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 ...
You nailed it here. That’s what wintertime’s views come down to, in a nutshell. She considers it a violation of 1st Amendment rights if schools allow other kids to be different from her kids and if they refuse her kids the right to stand on top of a desk during math class and preach about their religion.
Unfortunately, your only solution is to silence her and her kids and think that’s the end of it.
You keep refusing to see the fact that wintertime is right, no belief is still in opposition to belief and is NOT a neutral value system. Science doesn’t exist in an ideal sterile unbiased vacuum, it is engaged by biased human beings, scientists who bring all kinds of flawed variables into the equation and subsequent study.
The unbeleivers have proven beyond any, ANY, doubt they’re no more objective than anyone else!
Your observations are so very true. Whether at the Federal, State or Local level, each new bureaucracy seems to be the closest thing to immortality on earth – concentrating a giant share of its own resources on perpetuating its existence and importance.
In a state or local government it can be expensive and even comical to see so many people hanging around with nothing to do – as if the department heads weigh their own success or importance by the size of their budgets.
But at the Federal level it can be lethal. And the State Department is the most dangerous when it usurps authority by manipulating foreign policy.
I started answering your questions individually, but I soon realized I was repeating myself. The answers involved the following themes, which get mixed and matched as appropriate:
1. A religiously neutral education (”education” meaning the instruction delivered by the agent of the government, i.e. the teacher) does not require preventing a child from discussing his religion with his fellow students, or “protecting” them from being influenced by it.
2. It’s not the responsibility of the government to prevent your children from associating with other people you might not approve of, or from enforcing stricter rules than safety and the prevailing social norms require. If you’re worried that associating with people with tattoos is going to tempt your child to abandon his faith, you’d better not let them ride the bus or go to the mall either.
3. If the “free practice of your religion” requires you to interfere with others’ pursuits—if it requires you to disrupt a classroom or start preaching on a bus or shout Bible verses during “immoral” movies—you should stay home.
4. Some issues, like those around holidays, will require sensitive negotiation among people of good will, and the answers will probably vary from place to place.
Your questions make it seem like you think that if the government doesn’t enforce your rules, it is actively working to undermine them. So I still wonder if you expect that in other areas of your interaction with public agencies. Do you expect the police to keep the tattooed, shorts-wearing public away from your kids in the town square? Do you expect the courthouse to drape the statue of Justice when you have jury duty?
I think you fail to see that all the fears that you fear are INDEED working exactly in reverse to Christians, more so as time goes by, slowly, incrementally and incessantly.
Since it’s working in favor of your worldview, it’s simply unrecognizable to you.
Christians are almost exclusively fightinhg to PRESERVE our culture and rights, not shove it on others!
Evidence indicates Christians are fighting to keep crosses in public cemeteries (Mt. Soledad) NOT erecting new ones everywhere. Unless people are buried of that particular faith, for now, but this is a large cross Mt. Soledad in San Diego.
Evidence indicates Christians are trying to keep crosses in town logos, not add crosses to town logos.
Evidence indicates Christians are trying to keep Under God in the pledge, not introduce new pro-Christian language into songs, anthems, hymns etc.
and so on ad infinatum!
So, if YOUR kids have to hear a kid speaking about his Christian faith in public, it’s fine to censor and silence THEM because THEY are disruptive, meanwhile a kid half naked and acting like a slut and using foul language on a public bus or mall is fine?
Let’s look at it this way:
here’s what you said:
If you’re worried that associating with people with tattoos is going to tempt your child to abandon his faith, you’d better not let them ride the bus or go to the mall either.
Hmmmmmm...if you’re worried that associating with people with Bibles are going to tempt your child to accept Christ, you’d better not let them ride the bus or go to the mall either.
Moreover a Christian kid has to go form and attend his own school, pay out of pocket AND pay for the disastrous public schools too if they so much as DARE speak publicly about Christianity?
And you have the NERVE to lecture Christians about not going out if WE get offended?
