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 ...
The Lewontin statement is an astonishing admission.
And yet for all the "random noise" expectorated by the Kultursmog lately, I think most human beings understand what a circle is, and find it useful in their daily lives.
BTW, "infinity" is another term that is very useful in mathematics but does not translate well to the natural sciences because space/time is finite.
No, what I did was to equate "having teachers lead in Koran reading and prayer during school hours" with "teaching Islam (the religious part)." I guess you see a significant difference between those two things, but I think it's a little much to accuse me of lying because of it, especially when I was complimenting you on your consistency. So, fine:
At least your position is consistent: if a school board in a majority-Islamic area voted to have teachers lead Koran readings and Muslim prayers in the public schools during school hours, you'd accept it as the price of freedom of religion.
Besides, the whole premise that evolution is "non-Christian proselytizing" is ridiculous. My son goes to public school in one of the most secular cities in the country. I asked him if his life sciences teachers, in the section on evolution, ever said anything about evolution's implication about the existence of God. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course not." I think all this fretting about evolutionists promoting anti-God propaganda in the schools is so much self-pitying twaddle.
Government sponsored “god-free” schools are **not** religiously neutral.
_ These schools teach children that their religious beliefs, scriptures, and teaching of their church leaders, can, should, and **must** be ignored when evaluating every aspect of human knowledge and culture covered in the curriculum. This is government establishment of the religious belief of those who hold a “god-free” worldview, and active government destruction of the religious beliefs and traditions of those who do believe in God. )
_ It teaches children to have disrespect and disregard for their parents and for the the traditions taught in the home. ( This is hardly a religiously neutral act on the part of the government)
Sometimes I think that people who claim to be “god-free” are deliberately lying when they say innocently claim that atheistic government schools are merely god-free and not anti-God. There are times that I think they are holding their fingers in their ears like little children and yelling “la, la, la,” in an effort to drown out the complaints of those who are religious.
But....It appears from your post that, yes indeed, you simply can not understand that “god-free” is not religiously neutral. Hopefully, we can succeed in helping you understand that it is **impossible** for the education of children to be religiously neutral. “God-free” is not religiously neutral in content or consequences, neither is God-centered.
There really is only one solution: Begin the process of getting government **out** of the education business. Let parents choose a school that upholds their religious worldview. You can choose a godless religious worldview for your son, and those who believe in God can choose schools that best uphold the traditions taught in their homes.
The US is not an atheist regime. It allows for the practice of religion. All the Constitution does is prevent the favoring of one religion over another, the government from establishing one as was the situation in England at the time, and the government from preventing the free exercise of the citizens religion.
There are no requirements that religion be expunged from the government or it’s leaders.
A document that says this is hardly atheistic...
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “
Allowing prayer and reading of some religions scripture is not the same thing as teaching it.
Only someone with an agenda to discredit someone else would equate the two.
Twist it as you will. That’s not surprising from a frevo.
Considering that the vast majority of this nation is Christian in belief and that time and again, most people have said that they would not object to Christianity being present in the schools, there’s no reason for the vociferous minority of God haters to force any mention of God out of the public school system.
If I lived in a country where the majority religion was not the one I practiced, I would not expect them, nor demand of them, to rearrange their culture and society for me. It would be incredibly selfish and immature to do so, as it is of the atheists here. I would consider that part of living in that country. If I sent my kids to those schools, I would expect them to hear about that religion. If I didn’t want them to, I would find somewhere else to go.
Likewise, there’s nothing from stopping the minority atheists who object to hearing about God in school from starting their own atheist God-free schools. They can send their kids there at their own expense, the same as the option that is constantly being offered to Christians.
Atheists can teach their own children that there is no God on their own time outside of school. We don’t need to have the school teaching it. That’s the parents responsibility to teach their beliefs to their children.
They can take the same scrap that’s thrown at Christians. If it’s good enough for Christians, it’s good enough for atheists.
The *God free* mentality is not religiously neutral. It merely does not favor one theistic religion over another. It treats them all with the same contempt.
What it does do is favor the religion of secular humanism over the others.
Your critical misunderstanding is that legitimate scientists that see a logical THEORY that answers better the GAPING NONSENSICAL holes of evolution is NOT religious.
