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Author Topic:   Creationism in science classrooms (an argument for)
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 136 of 609 (606028)
02-23-2011 12:14 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Robert Byers
02-22-2011 8:58 PM


Not censorship
oops
Edited by NoNukes, : accidental duplicate

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(2)
Message 137 of 609 (606031)
02-23-2011 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Robert Byers
02-22-2011 8:58 PM


Hi Robert,
Perhaps you aren't aware of some of the clauses in the American Constitution, being that you're Canadian.
The very first Amendment to our Constitution states:
quote:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The bold section is what we call the "establishment clause." It means that no governmental agency (local, state, or federal) can make a law that establishes a state religion. This has been interpreted by every single Supreme Court that has needed to question the issue to also include the endorsement of any religion by the state.
Essentially, the government (including publicly run schools) must remain completely neutral on the matter of religion. The reason is simple: we are not a nation of a single religion, but rather a melting pot of many belief systems, and for our government to endorse one set of beliefs, everyone who believes otherwise would have their rights violated.
For exactly the same reason that a schoolteacher cannot require every student in the classroom to pray to Allah, or make an animal sacrifice to the Great Spirit, or tell students that no god(s) exist, that same schoolteacher cannot say that god(s) do exist, or mention Jesus, etc. Christians don;t tend to want their tax dollars endorsing Hindu or Islam or Atheism, and neither do non-Christians typically want their tax dollars being used to endorse Christianity.
Religion is a matter for families and places of worship. Schools are publicly run, and to protect the rights of all of us must remain totally neutral on the subject.
The second part of the First Amendment means that, while the government is restricted from expressing religion, individuals are not in any way. Christians are completely free to pray, worship, and read the Bible whenever and wherever they please, with the sole exception of doing so in an official capacity while being paid by public funds (like, say a teacher). Likewise, I as an Atheist am totally free to disbelieve in any religion, but if I were employed at a public school, is would not be allowed to tell students that their religious beliefs are false.
Do you see how this works?
Christian Creationism in a public school would violate my rights and the rights of my children, because it would mean my tax dollars would be used to endorse a set of religious beliefs I do not follow, and worse, it would mean endorsing those beliefs to my children. Hindu Creationism would do the same for Christians as well as Atheists like me.
To protect the religious rights of all of us, the government must remain strictly neutral and mute on the subject. That's how the freedom of religion works.

This message is a reply to:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 138 of 609 (606053)
02-23-2011 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 137 by Rahvin
02-23-2011 12:33 PM


hi rahvin.
what an excellent post in response to such utter nonsense. but i have a tiny correction:
The very first Amendment to our Constitution states:
quote:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The bold section is what we call the "establishment clause." It means that no governmental agency (local, state, or federal) can make a law that establishes a state religion.
this isn't entirely accurate. technically speaking, it only means that federal law making agencies (eg: the congress) can't establish a state religion. the "state" part was secured by the fourteenth amendment, which says in part:
quote:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
the issue of states' rights in a federalist government is something that actually took some time to work out in our country. we didn't especially solve it until just after the civil war over those very issues. and judging by some recent republican rhetoric, some might say we still haven't solved it today.
the "local" was secured by logical extension (probably supreme court cases) of the argument for the "state" part: that these were liberties the founding fathers intended for the people -- individual liberty over religious affiliation -- and not for the states.

אָרַח

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shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 139 of 609 (606065)
02-23-2011 5:00 PM
Reply to: Message 131 by Dr Adequate
02-22-2011 9:30 PM