Are you so certain you don’t have it exactly backwards?
The worst you see is so-called “proselytizing” to Christ, (in reality it’s sharing the TRUTH of the Good News) if they’re INDEED behaving as Christ demands in the New Testament. I have seen so called Christians behaving poorly pulling hair or kicking non-beleivers down stairs or taunting if a kid doesn’t say Under God in the pledge etc. But curiously, I can’t find this instruction ANYWHERE in the New Testament!
Meanwhile the worst Christians see in public is worse every year! If not every DAY!
There’s simply too much evidence to argue otherwise now...from idiotic bans of santa in public places, to nativity scenes, to town logos to the mere word Christmas in school calendars...
I could go on for hours and there’s mountains of lawsuits...some quite famous as the 10 commandments banned in court rooms that cost one man his job.
You can’t have it both ways...you can not condone silencing one group when it favors your world view, and call that normal or in any way “neutral”.
Not in a logical world anyway.
I suggest you read my reply #1 again.
if you’re worried that associating with people with Bibles are going to tempt your child to accept Christ
I'm not.
As to the rest:
We're not talking about crosses in cemeteries.
We're not talking about Mt. Soledad.
We're not talking about town logos.
We're not talking about the Ten Commandments in courtrooms.
We're not talking about all the ways Christians feel oppressed because other people can't see they're just sharing the TRUTH and so they should just shut up and listen because it's the TRUTH.
We're talking about what teachers get to present as part of the lesson in a public school classroom.
I'm not going to pick through the chaff, because you obviously have an endless supply of it.
You've also shown yourself unwilling to provide evidence for your allegations or retract them when they're shown to be untrue.
So don't expect me to waste my time addressing them.
No, YOU’RE not talking about the larger picture because you’re INCAPABLE of seeing it as the larger picture.
Of course we’re talking about what teachers present, but you still can’t defend censoring, when that alone is the subject.
Because it’s an indefensible position.
Period.
I’ve been merely illustrating the truth that there’s a systmatic attack and hostility toward Christianity and science and education in general is no exception.
btw...it was YOU that was talking about Christians in the malls on buses and in public generally.
I think perhaps YOU need to reread your own posts!
You can choose to ignore Michael Newdow but those of us here, the 98% that indeed accept that he DID indeed bring suit to have ‘Under God’ in the pledge removed AND FAILED, will not delude ourselves into believing it didn’t happen, requiring endless hand-holding and proof and links.
If you choose to associate yourself with such infancy, go for it!
Indeed if you want to cling to the belief that evolutionists can only stand by force of hijacked law and censorship, delude yourself into that until the cows come home!
Same for the town logos.
Same for the endless ridiculous santa and nativity bans.
Same for endless ridiculous Christmas calendar bans.
And yes, same for the endless ID in science class bans.
You call it chaff...we will call it exactly what it is: hostility and UN-American unfounded attacks against our culture.
Defend it, just know it will not stand and thanks to ThomasMore and ACLJ and others, your days of censorship are numbered!
3-5 years or so ago . . .
A high ranking FREEPER was just retiring from the Navy.
I asked him [I think, in FREEPMAIL] to guesstimate what percentage of the senior U.S. military was infested with globalists.
He said emphatically about 30%.
"All truth passes through three states. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, (1788-1860)
The truth is that a religiously neutral impossible. It is impossible. It can not exist. It is axiomatic.
When government owns and runs schools the government is establishing the religion of some and trashing that of others.
The truth is that government schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination!
I have big>repeatedly posted that the solution is to begin the process of getting government OUT of the education business. It is the only solution and that is the truth
"All truth passes through three states. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, (1788-1860)
The truth is that a religiously neutral education is impossible! It is axiomatic. The truth is that government schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination!
I have repeatedly posted that the solution is to begin the process of getting government OUT of the education business. It is the only solution and that is the truth.
No such thing. Problem is, religion isn't being left alone. Kids and teachers are being prevented from the free exercise of their religion in schools by force through lawsuits.
