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 ...
Christian schools sue California university system to force acceptance of religious courses
Party pooper!!! LOLOL!
Please tell me: What exactly was "overtly 'religious'" in what I wrote — which you evidently refuse to engage? In Swinburne's argument here, the main source is Aristotle, not Christ....
So what exactly is your problem????????
==Thank you, but please refrain from pinging me. I have no interest once these threads become overtly “religious”.
What he means is that it’s time for him to exit (stage left) when the Temple of Darwin starts getting exposed for the pagan nature-religion that it is.
Just havin' a bit of fun.
You do not appear to have removed me from your ping list yet.
Please do so. I would prefer not to have to consider you rude.
Run away! Run away! Typical Darwinist. LOL
This coming from someone who threatened to call the mods if I posted to him.
You appear to have misinterpreted my request.
I neither cast pearls nor play flute inappropriately.
I have posted what I consider useful information on a professional approach to the teaching of evolution in a basic biology class that may include students with religious concerns about the subject.
I don’t participate in the rest.
==I have posted what I consider useful information on a professional approach to the teaching of evolution in a basic biology class that may include students with religious concerns about the subject.
What you really mean is you want the state to enforce the teaching of YOUR RELIGION’S creation story in a class about science. You want the state to enforce the teaching of YOUR RELIGION as though it is science. And you want the state to enforce the teaching of YOUR RELIGION to the exlusion of all others.
sorry, protecting a spin off cult from a minority sect won’t cut it.
but that’s usually what heppens when defending the indefensible.
So you would agree on general principles that the state can take children from their parents without a specific charge of abuse?
I have a particular interest in this because I was a family counselor in Children’s Protective Services for seven years. It was more than twenty years ago, and things may have changed, but I managed not to put any kids in foster care.
By the way, I answered your question. Now answer mine.
Do you eat pork? Does the earth move?
I hope so. Sad to say Christians are going to have to play the game that was chosen for them by godless liberals.
So far, the vast majority of legal actions have been to dismantle Christianity.
A few cases might be out there to try and restore it, but ZERO imposing Christianity on others.
Because a town likes a nativity scene in a town square is called “free exercise thereof” and isn’t imposing on anyone!
You asked for one example. I've given several. Now answer my questions.The ACLU of Southern California (2008) filed suit on behalf of members of a faith-based charity organization after park rangers threatened to arrest the members for serving hot meals and distributing Bibles to the homeless on Doheny State Beach.
http://www.aclu-sc.org/releases/view/102...The ACLU of Louisiana (2008) filed a brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit supporting an individual's right to quote Bible verses on public streets in Zachary, Louisiana.
http://www.laaclu.org/News/2008/Netherla...The ACLU and the ACLU of Texas(2008) filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Texas Supreme Court in support of mothers who had been separated from their children by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). The DFPS seized more than 450 children from their homes in Eldorado, Texas following vague allegations about child abuse by some members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While fully supporting the state's commitment to protecting children from abuse, the ACLU argued that Texas law and the U.S. Constitution required that the children be returned unless the state could provide the requisite evidence of abuse. Neither Texas law nor the U.S. Constitution allows the state to separate children and their parents based on purported cultural harm alone or on the state's disapproval of the families’ religious beliefs. In May 2008, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled, consistent with the ACLU position, that the state must return the children to their homes pending further investigation of allegations of abuse.
The ACLU of Florida (2007) argued in favor of the right of Christians to protest against a gay pride event held in the City of St. Petersburg. The City had proposed limiting opposition speech, including speech motivated by religious beliefs, to restricted “free speech zones.” After receiving the ACLU’s letter, the City revised its proposed ordinance.
Do you eat pork? Does the earth move?
You’ve proven nothing whatsoever. Bob Barr is a lawyer for the ACLU and he’s no anti-Christian. There are probably a few holdouts, and the ACLU has to do a few good things to keep the American people from knowoing the truth........
but I’ll still play your little game I’ve played OH so many times before...
I eat pork and of course the earth rotates.
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
20 June 1785
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions43.html
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
What on earth gave you the impression it would be?
Well, for a good 200 years in this country people didn't have that problem. The folks that wrote up the Constitution knew that teacher led Bible reading and prayer were going on in schools in the young country and didn't have an issue with it or they would have put a stop to it then and there. They would have certainly spoken up then if they thought that it was violating the intent of the First Amendment because they, of all people, knew what they meant when they wrote it up, and they didn't. So it looks like your interpretation is what's flawed here.
For Agnostics, Atheists, Hundus, Wiccans, Muslims, Zoroastrians and various other faiths, being forced to pray and read the religious book of a different faith is a violation of their 1st Amendment rights, especially when done with taxpayer money.
No it isn't. The First Amendment is only about Congress and what it is and isn't allowed to do to interfere with religious activity. But by using that argument, then my rights as a taxpaying Christian are being violated because secular humanism (basically the religion of atheism) is being forced on the kids in school and my taxes are being used to endorse a religion I don't agree with.
Congress outlawing prayer and Bible reading in school would be what's unconstitutional.
Besides, teacher led Bible reading and prayer is not forcing the kids who don't want to participate to do so. Another fallacy.... that hearing something is the same as being compelled to participate. It's not.
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