopes textbook, Hunter's A Civic Biology, divided humanity into five races and ranked them in terms of superiority, concluding with "the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America." A Civic Biology asserted that crime and immorality are inherited and run in families, and that "these families have become parasitic on society. . . . If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off. . . . [W]e do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race."
That was sure something of value to society and science, now, wasn't it?
And you think lies about history should go without comment? I am not “touchy” if I point out your blatant errors, if indeed they were errors and not evidence of your duplicity or cloudy thinking.
One thing you can always count on from evoatheists - intense arrogance and condescension.
In your case, you’re just using some nitpicky little point to avoid the POINT of the post.
The US has NEVER even approached the dreaded theocracy that you fear, even when evolution was not allowed to be taught in school.
Now, I’m going to flat out accuse you, in the similar vein of your accusation,
of supporting the racism and eugenics in the evolution book of the Scopes trial. Like that, arrogantboy?
But not in the schools. Any mention of God that's caught is sued out of existence by the God hating element.
They're trying to raise a generation of kids who have no exposure to Christianity so that they think it's normal and they keep feeding them the *separation of church and state* as if it's truth so that the little drones never question it.
The free exercise clause is being violated every day in public schools through the abuse of litigation and the judiciary.
Christianity is not so much in the public sphere anymore when even manger scenes are prohibited from town squares under the guise of separation of church and state. But God forbid those people have to work on Christmas, a federal holiday.
Hypocrites.
What lie about history did MrB state?
What was in error in the textbook citation that he gave?
Perhaps you could point that out.
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