No mention of Christmas, no mention of God allowed in the valedictorians speech, no questioning the creation account of the atheists.
2. It's not the responsibility of the government to prevent your children from associating with other people you might not approve of, or from enforcing stricter rules than safety and the prevailing social norms require.
It's not the responsibility of the government to force your kids to associate with other people period, whether one approves of them or not.
3. If the "free practice of your religion" requires you to interfere with others' pursuits--if it requires you to disrupt a classroom or start preaching on a bus or shout Bible verses during "immoral" movies--you should stay home.
So everyone else gets to freely practice their religion in public,except Christians? They get to impose on Christian while Christians do not get to impose on others. Why don't they get to stay home as well instead of interfering with the pursuits of Christians?
4. Some issues, like those around holidays, will require sensitive negotiation among people of good will, and the answers will probably vary from place to place.
"sensitive negotiation"? Well, it's better than enforced compliance through lawsuits. Perhaps you could tell that to the atheists who are filing lawsuits to have every thing they don't like banned from everyone else's life. Some people are way too easily offended.
I guess expecting the Christian charity of letting others enjoy their holidays is expecting a bit much out of atheists.
I have seen several offers by scientists to debate the ID 'scientists'. In every case the ID 'scientists have refused!. NO credible work has been performed by the ID 'scientists' and put up for peer review to the scientific community.
And yet these freedoms are being eroded through litigation on almost a daily basis, applauded by many who call themselves conservatives.
Seems like the liberal mindset that freedom of anything is for anyone as long as it doesn't involve expressing Christianity, has infected much of the thinking of the average American. They believe it because they really don't understand what the Constitution says. And they fail to see the hypocrisy of their position.
Freedom isn't really freedom unless it applies to all people everywhere, schools and public town squares included.
Is that anything like interfering with others' pursuits through the filing of lawsuits?
The first is the free exercise of one's religion. It doesn't have to interfere with others pursuits unless they let it. The second, the tactic liberals like to use, does most certainly interfere with others pursuits through the force of law.
Do you really not see the staggering hypocrisy of that position? To condemn others for living as they please but condone it for oneself? For no restrictions by others yet a willingness to advocate for restrictions on others ( "you should stay home")
If you don't like that others can live as they please, why don't you stay home, yourself? Why complain about them imposing on you and then turn around and impose on others?
3. If the "free practice of your religion" requires you to interfere with others' pursuits--if it requires you to disrupt a classroom or start preaching on a bus or shout Bible verses during "immoral" movies file lawsuits during the Christmas season or during the school year--you should stay home.
There, fixed it for you.
And who could blame them in such a hostile environment? From censorship to lawsuits it doesn’t surprise me in the least.
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
Couldn’t agree more. And for what it’s worth, you got it right the first time.
Couldn’t agree more. And for what it’s worth, you got it right the first time.
An axiom is the mathematical equivalent of dogma.
You don't invoke dogma to engage a debate, you do it to prevent one.
Better to keep feeding garbage on your internet website than to put your ideas up for real debate.
Uh-huh....better to hide behind censorship and ignore that it exists....you know because “it’s for the science” after all.
OK.
When I do all I get was my first comment...it didn’t show to what it responded to...at the time, I was responding to multiple posts to multiple threads...so that was my fault, I apologize.
....and now I don’t even recall reading that post of yours to js AT ALL.
I was referring to this link. The one that goes to Harun Yahya’s site.
Take a look at this FR thread. It’s about Harun Yaha specifically. I stand by my arguments there: IDers are so driven to inject ID into science, they'll approvingly quote radical Islamic propaganda if they think it advances their cause.
… in fact I’m beginning to think something’s going on here because with the myriad complaints about slow loading (in one case someone even saying on broadband...) and the holes and missing familiarity, I’m hopelessly lost now. And tired from ObamaNation fatigue just now.
It’s been slow and erratic.