Dr. Adequate wrote;
Arguably when creationism was still plausible there would have been a legitimate secular purpose in teaching it. Now that it's just a religious dogma, there's no reason for teaching it any more than teaching the Bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
I don't see how you can state that w/certainty when the Origin of life is not known.
For instance if the origin of life was not random then you may have Creation.
My question to you is can you state with certainity that Creation is not plausible at this time in our existence?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by Dr Adequate, posted 02-22-2011 9:30 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 143 by Theodoric, posted 02-23-2011 5:57 PM shadow71 has replied
 Message 144 by Granny Magda, posted 02-23-2011 5:58 PM shadow71 has replied
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 140 of 609 (606066)
02-23-2011 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by shadow71
02-23-2011 5:00 PM


shadow71 writes:
Dr. Adequate wrote;
Arguably when creationism was still plausible there would have been a legitimate secular purpose in teaching it. Now that it's just a religious dogma, there's no reason for teaching it any more than teaching the Bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
I don't see how you can state that w/certainty when the Origin of life is not known.
For instance if the origin of life was not random then you may have Creation.
My question to you is can you state with certainity that Creation is not plausible at this time in our existence?
As a Christian I can state with a very, very, very high degree of confidence that Creation as in Special Creation is not only not feasible, it is irrelevant and unsupportable and only makes GOD look like a fool.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 139 by shadow71, posted 02-23-2011 5:00 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 141 of 609 (606071)
02-23-2011 5:23 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by shadow71
02-23-2011 5:00 PM


Yes, its dogma
shadow71 writes:
I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
Even if the fundamentalist, literal interpretation of Genesis were 100% true, at this point that interpretation is solely based on the Bible. There is no independent, extra-Bible support and not all believers in the Bible's truth agree with that interpretation. That means creationism is religious dogma.
quote:
I don't see how you can state that w/certainty when the Origin of life is not known.
Completely irrelevant. The origin of life is not the only disagreement with science.
Edited by NoNukes, : Fix tags

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 Message 139 by shadow71, posted 02-23-2011 5:00 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by shadow71, posted 02-23-2011 7:24 PM NoNukes has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 142 of 609 (606075)
02-23-2011 5:42 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by shadow71
02-23-2011 5:00 PM


I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
Well, what else is it then?
The evidence we have been able to observe so far does not lead us to hypothesize Biblical Creation.
When we look at the world around us, the only source for the idea of Biblical Creationism is the Bible itself. Therefore, it is nothing but religious dogma, even if it's correct, because we cannot possibly derive it from anything else.
Did you ever see 2001, a Space Odyssey? One of the main plot points is the discovery of a black obelisk on the Moon. Now, obviously, we don't have any real-world evidence, no observations, that would lead us to currently hypothesize that there may be a black obelisk on the Moon. Therefore, the obelisk is nothing more than a plot device in a work of fiction, even if it later turns out that there is such a thing on the Moon.
If I roll a die and make a random guess, my guess is still nothing mroe than a random guess regardless of whether or not my guess turns out to be correct or not.
Do you see where I;m going here? What source, other than religious dogma, leads us to Biblical Creation?
If there is no other source that leads us to that hypothetical scenario, how can we call it anything other than religious dogma?
I don't see how you can state that w/certainty when the Origin of life is not known.
For instance if the origin of life was not random then you may have Creation.
Biblical Creation is rather specific. But let's examien the logic of your argument here:
You say that we cannot exclude Creation as a possibility for the origin of life because the origin of life is not known.
You have no way of knowing where I am located. Should you then include the possibility that I'm on the Moon? Sicne my location isn;t known, you cannot exclude the possibility, right?
Of course not. Biblical Creation is always a possibility, just as it's conceivably possible that we're actually plugged into the Matrix. There is always the possibility that everything we think we know is wrong, that the maps we've drawn of reality were all based on faulty information.
But given what we observe and experience, what we predict and test, we can establish that some hypotheses are more likely to be true than others. It is more likely that I am located in an English-speaking region on Earth than on the Moon. It is fantastically more likely that I am on Earth than on Jupiter.
Current hypotheses regarding the origin of life run the gamut from religious explanations to aliens seeding Earth with life to abiogenesis. With the information we currently have available from what we are right now able to experience and observe and test, abiogenesis is the most parsimonious explanation. Other hypotheses are lacking - Biblical Creation, for example, lacks a mechanism of any kind beyond "magic" in the form of an "omnipotent God," which means it isn't really an explanation of anything at all.
My question to you is can you state with certainity that Creation is not plausible at this time in our existence?
Yes. At this specific time, Biblical Creation is not at all plausible. It only becomes plausible if we assume that everything we know about biology, geology, physics, ecology, and a dozen other fields are completely and utterly wrong. It is conceivably possible that this is so...but I doubt that any of us, including you, would wager that our understanding of antibiotics is wrong, or that electricity doesn't really exist, or that Uranium isn't really a radioactive substance that decays into lead over time.
If you teach Biblical Creationism in a school, then you need to also teach every other conceivable possibility with a similarly small probability of accuracy, knowing full well that each and every one contradicts direct observational evidence. At that point, why teach anything at all?