Until you can bring yourself to grips with this truth, there’s no point in going back and forth (with any of) you.
It might help you to listen to wintertime, a neutral party. While it’s true there are some extremists on both sides, as things stand, it’s the evolutionists that have to rely on censorship to get their view to stand alone.
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
metmom: The question was about if I objected to teacher led prayer and Koran reading in schools, not about teaching Islam in public schools. That’s misrepresenting what I said, IOW, you lied about what I said.
No, what I did was to equate “having teachers lead in Koran reading and prayer during school hours” with “teaching Islam (the religious part).” I guess you see a significant difference between those two things, but I think it’s a little much to accuse me of lying because of it, especially when I was complimenting you on your consistency. So, fine:
At least your position is consistent: if a school board in a majority-Islamic area voted to have teachers lead Koran readings and Muslim prayers in the public schools during school hours, you’d accept it as the price of freedom of religion.
Didn’t the courts find that the “Theory” proposed was cut and pasted from originally purely religious theory? Hnece the couret ruled it was just religion under another label?
Didn’t the courts find that the “Theory” proposed was cut and pasted from originally purely religious theory? Hnece the couret ruled it was just religion under another label?
It’s an on-going debate: while there may be some that are guilty, there’s simply no way an argument can be made that all these scientists are in this for strictly “religious” purposes.
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
Looks to me that they are Both Evolution based.
Evo Version 2008 vs ID Version 2008.
In either case it appears WHO and NIH are right to prepare for H5N51 evolving into a Human variant.
It appears the dissent is based upon the theory being incomplete. Not on it’s ability to make usefull predictions or provide a framework upon which to build.
Which I oppose- schools should not be teaching that there is no god, any more than they should be teaching that any god exists. An atheist teacher using class time to preach his views on religion is as unconstitutional as a Christian teacher trying to convert his students.
Schools should simply be religion neutral- the only time religion should be brought up is in the context of relevant classroom subject matter.
But the Constitution is not supposed to be interpreted through opinion polls. Whether or not it is Constitutional to use public resources to advance religion is not an issue that is decided at the ballot box (unless through a Constitutional amendment).
If I lived in a country where the majority religion was not the one I practiced, I would not expect them, nor demand of them, to rearrange their culture and society for me.
It depends on the country. In a Constitutional republic like ours, cultural and societal practices have to give way to the Constitution. Segregation, for example, was something that was the cultural, societal and religious norm in many parts of this country. But it was an unconstitutional practice, regardless.
Atheists can teach their own children that there is no God on their own time outside of school. We don’t need to have the school teaching it. That’s the parents responsibility to teach their beliefs to their children.
That's an incredibly inconsistent position on your part- you're basically arguing that it is proper for the schools to teach the religious views of whoever is the majority in a given community. Your only objection seems to be that you do not like the religious views that you believe are currently being taught in schools.
Your position misses the point of the 1st Amendment- it is unconstitutional to use public money and resources to teach ANY religious view- whether theistic or atheistic.
You constantly equate religion-neutral to atheistic. The two are different- a school taking a religion-neutral position means it does not discuss religion during school-hours. This is the only proper and Constitutional approach. An atheistic approach would mean the school actively taking the position that no gods exist, which would be unconstitutional.
I know, you keep saying that. But not only does it not make logical sense, it doesn't work that way in practice. I know people who went to religious schools who went on to live a "God-free" life, and I know people who went to public schools who are devout Christians. My son has not been taught to ignore his religious beliefs or to disrespect me. It just doesn't happen. (Of course "it happens" from time to time--everything does. But it's not an integral part of a secular education.)
My Jewish friends, whose families have been here about as long as mine have, would prefer not to think they live in "their" culture and society--they love this country and think they live in "our" culture and society. I think it would be incredibly rude to force Christian practices on them. Fortunately, the courts agree with me (well, maybe not because it's "rude," but for other reasons).
Non-Christian /= atheist, you know.
Do all the equating you want but leave that on your side of the fence.
Metmom has never advocated teaching Islam in the public schools, so dont distort her position to suggest that she has or would tolerate it when she has stated that its not so.
All the evolutionists have is their strawmen, false charges, etc. etc.
Boring ha ha not very logical.
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