As to your question...I think we both know radical Islam has little interest in genuine science. And I’m not sold even a person of no religious persuasion accepts that they have a handle on religion, with a “God” that recommends not only enemies, but even their own women submit to the will of “Islamic culture” or suffer decapitation or slit throats via “honor killings” and the like.
Seems like a very monstrous idea of a God to me!
More like worshipping Satan, but I digress.
I’ve got no problems with evolution being in text books etc. My argument all along has been no more censorship and allow evolution to stand on it’s own (often feeble) two feet to ANY competing “theory”.
There is no competing scientific theory. Evolution can be falsified, an element common to every scientific theory (if I observe X, then the theory is disproved). The famous Precambrian rabbit fossil would disprove evolution to the satisfaction of every scientist in the world. How do you go about disproving ID? What observation would result in ID proponents all agreeing that ID is wrong?
Even though I believe in a Supreme God/Creator my two primary interests are indeed the science of origins as well as UN-American censorship to obtain “truth” and/or accepted theory for all students.
“Origins” has nothing to do with evolution.
Limiting science education to science is not “censorship.” Otherwise, we’d have to teach astrology in science class. Behe, himself said that a definition of science expansive enough to allow ID would also allow astrology. If the definition of science that includes ID is so broad as to allow astrology to be taught as science, the definition is as worthless as the “science” it allows.
I don’t think ID opponents fully understand their problem with saying they want it to be about strictly the science and not injecting religion while at the same time the ONLY way they know to ensure their so-called objectivity and making sure it’s ‘strictly about the science’ is to enforce their worldview via censorship or suing opponents into silence.
It sounds like you think ID is a good idea because it has a religious component, which undercuts your argument that ID is science. And how should the scientific community respond when an individual or group wants to introduce manifest nonsense into the science curriculum? To defend ID as science you also have to defend astrology. That’s what Behe said, and he’s the academic force behind ID.
Let the scientists debate and promote their theories over time and let the results come out in the wash in a TRUE strictly scientific arena, NOT decided by either religion OR lawsuits.
That’s what happens every day in science. But that's not what we're talking about here, which is people trying to smuggle unscientific concepts into science class at the middle and high school level: this is manifestly NOT where scientific debate takes place. It appears deliberate: IDers want to expose children who haven’t got the background to evaluate a scientific theory -- who are attempting to learn what science is -- to a series of claims that are unscientific. We're supposed to pretend, I guess. But we're supposed to pretend they are science in the name of ... what? Fairness? That sounds like affirmative action science to me. The other pretext is that to do otherwise would be "censorship."
I'm in favor of that sort of censorship. Otherwise, you'd could have people trying to teach Abbott & Costello's "Seven times thirteen is twenty-eight" routine as mathematics. It's as close to math as ID is to science.
It is the job of the science community to prevent this.
It’s a little disingenuous particulary when taken into consideration and within the context of the incessant anti-Christian agenda as seen in politics, education, law and everywhere else in public. There’s truly too much evidence to suggest we’re not engaged in a bit of a culture war right now. Towns being sued for their logos, santa and nativity bans, “Christmas” stricken from school calendars, and so on.
You’re undercutting your own argument. If your objection to ID not being taught in science class is that there’s an anti-Christian agenda at work, it would seem that ID must be in and of itself Christian for your argument to make any sense.
And since we have more believers in a God figure than not, I think this is going to eventually become a culture war between western civilization vs. most likely Islam.
You’re assuming here that science is anti-Christian or anti-God. It’s not. The number of “believers in God” is irrelevant.
I forget the numbers, but it’s in the billions of believers...Christians, as many if not more muslims, buddhists, hindus, etc. etc. etc.
So … if there were more Muslims than Christians, would that make a difference?
And lest we forget, we didn’t develop into some kind of “Theocracy” that shut down and shut out evolution when kids were not only thinking openly in terms of a creator but actually indeed PRAYED to Him in school!
Irrelevant.
About what I expected. That response doesn't surprise me a bit. But, it's nice to see it confirmed from a highly authoritative source.
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