Why Creationists' Willful Ignorance?

How many, quantitatively, are there though?Are we talking about a million people? Unfortunately, we have poeple like hooah that demand that you know that you're wrong and feel that they owe it to the human race to edumacate you about these things. I suppose he could strap you to a chair and make you watch football. It should be fought politically. You can't force-educate people (not that *you* are advocating that).

Are you saying you do not see that need? If they were a small, non-vocal minority, I wouldn't see a problem. However, IMO, they are holding humanity back.

Start a new topic. I find them incredibly insignificant.

We have a fight on our hands.We should probably expect to see more court battles about science education. Our only real armor is the First Amendment and the fear of the great expense involved in losing a first amendment case. Congress has come close on several occasions to passing laws that would remove the monetary penalties and lawyer fee awards for losing "religious freedom" first amendment cases. Republicans generally hate the ACLU. If such laws are ever enacted, expect more school systems to take on the risk.If there is popular sentiment on the side of science education, it is not a strong majority. Apparently we live in a country in which there is a remarkably low acceptance of evolution. In many school systems, the sentiment is decidedly anti-evolution.So far we've been fortunate that school boards and state legislators who have come up with these anti-science curricula have been fairly outspoken outside of the courtroom about their unconstitutional agenda. The more recent batch of laws are phrased as attempts to protect academic freedom, and the evidence of a purpose to promote religion may be a bit harder to find.

I'm saying that the need you perceive belongs to you and people like you. It is not a need felt by the people you want to change.

I never said, nor implied, that I thought they did.

Hello Catholic Scientist, this is not an uncommon thing. Throughout history, even today, people have been educating people, even by force. I am going to play the devils advocate. Sometimes it i the right thing to do. Do the people who are ignorant not have the right to know the truth. Some people want to hold very tightly to their beliefs but it is in their best interests to be told the truth. There rights need to be taken into account as well. Why allow someone to live their life in a manner that is unrequired, fearing god and following his rules, when it is known that this is doing nothing for them. If we allowed this to happen, in 100 years, wouldnt people ask us why we let them do it? Why we sat back and watched thousands of people live their life in fear and ignorance without doing anything to help them.Rhetorical questions -Do you think the early colonising powers should have put a stop to things like human sacrifice in cultures they found considering it wwas not helping them in the way they thought it was?Do you think western nations should enter nations with their armies where human rights are being violated by groups because of their religious teachings?Do you think we should force the catholic church to stop telling africans that condoms are a sin so they can avoid spreading the aids virus?Do you believe that people who break the law because of their religious beliefs should be punished?Criminals need re education all the time, thats why we send them to prison. I suppose they are not really ignorant of the law, they just dont care. Which is the case with a lot of the fundamentalist religious community.These re examples where is could be considered that education by force could be considered a good thing.It could be said that we do owe it to the species to make sure everyone is educated.would it not be irresponsible to intentionally leave a group ignorant?BEFORE YOU SMASH AWAY AT THE DISLIKE BUTTON - I am playing the devils advocate. The statement above were made in the interest of furthering the discussion. I think some of what Hooah and CS have said is correct. Edited by Butterflytyrant, : No reason given.

Except for the fact that nowhere did I advocate such a thing, or eugenics for that matter.

Thanks for the reply, BFT In the US, education is mandatory for kids. Its illegal to not educate your child.But that's not really what I'm talking about... Like we "helped" the Native Americans? What's wrong with just letting them have their culture and ignorance? Do you know the Prime Directive? I have no idea. What about culture? How about some flavor and color in the world. Unifying everyone into some light brown mush with no variety isn't something I'd like to see.But I do see your point. However, I don't think the attitude that we must help the YEC's by educating them away from their beliefs is a good thing.

You said that we owe it to the human race to rid these people of their ignorance. You sound like an evangelical on his way to meet some indians...

I've heard tell that they can be slain with silver bullets.

The prime directive is probably the worst idea conjured up by the creator of star trek. Such a directive is the ultimate excuse for someone to be heartless. In one TNG episode, Picard went as far as allowing an entire race of intelligent beings to die and even went as far as preventing a sociologist from trying to save a remnant of that culture.You guys seem to debate things based solely on the white and black view. We either not interfere with their culture at all or we go in and wipe them off the face of the earth. To your views, there's no in-between or happy medium.You guys give me the creep at night.

I don't think we can blame it all on Gene. In the original series, the prime directive was broken fairly regularly, and I cannot recall any consequences when Kirk did so.

You will notice that what I did not say was: but rather:

quote:

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It benefits humankind. The less ignorant people we have running around, the better.

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Both statements, while similar, carry far different implications. What you gathered from my original intent was at the opposite end of what I actually meant, which could have been garnered from the context and the words I actually typed.Of course, if YOU think killing people and use of force is the only way to help someone, then I can see why you would assume that is what I meant.

The problem was that it seemed to exist mainly to show how stupid it was if applied literally in all situations. I can recall one episode off the top of my head from The Next Generation where it was followed and it made sense to follow it.