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 Message 139 by shadow71, posted 02-23-2011 5:00 PM shadow71 has replied

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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 143 of 609 (606079)
02-23-2011 5:57 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by shadow71
02-23-2011 5:00 PM


really? really?
I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
Your version of creationism is based upon the bible isn't it?
Show me a creation story that is not based upon religion. Show me a creation story that does not include a god or supernatural being of some sort.
Do you now see how ludicrous your statement is?

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 144 of 609 (606080)
02-23-2011 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by shadow71
02-23-2011 5:00 PM


HI Shadow,
I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
It depends on what you mean by "creationism".
The bulk of those who are referred to as creationists (in the context of this forum) are Christian biblical literalists. They are anti-evolution fundamentalists. If given a free reign to teach creationism in schools, these guys would be teaching stuff like;
  • The Earth is about six thousand years old.
  • The Theory of Evolution is an atheist conspiracy.
  • Humans have no common ancestry with apes.
  • The Noahic Flood was a real event.
  • Adam and Eve were real people and our ancestors.
And so on.
This is a far cry from the kind of creationism that you're talking about, which suggests only that the first origins of life were intelligently guided. It's a very different beast. Call it "creationism-lite".
Creationism-lite cannot, at present, be disproved. In all probability, it will never be disproved, since we will almost certainly never now the exact circumstances in which life first arose. It joins the ranks of an infinite number of equally unfalsifiable ideas. All we can say at present is that creationism-lite is a very weak hypothesis, given that not a shred of positive evidence exists in its favour and that it makes a number of unsupported assumptions. Teaching creationism-lite in schools strikes me as pointless, since there is basically nothing to teach.
Full-on Christian fundamentalist creationism on the other hand, can be and has been disproved. It is a false doctrine. We know, with as high a degree of certainty as is imaginable, that there was no Flud, no Adam & Eve, no special creation. Teaching this kind of stuff in schools would be irresponsible, a form of lying to kids. The only reason why anyone would want to teach this errant codswallop is because certain highly vocal creationists want everyone else to share in their religious dementia. That is ethically reprehensible and, in the specific case of the USA, a breach of the Establish Clause.
Mutate and Survive

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 145 of 609 (606092)
02-23-2011 6:33 PM
Reply to: Message 139 by shadow71
02-23-2011 5:00 PM


I think it is premature to state that creationism is just a religious dogma.
Creationism isn't science, that is for sure.
On top of that, creationist organizations such as AiG clearly state that creationism is a belief that is unfalsifiable and based on a religious text. How is that not a religious dogma?
I don't see how you can state that w/certainty when the Origin of life is not known.
Creationists state that they do know the origin of life, but that statement is based on religious dogma.
My question to you is can you state with certainity that Creation is not plausible at this time in our existence?
There is no scientific evidence to suggest that it is correct, hence it is not appropriate for science class in public schools.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 139 by shadow71, posted 02-23-2011 5:00 PM shadow71 has replied

Replies to this message:
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shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 146 of 609 (606097)
02-23-2011 7:10 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by jar
02-23-2011 5:03 PM


jar writes;
As a Christian I can state with a very, very, very high degree of confidence that Creation as in Special Creation is not only not feasible, it is irrelevant and unsupportable and only makes GOD look like a fool.
Wow. I guess I have heard it from the top of the mountain. Pray tell what is this very, very, very high degree of confidence that Creation is not feasible based upon?
Is that based upon your scientific studies? Give me the cites.
And what is your definition of "Special Creation"?
Should we teach the children that there is no plausible explanation of how life began, but .... but what. Give me the scientific theory, not speculation as to how life began.
And how does it make God look like a fool?
You must be absoultely sure as to how life began correct? Tell me how and I will rest in peace.

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shadow71
Member (Idle past 2934 days)
Posts: 706
From: Joliet, il, USA
Joined: 08-31-2010


Message 147 of 609 (606099)
02-23-2011 7:24 PM
Reply to: Message 141 by NoNukes
02-23-2011 5:23 PM


Re: Yes, its dogma
NoNukes writes;
Even if the fundamentalist, literal interpretation of Genesis were 100% true, at this point that interpretation is solely based on the Bible. There is no independent, extra-Bible support and not all believers in the Bible's truth agree with that interpretation. That means creationism is religious dogma.
There are other intrepretations of Genesis other than the "fundamentalist" as you say.
Can you honestly state w/o knowing the origin of life that there could be no creation event?
Is there a scientific accepted theory of the beginning of life? What is the scientific dogma on the creation of life?
I guess religious dogma is whatever you perceive. Have you read the Roman Catholic Church's position on evolution and creation?
NoNukes further writes;
Completely irrelevant. The origin of life is not the only disagreement with science.
What do you mean by that statement? It is completely incomprehensible.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 148 of 609 (606102)
02-23-2011 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by shadow71
02-23-2011 7:24 PM


Re: Yes, its dogma
shadow71 writes:
Can you honestly state w/o knowing the origin of life that there could be no creation event?
Is your question relevant to whether any particular origin of life story is dogma? In my opinion your question is irrelevant.
quote:
Have you read the Roman Catholic Church's position on evolution and creation?
Yes I have. Is it your opinion that their position is dogma free?
Edited by NoNukes, : ask question

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 Message 147 by shadow71, posted 02-23-2011 7:24 PM shadow71 has replied

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 149 of 609 (606103)
02-23-2011 7:39 PM
Reply to: Message 147 by shadow71
02-23-2011 7:24 PM


Re: Yes, its dogma
Can you honestly state w/o knowing the origin of life that there could be no creation event?
Sorry to jump in. Of course we cannot say that. Creation could have been yesterday, or last thursday. Creation could have been as per Genesis. It doesn't look like any of these. But that doesn't mean it wasn't.
Is there a scientific accepted theory of the beginning of life?
No. But we have sufficient evidence to be as confident as we can be that life can arise by natural means. That doesn't mean it did. That doesn't rule out your chosen creator in any way. But what it does do is dismiss the claim that a creator is *required* to bring about life from non-life in this Universe.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 150 of 609 (606104)
02-23-2011 7:46 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by shadow71
02-23-2011 7:10 PM


shadow71 writes:
jar writes;
As a Christian I can state with a very, very, very high degree of confidence that Creation as in Special Creation is not only not feasible, it is irrelevant and unsupportable and only makes GOD look like a fool.
Wow. I guess I have heard it from the top of the mountain. Pray tell what is this very, very, very high degree of confidence that Creation is not feasible based upon?
Is that based upon your scientific studies? Give me the cites.
And what is your definition of "Special Creation"?
Should we teach the children that there is no plausible explanation of how life began, but .... but what. Give me the scientific theory, not speculation as to how life began.
And how does it make God look like a fool?
You must be absoultely sure as to how life began correct? Tell me how and I will rest in peace.
Let me see if I can address all of those.
I'll start with "Special Creation", it is the idea that there was some planned, desired outcome and that particular critters were some desired outcome of some God. An idea is the concept that the phrase "created in His image" applies to mankind as opposed to something like pond scum.
Of course I am not absolutely sure of how life originated, as I said I have a very, very, very high degree of confidence.
We teach the children that we don't know how life originated YET but so far ALL of the evidence supports a pretty normal chemical and physical process, and that we are learning more every day.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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